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find yourself back on the after dark feed, eh?

1:38

Well, good. We're glad to have you. And today, in the UK,

1:40

it's a bank holiday, which means Maddie and I are putting our

1:43

feet up on a beach. Well, more

1:45

likely we're actually just prowling our way through a

1:47

cemetery somewhere. But anyway, look, we are

1:49

going to give you an episode that we know you'll

1:51

love from our sister podcast, The Twix, the sheets with

1:54

Kate Lister. And by the

1:56

way, go and vote for Kate in the British

1:58

Podcast Awards. Listener's Choice

2:00

category. She is currently in the Top 20, but

2:02

we want to make sure that she makes it

2:04

to the Shortlist. So go and vote for Kate

2:06

and the Patricks team in the British Podcast Awards

2:08

Listener's Choice category right now. But

2:10

the story that we're bringing you today is

2:13

the story of, I never thought I'd say

2:15

this, a giggling granny serial killer called Nanny

2:17

Doss. And I mean, it sounds

2:19

bizarre, but this is somebody who actually killed 11 people. Four

2:22

of them were her husbands and

2:24

she killed with poisoned

2:27

coffee. She killed with poisoned

2:29

prunes and she gets her nickname. And

2:31

this is actually quite chilling because she

2:33

giggled her way through the police interview.

2:35

Now Kate explores this story with the

2:37

help of her guest, Tori Telfer, and

2:39

we'll let Kate make all those introductions. But

2:41

if you like this episode, don't forget to

2:43

follow the show to hear more Betwixt the

2:45

Sheet. We will be back

2:48

with our usual programming on Thursday with

2:50

an episode on corpse medicine eating

2:52

Egyptian mummies. So

2:54

look out for that. It's a really good episode, actually. Hello,

2:57

my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate

2:59

Lister. I am here once more to

3:01

make sure that everything is above board

3:04

and safe and sensible and sane. Because

3:07

this is your fair dues warning. Fair

3:09

dues. This podcast contains adult

3:11

themes spoken to adults by other

3:13

adults about adult subjects and you

3:15

should be an adult too. And

3:18

if you continue to listen after that warning,

3:20

then you can't even get mad. You can't

3:22

even get mad if you happen to get

3:24

upset because tough tits. You were

3:27

warned. 1950s

3:35

America. The peak

3:37

of the cult of the housewife. So

3:40

if you happen to be in a kitchen in Oklahoma and

3:42

there is a pot bubbling away on

3:44

the stove and lovely smells wafting towards

3:47

you from the oven, you might be forgiven

3:49

for thinking you were in for a yummy treat.

3:52

You might say, what's for dinner, Kate? Well,

3:56

you don't want any part of what this housewife is

3:58

cooking up for you. No, no, no,

4:00

no, no, because we are in the kitchen

4:02

of Nanny Doss, a serial

4:04

killer who murdered her husband Samuel

4:07

with arsenic-laced prunes. Prunes

4:10

that she later put into a cake. And

4:13

he wasn't the only husband that she killed.

4:15

No, no, no, no, no. It's thought

4:18

that she bumped off four out of

4:20

her five husbands. Why?

4:22

What was the reason for this? Well,

4:24

she later told the police she did it

4:26

because she was looking for the perfect partner.

4:30

Huh. But it can't have

4:32

been about romance. It just can't

4:34

because as well as partners, it's

4:36

believed that she killed about ten

4:39

people, including her grandson,

4:41

her daughter, her mother-in-law, and

4:44

her mother. Known as the

4:46

Giggling Granny, Nanny Doss got her nickname

4:48

and reputation from a series of interviews

4:50

that she gave to the police and

4:52

the press, where she spoke with a

4:55

smile on her face and a really

4:57

disturbing twinkle in her eye. Chilling

5:20

indeed. Today we are

5:22

betwixt the sheets to find out about

5:25

her backstory and how she came

5:27

to be one of the most notorious

5:29

serial killers in American history. Yes,

5:55

social courtesy does make a difference. If

20:00

I know small towns, I would guess people

20:02

were whispering, but no, there wasn't an inquest.

20:04

And nanny's also moving around between husbands, which

20:07

I think is helpful. You don't want to

20:09

leave all your bodies in the same town.

20:12

So that was in Alabama. Now she's

20:14

popping over to North Carolina to marry

20:16

Harley Lanning, who was also a

20:18

drinker. According to her, this is

20:20

husband number three. She says

20:22

that when she was away, Harley threw

20:25

basically an orgy that had to be

20:27

broken up by the police. So of

20:29

course he had to die. This story

20:31

was later undercut by someone who

20:33

knew about the party and it was just

20:35

a family visit. The police were like, what's

20:37

that strange car doing in the driveway? And

20:39

you know, popped by, but in nanny's telling

20:41

it was an orgy that the police had

20:43

to interrupt. So she poisoned a

20:45

plate of his food. The

20:53

Twix will be back after this short break. Have

21:12

you ever wondered if the hanging gardens of Babylon

21:14

were actually real or what

21:16

made Alexander so great? Join

21:19

me, Tristan Hughes, twice a week,

21:21

every week on the Ancients from

21:23

History Hit, where I'm joined by

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leading academics, best-selling authors and world-class

21:28

archaeologists to shine a light on

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some of ancient history's most fascinating

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me, Tristan Hughes, twice a week, every

21:47

week on the Ancients from History Hit,

21:49

wherever you get your podcasts. Jewelry

21:53

can say many things on your wedding day.

