Warning.

Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and descriptions of violence.

It is not suitable for anyone, and we recommend you stop listening now.

Hello everyone, and welcome to kind of Mrdery, a true crime podcast that's mostly about murder and always about the strange and compelling stories that arise when the path less travel twists to darkness and those who walk its shadows surrender to violence and moral corruption.

We have a perilous journey ahead, so thank you for lending me your courage and good company.

I'm Zevan Odelberg, and this is kind of Murdery tonight.

I bring you a story that just might wake you right up and keep you awake.

So if you're planning on a good night's sleep, maybe save this one for the morning.

I've found this story and I'll be telling it.

As written again by A.

H.

W.

Corley in the February nineteen twenty nine edition of True Detective Magazine.

Other articles were useful as well, and as always, you'll find my sources in the show notes.

Please do remember to call the Kind of Murdery hotline at eight and a Murdery to tell me your kind of murdery story so that you can inspire an episode of the show.

And if you would, if you could please take just a moment to leave kind of murdery a five star review wherever you get your podcasts, I surely would appreciate it.

All Right, to the issue at hand.

This is the story of the San Francisco Steeple murders.

It's the tragic story of Blanche Lamont and Manny Williams.

And it's also the story of a handsome and well liked Sunday School superintendent named William Henry Theodore Durant, called THEO by friends, but history has a different name for him, now, THEO Durant.

And please don't think I number among his friends just because I call him THEO.

But William Henry Theodore Durant seems like at least two names two History remembers him by a different name.

He's often referred to as San Francisco's Jack the Ripper, although he really requires no British counterpart, for he has a lurid nickname all his own, the Demon of the Belfry.

So now please join me as we uncover what truths we can and solve what mysteries we may kind of murderies the Demon of the Belfry.

The true story of San Francisco's Jack the Ripper starts now.

Not often in criminal history the world over has there been perpetrated a crime more horrible and ghastly than the ruthless murder of pretty Blanche Lamont and Minnie Williams.

This is the real story of how it happened.

Blanche Lamont left the normal school in San Francisco one afternoon to disappear as completely as though the earth had opened and swallowed her.

Theodore Durant, a medical student and an ardent church worker at Baptist Emmanuel, the church that he and Blanche both attended, was last seen with her.

Blanche was no better than she should be, sneered Durant in a significant manner.

He's a liar, cried Minnie Williams, the attractive friend of the missing girl, furious at the baseless, cowardly insinuations of Durant.

Were her courageous words the cause of her death.

For not long afterwards, awful shrieks echoed through the church when ladies of the congregation came upon the slaughtered, mutilated body that shortly before had been lovely Minnie Williams.

Horror piled on horror.

The nude body of pretty Blanche Lamont was then found hidden far up in the church steeple, appearing at first under the peculiar half light, almost like it was a wax figure.

Closer examination, however, destroyed the statue like picture.

The beautifully molded figure of the young girl presented a terrible aspect.

Blanche Lamont had suffered a horrible death.

Her flesh was bruised in blood stained, with purple streaks about her throat, showing the marks of strong, cruel fingers whose nail prints were embedded in the delicate skin.

Her face was horribly distorted, as was Minnie Williams.

Her mouth wide open in a horrible grimace, and her lips curled back from the teeth, showed the torture to which she had been put before she died.

Like her friend Minnie's, her dark hair was matted and blood clotted and hung in confusion over her shoulders.

Look cried the detective, excitedly, pointing to a block of wood on which the head rested.

That's the way they lay out stiffs.

In the autopsy room at a medical school, a doctor or a medical student heated the trick.

Her body was wrapped in a sheet and tenderly brought down the stairs, on which the detectives found strands of her lovely hair.

She had been killed below that was clear, and then dragged to the hiding place.

Buttons from her garments were found here and there on the stairs, and the platform was the church people was strewn with her clothing.

Girls wore more clothing in those days than they do now, and there was a greater number of garments to be accounted for.

I'll jump in for a little editorializing here.

These murders took place in eighteen ninety five.

This article was written in nineteen twenty nine.

It just goes to show that the older generation always has the same complaints about the younger generation, right.

