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greenlight.com/ACAST. That's greenlight.com/ACAST. To

1:08

the editor of the Tribune. Sir,

1:10

I believe in capital punishment. I believe

1:13

that when a murder has been done,

1:15

it should be answered for with blood.

1:18

I have all my life been taught

1:20

to feel this way, and the fetters

1:22

of education are strong. Feeling

1:24

as I do, I am not sorry that

1:26

Edward Roloff is to be hanged. But

1:28

I am sincerely sorry that he himself

1:31

has made it necessary that his vast

1:33

capabilities for usefulness should be lost to

1:35

the world. In

1:37

this, mine and the public's is a

1:39

common regret. Here is

1:41

a man who has never entered the

1:44

doors of a college or university, and

1:46

yet, by the sheer might of his

1:48

innate gifts, has made himself such a

1:50

colossus in abstruse learning that the ablest

1:53

of our scholars are but pygmies in

1:55

his presence. What miracle is this murder

1:57

of a college? might

2:00

have wrought, and what luster he might

2:02

have shed upon his country if he

2:04

had not put a forfeit upon his

2:07

life so foolishly. But what

2:09

if the law could be satisfied, and

2:11

the gifted criminal still be saved? If

2:14

a life be offered up on the

2:16

gallows to atone for the murder Rulof

2:18

did, will that suffice? If so, give

2:20

me the proofs, for in all earnestness

2:23

and truth, I aver that in such

2:25

a case I will instantly bring forward

2:27

a man who, in the

2:30

interests of learning and science, will

2:32

take Rulof's crime upon himself, and

2:34

submit to be hanged in Rulof's

2:36

place. Hello,

3:03

and welcome to After Dark. I'm Anthony.

3:06

No you're not. Oh, I'm Maddie. I see

3:08

what's happening here. Beautiful, we're so smooth. Seamless.

3:10

Our media training course is now available

3:12

if you want to subscribe. In

3:15

this episode, we're off to 19th century

3:17

America, as you might have guessed by

3:19

Anthony's beautiful voice work there. We're delving

3:22

into a strange, dare I say, cerebral

3:24

story today, that of the so-called genius

3:26

killer. Now the letter that we heard

3:28

up top was written on the 29th

3:30

of April 1871 by a man called

3:36

Samuel Clemens, but perhaps better known

3:38

by his pen name, Mark

3:40

Twain, of course the author of Tom

3:42

Sawyer and its sequel, Huck Finn. He's

3:45

asking for clemency in a

3:48

murder case on account of

3:50

the killer's intellectual abilities, and

3:53

although it was intended as something

3:55

of a satire, it reflects contemporary

3:57

sympathies for this man, Edward Rulof,

3:59

who in 1871 was about to be hanged for

4:01

murder. This,

4:05

from the little I know about this particular

4:07

case, is a difficult one to keep up

4:09

with actually. Don't you think, Matty? Like there

4:11

are so many twists and turns. We were

4:14

talking earlier and it said it

4:16

reminded us of the American Riffer case,

4:18

where there's so much going on, so

4:20

many details, so easy to get lost

4:22

in them, but also then you have

4:24

this psychology layer on top of it.

4:26

And some of his skills and abilities,

4:28

his intellectual skills and abilities, that have

4:30

then been seen as, oh well maybe

4:32

he could be useful or he's this

4:35

genius. So it's a tricky, tricky case. But give

4:37

us, before we get into it, give us a bit

4:39

of a context of what's happening in the 1870s. Sure,

4:42

yeah. And as you say, it is a little bit of a

4:44

tricky case in terms of keeping up. We're going to give the

4:47

bare bones and some flesh and colour to

4:49

this. But I do urge people to go

4:51

and look at the entire story in its

4:53

entirety. It's fascinating there are twists and turns,

4:56

right? The context. Here we go. So

4:58

in Britain, I know this story is setting

5:00

in America, but in Britain the empire across

5:02

the world is still growing. In

5:05

Paris, in the 1870s,

5:07

the Impressionists hold their first ever

5:10

exhibition in Paris. Lewis Carroll publishes

5:12

Through the Looking Glass. It's also

5:14

a decade, and you'll see what I've

5:16

done here, a decade of invention

5:19

and so-called genius men, not all

5:21

of them killers, it should be

5:23

caveats immediately. We've

5:25

got the telephone invented by Alexander

5:27

Graham Bell in 1876, and

5:31

in 1879, Thomas Edison comes

5:33

up with the light bulb.

5:35

So it's a time of

5:38

empire, imperial growth. It's a

5:40

time of artistic innovation, scientific

5:42

advancement. Now in America, just

5:44

to give you a flavour

5:47

of what's going on there, in the

5:49

Midwest we've got Jesse James and

5:52

his gang of rogues, very

5:54

much active. Also, I didn't

5:56

know this, Yellowstone National Park

5:58

is established in this. decade. It's

6:00

a bit of a weird one in

6:02

the development, because on the

6:04

one hand, we're coming out the tail

6:07

end, the fallout from the Civil War

6:09

a decade earlier. So there are huge

6:12

rebuilding programs. There are challenges

6:14

that administration is grappling with

6:16

in terms of the abolition of slavery,

6:18

and in terms of

6:21

integrating those former Confederate states

6:23

back into the US. On

6:25

the other hand, America

6:27

is about to enter what's termed

6:29

the Gilded Age, this moment of

6:31

expanding wealth, of really

6:34

almost perceived excess. And

6:37

interestingly, linking back to

6:39

Mark Twain, who we heard from at the beginning

6:42

that the term the Gilded Age is taken from

6:44

a Twain novel. So there's so

6:46

much going on here, society is

6:48

changing, America is changing, what America

6:50

stands for, the foundation upon which

6:53

it's built, is all to play

6:55

for in these decades. And

6:57

it's been less than 100 years since

6:59

America declared itself independent from the British

7:01

Empire in 1776. So this is a

7:03

country that's still finding its feet from

7:06

the 1830s. We know it never really

7:08

found its feet prior to the 1870s.

