Episode 451: The Legend of Lavinia Fisher with RedHanded

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. What's the answer, and what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Hey, this was a really exciting episode and I think you guys are really going to dig it. We just wanted to put something out really quick.

At the end of the episode, we say that you should head over to Red Handed's feed to hear an episode, with us joining them for an amazing, witchy, awesome British story. And you should, you still should do that, but just know that their part of the episode is going to come out next week.

Won't be there, but it's going to be there next week. We just didn't want anyone being confused. Go check it out when it's up there and we hope you dig this episode. We love red handed.

Hey weirdos, I'm Ash and I'm Alayna and I'm Saruti and I'm Hannah.

And this is morbid, but it's super duper special because we have our friends from Red Handed here today.

We're so excited, we're in well, obviously. Boston. Yeah, I really did like this because we're on tour at the moment. And the amount of times I've, like, gone out on stage and how I'll start the shows. But like, Insert City, what's happening?

Sometimes I'm like, Is it Dallas or is it Houston? We leave from this morning, I feel like we're here. Yeah, we only have one show left, We've got New York tomorrow and then we're done.

Yeah, Trage, are you ready to be done? I would do this for the rest of my life. So happy. Yeah, I love the road.

SARU Not so much. I think you're like, I'm going home, getting in my comfy pants. No, I'm like, Look, we've been on the road for 27 days. Oh my God, and I'm like, that's great.

Love meeting everybody, excellent cities, having the best time. But I'm also like, I'd quite like to go back to my bed, to my shower and cook myself a meal in my own kitchen. Oh, it is not delivered to me in some sort of plastic carton in my bedroom.

I was going to say, we both are, oh my God, do you want to hear the biggest tragedy in the world? So, before the show yesterday, I ordered myself a very delicious sandwich. And it was so delicious that I was like, I'm actually too stressed to enjoy this right now. So I only ate a bit of it and I was like, I'm going to take it back to the hotel and I'm going to eat it later. When did you eat it?

You forgot it? I left it at the venue. Oh no, the worst, so I'm running on cheez-its right now. Oh, that's terrible.

Well, Mikey's on his way with a delicious spread, OK, so once you're done with this recording, we can take a break and we'll have a little spread. I cannot wait, I'm so pumped. I have had this morning four pieces of yoghurt-covered raisins.

No. Four individual raisins Four individual yoghurt-covered raisins. I had like three bites of my kid's leftover like waffle that she had already taken like a hundred bites of. But I just quickly was like, before I left. So that's what I'm running on right now.

I'm not going to tell you guys what I had for breakfast because I had an awesome breakfast.

We're goblins right now. Now she's like, I don't know. I had a full-on food network breakfast here, I literally did, you did.

You really did. She had avocado toast with a lot of garlic and onion on it. I'm going to throw you under the bus and I made a little fruit salad, yoghurt-covered raisins, anyone?

I have a full stomach.

If you guys hear a strange grumble in the middle of this, it is one of any of our stomachs, collectively, all of them, maybe.

But we are actually we're doing a really fun collab because I think we're like playing on. The fact that I don't know if you guys noticed, but they're not from here, it's really hard to tell. They have awesome accents that I could listen to literally all day. That's why I love your podcast for everything, but your voices are so soothing. Oh, thank you.

No one back home cares because they also aren't like us, they're like whatever, so it's always fun to come here, see, and we always get the like. You have Boston accents, which are not like the they're not good accents, they're not beautiful.

So, like, even people here are like, you have some of the worst accents in this country. I don't think that's true. I like the Boston accent. Yesterday we were at the venue and the lovely old security guard, he, like, walked me back to the hotel. Oh yeah, they walked us in.

And I was like, that's so sweet, and he had, like, a proper like. I am from Boston and I'm not going to try to do it because I'm terrible at accents. That's like my dad's accent. Oh, I love it.

I just wanted to give him a hug. That's everyone's dad. Yep, everybody's Boston Dad, everyone's dad or grandpa. Here is the full Boston experience.

I loved it, I loved it. Oh yeah, everyone knows a sully yep.

It's true, a mix, something we are, a stereotype, it's 100 we are, yeah.

But we figure what we would do is we're kind of we're going to do like a case. I've picked a really old case because it's always the most fun I feel like I do. We're excited you can get fun with these.

And this is a super like. It has a lot of American juice to it. Okay, perfect. I love American nonsense, just nonsense and the thing in itself.

So we're going to be talking about Lavinia Fisher and the six mile house. We've never heard of it, I haven't heard of it before, this I do.

The cool thing about this is it's got. It's very American in and of itself. Because it's kind of exaggerated to the point of shenanigans, which I feel like is solidly American in and of itself. Just exaggerated to shenanigans. It sure is so the actual so. She's known as America's first serial killer, or first female serial killer.

Oh, okay, but she's not at all, not even a little. Spoiler alert She might not even be a murderer.

Plot twist These are my favorite type of cases, right, right, so this is like it has urban legend in it.

It has a lot of like the South, like before Civil War, South in it, which is like eek and woof. So there's that, and it's got highwaymen in it. Oh cool, like highway robbery.

I feel like it really fits the bill here. So this takes place in Charleston, South Carolina, which now is like, beautiful, and it is on Southern charm. Hell yeah, I want to go there so badly.

Right, real, great. But it's a complicated tale. And this definitely begs the question. Is this really the story of America's first female serial killer? Or is this a semi-true series of events exaggerated over time into a living urban legend of some sort?

Yes, I'll take either. My idea of it is it's probably exaggerated over time, but certain aspects are true and they're interesting. Because she was a criminal, there was that.

So the story of Lavinia Fisher unfolds against the backdrop of the pre-Civil war era, so it's 1815 to 1861-ish. So like a little bit ago again in Charleston, South Carolina. It was during a time of huge economic and social upheaval at this moment.

Charleston was among the wealthiest cities of the British colonies and was a hub of imports and exports, and especially in the wake of the American Revolution. So because of this, it became one of the main entry points for several different trades, but also for enslaved people being forcibly brought into our country. And because it was close to the ocean, it became a base of operations for merchants in tobacco industries, cotton industry, all the huge industries at the time. So now, at this time, and this is all to tell you why this all occurred. By the 1810s, the prosperity of Charleston was not as solid as it once was.

It had happened to the other cities around, too, that the revolution and the war of 1812 had taken a serious financial toll on them. I don't know why Siri is deciding to take me hold on. Siri just popped up and she was like, I don't know what to tell you. Siri was like, I didn't get that.

Could you please? How do I get Siri to stop?

Even that, sorry, Siri just took this all right. So this happened in Charleston, and the city's leaders worried about a total economic collapse that it was going to be imminent at this time. Because of this, they feared the city would be, quote, reduced to a city of beggars, vagrants, thieves and cutthroats.

Wow, so pirates, there you go, and they were thinking, pirates, pirates are just going to infiltrate into these ports.

And pirates were still a thing, but they weren't the pirates that we're probably picturing. Like all High Seas adventures, and like rum jokes like, That's what I picture as a pirate. Jack Sparrow. They were like, scary as fuck. They were like, real.

Like, Captain Phillips, Yeah, like, scary. And in the early 19th century, merchant ships definitely still were fearing attacks from pirates. Who now were not sailing under the jolly Roger skull and bones flag. They were sailing under flags of other countries to try to get through.

To make matters worse, in 1819, Charleston was experiencing a big outbreak of yellow fever. And that was requiring every ship that was coming into the city to be quarantined and inspected before even being allowed to dock at the port. So this was causing tons of delays, tons of complications for merchants, people being sent away. And with the city's port dealing with all of these crazy challenges and delays, and the merchants getting angry. The wagon trade remained the most viable way of getting goods anywhere.

You needed to go in the south, the good old Oregon Trail, the Oregon Trail, which the actual game of the Oregon Trail. I don't know if you guys know it, I've heard of it.

Is it where everyone dies of dysentery? Yes, exactly. And you can, like, buy Oxen towards the river, so it's some sort of really old and timey Wild West monopoly. Yeah, pretty much.