I mean, here we are in nineteen twenty nine and the writers talking about how scantily clad women are these days compared to eighteen ninety five, which would be the same as a crotchety guide today complaining that girls are practically nude these days compared to nineteen eighty eight, which is a refrain I'm sure many of you have heard before.

On the flip side, It's also a historical fact that women did wear more clothes at eighteen ninety five than nineteen twenty nine, petticoats and whatnot, And so from a police work standpoint, there really were more garments to be accounted for.

And yet I chuckle the less.

All right, let's get back to it.

Buttons from miss Lamont's garments were found here and there on the stairs and the platform in the church steeple was strewn with her clothing.

Girls wore more clothing in those days than now, and there was a greater number of garments to be accounted for.

The church was searched for several days before they were all gathered together.

Curiously enough, they were all hidden separately, even the shoes, hose, and gloves.

One of the latter was never found.

One or two of the girl's garments were found shoved in shallow places under the eaves of the auditorium, where the murderer had to crawl on all fours to hide them.

The autopsy showed that the girl had not died as was first thought, of asphyxiation, as the smell of gas and the steeple had suggested, but had died instead from strangulation.

The brains and lungs were congested, the larynx and trachea were compressed on one side.

Seven cuts in her flesh were apparent geez, And when she'd been shoved up inside the church steeple, her body had literally been crushed together, which made an internal examination impossible.

She too had struggled to protect her honor, and like Minnie Williams, had died in that fight.

Fine Theodore Durant echoed the cry throughout the entire city.

He killed Blanchelmont, he killed Minnie Williams.

Find medical student Durant.

The news of the discovery of the body of the missing girl spread like wildfire all over the city of San Francisco.

Authorities determined later that Theodore Durant, who at the time was with the Signal Corps at Mount Diablo, had actually helped with complete unconcern, to spread the news of the dreadful secret which the church steeple had revealed.

That's a little shocking, doesn't seem too smart.

Detective Anthony left San Francisco at once to bring back the suspect.

He caught Durant on the road between Walnut Creek and Mount Diablo, in a company with some other Signal Corps members.

San Francisco was in an uproar.

At five o'clock, word came that Durant was on his way back in the custody of Detective Anthony, and the city rejoiced.

Durrant was smiling, not a wit embarrassed by his plight, insisting courteously that his arrest had been a mistake and that he could prove himself innocent.

His rather glassy blue eyes and pale face were not highly suggestive of such hideous, fiendish perversions and lust as the crime indicated.

Neither, on the other hand, did they in the least suggest charm and attraction.

Yet there were nevertheless young women in town who regarded him as dashingly handsome and pitied him in his distress.

Not a few of them openly scoffed at the idea of his guilt.

That steady, church going young man a murderer.

It was absurd.

At the Fairy Landing, he was met by a surging, angry crowd of people who had waited for hours to catch sight of him.

Their shouts of vengeance did not in the least alarm him.

He showed no fear even when detectives rushed him into the patrol wagon to protect him from the insults and maltreatment of the mob.

Up and down the city of San Francisco flew the news Blanche Lamon's murderer has been caught.

Could it be true?

Was this quiet, well disposed young man, this ardent church worker, guilty of the shocking crime.

There was nothing exceptional about him to the casual observer, nothing in his manner of life to mark him a murderer, or in his family or in his associations.

He had, never, as far as most people knew, been seen in the company of Blanche Lemont when her aunt was not with her.

It was all a terrible mistake.

Many people insisted he was just a simple, misunderstood boy without brilliancy or wealth, who had made love to this girl, but who had nothing to do with her disappearance or murder.

Again, it was absurd.

Durant's calm manner did much to strengthen this attitude among those who, from the beginning were disposed to believe in his innocence.

He met every accusation with glib and patient explanation.

The purse which had been found in his coat well to be sure.

He'd found that on the sidewalk just outside doctor Vogel's house on his way to the young people's meeting.

As he walked along, his foot struck a small mirror which evidently had dropped out of the purse, which he next discovered lying on the open pavement just a few feet away.

He picked it up, intending to turn it over to his mother, but had forgotten to do so.