7:10

Financially, it was struggling

7:14

after the revolution financially, then it

7:16

was struggling in the 1830s quite

7:19

badly and went into Great Depression. And then

7:22

of course, we have the Civil

7:25

War, which is financially a disaster

7:27

as well in many ways. So we're

7:29

coming into this brighter age of coming

7:31

into maybe the building of an America

7:33

that we're a little bit more familiar

7:35

with now of excess of achievement of

7:37

greatness of the American dream. But

7:39

how does Edward Roloff fit into all of

7:41

this? Who is he and where does he

7:43

come from? Well, he's not an American for

7:46

a start. Which is quite an American story in its own

7:48

way, right? Absolutely. And that's also

7:50

interesting about him, I think, that he

7:52

is in some ways,

7:55

maybe not an exemplar of the American dream,

7:57

but he's certainly a beneficiary of that. system

8:00

and that idea, that aspiration. Of

8:03

course he goes about it in a pretty dire

8:06

way. So he's born in 1819,

8:08

possibly 1820, the records are a little

8:11

bit sketchy. He's actually born in New Brunswick

8:13

in Canada to Danish immigrant

8:15

parents. As an aside, just

8:17

thinking about the technological advancements of this period,

8:19

his brother, who's called William, goes on to

8:22

be one of the leading photographers in San

8:24

Francisco, which I just think that's fascinating. And

8:26

I actually looked up a lot of his

8:28

images and it's so interesting to

8:30

think about the infamy of his brother

8:33

during William's own lifetime and

8:35

the work that he was doing in

8:37

San Francisco, doing portraits of people, capturing

8:40

them in completely different ways and slightly

8:42

less criminal ways as well. So Edward

8:44

Ruloff is what a lot of

8:46

what we know about him is from a biography that's

8:48

published in 1871. That's the

8:50

year that he's executed for murder and

8:52

he's described in that biography as

8:55

a man of two lives. And this tells

8:57

you everything you need to know about him.