21:55

As a wedding band, it can say, this

21:58

is a forever symbol of our forever. And

32:00

I will say her mother was exhumed

32:02

and there was arsenic in her mother's

32:04

body. So I personally will boldly say,

32:06

I think she killed her mother. I

32:08

will accept that argument. So like the

32:10

press are already losing their heads around

32:12

this. They would today as well, wouldn't

32:14

they? It's just so bizarre what's happened.

32:16

What was the trial like? Well, there

32:18

wasn't much of a trial actually. Really?

32:21

Sadly for the headlines, what happened was there

32:23

was a lot of debate if she was

32:25

gonna be considered sane or insane. She was

32:27

sent to an asylum. The doctors

32:29

loved her. One of the

32:31

doctors said, in what I find the most chilling

32:33

quote in my whole book, he said something like,

32:36

if you had small children, you'd be delighted

32:39

to have her as a babysitter. But he

32:41

shouldn't have said that knowing what had happened.

32:43

That's completely bunkers. It's bunkers, yeah. So

32:46

she charms the doctors, you know,

32:48

as usual, she's charming everyone. After

32:50

much back and forth among psychiatrists,

32:52

she is declared sane, fit

32:54

to stand trial. She agrees. She

32:57

chuckles and tells the journalists, oh,

33:00

I'm as sane as anybody. The fit to stand

33:02

trial. But then she suddenly pleads

33:04

guilty. Kind of surprises everyone. So

33:06

there's no trial. She like pleads

33:08

out. And maybe she

33:10

was hoping for a lighter sentence by

33:12

just admitting to her final husband's murder,

33:14

Sam Doss's murder. And then

33:17

the death penalty is on the table

33:19

kind of, but she would

33:21

have been the first woman in Oklahoma.

33:23

She's in Oklahoma by then to get

33:25

the electric chair. And I think the

33:27

judge didn't want that on his record.

33:30

So she gets life in prison. No big

33:32

splashy trial. And her notoriety lasts for a

33:34

little bit, but it does fade. She's in

33:36

prison for a while until she dies. Do

33:38

we have any sense of what she was

33:40

like in prison? Did anyone else mysteriously die

33:42

of stomach cramps or anything? No, not that

33:45

we know, but she made jokes about it.

33:47

Every now and then a journalist would come

33:49

by and she would say, I

33:51

always offer to help out in the kitchen, but they

33:53

won't let me. She

33:55

knew her angles and she got

33:57

a marriage proposal. I

36:00

find myself in a situation I don't want to be in.

36:02

I know I can do this, I've done it before. Maybe

36:05

there's a thrill to it too. She must've

36:07

got a kick out of it. Was there

36:09

life insurance policies that she was collecting? So

36:11

I know that there's been cases of that.

36:13

They used to call arsenic inheritance powder, didn't

36:15

they? That's how common that was. Yeah,

36:18

I think there was some insurance, but

36:20

she was never wealthy. These

36:23

men that she was marrying were humble

36:25

souls. All right, so my final question

36:27

for you today on this one, honestly,

36:29

we could talk to you about this

36:31

forever and ever, is why do you

36:33

think the discussion around female serial killers

36:35

and male serial killers is so markedly

36:37

different? It has to be more than

36:39

just men are more violent statistically than

36:42

women. Like the narratives are completely different

36:44

around them. Well, the methods of

36:46

killing are often really different. So I think

36:48

that enables a totally different narrative. Like if

36:50

Nanny had been hacking her husband's apart with

36:53

an ax, I mean, we don't need to

36:55

go into the gory details of how men

36:57

like to kill and what they like to

36:59

do, but it's just all more bloody and

37:02

there's often a more sexual component. So I

37:04

think that colors the narrative a lot. And

37:06

then just the stereotypes of

37:08

women as maternal or

37:10

as like they often kill in the home

37:12

or around the home because that's where women tend

37:15

to be or at least back in the

37:17

day. So that colors the

37:19

narrative as opposed to the roving male

37:21

serial killer who's going about and hunting

37:23

down his victims. You have like the

37:25

creeper in the kitchen killing those around

37:27

her. Tori,

37:29

you have been so much fun to talk

37:31

to today. And if people want to

37:33

know more about you and more about your work and more

37:36

about Nanny, where can they find you? Well,

37:38

everything's on toritelfer.com, at least it

37:40

should be. And my book

37:42

is Lady Killers and I have another book,

37:44

Confident Women about con women. So if you

37:47

want a little less murder and a little

37:49

more swindle, you can buy that one. Tori,

37:52

thank you so much for joining me today.

37:54

This has been an absolute treat. This was

37:56

lovely, thank you.