The purse was identified by Minnie Williams's heartbroken father as belonging to the dead girl, and Durrant smiled coolly when he heard the news.

Then someone came forward and said that he'd been waiting at the ferry at about the time Minnie would have arrived from Alameda, and he had seen Durant there.

But Durant denied ever having been there, and denied having written the note asking permission to see her, a note which by the way, was never produced in evidence.

He claimed that he arrived at the young People's meeting late because he had left his house late.

That was quite simple, he said, even to the most obtuse mind, and in this statement his mother supported him.

Yes, Theodore had left his house very late and had rushed right to doctor Vogels, as he was anxious to partake in the evening fund.

Yet, in spite of this assurance, a member of the Signal Corps swore that he'd met Durant at eight o'clock that evening on the corner near doctor Vogel's house.

They'd stopped a moment or two to chat about the expected departure of the Signal Corps on the following day.

At the trial, Durant was a dapper figure.

He wore a fragrant flower or in the lapel of his black coat.

His gray trousers were carefully creased, his shoes were polished like mirrors.

The crowds who flocked to the trial regarded him with repulsion and yet fascination.

Certain women won dubious publicity by writing him silly love letters, professing their adoration and assuring him of their belief in his innocence.

The mob which followed the police van as he rode from the prison to the court house was divided between those who were sympathetic to him and those who heaped abuse upon him.

But he was impervious to it all, whether shouts of encouragement or vilification.

On the table before the prosecuting attorney.

Were the exhibits of the trial, the three rings which had belonged to Blanche Lemonte and which had been worn to her doom, her shoes, and one of her gloves.

The other glove was missing.

There was a model of the steeple in the church.

A large French doll representing the girl was manipulated by witnesses to show how she had been lying when her body was found.

Her clothing draped on the dressmaker's model trade Blanche Lamont, as she'd been dressed when she was killed.

This evidence was touching, horrifying.

Men wiped their eyes at the repeated accounts of how the poor girl had lain in the steeple.

Women screamed, several fainted.

Yet in spite of all the excitement and emotion, the accused, Theodorant, sat almost bored, plainly indifferent.

His family rallied about him.

Now you know, to me, all this indifference makes him look more guilty.

An innocent, decent person, if not loudly protesting their innocence pretty much all the time, would at least be horrified by this brutal murder and all this horrible violence and sexual outrage that happened to these sweet young girls.

But when he just sits there like I don't give an f I mean, that seems like a psychopath to me.

Okay, Back to the story, Theo's family rallied about him, his mother faithful in her insistence that he was innocent, and his father with pale lips, rushing about to turn his small properties into cash for the defense of his son.

In the course of the trial, Durant coldly denied everything of which he'd been accused.

He denied every step of the prosecutor's chain of evidence.

He was consistent, unhurried, and unembarrassed.

He had not seen Blanche Lamont, he said, on the afternoon of her disappearance, But he had seen her that same morning.

I met her on her way to school and asked her to go around with me to Organist King's house, as I wanted to ask him to go to the church with me later to fix the gas burner.

But she said that she was afraid to go with me she'd be late for her classes.

I decided then to put off my visit to King and take her directly to the normal school.

We took a streetcar and she got off at the school.

I went on transferring twice until I reached Cooper Medical.

I went to class that morning, and instead of lunching as usual at the Webster restaurant, I bought some nuts and strolled about eating them.

During the luncheon period.

He mentioned several classes mates whom he'd met and with whom he talked.

He spoke of the various classes, said that he saw a notice on the bulletin board to the effect that doctor Stillman would not lecture that day, and insisted that at the time of his supposed entrance into the church with Plant Lamont, he was attending class on the care and Feeding of infants conducted by doctor Cheney.

Doctor Cheney said that Durant or someone had answered to Durant's name at the roll call, but pointed out the doctor as an alibi.

That fact is entirely unreliable.

The students, I regret to say, almost automatically respond to a name when there's no immediate answer.

He might or might not have answered it himself.

No one came forward who admitted having answered Durant's name in class, But on the other hand, no one could be found that had positively seen Durant in class.

Glazer, a fellow student, admitted that Durant had asked him if he might glance over the notes he'd taken in that class, and Durant confirmed this quite cheerfully.