8:59

He's someone full of contradictions and what I

9:01

think particularly captured the attention of 19th century

9:04

Americans is

9:06

this contrast between his

9:08

intellect and we'll go on

9:10

to talk about the form that this

9:13

takes. But he becomes very

9:15

well known for being quote unquote a genius

9:17

and on the other hand the crimes that

9:19

he commits. And these two things are really

9:21

hard to reconcile. People have a really difficult

9:23

time comprehending that anyone could be

9:25

a criminal and intelligent, which

9:28

tells you a lot about the society in

9:30

this moment. By the time he's

9:32

20, and this is in

9:34

New Brunswick in Canada, he has worked

9:37

for a law firm, he'd stolen

9:39

money from the law firm and he

9:41

served two years in prison. Now

9:43

he's a manipulative character, he's untrustworthy, but

9:46

he's very very intelligent and he always seems to

9:48

be one step ahead of everyone else. So to

9:50

give you the sort of

9:52

starting point then of his career in crime,

9:55

he's come from immigrant

9:57

parents, he has worked for a lot of people, he's been

9:59

a his way up to a

10:02

relatively respectable job really early on in

10:04

his life and made a complete mess

10:06

of it immediately by turning

10:08

to crime. He's been punished for it, he's

10:11

spent his two years in prison, but he needs to

10:13

leave the place that he's grown

10:15

up in because he's no longer

10:17

seen as respectable in New Brunswick

10:19

and Canada. So in 1842 when he's just 22 years

10:24

old he's served his two years, he leaves

10:26

Canada and he heads south and he arrives

10:28

in upstate New York. Now

10:31

when he arrives he's not the

10:33

respectable lawyers clerk that he once

10:35

was, he is penniless,

10:39

he looks like a vagrant, he

10:42

is charming when people speak to him

10:44

but he doesn't look respectable. However

10:47

because of this manipulative power that he

10:49

has it's not long before he's taken

10:51

into the local community and

10:54

within no time at all really

10:56

he gets a job as a

10:58

teacher with what qualifications unclear. So

11:00

he's working teaching young people

11:03

and he also takes up the role

11:05

of a student himself under the tutelage

11:07

of a local man called Dr Henry

11:09

Bull who is a

11:12

medical doctor and with him

11:14

Edward Rulof starts to study botanical

11:16

science amongst other things. So he's

11:19

got this voracious appetite for

11:22

learning, for self-improvement, for education,

11:25

all things on the American Dream

11:27

checklist, sure. This itinerancy as well,

11:29

this moving around and reinventing himself,

11:31

we're going to see that again

11:33

and again in his life. And

11:35

that's what makes people like

11:37

him and the man that was

11:39

known as the American Ripper, that's what makes it hard to

11:41

keep up with them as it would have had at the

11:44

time and it's what bought them time

11:46

in their own lifetimes to get away

11:48

with some of these crimes was that

11:50

they were able to evade and be

11:52

quite elusive. But it also

11:54

makes for a very interesting archival dive because you're

11:56

hopping all over the place, you're like wait he

11:59

was just there and now he's here. I don't

12:01

understand how it can be quite lengthy putting all

12:03

of this together, can't it? It's a tricky pattern

12:05

to put back together seamlessly. Yeah, it

12:07

did take me a long time doing the research for

12:09

this episode, I have to say. And I feel like

12:12

there is so much more to say

12:14

about him. And there's a bit of book length

12:17

of work that you could do on

12:19

him. He's fascinating. Yeah, the constant reinvention,

12:21

the constant moving. He also talking about

12:23

the sort of struggles of finding him

12:25

in an archive, he also uses aliases

12:28

and different aliases at different points. So there's that

12:30

to bear in mind as well. I'm going to

12:32

call him Edward Ruloff all the way through, just

12:34

for clarity, but he does go under different names.

12:36

So here he is in upstate New York. He's

12:39

ingratiated himself into the lives of

12:41

a local community. He's teaching young

12:44

people, he's studying under a respectable

12:46

doctor, everything's going well for him.

12:48

He's managed to move on and

12:50

up from his origins. He's even

12:52

managed to put the two years

12:54

in prison behind him. It's all

12:56

going well. But of course, as we're

12:58

going to find as a pattern with

13:00

this man, he's going to mess it

13:02

up for himself. And the way that

13:04

he does that is he starts a

13:07

romantic relationship and I'm using that term

13:09

very, very loosely in inverted commas with

13:11

a young girl called Harriet Schutt.

13:13

Now Harriet in some accounts is

13:15

17. In other accounts, she is 15.

13:17

Either way, big red

13:19

snack. She is his student, he's teaching

13:22

her. She's also, and this

13:24

is presumably how he comes into contact with

13:26

her, she is the cousin of

13:28

the doctor Dr. Bull, who's

13:31

teaching Edward Ruloff botanical

13:33

science and other things. And

13:35

it's important to point out here, right, that by

13:38

this time, by the 1870s, this idea of

13:41

teenage marriage, or marrying a

13:43

teenager is very well passed

13:45

at this point, particularly around the ages of

13:47

15. You know, often you'll have people saying,

13:50

Oh, well, it was happening during the time,

13:52

this is unusual, even for the time. And

13:54

from what I understand from your research is

13:56

that Harriet's family were not

13:58

pleased by this. First of all,

14:00

they had no idea that it was

14:03

going on, which again tells you so

14:05

much about Edward Rulof's character, his manipulation,

14:07

how he ingratiates himself with certain people

14:09

and abuses those relationships. So to begin

14:11

with, they have no idea, but the

14:13

pair soon announce themselves that they're going

14:16

to get married, the family are disgusted,

14:18

and so the couple have no choice,

14:20

seemingly, but to flee from the town

14:22

that they're in to Lansing in New

14:24

York. So they've gone elsewhere to start

14:26

a new life. So poor Harriet, who

14:29

is maybe 15, maybe 17, this

14:32

is her only experience outside

14:34

the small place she's grown up in, protected

14:36

by her family, and she's been taken

14:38

in by a man who seems

14:41

respectable on the surface and

14:43

seems like he, in terms of his intelligence,

14:45

in terms of his ambition, can offer her

14:47

the world and a great start in life.

14:49

It's not going to materialise,

14:51

and what she's really married is

14:54

a ruthless man who is

14:56

going to better himself at any

14:58

cost, including if the cost is

15:00

her. Rulof

15:07

was a jealous husband, and from the

15:10

earliest days of their marriage accused Harriet

15:12

of being unfaithful. He would regularly fly

15:14

into a rage, and on at least

15:17

one occasion attacked her with an iron

15:19

pot from the kitchen, knocking

15:21

her unconscious. By

15:24

the time their daughter, Priscilla,

15:26

was born, Harriet was all

15:28

too familiar with her husband's

15:30

dangerous and changing moods. But

15:34

despite the volatility inside their

15:36

home, Rulof and Harriet's neighbours

15:39

in Lansing did not observe

15:41

any outwardly strange behaviour. The

15:44

couple seemed to them normal. That

15:47

would soon change. In

15:49

July 1844, Rulof attacked

15:51

his wife for the final

15:53

time, landing

15:56

a catastrophic blow on her head and

15:58

killing her in the end. He

16:01

then proceeded to poison the infant

16:03

Priscilla before taking the bodies of

16:05

mother and baby and

16:08

committing them to the deaths of

16:10

nearby Cayuga Lake. Harriet's

16:14

absence was soon noticed and in

16:17

an attempt to misdirect suspicion, Ruloth

16:19

told his community that his wife

16:21

had taken the child and abandoned

16:24

him. He too

16:26

bought his story though and soon whispers

16:28

that he had killed them began

16:31

to spread. Harriet's

16:33

family travelled there in search of her

16:35

and before long the lake was drained

16:39

but no bodies were found and

16:41

without evidence a charge of murder

16:43

could not be brought. Instead

16:46

Ruloth was arrested for kidnap

16:48

and dragged to court. This

16:52

one-time lawyer's clerk defended himself

16:54

though to no avail. He

16:56

was found guilty and sentenced to

16:58

10 years hard labour and this should

17:01

have been the end of Ruloth's story.