It's a computer game, and it was like the earliest of all computer games, so it's like that green kind of screen. And we used to play it when we were little, and I'm not really sure why, like, we thought it was such a cool game to be like, Wow, we're on the frontier, we're all dying of dysentery. Yeah, like, rock on.

If it makes you feel better, guys. When I was a child, instead of playing the Oregon Trail, I was playing Planetary Taxi. What is that? Which is an excellent question. An excellent game, I think, is what it is. It was like one of those really old school PC games, probably a bit similar to what you're describing.

But you were a taxi driver in space. Oh, that's epic. That's way better than Oregon Trail, and it gets better. So people get in to the back, your potential customers. And they would be like, Oh, I always get beaten by Farmer John in the Fattest Pig of the Year contest.

Take me to the planet where my pig will weigh the most. And then you had to figure out which planet had the greatest gravitational pull, and then take him there. And if you got it right, he tipped. You see, you were learning things, you were just dying from diarrhea.

What is more American than that? Dying of diarrhea? Like, Wow, you were traveling space, you were looking for the planet with the greatest gravitational pull.

Pioneering American spirit alive and well in the next generation. That is true, I get it, I get it. You had to fix wagon wheels and shit.

Yeah, you went to a general store, you were like, I would like some grain. See? You can't let those old traditions die out, that pioneer spirit, let it die of dysentery.

And that was always the thing. If you didn't die of dysentery, then you would go to the river and you were like, Well, let's all take our lives in our hands. You'd get across the river and you were like, Oregon, excuse me, they'll yell at us.

Yeah, we got yelled at by the actual game. Oh my god, do you guys get yelled at for mispronouncing places? Can you imagine that? I mean, No, I did not imagine that.

So what is it? Oregon? It's Oregon, but I grew up calling it Oregon Trail, and I referred to Oregon as Oregon when we were little.

I think it's a regional dialect, I think that's just like Oregon I think about all the time. I'm like, there's a difference between mispronouncing.

And saying something in your own accent. So, like, Americans will call me Hannah, right? like, That's not my name, my name is Hannah. I mean, I'm not going to correct you.

That sounded exactly the same to me, though.

Hannah.

Short a Hannah Guys, we all sound like we're having a breakdown.

But this is the point, like, I don't care, like, just say, just have an accent, that's fine. At this point, I've just changed my name to Susie Q Anon, which is my American alias by the way. Love, love that a lot.

SUSIe Q Anon for when? She gets randomly selected in every airport? Oh no, I love it. Well, that's like.

Massachusetts, specifically, has the most gnarly names for places. Oh yeah, which we grew up just thinking that was normal. People try to say the names they're like, what is Gloucester?

I can't say the name of this state. It is one of the ongoing jokes on red handed Wait, can I hear you say it?

Massachusetts Yeah, you did it, there we go. I think I can now see it phonetically, as it was spelled out by all of our listeners, and I can visually see it. So I say it that way.

You're like, hitting each point. But that's the problem with most of the cities around here. Is like, phonetically, they make literally no sense. None. It looks like Worcester, that's very English, though.

We have a Worcester, we've got a Gloucester, we got a Leicester. Yes, we do, in fact, we have a Leinster.

We have a peabody brilliant. My favorite tweet will always be, What's the hardest thing you've ever had to tell anybody? And people were like, Oh, you know, when I had to call my sister and tell her that our father had passed away? And somebody just wrote Worcestershire sauce.

Yep, that's been a hot debate on our show. Worcestershire sauce. Yeah, because that's how you say it, that's how you say it.

I don't know. Worcestershire, Worcester Prison.

Yeah, truly, that's another very American thing. We just yell at each other about, like saying things for no reason, like we're just we just can't let each other say things. We've been on the receiving end of that.

All right, that's definitely a thing. Anytime you put your voice anywhere, people are bound to just scream at you. You know, it's all good. Let's do some more of it.

Yeah, let's keep going, let's go, yeah, you know, so let's go back to the 1800s, which was such a fun time. Let's all get dysentery, get robbed by a highwayman or a woman.

Meet a pirate Yeah, meet up, that sounds kind of cool. Yeah, you know, if you get out to tell the tale.

You could yo-ho, yo-ho with them. Absolutely, that's just what you do, and I do have a rum and coke you do.

A pirate's life for you.

Ahoy, stick a lime in it. Nice coffee. Here we go, we're off.

Here we go. So we're in on the wagon trade now because that's the only way that we can get anywhere, otherwise everything sucks. You're going to get robbed by a pirate, you're going to get delayed at port.

You know, everything's going to suck. But even though it was now keeping Charleston's economy afloat, it wasn't nearly as efficient as ships were. For one. Horses they get tired and they need to sleep, they get dysentery, they need to eat.

They get dysentery, they drown in a river. If you try to forge it too early. I guess I don't even know what the reasoning for drowning in the river in Oregon Trail was. It was just like, I think, just cause.

It was just a crap shoot. Yeah, you don't know how to swim? Yeah, yeah, right, I'm like, who's getting swimming lessons on the Oregon trail?

Exactly, you know. Oh, if you were in the river, you were gone. Yeah, you're fucked. That was it like no one swam?

There was rapids, whoops, yeah, and you were like, Oh, well, there that goes, but yeah, that's what happened.

So horses need to rest, they need to eat. And while some traveling merchants had no problem sleeping in their wagon, and they could do that without getting robbed or murdered. The journey was often hundreds of miles, and the driver, not to mention any occupants that they had with them, would need to find some kind of shelter at various points along the route, especially for storms, weather, all that good stuff. This gave rise, to quote stage taverns, or inns, known just as houses.

Ah, like a public house, exactly exactly. And those were along the outskirts of major cities where travelers could stop for a night rest. Water their horses, water themselves, you know, a.k...a shower.

There you go. But like the shipping industry, the wagon and stage trade came with a ton of fears. Not about pirates anymore, but now about being robbed or having an entire wagon or coach be stolen right out from under you. So, in the early decades of the 19th century, Charleston, South Carolina, was not so different from the other colonies around. It was always walking a line between the pre-revolution wilderness of the past and the industrial, socially complicated society that was going to be on its way in the latter half of the 19th century.

But it was ruled by economic opportunity, mixed with intense fear of any kind of change. Sure, sure, sure, things weren't great, it was very unstable at that moment. So let's get to the legend, or urban legend of Lavinia Fisher.

So Lavinia and John Fisher? They were married and had lived much of their lives in or around Charleston when they were in their mid to late 20s. The couple operated an inn that was referred to as the Six Mile House, along with what was known it was on Meeting House Road. So the name Six Mile house was basically the mile marker that it was on. It would indicate to travelers how far you were from the city, nice?

So other inns had names like five mile House, four mile house. Imagine that you could see where that's going, half mile house. I would want to be like one mile house.

Yeah, yeah, like, we're number one, that's what I would want to do. Six is like, eh? But these houses offered travelers and merchants a place to stop and rest, get food, water, and overnight stay.

And as they traveled in Charleston to sell their goods, or as they traveled out, that's where they would stop along this way. So travelers leaving the city would be, as John Ralfio in Parks and Recreation would say, flush with cash. And this made them pretty easy prey. I had to. You can't let that around.

But this made them very easy prey for highway men, or, in this case, highway women. The legend has it that Lavinia would lure in guests with her seductive wiles. I mean, her name's Lavinia, she must be kind of hot, it is a hot girl name.

It really is Lavinia. I'm like, you have to be good looking, you do. I feel like she was, yeah.

Hopefully, not only would she lure them in with her womanly wiles, but then she would double down and cook them a home-cooked meal. I'm so into any man's heart, you know? And then she would sedate them with warm tea. Oh my God.

I mean, I kind of fancy that. Fortunately, that warm tea was poison.

There's always a catch. Yeah, no one's a 10 out of 10. Yeah, you can't do this with both hands, it's just something's gonna happen.

We'll knock off like two homes. Yeah, she's an eight. she still sounds great to be honest. She's a 10, but she will poison you. Take it or leave it, boys.

I'm Dan Taberski. Something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was at my locker and she came up to me and she was stuttering, super bad. I'm like, Stop f***ing around. She's like, I can't.

A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast, like doubling and tripling. And it's all these girls with a diagnosis. The state tried to keep on the down-low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. well, you were holding something back intentionally.

