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27

The Postal Poisoner

20 January

"Episode 27 - The Postal Poisoner" artwork for Midweek Murders YouTube channel

The worst serial killer we've never heard of, Francis Edward Drescher, is the topic of this week's episode. Joe explains what strychnine is, and Sandra talks about the invention of gin and tonic.

Joe got his information from:

Sandra got her information from:

  • Article in Herald-Democrat, from 1915
  • Article in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, from 1915
  • Article in Elkhart Daily Review, from 1915
  • Article in Evansville Press, from 1915

Audio transcript

Midweek Murders contains graphic and explicit content, listener discretion is advised.

Do you want to know something interesting, historically, that you're not gonna find interesting, but I do?

I can't fucking wait for this anecdote, mate. [Laughter]

Oh god. You're the only audience I have. I just read on unsolved mysteries that they don't actually know what Anne Boleyn looked like. Because Henry was like: "oh she's done all of these horrible things, we must execute her so that I can get a newer model of wife". People were like: "yeah, sure". So they executed her. And then Henry, in a fit of spite, destroyed all of her portraits. And getting caught with a portrait, or a sketch, or anything in the likeness of Anne Boleyn, was punishable by death more or less, like treason. So they destroyed all of her portraits and shit, so now nobody knows what she looked like. And all of the reports of what she looked like was written 400 years later, and then they were like: "oh well, she was heretic". So she had six fingers, and she was deformed. You know, all of that propaganda things that they do historically. It's quite interesting.

But they made a tv show called the tudors, and she was in that. So how could they have made the tudors if they didn't know what she looked like. [Laughter]

Well, obviously Elizabeth the first was her daughter, so I'm guessing she was brown eyed. Because Elizabeth the first had brown eyes, and Henry VIII did not. That's the gist of it.

That's all they've got. I heard a fun fact about Anne Boleyn.

What is it?

She spent some of her life without a head. [Laughter]

No no, she was dead by then. Silly. That's where Elizabeth the first got it from, no head - must be from her mom. There was a better joke in there, I didn't reach it in time.

I think that one worked better in your head. Unlike Anne Boleyn, because she didn't have one. [Laughter]

Oh, that was a good one. Fucking hell.

[Music]

Okay. So it's Wednesday, which means that it's time to talk about crime. You're listening to Midweek Murders, and I'm your host Sandra.

And I'm your host Joe.

Got it in five!

Even when I do it, you still laugh at me.

This week we're gonna talk about the most horrible serial killer that you've never heard of, Francis Edward Drescher. I got my information from Harold-Democrat from 1915, St Louis Post-Dispatch from 1915, Elkhart Daily Review from 1915, and Evansville Press from - you guessed it - 1915. I would also like to extend a special thanks to reddit user the bones of autumn, without whom I would not have ever heard of this case. I don't think they listen to the podcast, but if they do, thank you very much.

Was that the post from two days ago?

Yeah, probably.

That's the one that I used for one of my references.

It's a good write-up. If anyone's on reddit, highly recommend the post.

....Hello?

Hello.

Oh, I'm waiting for your references.

Oh! Reddit. A newspaper that's been archived in the library, and I didn't make a note of who wrote it or what newspaper it was in. A book, Francis Drescher strychnine, or strychnine, however you want to pronounce it. We probably need to come to a conclusion on that.

Oh. I thought it was pronounced strych-nine.

I would probably go with strychnine.

Cool.

And the wiki wiki wah.

Are you sure about that? Because I've always heard it as strychnine when other people talk about it.

I am as sure as I am sexually virile.

....So not at all? [Laughter] Speaking of which, I should just ask, the other one...

Quinine.

Quinine, okay.

Yeah. No wait, that one is definitely pronounced quinine.

Yeah.

So then I would say that it would be strychnine, because they both have nine on the end.

Yeah, it would make sense, I've just never heard it like that.

Well, you say it however the fuck you want then. This is your podcast.

I might have just heard it in America, so it might be American...

America, fuck yeah!

Okay.

Yeah, I would like you to pronounce it strychnine.

Mhm. So Francis Edward Drescher, let's talk about the name first and foremost. He is...

Very germanic.

Yeah, but he is mostly referred to in the newspapers as either Francis Edward Drescher, Francis Drescher, or Edward Drescher. So I'm not actually sure what his first name is, but...

Francis.

All right, let's go with that.

It was on his death certificate, so.

Oh yeah.

I think that's a fairly reputable source.

It was on his grave, I saw the photo. Although in some newspaper articles he is referred to as Edward Drescher, but lets go with Francis. I've written Drescher because I wasn't sure. Francis Edward Drescher, a coroner and part-time undertaker in Owen County Indiana, was found dead in his library...