17:03

A man committed to prison and broken

17:05

by the bone-shattering work he was

17:07

forced to do but

17:10

for the so-called genius killer

17:12

his career in blood was

17:14

only just beginning. Ryloth's

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H-E-L-P. OK,

19:24

so far, I see absolutely no traces of

19:26

genius. I'm waiting for those to present

19:29

themselves. Also, I have this image

19:32

now of the slimy, pathetic little

19:34

man in my head. He seems

19:36

to just evade things yet

19:38

again. So just to wrap up what we've

19:40

heard, and just to make sure that we're

19:43

all on the same page, we have Ruloth,

19:45

and we have Harriet, and we have their

19:47

child. And he is

19:49

abusive towards Harriet. The

19:51

neighbors weren't aware of this, but at

19:53

one particular moment in time, it's

19:57

so hard that he kills her, then

19:59

proceeds to. poison their child and

20:02

then dispose of their bodies in

20:04

a local lake. He says

20:06

she's left him. The families don't buy

20:08

this and the local community don't really buy this.

20:10

Oh, this is where he seems like such a

20:12

like he's giving me the creep. But they all

20:14

a lot of people on after actually who said

20:16

this at the start, Matty, like there's something about

20:18

this guy that's particularly insipid. Like anyway,

20:20

I'll keep rounding up. He says that Harry

20:23

has taken the child. She has left him.

20:26

Nobody's buying this. They then

20:28

drain the lake, but they don't

20:30

find any remains. But he still

20:32

gets imprisoned for kidnapping. Now

20:34

this is not the genius kidnapper. So

20:37

I'm finding it intriguing to know how he's going

20:39

to kill, considering he is behind bars now. So

20:42

two really important things happen

20:44

in prison. And just to say I completely

20:46

agree with you. I think he's he's so

20:49

uncharismatic, even though people in the 19th century

20:51

was so taken in by him. But

20:53

from a modern perspective, he just seems like such

20:55

a little shit, honestly. I see him

20:58

as a slug. I like a slug

21:00

imagery in my head. I don't know

21:02

why it's bizarre. I don't think that's too

21:04

far from the truth. And I don't

21:06

mean he was a little slug. But I yeah, that

21:08

is really how I see him as well. And it's

21:11

the ease with which he just disposes of

21:13

Harriet and their baby Priscilla. They were holding

21:16

him back or frustrating him in some way. So

21:18

he's just got rid of them. And again, we're going

21:20

to see him constantly doing that with people.

21:23

So he's in prison for kidnapped. He's got

21:25

10 years hard labor. This is going to be a

21:27

pretty boring story if he stays in there for the

21:29

next 10 years. Two important things happen

21:31

in prison. One, he begins

21:33

to study something called philology. Now,

21:35

this is the history of languages

21:37

and how languages have developed. And

21:40

this is where his moniker is

21:42

the genius killer comes in, right?

21:44

But he begins what is actually

21:46

a sort of great scholarly work.

21:49

Well, that's how he presents it

21:51

to the world anyway. So he

21:53

is doing research. He's

21:55

writing this great

21:57

volume, this great book that he. tells

22:00

everyone in prison, he is going to publish

22:02

as soon as he gets out. That

22:04

it's this great work that's going to tell

22:06

us about the history of humanity, the links

22:08

between language and human behaviour. And this

22:11

is a growing field of study in America at

22:13

this time. And I think that he's pinpointed

22:16

this as something to attach his name

22:18

to, because he sees

22:20

himself as above the law. And

22:22

he sees this as a way

22:24

to get people's attention to gain

22:27

celebrity. He's a very calculated thing.

22:29

He wants to be famous, not

22:32

for the killing, but for

22:34

his mind. And it just speaks such

22:36

a strange arrogance. It's absolutely

22:38

bizarre. So the other thing that

22:40

he does under this banner of

22:42

being a genius in prison is

22:45

that he is allowed by the

22:48

people who run the prison, the

22:50

authorities, to teach inmates. And I

22:52

think, again, thinking about the 19th

22:54

century context, he is coming across

22:56

to people in that period as

22:58

a benevolent criminal. He's

23:00

sharing his apparently abundant

23:03

intellectual gifts, and he's allowing

23:05

people to better themselves within the

23:07

prison system. And we talk so much on After

23:09

Dark about the shift from the

23:11

18th century in prison, which is very

23:14

much a holding bay as you wait

23:16

to be taken to the gallows or

23:18

for transportation, or until you can pay

23:20

your debts. Whereas in the 19th century

23:23

in Britain and in America, prison is

23:25

about reform. It's about the actual

23:27

being in prison is the punishment. And during

23:29

that time, you have to change in some

23:31

way. If you're going to be released, you

23:33

have to prove that you're not going to

23:35

do that thing or any other bad things

23:38

on the moment of your release.

23:40

So he's kind of fitting into this

23:42

19th century, very Christian narrative of redemption.

23:44

And it makes him palatable to Now

23:47

on to the second thing that happens when

23:49

he's in prison. He befriends,

23:51

again, very manipulative, a

23:54

young man called Albert Jarvis,

23:56

who just happens to be,

23:58

and I'm sure it's only coincidence.