Yeah, well, yeah.

It's hysteria, it's all in your head, it's not physical.

Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem, or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here, something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline, and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.

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Now, some say once their victim was unconscious or asleep, John would sneak into the room, he would rob them and he would murder them. But then it's said that he quote, butchered them and disposed of their bodies in their cellar. Oh, tag team, Oh, very bloody benders. Thank you, I bring them up, actually.

You're welcome in the next paragraph, okay? But there are some variations in this story, though. Another slight variation is that once they were definitely unconscious, Lavinia would open a trap door beneath the victim and they would drop into the basement. Which I like better.

Like in Sweeney Todd, Yes, exactly, Sweeney Todd, hello. And that's where they would be ultimately murdered.

And in some versions, they even say that beneath that trap door. Lavinia herself, which I'm like, Whoa Lavinia, had positioned spikes in the bottom of a pit, which impaled the victims as they landed. Now she should miss Trunchbull route. I'm saying, that's like the ultimate chokey, yeah, and they're already dead when they get spiked.

Yeah, so it's just for the fun of it, just for the fun of it. Just so she can, like, see, which is very bloody. Benders because we're going to get into them and they did do that shit just for the fun of it.

Yeah, so I wonder if that got tainted, like a little bit of bloody benders got mixed in with this story. We do that a lot. But John and Lavinia were said to have quote a great number of skeletons found in the cellar of Six Mile House. Later, it was said that they had a cellar full of human bones.

So it's getting bigger and bigger as we go. It's like maybe one, and then it's like a whole ass cellar of human bones. I love it, it starts vague, just gets bigger. It's like, maybe she, just like, robbed people.

A great many. And it's like, No, she was impaling them on spikes under her kitchen. It's just someone telling a story in one of those houses and they're like, I'm not getting the reaction I need. Nobody cares. There was spikes.

Listen up, impaled right under her feet. Like that, I would have done it. Cold hot tea. Her name's Lavinia.

She's gonna make a tea, she's gonna cook you dinner, so you choose whether you're coming in. But like we just mentioned a bunch of times, it is very reminiscent of the bloody benders they were. We actually covered the bloody benders a long time.

I'm actually going to redo that one. Yeah, that's one of those that I remember doing in our living room, so that was an early one. We have a few of those.

Yeah, we know the feeling well. Yeah, I just end up being like, gonna take that one back and redo that better. It's a gnarly story.

And I think we could, definitely. I think it was only like an hour long episode, maybe that we did on it. And I think this could be like several episodes of the Bloody Benders. Now I'm like, What was I doing? Bloody Benders take two.

Yeah, they were an American family of murderers, like an actual family of just straight up serial killers, like kids and all. And it's real, and it's real. I've heard of this, but we've never covered it.

But it kind of reminds me of, like, there's lots of fake stories like that in the UK, there's the Sawny Bean clan. Oh, I kind of remember that. That sounds familiar, yeah, in Scotland.

They were kind of the inspiration for like the hills have eyes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, makes sense. So they were like, meant to be in Scotland. This family of like cannibalistic, incestuous people living in these caves, like attacking people that walk past them and cannibalizing them. The kids were there, all sorts of grisly stuff. If you look it up, it is dark.

It was just anti-Scottish English propaganda. Yeah, are you serious? Oh no, it's just these Scottish people living in caves.

Like, they're disgusting over there, they're like they are having sex with each other and they will eat you. It is absolutely true. Don't look further into it, just listen to what I'm saying.

Avoid the caves. No, we definitely have a few of those like that, you know, are fake, that are like this whole family of Cannibals. And you're like, No. But the bloody benders, that's for real, they were real.

And it was in the early 1870s and it was in Kansas, and they had which, like it kind of fits, like at that time in Kansas, yeah, like at that time, like frontier family.

Sure, sure, we're going to murder people. Everyone was probably mad there in 1870, but they had like a bed and breakfast. They were quotations that they would lure people into and then brutally murder them, and they had a trap door that led into their cellar.

And they would position the victim sitting over the trap door. And then I think it was like, it really is reminiscent of it. Because the wife would like kind of distract whoever the victim was. And then the husband or one of the sons would come up behind them, slit their throat or hit them on the head with a hammer, and then, boom, they would go on into the trap door.

Oh, wow. And often they would be robbed of whatever they had on them. That was usually because they would lure like wealthy people in that were like traveling through. They would just do it for the thrill of it, wow.

Like they would not get a wealthy person. They were like, Well, we're just bored. Yeah, what else is there to do in Kansas in the 1870s?

It's dusty. I was literally thinking that and that there's tornadoes. Yeah, Kansas has tornadoes. There was a dust bowl.

Yeah, was that the dust bowl? Sure, totally. Why not?

We're educated, it's a bowl of dust, I know it, we know what happened, but they were real.

They were able to confirm all the deaths, they were able, like people who did escape the bloody. Vendors were able to be like, oh yeah. They tried to hit me in the head with a hammer and I saw a trap door. Like, they were able to be like, Yeah, that's literally it.

Nice. So this definitely has a little bit of that infused in it. And since it's around the 1800s, it's like, I think maybe it kind of layered on top of each other. And because Lavinia is a woman and there was a woman in the bloody vendors, I think they were like, let's have another one of those, redo.

Can't just have one. But in early tellings of this story, John and Lavinia Fisher are described as quote pleasing in appearance. Okay, you gotta be, you gotta be.

You know, John and Lavinia? Yeah, I felt like they were in a couple, for sure, yeah.

They are. And they knew how to give the weary traveler such a welcome as made him feel the inn was more like a home than a public resort. Was it the trap door that made it feel homey? I think it was the spikes that you went on. It just feels like home.

Except the ambiance of it all, it was the lovely rug over the trap door and the spikes. But the fishers weren't only praised for their resort and their loveliness, but also for their food, which was apparently described as excellent fare for man and beast. Oh wow, so they're dog friendly?

Give it to your dog. I always want to hear about my cooking. Whenever my husband's like, this is delicious, I'm like, what a beast.

Can we get a beast in here? This isn't enough. But later, however, the entire area, around six mile house, is described as a haven for, quote, gangs of white desperadoes who occupied certain houses and infested the roads leading to the city. White desperadoes. I'm just picturing that.

I know, but it is said that travelers passed these houses with fear and trembling. Oh no, because it was just bad guys. I hate that.

And the more dreaded than any of the other of these haunts was known as Six Mile House, occupied by John Fisher and Lavinia. So, the legend tells listeners that the robberies and missing travelers went on for more than a year until finally. The bandits were located in the neighborhood of five and six mile houses, then traced to the houses themselves. And the situation came to head when a young man, hatless and coatless, Oh, no, excuse me.

If he's a good guy or a bad guy, he doesn't have a hat on if you are hatless and coatless and coatless exactly. It's quite hot in Charleston though, isn't it?

I know it is wicked, almost as hot as in this room.

It's like, if I saw him hatless and coatless, I'd just be like, Well, it's warm. Back then, they were like, you are either a victim of a crime or you are a desperado. I don't know, there's nothing in between. And he was riding into town hatless and coatless.

How dare he, How dare he? And he was frantically seeking the sheriff, so the man told authorities that he had been attacked. Oh, no.

And that those who had set upon him, he said, were no less persons than the man and woman who kept six mile house. I don't know if you remember, but that is John and Lavinia's story, I knew it, a likely story. I feel like this is just a cover up because he's turned up drastically underdressed to this town.

Oh, I was robbed, I have to explain this, so, the man says. He claims that he had seen the fishers on the previous night going through his belongings. And he had heard them make mention of having to attend to him. The following morning, he got out of there, which I think was a little hasty because they do run a bed and breakfast.

So if they were like, we should attend to our guests tomorrow, he's like, they're going to murder me.

He caught a vibe, but it's either a really good thing or a really bad thing.

Yes, I know, trust your gut, they're going to give me a continental breakfast. I know if there's the promise of breakfast, you're going to stick around. Yeah, I'm not leaving.

So I'm going to fight through it if there's breakfast involved. We spent all day yesterday telling people to trust their gut on the episode. Today you're like, I don't know about that today, I'm like, except if there's breakfast, not continental, though, that's not good enough.