He said that it was a frequent habit of his, as he was rather careless about paying attention to lectures and his own notes were never reliable.

Pale and sallow faced, Durant was equally self possessed and glibbed with the prosecutor.

He told how he'd left the medical school at about four point thirty, arriving at the church shortly before five and a little before King, the organist.

He was indifferent, reckless, defiant, egotistical, even happy before the scathing wrath of the state.

He told in undisturbed fashion of his entering the church alone, of going to mend the gas burner and being affected by the escaping gas.

Then he heard King at the organ he said, and hastened down to speak with him, But he was so overcome that he could only ask for some Seltzer.

Do you not know, you a half fledged doctor, that if you were partially asphyxiated, Seltzer would not revive you but kill you, roared the prosecutor.

It didn't kill me, naively, replied Durant.

I left the church and walked away with King because I wanted to talk to him, and because of the air, I felt it would do me some good.

I went home eight supper, feeling much better, walked with my mother to the street car she was taking, and then later went to the church.

I had a book which I wished to loan Miss Lamont.

As you know, I did not meet her there that evening, for she failed to attend the meeting.

I never saw her again after I left her that morning.

At the Normal school, Durant was asked why he'd been loitering about the Faery Landing on the day of Minnie William's disappearance, and he explained it in his fashion.

A man had come up to him on the street, he said, and told him that Blanche Lamont, who was still alive, was expected to arrive by ferryboat at any hour.

The mysterious man had recognized Durant as one of the church members interested in the search for the missing girl.

Durant was there at the landing, he maintained in the hope of meeting Blanche and persuading her to return to her family, But badly muddled in the cross examination, Durant presented a strikingly guilty aspect.

He was forced to admit to the court that though he had seen a number of the missing girl's friends, and although they had discussed her, he had not chosen to mention this message given to him by the stranger.

He had not even meant to doctor Vogel, to whom even so remote a hint that the girl was alive would have been most welcome.

Why had Durant not told the girl's family and the searching party, who were all desperately eager for every slightest clue.

And why had he allowed the mysterious stranger to depart without making any attempt to hold him and force whatever news he had from him.

Why hadn't he told the police all this?

Durant either explained in a most unsatisfactory manner or left it with no explanation at all.

His attorney was restless during the process, but Durant, after recovering from the storm of the prosecutor's examination, accompanied the jury coolly enough on a trip to the scene of the crime, with perfect courtesy as always, but little interest in the proceedings.

Durant was, in fact the only one not deeply affected by the recital of the girl's horrible death and the discovery of the mutilated body.

He stood sphinxlike and cool in the little room leading off the library of the church, while the prosecutor told the story of how many Williams had been found slashed and bleeding, and pointed to the gruesome stains still on the ceiling, the floor, and the walls which bore witness only too clearly to the terrible death struggle.

Durant walked up the stairway to the steeple chamber without faltering, while the horror stricken jury listened to the description of the discovery of Blanche's body, nude and mutilated under the eaves.

When they descended, he was the only one who was not visibly shaken, and he brushed the dust from his attire with a hand that was steady and calm.

Psycho, the doctor who at the trial examined his fingernails in an effort to connect them with the scratches on the throat of the victim, said that while they were cut rounded instead of square, as had been the nails of the girl's assailant.

They had been newly rounded, presumably trimmed from square fingernails, which could have inflicted the wounds.

Durant met this testimony calmly with a supercilious smile.

Two surprise witnesses for the prosecution failed to disturb him, and although it seemed as if he had difficulty at times in retaining his equanimity, he nevertheless did retain it.

Adolph Oppenheimer, second hand dealer, testified that Durant had tried to sell him the rings displayed in court as belonging to Blanche Lamont, and a friend of Durant's family, Miss Crossett, swore that she had seen him on the street cart about four to ten with a girl, answering to Blanche Lemont's description, going in the general direction of the church.

The chain of evidence tightened about him, and as time went on it became overwhelming, though entirely circumstantial.

Now it seemed that everybody believed him guilty of the Williams murder as well as of the slaying of Blanche Lamont, but he was tried for the first crime only so that if he escaped the news in that instance, the state still had another chance.