24:01

Not the son of

24:03

the prison under sheriff. Oh good

24:05

okay. So he starts tutoring

24:08

him in Latin and Greek. He also

24:10

makes friends with Albert's

24:12

young mother Jane.

24:15

So he's building a bit of a network

24:17

of people who are sympathetic to him here

24:20

and it is not long before

24:22

the pair of them that is Albert

24:24

and Jane Jarvis, the son

24:26

and mother, help him to escape.

24:29

He gets out of prison. Does Mr Jarvis know

24:31

about this? Yes. So as far as

24:33

I know, well he finds out, he

24:36

doesn't help. As far as I

24:38

can tell, Albert Jarvis and Jane

24:40

are then kicked out of the

24:42

house by the

24:44

under sheriff, the father slash husband.

24:47

So whilst they don't

24:49

die at the hands of Edward

24:51

Ruelos, he's leaving a wake

24:53

of destruction, manipulating people into

24:55

behaving in the way that he wants to

24:57

get what he wants from them. Anyway he's

24:59

out. He escapes and he must have had

25:01

help by the way because he is literally

25:04

clapped in irons. There are chains attaching him

25:06

to the wall. There are like something like

25:08

12 doors between him and the outside world.

25:10

He's not doing that alone. So he's

25:13

escaped with the help of these two people that

25:15

he's manipulated and for a while he

25:18

lives wild. He lives in the

25:20

woods in the open

25:22

landscape. He literally just eats what he

25:24

can find. He forages for things and

25:26

sleeps under the stars and eventually he

25:29

makes his way to Meadville which is

25:31

a city in Pennsylvania. And

25:34

once again, even though he's had this ridiculous

25:36

journey and experience in prison and

25:39

the escape and everything, he just

25:41

reinvents himself. He just decides he's

25:43

a respectable person who is deserving

25:45

of good things. So he calls

25:47

himself James Nelson and he basically

25:49

just introduces himself to all the

25:52

learned men in that city. He

25:54

just pretends that he's a lecturer,

25:56

a travelling lecturer and within

25:58

a few weeks Even

26:01

Gray said himself again. it took me

26:03

a certain extent where he thing offered

26:05

a professorship. At. The local college. Sorry

26:07

for you to tell me that I didn't need

26:09

to do Phd at all. I just pretended that

26:11

a headliner. I like this. We think academia

26:13

and say a desperately broken system. Now on

26:15

it so hard in, there are no jobs

26:18

and average working so hard to do the

26:20

very best in the nineteenth century. If you're

26:22

a man with no academic trainers, turn on

26:24

the murderous to be easy, just of be

26:26

like hey I claim. Them forgot. I

26:28

mean it's not funny, it's actually

26:30

Graham made so grew like it's

26:32

it's put there is something here

26:35

about him on his interpersonal skills

26:37

and his the you often hear

26:39

that don't you that these manipulative

26:41

narcissistic who turn out to be

26:43

murderers are also very popular. They

26:45

can be very charismatic. they can

26:48

take people in the have to

26:50

through people's part of the present.

26:52

Nice post. Yeah, absolutely. And he

26:54

is either sort of classic hoax or

26:56

in that regard as me that he's

26:58

a scammer. People obviously so sucked in

27:00

by him that he just. Attracts people

27:02

he's off to see, has an

27:05

incredible magnetism, and he's able to

27:07

convince people of this nonsense that

27:09

he's making up say it's again,

27:12

Have we reached the end of the

27:14

road here? He's reinvent themselves. He's escaped

27:16

his two times in prison. Literally escape

27:18

the second time. Everyone seems to have

27:21

forgotten about. The. Double murder of

27:23

his wife and child. And.

27:26

It'll seem fine. he's gonna be

27:28

a professor. it's crazy but obviously

27:30

doesn't have the and so I'll

27:33

that Jarvis the young man. Who

27:35

helped him to escape from prison, starts writing

27:37

to him and he starts to blackmail him

27:39

saying. I know the truth about

27:42

you. I help you escape. He needs money

27:44

because I'll That and his mother have been

27:46

kicked off the house. The health and weight

27:48

off and the way that rule of deals

27:50

with this again I think is quite. It

27:52

says it's sort of innovation hunt hasn't He

27:54

must have been sit. He. Realizes this

27:56

is a problem that's not gonna go away.

27:59

And the he. The deal with it. But the

28:01

we the he deals with a it's a completely

28:03

separate from the life that you made and this

28:06

may be says that he's a bit of a

28:08

sort of fantasies twenty the he separates these two

28:10

things. I find this got this. Professorship.

28:12

Unless respect for life with Jarvis he

28:15

just set up a criminal enterprise and

28:17

together they go and Robert Jewelry store.

28:19

And he promises they do together to it's gathers.

28:21

The he promises the he's gonna

28:24

pay service the money that they

28:26

get however he has caught during

28:28

the robbery. Will. Office arrested

28:30

and he's in custody again. Now.

28:33

His. I don't see

28:35

them blown open again. He is

28:38

recognized. whilst he's in

28:40

the prison as being the

28:42

person who allegedly. He.

28:44

Did murder hurry? And Priscilla.

28:47

Wrote his former wife and

28:49

his jaw yes. So people.

28:52

Even know he's itinerant. These may be

28:54

around this narrative. this rumor mill, these

28:57

with springs are starting to follow him

28:59

now. He's funny, increasingly difficult, said to

29:01

escape them so he's in custody and

29:03

people say oh, hold on a second,

29:06

that's the guy who killed his wife

29:08

and child back in Upstate New York.