It's really not cooked breakfast homemade, if I can have it like in bed. Sure, sure, sure.

On a nice tray with a trapdoor under it, even if there's spikes, as long as I can have, like buttermilk pancakes, delightful.

Sitting in bed, yeah, right before you die. Yeah, that's all I need, yeeted into the trapdoor. That's all that I need.

So the sheriff went to six mile house that day and he drove the band of robbers out, including John and Lavinia Fisher. And he left a man on site to ensure that these bandits did not return. So he was just like, get out of your own house and this guy's going to stay here and make sure that you don't. And when they did, the man went for the law again because they came back.

They were like, We're not, you have, you left one guy, I'm Lavinia and John Fisher, you left one guy, we're coming back in. So he went back to the sheriff again, who, at this time, finally apprehended the entire gang and confiscated 10 muskets, some pistols, knives and a large canister of powder from the house. A large canister of powder.

Was it powdered sugar for pancakes? That's the question. I don't think so they don't specify that was going in the tea.

So the fishers were found guilty of highway robbery and they were sentenced to hang. This escalated so quickly. I feel like there was a lot of buildup to this. That the sheriff wasn't taking any notice of anything that was going on at Six Mile House. And then suddenly they're like, we need to hang them, yeah, suddenly. That's another part of this that is very, especially old timey American.

You should die. Even just being a hangman, a highwayman was a hangable offence. Yeah, in where I went to school, there's like a tiny little pyramid in the middle of a field, and it marks the last highwayman to ever be hanged, really.

Oh, that's so interesting, it's in Hammerhamstead. Oh, that's so wild. The only reason to go to Hammerhamstead? There is an office slash there.

It was voted Britain's ugliest town. But there is a wall. What a nice honour, very good water park there. Yes, exactly.

So let's go, guys, let's go, let's go see the historical of it all, and then go for the Aqua. I just want to see that little pyramid, it's like this big and it's just in the middle of a field.

Oh my god, that's so wild, that is cool. Those kind of things are always crazy to me. Like in Salem, we have all those little memorials and they're always like these small little things that are like, this gnarly thing happened here. And that's all you have. No, it's true.

But we're wild.

We've been going around and we're like, it's the first place that feels really, really historic, Boston's historical as fuck. And where I used to work in London, it was in a really boring part. I used to work near St. Catherine's Dock, but I'd get off the tube and walk to my office, and it was past the Tower of London.

And there's just a sign on my way to work there, to be like, this is where Amber Lynn was beheaded. Oh my God, stop. And then all these tourists just take pictures of it and I'm like, I'm just trying to get.

Excuse me, but this is where Amber Lynn was beheaded. That is wild. They also have. I don't know how familiar you are with the cinematic masterpiece, Pocahontas 2. Actually, weirdly, pretty familiar.

Her kids love that movie. So, you know, like, when they go to the town, they go through Traitor's gate, right? And they're on the little boat. So, like, Traitor's gate is still there. So you just walk right past it, and it's just the gate on the Thames, and it just says traitor's.

Gate It's on the bucket list. I'm dying. We will do this in a hot studio there as well, and we'll take you on a walking tour. We did a five-parter on Jack the Ripper, and I was like, entrenched in it.

I was like, I have to go, she's dying to go to Whitechapel. We're both East Londoners. Yeah, we're East London girls, we gotta come.

Okay, we'll talk about this, we gotta come, we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it. I'm solving that case.

Let's go, I'm telling you, that's my lifelong ambition.

Tobias from Ghost are gonna solve it. It is hot in here. Oh God, what have I done? So, yeah. The fishers were found guilty of highway robbery. They were sentenced to hang.

They sat in their cells for nearly a year waiting on a pardon for their execution. And apparently, when John was visited by a local priest, he was very contrite. He wanted his soul to be saved, but Lavinia, she had no interest in salvation, she really only cared about being pardoned.

It never came. Oh, no. When the day finally came, John begged his wife to make peace with her God, but she absolutely refused to. Not one word of religious instruction. Would she listen? That's like, kind of badass.

Not gonna lie, especially back then, I feel like, especially back then, that was like straight up rebellion, yeah, now. When their execution finally arrived, apparently, Lavinia had to be dragged from her cell while she shrieked and raved like, quote one, Insane.

Which I'm like, was she insane, or was she just about to be hanged in front of a crowd? You decide, I don't know, I might shriek as well. Yeah, maybe.

I don't think a lot of us could be like, Stoic in that moment. But some say Lavinia and her husband were dressed in white outfits as they made their way to the gallows, like matching white outfits, while other variations insist that Lavinia was wearing her wedding dress. No, she wasn't, no, she was not.

Finally reached the gallows, Lavinia blurted out profanities from the gallows, which I think is pretty badass. And before famously shouting If you have a message you want to send to Hell, give it to me. Oh, Lavinia, which is bad bitch.

You just want, like, a guitar riff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, Holy crap, she's going on tour after this.

She is. But some say Lavinia even cheated the hangman at one moment by jumping from the platform before being wrestled back into position just above her own trapdoor. And then hanged with John. So to this day, it's said that Lavinia's ghost haunts the grounds that once held the Old City jail, where she was held for nearly a year before her execution. Others say she haunts Charleston's unitarian cemetery, and, whatever the case, her spirit is believed to still quote roam and haunt. The last areas she knew and where she felt most unsettled in her life.

So that's the story, but here's the real story of what happened. Aw man, she was a nice lady.

Lavinia was a schoolteacher. she retired at the age of 30..

At the age of 30.

Yes, you know, back then she was like, Okay, oh yeah, that's true, that's true.

So not a lot is really known about the fishers before their arrest in actuality, but for all intents and purposes. Their story begins in the winter of 1819, in response to the rise in highwaymen robbing people. You know, that was happening all the damn time. There were lynch mobs that were formed, and they were basically the one bringing justice outside of the law to these random highwaymen. Of course, we know this was often a legit act of terrorism masked as justice.

Inflicted by the ongoing attacks on travelers and merchants on Meeting House Road on February 16th, 1819, a heavily armed mob assembled and rode from Charleston in the direction of Five Mile House. Oh, damn. They had received word that a gang of thieves, who was responsible for a string of highway robberies near Ashley Ferry, had holed up at one of the houses. And they were determined to smoke them out and bring them to justice, according to author Bruce Orr, which we will make sure we give a little reference in the show notes for his book. The mob allegedly had permission from the owners of several small houses in the area to proceed as they saw fit. Which I don't know.

If I believe that, I was going to say, I doubt that. So, like they said, it was fine if we murdered these people, okay, they said to do whatever we wanted while we were here. That house said it was fine if we lit this one on fire.

So, talk to someone else. Among the many obvious problems with mob justice is that lynch mobs tend to lack information and objectivity.

This is a really reasonable lynch mob, actually. I mean, they have really thought out opinions. We have cited sources of what happened. Instead, they really only operate on reactionary emotions and just collective outrage. That'll do it.

That's usually the case, no one's taking a step back and really thinking in these cases. So in the case of the attacks along Meeting House Road, none of the victims who reported being attacked or robbed could actually identify any of their attackers. So when the mob arrived at Five Mile House, they had no idea who they were looking for. They were just going in there, being like, I guess we just take everyone in the house.

It's good to get swept up before you know what's happening. It's always good to act first and then go oops later. You don't want to be the last person joining the mob. Yeah, then it just looks like you jumped on the bandwagon.

Precisely they're working off the mantra of you ask for forgiveness, not permission. They're like, Well, just later we'll deal with it, it's fine, we're just going with it.

My favorite kind of people, you know? Yeah, I'm not asking so. Nevertheless, when they entered the inn, the mob found a small group of individuals assembled inside. And regardless of whether they were the actual aggressors or robbers, they were instructed to grab whatever personal belongings they had near them and get the hell out of the house immediately.

Likely pretty confused, yeah, startled by the appearance of a giant, violent mob at their house. The group of Five Mile house protested a little bit. And they resisted a little bit because they were like, what the fuck is happening right now? So the mob was like, okay.

And they just lit the building on fire. Oh shit, they're like, we gave you a chance. Burned to the ground in a very small period of time, people got out, but they burnt it to the ground with people in it.