[burps]

Was found dead in his library by his wife Estella, on the evening... [Laughter]

I just like how you chose to keep that in: "he was found dead in his library".

Library!

I don't know why we're talking like this, because Indiana is not in the south.

It's like Washington, isn't it? There abouts? I don't know, I shouldn't say anything about it. Geography, it's beyond me!

Even though your favorite show is a geography quiz show.

I know, right? I'm full of... contradictions! That's the word.

Full of hypocrisy. [Laughter]

By his wife Estella, on the evening of the 2nd of June, you guessed it, 1915.

I'm sensing a theme.

He was estimated to have been alone for a mere hour before his body was discovered, as he had suggested to his children that they should go and watch a movie at the nearby cinema. Found with his body was a note he had written to his wife, stating: "I ate a radish and my heart has broken. It hurts me today. Pocketbook. Goodbye mom and children". Reportedly it was a bit unintelligible, so they couldn't read if he said: "my heart has broken", or: "my heart has bulked".

I'd lean towards bulked, rather than broken. That makes a lot more sense having eaten a radish. Radishes, what even are they? Murderous, that's what they are. I knew I shouldn't be eating them.

How big was the radish? Did he swallow it whole? Nobody knows.

Not sure those are the most pertinent questions that arise from this case, but okay, everybody has their own research methods. [Laughter]

A better question would have probably been - why does it say pocketbook in the middle of it?

I have a theory as to why it says pocketbook, and it's completely unfounded, and not supported with any evidence. But my thought is, his wife was in on his killing spree and knew that he wrote down the names of his victims, or potential victims, in his pocketbook. I feel like radish is probably a code word.

Oh yeah, maybe.

Like: "I ate a radish", means: "I took the strychnine". And pocketbook is like: "dispose of the pocketbook, otherwise they're gonna poop in my grave".

That might be a good theory. So Drescher was under suspicion for a large number of poisonings, as the town of Spencer Indiana had experienced several cases of people who had died after receiving parcels of "free samples" of quinine. An investigation into these murders had begun, and Drescher had reportedly heard a rumor that he was to be arrested on the 3rd of June, which could explain why he decided to kill himself on the second. It could, it could. We don't know. A federal officer had been in town to look into the poisonings, and Drescher was reported to have been much alarmed in the days leading to his body being discovered. I thought it was funny that they said "much alarmed".

Suspicious.

Suspicious, oh ja. So these parcels, the parcels with quinine, on the bottles there was a typewritten label on top of the normal label which said "free sample" on it. So people just took these. So I'm guessing they didn't have, like, a steady supply of medications? So they were like: "all right, fine. Free medicine! Okie dokie".

"Oh! I got free pills in the post. I'm just gonna pop these in my mouth and hope they don't kill me!".

"And hope for the best!". Wait, have we talked about qui-nine?

Quinine.

Quinine.

No.

What the fuck is quinine? [Laughter] What is quinine, sorry.

Quinine, historically, was an anti-malarial drug.

What?!

Yeah. So from its discovery... Well, from its european discovery, until about 2006 it was the leading drug used to tackle malaria. But also, has a shit ton of side effects. Some of which can be quite severe.

But why did people in 1915 take qui-nine?

Quinine! Was taken... [Laughter]

Quinine, sorry.

I can only imagine it was taken because it's got analgesic properties. So it's a painkiller. I'd imagine it's the same theory behind taking paracetamol when you've got a cold, in that it can make you feel a bit better. But what tends to happen with these kind of drugs, is they get marketed as a miracle cure for everything.

Okay.

So they'll find something that works really well with one thing, in this case malaria, but because it also has analgesic properties they're like: "well, why not take it for your aches and pains? Why not take it for your flu? Why not take it for a headache? Why not take it for conjunctivitis?". Don't take it for that, it's not an antibiotic. [Laughter]

Okay.

Interestingly, quinine has been, I don't know if it still is, an ingredient in tonic water. The theory....

What? Wait! I heard...

All right, you do the pharmacology side of this podcast then! [Laughter]

I just wanted to add, that I heard somewhere that gin and tonic was invented because of malaria.

Yeah.

Cool!

I don't know how reputable this story is. But theoretically, back in the colonial days when Great Britain liked to invade everyone and pretend they were ours, when we did that in Asia the troops needed to take anti-malarials. And the anti-malarial was quinine. So what they would do is drink a solution of quinine, find that "oh, this is horribly bitter", and add some gin to it. And thus, the gin and tonic was born.

Historically interesting. Oh.

Which is why I say that I don't know if it's still an ingredient in tonic water. Because quinine is now no longer first choice as an anti-malarial, we've synthetically made drugs that are just as effective and less side effect nasty.

Which is the clinical term, obviously.