29:10

The not the guy saying he is

29:13

based on their system that escape from

29:15

prison, blah blah. However, he is either

29:17

incredibly manipulative to the point where you

29:19

can change the outcome of his trials

29:22

or. He does have the most incredible

29:24

look I don't know what it is even

29:26

though public opinion is are so against him

29:28

and actually a mob gathers outside the prison

29:31

even in Pennsylvania and promises to hang him.

29:33

If he's not found guilty through the

29:35

the or despite that because the bodies

29:38

of Hurry and Priscilla because of the

29:40

evidence was never found because he put

29:42

them in the lake, he's my off

29:44

all charges including the theft of the

29:46

jewelry store that he so much office.

29:49

How this ridiculous? It's wild.

29:52

She's. Let off and. Avoiding.

29:54

The mob because us as a free

29:56

man again. It no I don't like. it's just.

29:58

So confusing. A with. Lots

30:01

of professorship now. Obviously his identity as

30:03

once can be blown open. Everyone

30:05

knows he's killed high and Priscilla

30:07

but he also has got away

30:09

with it. Possibly because he has

30:12

this reputation for being this learned

30:14

Scala for being this person who's

30:16

going advance knowledge and make this

30:18

great contribution to the American Library

30:20

of Information and learning. It's just

30:22

remarkable of his to though now

30:25

he has no income stream sites

30:27

with Java Se still knocking around

30:29

having helped him escape and ruined

30:31

his own life in the process.

30:33

Love his mother together. They get some

30:36

other men on board and they had Neil

30:38

City where they form a gang and they

30:40

commit multiple. Robberies stop. He goes from

30:42

professor to gang member.is yet to

30:44

turn of for the books because.

30:46

It is. It's really hard to pin down

30:48

who this man is because these such conflicting

30:51

and you think but this eighteen some to

30:53

on biography of them, the calls and the

30:55

mama to live he is just that. It's

30:57

so hard to list the mask and work

30:59

out. What? The truth of

31:01

this person is now when they're a New

31:04

York Avenge sleep, they do. One

31:06

robbery too many. they go into a dry

31:08

goods store. At night they break in and

31:10

the hoping to this. Take. Things off

31:12

the shelves take that merchandise and

31:14

sell it on however there to

31:16

listen clocks in the building. One

31:18

of them Frederick Merrick puts up

31:20

a fight and the sort of

31:22

fist fight going on in this

31:24

type confined space and the dry

31:26

goods store now rule of has

31:28

brought a gun because of course

31:30

of coffee house and he sighs

31:32

a warning signs the air and

31:34

Frederick Merrick does not stop trying

31:36

to fight these robbers else that

31:38

they're also scrapping. and so

31:41

we love points the gun at merrick and

31:43

shoots him once the has and kills him

31:45

instantly showed the gangs dispersed into the city

31:47

and will have tries to escape may be

31:50

because he's thinking he's better than everyone else

31:52

and his gang he comes up with this

31:54

idea rather than trying to save the whole

31:57

gun he just tries to save himself by

31:59

going to the railway station. When

32:01

he gets there, there are some

32:03

police there because everyone's looking for the

32:06

killer at the Stroud Goode store and it's a big story

32:09

and the police say, can you identify yourself and who

32:11

are you getting on this train? Now, obviously

32:13

very suspiciously, he refuses to identify

32:15

himself and he actually legs

32:18

it out of the railway station across the

32:20

train tracks and just off into the

32:22

countryside. Obviously the police, they grab

32:24

him, they arrest him immediately. So

32:27

once again, we have a man in custody

32:29

who has killed again, this time

32:31

there is a body and it's

32:34

very clear what's happened to that

32:36

body. Someone has pulled the trigger.

32:38

Is he going to escape justice

32:40

again or is this the

32:42

end of the railway track? Just

32:45

to interject here, I am keeping

32:47

my fingers crossed that this is the end

32:50

of the track for him. This man is

32:52

an absolute dickhead killer,

32:54

not a genius killer because he

32:57

is so dumb actually. What

32:59

makes a genius, being able to read a couple of books

33:01

on linguistics when you're in prison, when you have

33:04

nothing else to do? He's getting caught at every

33:06

single turn. He shoots people, which

33:08

is like he

33:10

is a crap criminal. He is

33:13

terrible at this. He's not good. How

33:15

has somebody named him a genius? He

33:17

gets caught for everything. What lets him

33:19

away is the legal system, not his

33:22

own genius. He needs a rebranding and

33:24

it's definitely not the genius killer. This

33:26

man is immensely unlikable. I have

33:28

nothing more to say. That's perfect.

33:34

Rulof Luck was about to run out.

33:37

In custody, he was recognised by

33:39

one of the judges he had

33:41

encountered before. The same man identified

33:43

him and made sure this time

33:46

Rulof would not escape justice. Now

33:49

the man who had eluded the

33:51

noose for so long and dazzled

33:53

with his intellect was

33:55

found guilty of murder and

33:58

condemned to die. Such

34:01

was the fame of this case

34:03

that, not long after Rulov's trial,

34:06

a tell-all biography supposedly written with

34:08

his help was soon announced. Rulov

34:11

himself, always one to try and

34:13

control how he was perceived, wrote

34:16

to the papers denying his involvement.