Is this one Lavinia's house? No, this is next to Lavinia's house. Oh okay, this is like, down the way. Oh wow.

This is five mile, gotcha, gotcha.

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So the mob was like, well, that worked really well, everybody got out, we got everybody out, so they were like, all right. So they moved a little further up the road, hoping to dole out some justice to Six Mile House as well.

Here we go. So the proprietors of Six Mile House and the visitors of Six Mile House, actually, they actually listened and complied, you would. I'm wondering if they saw, like, I don't know, the smoke rising from Five Mile House maybe smelled a little something.

Or maybe it was the actual lynch mob that was at their door that they were like.

Let's just leave combination platter. We'll figure, yeah, you know, this is what, this is smart. They took context, clues, they put problem solving, and they were like, this is going to end badly for us.

We should leave, so they got out either way, they left, and to make sure they didn't return. They did that old standby where they just leave one guy standing at the door to keep the entire house out. The entire lynch mob, too.

Yeah, exactly, it's worked well in the past, it has obviously so they, and it works for six mile house.

David Ross at Six Mile House and they said, Don't let them back in. I don't know if I trust him. I don't know about David Ross. No, I feel bad for David Ross.

I don't know if I would pick like David, No, I feel like I could overpower David Ross. I don't know what name I would choose. I've been thinking about names a lot while we've been talking about this, I feel like there are hot guy names, hot girl names.

There are, like, strong names, yep, what's the hottest hot guy name? If it's not John, I was going to say, because I'm partial to a John.

That's my dad's name, yeah, so you got to set this one out. I like Andrew personally. Andrew is a great name. You know, I'm pillow biased.

You know, Andrew at all, marrying one in October? No, no, no, never that, but I would say, hot guy names, hot guy names.

I don't know, most guys are not that hot.

No, what was how about Qantas's? Oh, John, John, it always comes back to John.

And then John Rolfe, Yeah, there you go. I love Princess and the Frog, Girly and Naveen, Naveen.

Naveen is out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can have that, but I would say the hottest, Who's the hottest? Disney Prince? Obviously, General Shang.

Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes.

We've cracked the code we do, and actually, while we're on tour, people ask us, You know, what are your pre-show rituals? Our only pre-show ritual, apart from watching 90 day Fiancé in our dressing rooms, is listening to Mulan. I'll make a Man out of you before we go on stage. Incredible.

You guys can have it, we're swapping backs here. I need that, yes, because that'll get you fired up. Oh yeah.

We save it for occasions where we need to get especially hyped. Oh yeah, there you go, that's genius. One of my kids, especially one of my twins, is obsessed with Mulan.

Thanks to me, and it is thanks to her. It's the best favorite movie, it's my favorite, it's my favorite Disney movie.

She loves that song and when she was like two, she used to be like, Let's get down to business, and I'm like, Hell yeah, Disney films like, Let's go.

You get them, yeah, then it gets like, super like, not feminist at all. She's just kind of like singing it to them. I'm like, we'll make a man out of you.

Then I'm like, you're like women.

And like, Yeah, they did, they did. Give you daughters, who gives a fuck, what you ask for?

You know, how could you do that while you sing it? She's fighting it, She's fighting it. Hell yeah, she is.

My teacher badass. That's why we love Princess and the Frog in our house, too, because, like, she's the best. Tiana's like, I'm opening up a restaurant.

Fuck all y'all, I'm like, Yes, hell yeah, peña anyone?

I love her. Uh, so, yes, so David Ross, David is not to me the guy I would leave, I don't know why.

Just doesn't feel right. I know what you mean, right? If there was a John around, I'd be like, John, stay over there. So it's like, Um, are there any doctors here?

Are there any Johns here exactly? I feel like it's like a it's a solid name, a little solid.

Not Phil, but Phillip, Phillip, William, William, William.

I would trust a William. Phil's a little, hairy, old and tiny. Never trust a Harry. No, we don't trust Harrys anymore. bye Harry.

Except Harry styles. Oh, always Harry styles.

I was like, Do we trust Harry Styles? I feel like that's a story for a later time after. Don't worry, darling, I don't trust him. What was his name in that?

I'll degrade. I think his name was John Jack, so kind of, yeah, don't trust him.

Yeah, so there's that. Well, those are names. Well, they should have left Shang. instead, they left David.

And they told him, You let us know if anyone returns, which this was kind of my favorite thing, because it's like, instruct us or alert us if somebody returns. And it's like, but they didn't have a cell phone or a walkie-talkie. So it's like, jump on your horse and ride miles into town to be like, Hey, they're there, let us know.

And they came back. I don't think that's going to help. But sometime later, David Ross returned to Charleston pretty frantically because he was like, Shit, I have to alert you. And in his sworn testimony later, Ross said, he was the one that was hatless and coatless, uh-uh.

That was not him immediate red flag, I'm saying. He said that shortly after 9pm, a man named William Hayward, one of the men who'd been forced out of Six Mile house by the mob. He had returned to the inn and he had, quote, cursed him, collared him violently and pushed him out.

How dare he? so William? but like, How dare he? because William's like, This is my fucking house, like, get out, oh so dare he?

And he collared that guy out, he was like, David, get out of here, okay, I'm coming back in my house. So he did.

And then he slammed the door in his face. He was very careful to say that that's his door, slammed the door in his face, yeah.

So when David Ross went back into the house, and I love this because he's like, David goes into the house that doesn't belong to him, that he was just thrown out of. He goes back in and he asks, Hayward, Hey, can I get a couple of my things that I had here? No, get out of here. And Hayward apparently put his hands into his bosom and said, You damned infernal Rascal. If you let your hand on anything, I will blow your brains out.

I am only going to call people damned infernal rascals, but you have to touch their bosom as you say, No, I don't know about that. That's where I draw the line, it's the rules.

You have to put your hand into his bosom. I don't know about all that. Not just on Enter the Bosom. How do you become one with someone's bosom in that moment?

Full send. I mean, we'll find out when you eventually do, Hayward, I'll let you guys know because you are going to do it. But after being rebuffed by Hayward a second time. Ross was surprised to find that. More of the people from Six Mile House were now returning and were like, we're just going to come back into our house. Specifically, John and Lavinia Fisher, as well as two other men that Ross didn't recognize.

So Ross claimed that at that point, Lavinia Fisher, quote Lavinia herself, laid violent hands upon him. She said, Catch these hands.

She came for his bosom, she choked him and then pushed his head through a glass window. Lavinia, she's got no chill, does not fuck around.

She has no chill. What's that like horribly offensive chart that people post on Twitter where they're like how hot she is versus how crazy she is? Lavinia's a 10, she's a 10 on both 10-10..

She's going to throw your head through a glass window. But the six mile house gang continued, beating Ross with their fists. And with loaded whips, which I had no idea what a loaded whip was, because a whip, I'm, like, what? I looked it up, and apparently loaded whips were shot loaded. And it would make them heavier and, like, more dangerous. So one end of the whip was it was essentially like putting rocks in a sock and beating someone with it, but like with a whip.

Oh my god. So it would cause a lot of damage. I was trying to think of some sort of joke, like with loaded potato skins, but then I just got hungry because I've only had three raisins today. Oh no, when you said potato skins, I'm like, should we order more?

Mediterranean platter We want potato skins. I do too. Oh, now I'm thinking of food, I just thought of taco Bell.

Real quick, Okay, we're moving on, we're moving on, thought about it, passing thought.

It was only after they had beaten the crap out of David Ross with their hands and with loaded whips. And that Lavinia had choked him and thrown him through a glass window. It was only after this that he was able to get through that window and just take a run into the woods. That man was running for his life, he fucked around and he found out.

Being fucked around with. Because he ran into the woods, he reached the cover of the tree line and they started firing guns at him on the tree line. And this is the real story. The other one was the urban legend. This is the real thing.

So he managed to make it back to a main road and was crossing Frightious bridge. Don't know what that is, but I keep thinking of righteous.

Apparently it was just outside of Proper Charleston, and that's when he spotted the entire gang pursuing him still. And Lavinia shouted You damned infernal Rascal, if ever I catch you, I will give you a hundred lashes. I love her a lot.