By a trial for the death of Manny Williams to bring him to punishment.

The state was eleven days in apprehending the murderer and nearly three years in bringing him to justice.

The trial dragged on as one of the most sensational ever appearing in a United States court, certainly in the courts of California.

For the first three or four days after his apprehension, Durant had been nervous, strangely at contrast with his later calm, which experts said could not have been equaled by one man in a thousand.

Under such trying conditions, he would awake at night in his cell screaming violently.

But later he conquered this habit and slept as calmly and soundly as a child.

His attitude won him many supporters.

Many who had first believed him guilty now thought him unjustly accused.

Women from all over the country sent him letters and telegrams.

A few one notoriety by sending him flowers and showering him with their attentions.

But gradually certain rumors spread about town which belied the fine esteem in which Durrant had been held by many churchgoers.

Certain of his young men friends admitted confidentially that Durrant had not, after all been the exemplary young man he was believed, but had had frequent entanglements with women.

He boasted to not a few of them of these affairs, but married women and young girls in his insinuation, women of excellent repute in the church parish.

He had boasted of a relationship with Blanche Lamont, and told stories of how he and three older men on a trip to Carson City had raped a Native American woman, a story which rather neatly dovetailed with certain facts concerning a Native American woman found mutilated and raped in a manner similar to the two unfortunate victims of a manual church.

It's a sign of the times that Durant was not tried for her murder.

Certain young girls of the parish confided in their parents that Durant had attempted to attack them and had lured them to the church, but had been interrupted, whereupon they'd made their escape.

One girl said that she'd gone to the church with him on an errand, and that he had promised to take her home if she would go around by the church with him, and that she had waited for him in the library.

He had re entered, she said, by a different door than the one she had expected.

Then she saw a sight that terrified her to her her very soul.

He had crept up behind her, entirely unclothed and with a vicious look on his face.

The door through which he entered had been locked behind him, but the girl managed to escape, perhaps from a fate like that of many or Blanche, through another door which evidently he'd forgotten to fasten.

She had never told her mother, she'd been too frightened.

Nevertheless, she'd always thereafter kept out of Durant's way.

When she heard the news of Minnie's terrible death, she had thought at once of Theodore Durant, and had shuddered to think that she too might be dead had she not been successful in escaping.

Other young girls told of similar experiences accosted by Durant, who had appeared suddenly before them, nude and menacing.

God.

This guy is an absolute monster.

This then explained why, if he had killed Minnie Williams, his clothes were not bloodstained.

Closer and closer was drawn than net which would take THEO Durant to the gallows.

Dapper and calm.

However, Durant bore his ordeal without flinching.

Defence conducted itself in a thoroughly skillful, if not altogether respectable manner.

In rather unscrupulous fashion, defense attorneys made much of the fact that Reverend Gibson had been questioned closely by the police in regard to the strange murder of Manny Williams, which took place within the sacred precincts of which he was the spiritual custodian.

They pointed out that the minister mister Gibson, as well as Durant, knew every part of the church and had access to it at all hours, that he too, possessed keys to every possible room in the building.

They pointed out, insignificant fashion that it had been the reverend mister Gibson who had begged the undertaker to destroy all traces of the crime, and had insisted on trying to wash away the bloodstains.

This was not, the defense said, because of outraged horror, but because of the fear of exposure.

And why not indeed attribute the same motive to mister Gibson as had been attributed to Durant.

A lustful perversion did he not deserve this as much as Durant.

The prosecution was asked to prove that Durant had been in the church with Blanchelemont long enough, assuming that missus Leake's statement had been true, to have killed the girl.

It was asked to prove that she had been killed before five o'clock when King the organist had seen Durant, and not immediately after or even a few days after that time.

It was all a very clever and very bewildering strategy, but the jury was unconvinced.

The burden of proof lay with the defense, not the prosecution, as far as they were concerned.

Now, of course, that is contrary to the fundamental tenet of the American judicial system, and everyone is innocent until proven guilty.

But with this mountain of circumstantial evidence, and also Durant's inability to display anything resembling human or innocent emotional reactions to the horror scene and described around him, it does seem like an attitude on the jury's part that is warranted in this particular case.