34:18

Instead, he said, he wished to

34:20

be remembered for his scholarly work.

34:23

Not all thought so highly of

34:26

him. The New York Times wrote,

34:28

he was a thief when a

34:30

boy, a bungler in crime, and

34:32

a charlatan in learning, great only

34:34

in depravity. On the afternoon

34:37

of May 18th, he was

34:39

taken to a place of

34:41

execution. Contemporary, though likely fabricated

34:43

reports, told how he

34:45

turned to the hangman and said, hurry

34:48

it up, I want to be in hell for

34:50

dinner time. According

34:52

to another paper, he simply showed

34:55

no signs of emotion, except a

34:57

gentle swerving of the body as

34:59

he accepted his fate. What is

35:01

known for definite is that, at

35:04

1.35 precisely, a noose

35:07

was slipped over his head and

35:09

he was hoisted violently into the

35:11

air. It failed to break his

35:13

neck, and to the repulsion of

35:16

onlookers, Rulov's body lay

35:18

twitching for a full 15 minutes

35:21

before life finally left

35:24

it. He

35:28

wanted to be remembered for his scholarship. What

35:31

scholarship? He didn't do anything. Like he

35:33

just like, I want to be remembered

35:35

for my scholarship. It doesn't make any

35:37

sense. And also what you're saying there

35:39

about that kind of crafting of his

35:41

own image, it's actually such a disservice.

35:44

And he is remembered as the genius

35:46

killer because he's crafted that image for

35:48

himself. And here we are still using

35:50

the image that he has tried to

35:52

craft for himself. He's a loser. He's

35:54

a pathetic loser who doesn't achieve anything

35:56

even in his criminal life. Yeah, I

35:59

agree. And I think... What's

36:01

so fascinating in

36:03

terms of the 19th century fascination

36:05

with him is that

36:07

intelligence and criminality are understood to

36:09

be at opposite ends of the

36:11

spectrum and because he seems to

36:13

unite them both, that's

36:15

remarkable to people and I think

36:17

that's so much about the society

36:20

at that time, about people's expectation

36:22

of social class, of education, of

36:24

criminality, who would become a criminal,

36:26

why they would commit a crime.

36:28

What that said about them, what

36:31

it said about their wider environs

36:33

and the moment that they found

36:35

themselves in. Thinking back to Mark

36:37

Twain's letter that we heard at the start where he

36:39

writes in to a newspaper, I think

36:42

Twain really has a similar attitude to

36:44

you, Anthony, where he's very tongue

36:47

in cheek saying, we'd all die for this

36:49

guy, he's so clever that we'd all happily

36:51

go to the gallows on his behalf because

36:53

he needs to carry on his great scholarly

36:56

work. What I think

36:58

is interesting is that some people have read Twain's letter

37:00

as being quite genuine actually and that

37:02

he's saying, he really believes this

37:05

guy shouldn't be killed but I don't read

37:07

it as that. I think

37:09

he is playing on

37:11

this idea, this ridiculous

37:13

self-invention of Rulof and

37:16

undercutting it. Well, I hope so. I

37:18

hope that there were people at the time

37:20

and it does seem like there were but

37:22

that's all through it. He's blatantly obvious to

37:24

me. I'm coming to

37:27

a topic that says the genius killer and I'm

37:29

going, right, I could see some craftiness

37:31

emerging here. No, the

37:34

legal system is crap and he's just

37:36

lucky. He's an absolute bungler. Actually, didn't

37:38

somebody say that at the time? The

37:40

New York Times called him

37:42

a bungler in crime, which is so

37:44

true. Now, there is one final part

37:46

to the story. I think we'll give

37:48

you a sense of why he is

37:50

called the genius killer even today and

37:52

that is that often on

37:54

this show we've come across when people are

37:57

executed, particularly for murder, parts of their body.

38:00

are taken and made into other things. I'm

38:02

thinking about death masks, where a mould of

38:04

the face is taken. I'm thinking about, from

38:06

the top of my head, it's either burke

38:08

or hair, where their skin is used to

38:10

make various book coverings and objects. And it's

38:12

something that we come across again and again

38:15

in the 18th century and into the 19th

38:17

century. Now when Rulof dies, what part of

38:19

his body do you think is going to be

38:21

taken? Well, I am presuming, given the picture, I'm

38:23

now looking at having a scroll down in my

38:25

notes that his white

38:28

cabbage was taken because that's what it looks like.

38:30

I'm presuming this is his brain. It is

38:32

his brain. So this was taken at the

38:34

time by a biology professor at

38:36

Cornell University, where, as I

38:39

understand it, this brain is still either

38:41

on display or in their collections today.

38:43

So yeah, Anthony, come

38:45

on. You've got the lovely, delightful,

38:47

charming task of describing the image

38:49

of this brain to us all.

38:52

Right. There is a glass container and it looks like

38:54

one of those containers that you see when you go

38:56

into a ye olde sweet shop that has that lid

38:58

that you can lift off. Do you know, I have

39:00

one of those that I put reusable,

39:02

I should say, cotton wool make up

39:04

remover pads in my bathroom.

39:07

Yeah, all glass with a little fancy top on

39:09

the top of it. And then there's a piece

39:11

of tape just stuck

39:13

across it that says Rulof spelt incorrectly,

39:15

actually, which, oh, that's art right there.