Which also makes me think I'm like, Was Lavinia the one with the loaded whip? Yes, sounds like it. Yeah, I mean, maybe Six Mile House is some sort of BDSM dungeon.

That's what I'm like, what's going on in there? Not to kink shame. LAVINIA Yeah, right, that's what the spikes are for. Yeah. But is consent involved?

But maybe it is, maybe this is all just some really elaborate role play situation between Lavinia and our. What's his name? the running away man, David Ross.

And somebody just saw it all happening and then wrote a really loaded piece about how. She was some sort of highway woman, but actually, she was just running some sort of innocent BDSM dungeon from Six Mile house. Instead, she was just like a really professional dominatrix, and she just stuck to the plot line, Hell yeah.

She was like, you didn't say a safe word. Running away because he wants it to end, but he can't remember the safe word. he can't. The safe word is Shang, he can't remember.

Full circle. It was a hard one to remember.

She's just trying to make a man out of him. He's like, I haven't seen that movie.

She's going to give him a hundred lashes if he doesn't, or if she catches him. But the group must've kind of given up the chase at some point. She didn't catch him because Ross managed to make it safely back into Charleston that evening. To cry in front of the sheriff and be like, Why did you leave me in front of that house? What a baby. Meanwhile, it was David.

You left, David. what do you expect that was your own doing? EW, David, EW, David.

So, meanwhile, a merchant by the name of John Peoples, which I love that name, fun peoples, he was headed out of the city.

And my thing just went into Black Okay, towards Meeting House Road, and when he reached Six Mile House John, peoples stopped at the inn. This was after all of this.

It was around 11 p.

M And he was just going to rest and water his horse, so, you know, as one does so once he stopped. At the end, he alleged that he and his young companion, who was a young boy, I don't know if it was his son or what they don't say. They were attacked and robbed by multiple people at Six Mile House.

In his official affidavit, he claims that as he was arguing with his companion over who would get the water bucket for the horses. Nine or ten persons, among them a tall, stout woman, came out of the same house that was Lavinia. They were armed with clubs, guns and pistols and immediately made a violent assault on them. So, according to peoples, the woman among them was the most vicious of all of them.

That's Lavinia, and was active in beating him, cutting him over the head and eyes with a stick, like, So calm down, Lavinia, Lavinia is....

She needs to talk to someone, she does, She's like, This is what you paid for, She's like, I know she's like, what?

It's part of the whole thing, the safe word. But then nobody can remember Shang. But John Peoples and his companion were eventually able to escape the gang and made their way back to the road. I love that.

They were just attacked while they were watering their horse and they're like, Ah.

Life was hard back then, we think we have it bad now. Trying to water your horse these days, just stopping at an inn. But although he wasn't aware of it in that moment, John Peoples was pursued by two of the men in the gang to the road.

He just didn't know it and these two men rode up on him and the boy who was with him. And they brandished pistols and demanded that they hand over any money or valuables that they had. After searching the man and the boy, the bandits took his pocketbook and it contained roughly $40. Which is a pretty good haul back then, and turned back in the direction of six Mile House.

So, meanwhile, John Peoples and This boy raced back to Charleston and immediately reported the attack to authorities, although he couldn't positively identify each member of the gang. Right then and there, John Peoples Quote, had just cause to believe that. Among them was William Hayward, John Fisher and his wife, Lavinia Fisher, another man named Joseph Roberts and another man named John Andrews. Lots of Johns, lots of Josephs, that's what we like to have.

So, author Bruce Bruce, Bruce Bruce Orr points out that. Among the more interesting aspects of the John Peoples affidavit is that the document looks like it was written in the handwriting of a lot of different people. So that's weird, that is, and at various different points. In the affidavit, his name is spelled peoples like p-e-o-p-l-e-s and peoples p-e-e-p-l-e-s. I wonder why?

So people think this means one, at least another person was involved in writing that description of events, but they're not sure why. And it's. But it's also possible when you really think of, like, you know, history and reality. In that time, he might have not had an ability to read and write, so they might have had to have somebody documenting his report. It's still interesting.

It's that the list appears to have been added to peoples affidavit, likely after it had been filed. And it's a list of the people they think were in Six Mile house. And that was John Fisher, Lavinia Fisher, William Hayward, Joseph Roberts, William Andrews, Seth Young, which I didn't. I didn't see a Seth in there. No, I never saw a Seth coming.

I never saw that coming. No, it's like when you watch Game of Thrones and you're just like, Why is he called Jamie? Thank you, Why is he called Rob? Rob? it's Rob.

Tyrion and Rob.

Like, he's really cool, Daenerys, and it's like, No, just Rob, I do love Rob, though he's my favorite.

Yeah, actually, you know what? Fuck John? Yeah, fuck John, Fuck John, thank you.

I don't get enough of that, I would. I'm a Rob girl. Yeah, I mean, a little hot-headed a little bit, think about it.

Think about what you're doing. Rob, we really loved it. I don't know why. Such a rob, such a rob.

Just Rob, being Rob. The Red Wedding was like a real dark moment. Let's not upset ourselves again. Yeah, let's not go there. That was rough.

And when he says, mother?

Oh, no, no, don't go there, don't go there, we said. I just I saw it in my head, but it's the way he says it.

And if anyone's complaining about spoilers, that show's like, 10 years old, yeah, sit down, stop it, stop it. And all I said was, he said, Mother, okay, he did love his mom.

So we got a seth, which is a trick, because we got like, John William, Joseph William, James, John James Seth.

Okay, there he is. I don't think Seth does not show up again, I don't think 4-1-0 for Seth, 4-1-0 for him. So, with sworn affidavits from two victims and witnesses, Sheriff Cleary quickly assembled a huge posse of police officers and vigilantes on February 19th, 1819..

That's when the group headed out to Six Mile House, and when they arrived at the end, they surrounded the place, demanded everyone surrender immediately. And that's when they basically were able to search Six Mile house. And they found that large storage of weapons and powder. So that was all true.

So the gang definitely had the means to resist them, but I don't know why they decided not to. I don't know if it was, they decided it was too big of a posse to overwhelm. Or John Fisher? There is one like set of tales.

And I kind of believe it because I feel like John Fisher was like a good husband. Yeah, he's a John, he's a John, you know, we love a John and John. Fisher apparently said that he opted to surrender rather than risk injury or death to his wife.

Oh, I believe that. So he did that for Lavinia, which in the power couple that is John and Lavinia, that is right, believable. Whatever their reason was, they were arrested without a fight.

And the sheriff successfully did get John and Lavinia. They also got James McElroy, they did get Seth Young, but I don't know if he ever comes up again. And they got somebody, James Howard and the other thing that was taken from the home. And this does come back, so don't worry, I'm not just randomly saying it was a large cow hide, but they didn't own any cows.

So they were like, where the hell did this come from? Yeah, it was like a recent cow hide, and they were like, what's this about? So, by the time the gang members were being loaded into the wagon, the scene had attracted a big crowd. Obviously, because I always love that. In these old timey cases where it's like this huge crime scene and all these people are just walking through it, they're like, whoa, look at that blood, it's like, Ooh, this is nuts.

Wow.

I wish you had just seen Alina act that out. If you're listening, they're all just taking pieces of skull fragments off the floor, being like, Wow, this was great. Happy Sunday, thanks for having us.

Yeah, just walking through it. So a man named Steven Lacoste, who was a neighbor of Six Mile House, went in there. And he saw this cow hide and he said, Motherfuckers, that's my cow.

Stealing a cow, that's big business. That is, I'm saying justice for Steven.

Not cool was that the horse's name?

So rather than leaving the scene as it was, or coming back later to search it more, they just set it on fire because.

Easy, what else are you going to do? And that seemed to be working well for them. So it was burned to the ground. And a few days after their arrest, a somewhat more thorough search of the grounds around the area was made. Which I love that.

They burned the place down and they were like, we should go back there and see if there's any evidence. We really cleared out all the clutter, we made it easier, made it sanitary. And at least two bodies were indeed found buried near the house, like right on the property.

One was the body of a male who'd been shot, and the other was the skeletal remains of a woman who'd been buried in an unmarked grave at least two years earlier. Don't believe that, never identified. Oh wow, oh good.