All right back to it, the burden of proof lay with the defense acution as far as the jury was concerned.

And then something transpired, which decided more than anything else in the entire testimony, although technically it could not be admitted to the trial.

A horsehair found adhering to the clothing of Manny Williams was proved to have been taken from Durant's own horse.

Compared with other hairs of the horse, it was found to be almost identical, and when compared with hairs of similar horses, it had differed substantially.

Through July, August, September, and October, the trial dragged on.

It was the first to be held under the then new California law that there should be fourteen men on the jury, two who would listen to the evidence and if necessary, take the place of any of the twelve who might be dismissed or become indisposed during the trial.

While the jury was out, Durant was apparently the only person in the courtroom who was not deeply agitated.

It seemed to everyone present that he had no chance to escape the extreme penalty.

Yet he sat still, cool and undisturbed, eating heartily of the lunch brought to him by his mother.

He smiled and chatted with her, trying, evidently by ignoring the terrible issue at stake to encourage her as to the outcome.

His debonair attitude was strangely at variance with the tragic air of the foreman.

When the jury returned only twenty minutes after it had retired, the foreman's voice was so low and trembling that even those in the front seats could hardly catch his words.

One ballot only had been taken by the jury.

Theodore Durrant had been found guilty of murder in the first degree, and the penalty was hanging.

It was then that Durant's supreme nerve broke and left him, but he did not hear the shouts of satisfaction which arose outside the court house when word was received.

His mother had pressed him to her breast and had covered his head with her thick wrap, her tears falling on his bent head.

Durant received several stays of execution, but finally his hanging was set for January seventh, eighteen ninety eight, at San Quentin Prison.

Four requests were made to the warden by the condemned man.

First, that the rope with which he was hanged be burned, so that curious people would not barter for a piece of it as a souvenir.

Wow, that's something people used to do at hangings.

Yikes.

Second that there would be no autopsy he had always since becoming a medical student.

Vowed that no knife should ever touch his flesh irony there for a slasher a murderer.

Third that no spectator gaze upon his face after his hanging.

This he is believed to have asked, so his father should not immediately see him and become horribly unnerved.

And lastly, that his body should be as quickly as possible turned over to his family.

He rested comfortably the night before his execution.

He ate a good, hearty breakfast, bade his guards good bye without a tremor, and dressed for the hanging.

Deserved the absence of a tie and collar, and seemed to be about to ask for him, then changed his mind as the significance of their lack dawned upon him.

He can't wear a tie because at his hanging, the hangman's rope will be his tie.

At the last moment, he accepted the consolation of the Catholic faith, but the minister who was to have accompanied him to the scaffold declined at the last instant to say that he believed Durant guiltless, and therefore the condemned man.

Durant refused to allow the minister to come with him.

He did not, however, present this query to the priest father Fagin, who walked with him to his death.

So he converted functionally to Catholicism moments before the hangman's rope.

Sure, because you can just kind of do the old switcheroo on God.

Right.

As he said goodbye to his family, he was a marvel of coolness.

His mother sobbed hysterically and clung to him, for at that time the condemned were not forced to say farewells through meshed wires, and at length he pushed her gently away, saying the hour has come for us to part.

He had asked his father to be present at the hanging, and the old man complied, walking into the rooms supported by two friends.

At ten thirty, the warden gave up hope of receiving word from Washington to delay the execution.

At ten forty, Durant walked into the room as corroborative word was flashed from Washington that the Supreme Court would not interfere.

His arms were pinned and the rope was placed about his neck.

He shuddered slightly, but asked permission to speak.

His address was delivered in a monotone, slowly and distinctly.

I desire, he said, to say that although I am an innocent man, innocent of every crime that has been charged against me, I bear no animosity towards those that have persecuted me, not even the Press of San Francisco, which has hounded me to the grave.

If any man thinks I am going to spring a sensation, I am not unless it is a sensation that I am an innocent man brought to my death by my persecutors.

But I forgive them all.

They will get their justice from the Great God, who is master of us all.

And where I also expect to get justice, that is the justice of an innocent man.