39:17

And then on the bottom, it says

39:19

Edward Rulof spelt correctly on a, you

39:21

know, those label makers, it looks like

39:23

it's been stuck on with one of

39:25

those label makers. Then inside the container,

39:27

there is maybe two thirds full of

39:29

some kind of liquid, I presume, with

39:31

some kind of preserving liquid, formaldehyde or something.

39:33

And then there is what looks like

39:35

the core of a cabbage. So it's

39:37

very white, it's very textured,

39:39

but it's a brain, to be honest, it doesn't really

39:42

look like a brain, but we know that it is

39:44

calling out to Cornell or anybody who might be doing

39:47

their undergrad at Cornell, email somebody about this, get rid

39:49

of this, we don't need to hold on to this.

39:51

This is not notable. This is not something we need

39:53

to preserve for, you know, history and

39:55

for times to come. No, we can shunt this one

39:57

in the in the dump. This is pointless.

40:00

Well, you say that, but at the

40:02

time it was recorded as being one of the

40:04

biggest brains in human history

40:06

per... Oh, what did I actually... This

40:09

was, in terms of volume, this is the biggest

40:11

human brain ever recorded,

40:14

or one of the biggest ever recorded. Whether

40:16

that makes people a genius, I don't know.

40:18

I have an unusually small head, so I don't

40:20

know what that says about my intelligence level.

40:22

No, I have a very large head. If

40:24

this is the... Oh, well, you're clearly a genius then. Yeah.

40:27

No, listen, get rid of it.

40:29

I don't... Do you know what? I

40:31

very rarely have a reaction. We cover these

40:33

kind of things so often that we don't

40:36

become immune to them. I don't think well,

40:38

we haven't yet anyway, but we can distance

40:40

ourselves from all of this little bit. And

40:42

I have no horse in this game, but

40:44

it's so annoying. He just feels like a

40:46

scab. And at the end of the day,

40:48

we have Harriet and we have Priscilla, who

40:50

are... Were they even ever recovered? Were their

40:53

bodies ever recovered? I don't believe so. I

40:55

don't think they were ever found. And yeah,

40:57

I mean, maybe that's the takeaway from

40:59

the story really, is just to remember

41:01

them. And Harriet was so young, and

41:04

obviously Priscilla was a tiny baby when she

41:06

met her death at the hands of her

41:08

own father. There is one

41:11

legacy of this case, which I think is really

41:13

interesting. And I suppose in

41:15

a lot of cases, it could be

41:18

a positive thing. So this is called

41:20

the Rulof Rule. And this is something

41:22

that's enshrined in New York law.

41:24

And it states that the absence of

41:27

a person, whether that's a

41:30

suspected murder victim or someone who's been

41:32

kidnapped, the absence of that person is

41:34

not enough to convict someone

41:37

of their murder. So thinking about

41:39

how Harriet and Priscilla's absence was

41:41

not enough to nail Rulof for

41:43

the murder. And actually, he's only

41:45

got for the murder of Frederick

41:47

Merrick, the clerk in the Dry

41:49

Good store. I suppose that's a

41:51

rule that is a good thing

41:54

in law. But it just

41:56

feels so disheartening that it's

41:58

come from such a

42:01

grim case about someone who is such

42:03

a clear manipulator and really not someone

42:05

to be celebrated despite this 19th century

42:08

label as a genius that's attached to

42:10

him. Yeah, maybe we should not preserve

42:12

him in history like that and call

42:15

it the Priscilla and Harriet law or

42:17

something. Like, I don't like that he gets

42:19

preserved in that way and I'm not just talking about the

42:21

brain now, I'm talking about in terms of that law because

42:24

it gives him what he wants slightly.

42:27

He has his notoriety and

42:29

I would imagine at this point he probably

42:31

doesn't give two hoots what

42:33

it is for as long as he's notorious and he has

42:35

that or as long as he's known at least I suppose.

42:38

Yeah, he's pathetic, we don't like him, that

42:40

goes without saying I suppose but yeah thanks

42:42

for bringing that Maddy, it's a odd one.

42:45

It's very, I'm actually sweating, is that weird?

42:47

I'm actually, I've worked myself up a little

42:49

bit with this one, like it just feels

42:51

a bit... I think with the Rulof rule

42:54

that's something that he would have loved. Yeah,

42:56

right. Scholarly, it's legal, he would have loved

42:58

that. I agree, it should be called the

43:00

Harriet and Priscilla rule. I'm starting a motion

43:03

to change that. Listen, thank you very much

43:05

for listening, tell us what you think of

43:07

Edward Rulof, was he really a genius or

43:09

a slug as

43:11

Antonisa? I don't know anything about slugs, I feel

43:13

bad for slugs now. I know, you've given them a

43:16

bad rap. I know, sorry slugs. Please,

43:18

if you've enjoyed this episode, tell your

43:20

friends, tell your family, just spread the

43:22

word, it helps people to discover us.

43:25

If you have any 19th century genius

43:27

criminals or anyone else from the past

43:29

that you would like us to investigate,

43:31

that you'd like us to discuss on

43:33

the show, please get in

43:35

touch at afterdarkhistoryhit.com, that's afterdarkhistoryhit.com. Anthony

43:38

and I are also on Instagram

43:40

and you can find us there

43:42

where we post images from every

43:44

episode. See you next time. Welcome

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to Sincerely Sloan presented by Uninterrupted.

43:55

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