There was at least two there. And the members of the six mile House gang were taken to the city jail, which was apparently only a small step up from medieval dungeons. There was no running water, there was no bed or toilet. Instead, there was a pile of wood chips where they were like, that's your bed and your toilet.

Oh wow, so have fun with that. And apparently, if you were a violent offender, you were just shackled to a steel ring that was in the middle of the floor. You got the shit kicked out of you, so that's fun.

And they said that it was also not unusual for a corpse to reach an advanced state of decomposition before being removed from a cell. So you don't want to do any sooner, you don't want to go to the city jail. So, at the time of John and Lavinia's arrest, South Carolina still operated under a colonial justice system. So this system was based on a mix of biblical edicts and laws imposed by the British Crown.

No thanks. Oh thanks a lot, guys. As such, the crimes of which the gang were accused, highway robbery, were considered a capital offense and that made all members eligible for the death penalty. So, by February 22nd, the sheriff had also arrested gang member James Sterritt, which would bring the total arrested to seven. Some more arrests would come later.

By the end of the week, I think there was about nine people that were arrested from that house that were in the gang and once they'd all been rounded up.

And he identified them all as the ones who violently attacked them and robbed them. Imagine that.

So looking at their previous crimes that they've been punished for. Both John and Lavinia had previously been arrested for theft, which, at least for John, he had received 30 lashes for it. James Sterritt had also been convicted of theft on one occasion, and he had been branded as his punishment. Oh, wow. And Joseph Roberts had had a piece of his ear chopped off for theft as well. I'm still not totally convinced.

These people weren't just taking part in some elaborate BDSM situation, as they all loved it. It's sounding more and more like it it really is, to be quite honest. On March 23rd, 1819,.

William Hayward and Joseph Roberts were brought before Judge Hall Bay and they were going to determine whether there was enough evidence to convict them. At least, of assaulting David Ross, because, remember David Poor Sheng? The judge said there was enough evidence and he set bond for all the individual members. But only Hayward and Roberts managed to post bail, so Roberts got out. But he didn't do well with his immediate freedom because two days later, he was again arrested for threatening the life of a local butcher, the same butcher that the gang sold. The meat that belonged to the cow found in the L building at Six Mile house that belonged to the neighbor that they had the cow hide for.

Full freaking circle. That's so satisfying, I'm so impressed with how you did that all in a row. I was just really intense on that subject. I was like, that's really mean that you stole his cow and then you killed it, you sold its meat and you kept its hide.

That's not cool, so. The trial began on May 10th, 1819, and that's where John, Lavinia, William, Joseph and James were all indicted for assault with intent to murder. David Ross, the attorney general's document, said the gang quote were said to have wielded, pointed and fired a loaded weapon at David Ross with the intent to kill him. I agree. By the time the hearing concluded on the 27th, through various methods, a lot of the gang either skipped town, were either to escape or somehow got off the indictment.

It left really only John and Lavinia on the hook for the whole crime. Excellent. So. The trial was drawing huge crowds, and the couple was found guilty on both assaults with intent to murder and common assaults on David Ross. Damn so. On June 2nd, they were brought before Judge Charles Jones Colcock for sentencing.

Pause for reaction. However, the sentencing part then got moved to the Constitutional Court at the last second.

Complicated it is so now. It was going to be held and it wasn't going to be held until the conclusion of the trial. And unfortunately for John and Lavinia, the Constitutional Court wouldn't be back in session until January. Oh, holy shit.

And it was June, so the couple was going to be held at the city jail. Where you pee, where you sleep, and you might die and rot in there. And this had been going on like almost a year at this point, yeah. And in the meantime, William Hayward had been recaptured in South Carolina and because he was tried and convicted in absentia. So while he wasn't there, he was returned to Charleston to await with the Fishers.

So the gang's all getting back together. Yay, which is nice. Reunited and as a husband and wife, John and Lavinia were held in the same cell.

So that's sweet, precious. But they were on the ground floor initially, and that was like the really bad floor to be on. Is everything dripping? Yeah, it's all dripping.

There's no ventilation. Yeah, we don't love. So. Lavinia used her wiles to get them moved to the debtor's section of the prison, which was on a higher floor. The cells were much bigger, not a lot of infectious diseases floating around, so they were allowed to do that. And, weirdly, the debtor's section was also where Joseph Roberts, another member of the gang, was serving his sentence for threatening the butcher.

So they were all reunited again in the cell, and that's nice. So, on the evening of September 13th, Joseph actually managed to dig a hole under the wall of one of the cell windows. Large enough for them to fit through. And using a rope made of blankets, they tied together, they climbed down the wall. Damn Joseph Roberts went out, and then he got there.

John was going down and the blanket rope snapped, so he fell 20 feet to the ground below. And now Lavinia couldn't escape. Good. So she's just sitting there with a giant hole in the wall. She's like, Oh, that sucks.

Awesome, I actually don't know anything about this.

So they were like, Oh no, that sucks, and then they just ran away. No one noticed until the next morning. That's when the governor issued a proclamation offering a $500 reward for their recapture. The sheriff didn't have to look very far.

I don't, they weren't really smart. I don't think this was really going a whole. And again, this is another case of John being a really good husband, even though he left Lavinia. Well, don't you worry, though.

And travel by boat to Cuba, obviously. But John refused to leave Lavinia behind, so he and Roberts had stayed close to the jail to try to come up with a plan for how to get Lavinia out. Okay, love. So he got himself caught that way.

A few days after their escape, they were visiting a local grocer. Which I'm also like, guys, what are you doing? Like, you're a wanted convict? The local grocer was like, Hi, John and Rob, like, what's going on?

Weren't you supposed to be in jail? And he immediately called Sheriff Cleary and was like, Hi, I have them here. Wow, what a rat, yeah. So, on the evening of September 16th, the sheriff found them hiding under an overturned boat, which is similar to how they found the Boston Bomber.

That was my immediate thought. They found him in a boat. Yeah, yeah, but they just shot at a bunch of times. Can we say full circle?

We haven't brought them up yet, but we're in Boston, so there we go. They were both returned to the city jail. They were going to have to wait for that Constitutional Court in January, so on January 17th, 1820, John and Lavinia appeared before the Constitutional Court.

They figured they were going to be sentenced for those assaults, and that's it. But as they got there, the prosecutor was like, Hey, you're also going to be sentenced for highway robbery? And they were like, Wait though, that's a capital offense and we will die, and they were like, That sucks, don't know what to tell ya.

And it was on John Peoples, that's what they were at, like, the ninth hour. So they ended up being sentenced to hang on February 4th, 1820, in the week following their sentence. John and Lavinia had petitioned several clergymen and notable Charlestinians, just asking to intervene on their behalf because they were being sentenced for something they were not tried and convicted of.

And if they did it, they didn't have a fair trial. So they claimed they wanted an opportunity for repentance, to prepare to meet their God, and so they wanted a reprieve. At least the governor granted the reprieve, but the order only pushed the date back to, like, February 18th.

So it was like a few days now. While John and Lavinia waited for execution, they spent a lot of time preparing for death and what comes next with various clergymen. John, like the original story, apparently welcomed this. He was like, very intensely praying.

But Lavinia definitely legitimately was not interested in this, just saving herself. She was like, I would really like just to live through this and not prepare for what comes next. So they said, when she engaged in prayer, Lavinia would jump at any moment or noise by her captors. She was convinced they were coming to her with a pardon.

So she was totally convinced she was getting pardoned out of this damn, and she was very confident that they would not. One execute her for a crime she had never been convicted of, and two, execute a woman. Unfortunately, she was wrong. Dun, Dun, dun.

Yeah, but at the time, I will say, contrary to what legends will tell you. Many residents of Charleston really believed Lavinia was innocent of at least that crime. And they were actually advocating for her release. Wow, which is wild.

But this got more intense when a local man was arrested for an unrelated crime and allegedly confessed to the highway robbery of John Peebles. Oh, no, which is okay, but he's, I don't know. That was the sheriff's reaction, too.

I don't know.

But I'm like, didn't John Peebles say? There was like a whole gang of people who came out and this guy's like, I did it, though.