Whether the perpetrators of the crime of which I am charged are discovered or not, will make no difference to me now.

But I say that this day will sometime be a shame in the great state of California.

I forgive everybody who has persecuted me, an innocent man whose hands have never been stained with blood.

And I go to meet my God with forgiveness for all men.

The trap was sprung.

As he concluded, his father swayed in the arms of his friends, and a few moments later, Theodore Durant was pronounced dead.

One of the most interesting phases of the whole case, from the psychological standpoint, occurred immediately after the execution.

Missus Durant, waiting in an ante room, had begged that she might be allowed to see her son as soon as possible.

When the body had been placed in its coffin had been taken down to the room and set down where she might at last be alone, or nearly alone, with her dead son, she cried aloud and threw herself upon the coffin, begging the boy to speak to her.

The scene was a poignant one.

The attendants, who were obliged by law to remain in the room, turned their heads to hide their own tears as well to afford her what privacy they could.

Then, an old trustee, who was in charge of that part of the jail in which the gallows had been erected, touched her on the arms sympathetically and asked if she would like a cup of tea.

Missus Durant raised her head and accepted gratefully.

When he returned, she was composed and smiling.

Her grief passed its first depth.

The old fellow had done better than a cup of tea.

He had, in fact, brought an entire dinner from the official's table, four courses and four servants of each for the entire Durant family.

Is it conceivable that a family thus bereaved, or in fact bereaved in any fashion, should sit at a table within arm's length of a coffin containing the corpse of their loved one and chat over a hearty meal.

Yet this was just what the Durant family did.

Their conversation was unrestrained.

They gave apparently no thought to the happenings of that terrible day or to the presence of Theo Durant's corpse.

That's weird.

Missus Durant, who had nearly swooned in the ante room and had to be received, was perhaps the most talkative of the lot, while the father showed little signs of his recent distress at the gallows.

Papa, give me some more of the roast, one of the party was asking.

As the attendant passed the door.

The jail attendants who had been with the condemned man during his last days on earth, had been, and still were deeply affected by the execution.

They were with reasons scandalized by the apparent callousness and cold bloodedness of the family.

Who they could ask, could eat with the body of a loved one so close at hand?

Who could crowd food pass their lips at such a terrible hour?

Could this hardness of heart, this callousness be hereditary?

I tend to be a natured, over nurture guy in a lot of ways, so I tend to say probably.

But did the family happily stuffing their faces feet away from Theo's corpse?

Did that explain the cruelty in the makeup of the youthful monster, who had been characterized in the press as a lustful, perverted beast walking the earth in the guise of a law abiding, religious, trustworthy young man.

Surely his environment and associations could not explain it.

After a hearty meal, the Durance left the prison, riding in a cab provided by the occupied members of the press, to whom the bereaved parents talked volubly.

The father and mother said that they themselves had given permission for pictures to be made of the hanging, but that the warden had refused to permit it.

The parents were willing that the death agony of their son should be displayed throughout the country where there was much hostility and no sympathy for him.

Boy, as I've talked about on this show before, I really don't believe in judging the trauma responses of people processing something horrible.

We all do it in different ways, but I have to say Theodore Durant's family sounds like the Adams family.

Ultimately, no cemetery was willing to receive the Demon of the Belfrey's remains, and after much trouble, the family had the body cremated and flung the ashes to the four winds.

Thus were the murders of Blanche Lamont and Minnie Williams many who had died because she stoutly maintained Blanche's purity and innocence against infamous slurs.

Thus were their murders avenged, and so was paid the penalty for deeds which rival fiction in horror and fiendishness, murders unique in the history of crime.

And that was the story of the Demon of the Belfry.

San Francisco's Jack the Ripper.

Now, before I let you go, I'd like to remind you, as I do, of the free three digit number nine eight eight, the lifeline number that you can call any time, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week to receive immediate counts for substance use, mental health or suicidal thoughts.

So God forbid, but if you find yourself in crisis, please do call nine eight eight.

Program it into your phone now, and please always do remember that you are loved and the world is a better place with you in it.

I'm Zevan Odelberg, and this has been kind of murdery