Apparently, the man was able to identify the exact amount of money that had been stolen from John Peebles. Okay, and was also been able to say other elements of the crime that he probably wouldn't know if he wasn't there. So maybe he was part of the mob, at least, regardless of the confession, though.

And the reprieve? And in fact, he left the city just to avoid any negative press. He was like, I know this guy says that he did it, and we never actually tried you or convicted you for this. But I'm going to go on vacation. Godspeed, see you later. Honestly, how on the nose is that, though?

Damn, he's like, I'm out. Yeah, he was like, I'm going to go on vacation with my family. Yeah, that's like in the Jack the Ripper case when he was just like, Well, I'm out. I'm going to go to Sweden see you guys later. I hope you guys catch up.

See ya, good luck. It's a long way to deal with all of your problems. Just I'll just leave, just leave.

So now they were going to be killed for crimes that they were very sketchily associated with, and they weren't even tried for. But there were bodies found on their property. So like, this is kind of mayhem, like, in all ways, you're like, they did do some bad stuff, they stole a cow, they stole and killed a cow.

Yeah, so fuck them, sold the meat and then they did. Two people died on their property at the very least, and one of them was shot, so like one of them was shot.

Just saying so. When February 18th arrived, caskets for the fishers were selected. So beautiful. And the hangman was measuring the length of rope. When John and Lavinia were led from the city jail to the gallows.

And apparently, it is true that when Lavinia saw the hangman measuring the rope that was going to be used to hang her with, she shrieked in terror. Her cry chilling every heart with horror. Which, yeah, yeah, that'll do it. They waited in the town square before they went to the gallows, and they were covered in loose white garments together. Apparently, it's like a smock thing.

I don't know why they would do it, but they were given one final opportunity to say goodbye, and at this moment, they fell into each other's arms. Ruin me, I know.

Like, wow. They begged the hangman to spare their lives, but the hangman was indifferent to their suffering. And he was apparently very aggressive and like, manhandled them both well, he's a hangman.

Yeah, you know, that's you have to be to have that job. John and Lavinia had gone on the wagon. They made their way to the gallows. Huge crowds are following them. It's like a parade.

And when they arrived, John climbed the scaffold without incident. But Lavinia refused to move from her spot at the bottom of the stairs. She had to be carried up on the platform. Once there, she called out to the crowd, apparently with her arms outstretched, asking them to save her. They all literally were like, No.

It was like that, like blink-blink, just crickets. So then she began cursing them and blaspheming, apparently blaspheme them. Girl, yeah, they're not helping you.

Yeah, so finally, the reverend asked John whether he had any final words, and John decided to address the crowd. And he begged forgiveness for those he had ever offended, and he also claimed his and Lavinia's innocence.

They both embraced one final time the sacks went over their heads. Signal from the sheriff. The press reports that Lavinia Quote died without a struggle or a groan.

And that John, unfortunately, wasn't so lucky, and it was some minutes before he expired and ceased to struggle. Yeah, so just after 2 p..m. on February 18th, 1820, John and Lavinia Fisher were pronounced dead.

He was only 29 and she was 28.

Oh my God, I was picturing like people who were like, 50, me too, me too.

For real, they were young, so John and Lavinia Fisher were members of a gang of thieves. That much is true. Lavinia Fisher was definitely not America's first female serial killer.

By any means, no, it's possible she never killed anyone. It's possible she did kill someone.

In truth, the only crime they really acknowledged committing was robbing and beating David Ross, and David had it coming. No, he's not Shang. But the legend grew nonetheless, and in the years following their execution, John and Lavinia Fisher's story of just murder and mayhem, it was huge.

In the penny, dreadful publications and pamphlets, they really took it and ran with it. In 1830, a man named Peter Nielsen published a book where he claimed to have been in Charleston at the time of the arrest. And he said the fishers had been robbing and killing for years. And, according to Bruce Orr, Nielsen claimed quote on digging around this den of iniquity, a great number of skeletons were found, no doubt the remains of unfortunate travelers.

So people still claimed tons of skeletons in that house, Oddy, oddy, oddies, yeah, everywhere, exactly. And actually in the latter part of the 19th century. Lavinia's skeleton was exhumed from her coffin in a Potter's field and put on display at the Charleston Museum. So everyone could see the remains of the only woman to have been hanged in South Carolina.

Shit, wow, they were. Occasionally I loved this because when I read it, I was like, what does that mean? Because they were occasionally removed from their display for being out of order, like Lavinia was out of order.

Out of order. I was like, did she need a tune-up? Like, what does that mean? Yeah, I don't know about all that. Out of order.

Oh, but as of as late as 1922, they were still on display. Holy shit, yeah, and they were at that point, they were definitely not just like a band of gang of like bandits.

They were she was the first female serial killer at that point. That's what they were touting her as wow.

You got to get those punters in, right? You got to. And I think part of this story is definitely she was a woman, so it's exaggerated because female criminals of her caliber were definitely not common.

Even of her real caliber were not common, her arrest and story definitely became a huge interest of the time and even now. And at the. In the 19th century, many of, if not most people, believed that women were incapable of violence of any kind, nevermind murder. So Lavinia was just something like new, and so she, just the legend, just got a life of its own. But there is always moral lessons, and like social lessons in urban legends.

Don't steal someone's cow. That's what I took from it. But this story people like to say is that this is telling you what is and isn't acceptable of a woman. At the time, it's very clear that they were trying to be like, look at the consequences for stepping out of your normal. Like you should be at home, popping out babies and like cooking dinner.

Like, that's essentially what it was. And finally, there is the convenient fact that the legendary account of Lavinia Fisher's monstrous killing spree. And being the serial killer. It justifies a lot of problematic elements of the real story. The legend kind of makes law enforcement and the justice system at the time like they swept in and they just took care of like heinous crimes. And we took these people off the streets so they were painting them.

So it kind of also justifies this execution. That was probably not justified at the time because they were not tried for this crime. And who even knows if they committed it? But, according to Bruce Orr, the government had actually been hoping to secure the land. That five mile house and six mile house sat on. Oh, so, we know exactly what happened. And it was going to build a new naval base.

No wonder they were burning all that shit. Exactly that was actually the government, I'm saying, the execution of the fishers and William Hayward, who owned Five Mile house. By the way, that would have cleared the property for the state. To do whatever the hell they wanted to do with it without having to jump through any hoops.

And that is the story of Lavinia Fisher. That's bonkers six mile house. Well done, thank you.

That was outstanding. It's like a twisty turny, like, what really happened? And I love that. We started with some sort of highwayman robber situation, then we transmitted into some sort of BDSM dungeon.

And then we ended up with government corruption. That's what I always like to travel through via the Chinese empire.

Which who saw that coming? You got bingo?

It's a weird tale. That was amazing. I can't believe I'd never heard of that. And I'm going to go look into this and the bloody benders.

I've made a mental note super interesting and you guys should look into Sawny Bean. I want to look into that, it is interesting.

Absolutely, and then we have to just get you to come to London so we can show you all the grisly sights. Yes, please, yeah, we can take you to the Clink.

Yes, I need all of it. There's a bar in Shoreditch that used to be a prison.

I probably can't go because my ex-boyfriend works there, but we'll send you there. And all of the little booths downstairs are old cells. Oh, that is so fucking cool. I love that we'll put you in disguise so you can come with us.

Anytime? And now we get to do another one with you, exactly, so we're going to do one now. And ours is witchy.

Oh, hell yeah, it is very English love like the most extra rural.

Rural, rural. Very similar time period we're going for 1875. Oh my gosh perfect, so very, very, very perfectly matched.

Hell yeah, over on the red handed feed. Now we will take you Witchy Old and Timey 1875 story. I can't promise we go to the Chinese empire, but we do all sorts of things.

We'll figure out where to get in, Shang will work his way in there and guys, go head over there, we'll meet you there, pull your car over.

Switch feeds. Let's go, let's go and yeah, come hang out with us at Red Handed, we're going to be there guys.

So check us out there and we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it. Weird, but not so weird that you steal somebody's cow, because I just don't really like that. Yeah, that was really the cutest part of the story.

Yeah, I'm really fixated on that, bye bye.

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