Yeah. There's three different types of parasite that can cause malaria, and one of them is quinine resistant, one of the other ones is modern drug resistant, so you still have to use quinine to be able to get rid of it. The reason quinine was dropped as first choice is because common side effects are: headaches, tinnitus, vision problems, and sweating. I mean, that's pretty much my life. [Laughter]

I can relate, yeah.

Severe side effects can lead to deafness, an irregular heartbeat - which can lead to cardiac arrest, and low blood platelets. Which means, if you get a cut you're at risk of bleeding out, because you can't clot properly.

Oh no. That would be really bad for you, because you're allergic to plasters.

And that would be like the royal family all being hemophiliacs, and a good statement for why inbreeding shouldn't be allowed.

Is that true?

I think in Vicky's time they were all hemophiliacs. Because, you know, they married their cousins and shit.

Of course, of course. They do tend to do that.

Yeah, because they're all from Norwich. I can say that, because I live with someone from Norwich. [Laughter]

Of course. So these parcels had led to the deaths of six physicians, according to one newspaper article, as well as Frank Mason, Alice McHenry, and a traveling man by the name of D. H. Johnson who had walked into a hardware store and died without having gotten a word out. Drescher had been the coroner who examined the bodies of these last three, and had decided that no inquest into their deaths needed to be made. They were all concluded to have died of symptoms caused by strychnine poisoning, although this was not on their death certificates. And I'm going to give some examples of that now. In the home of Frank Mason they had found a small amount of strychnine on a piece of paper, and although Frank had bellowed: "I'm poisoned doc! Quick, get me out of here!" before dying...

Didn't he say: "get it out of me"?

Yeah. What did I say?

Get me out of here.

Oh shit.

Like he was a celebrity in the jungle.

"I'm poisoned doc! Quick, get it out of me!" before dying, Drescher decided that the cause of death was suicide. Side note, why this was recorded was that Drescher wasn't the doctor on site. Another doctor had been called when Frank had fallen acutely ill with convulsions and stuff, and he said that to that doctor. But Drescher was the coroner, so. Alice McHenry had been suffering from a headache at school, and when she came home her grandmother had given her a tablet of quinine. Quinine. Tablet of quinine she had received in the post. Alice died 20 minutes later, and Drescher noted the cause of death down as cerebral hemorrhage.

Nasty way to go.

Also, like, what? But alrighty then.

It would account for her previously recorded symptoms of headaches. So I think what he's done is: picked a condition that post autopsy you couldn't prove that matched her clinical symptoms.

Oh. I didn't know you couldn't prove that. And now, I feel like, maybe we could talk about what strychnine...

Well, I've got more names. So maybe we could talk about them.

We'll get to the names! Fucking hell. I still don't know what strychnine does, because I haven't looked it up. Patience, my dear, patience! [Laughter]

I don't have any! I like to do things chronologically! I'm gonna listen back to this one and be like: "no, tell me about who died!". Strychnine is a neurotoxin. This one works on the spinal cord, and in the particular part that controls muscle contraction.

Oh! That's why you have convulsions.

Yeah. Your normal bodily response would be to have an impulse triggered at the nerve, which causes your muscles to contract, and then a molecule called glycine will bond to your receptor, basically raising the required potential for that neuron to fire again. So it stops firing and your muscle relaxes, that's how normal muscle contraction works. So strychnine works by binding onto the same receptor that glycine does. So you get your impulse at the nerve, triggers the muscle response to contract, and then there's no glycine available to bind, so you stay contracted. Which, like you said, is why one of the main symptoms is convulsions. It can lead eventually to asphyxia, which is suffocation.

Is that because your throat muscles contract, as well?

Not your throat muscles, but your respiratory muscles. So things like your diaphragm, and your intercostal muscles between your ribs. So everything that controls the expansion of your lungs and the retraction of your lungs stops working, you essentially stop breathing. It's most commonly used, or only used, as a pesticide. It has no medicinal benefits at all. So it's not like a medicine that can be prescribed that has nasty side effects, it is just a pesticide.

Could it be bought at that time? Like at the store?

As a pesticide, yeah. And you go through a couple of stages of symptoms. First round of symptoms is a nervousness and restlessness, muscle twitching and a stiff neck, so not too severe. And then it starts to get a bit nasty. So then you start to suffer from the convulsions, extended limbs, dilated pupils - not so bad. And then this one, bear with me, opisthotonus - which is basically, your body goes into such a rigid state that if you are laying flat on your back, and then arch upwards so that only your heels and the back of your head are touching the floor.

Oh! Like in the horror films?

Yes... I guess?

Every time they do a horror film about, like, possession...

Yeah! Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so pretty much like that. An inverted arch, but completely involuntary. An important thing to consider is that it is rapidly absorbed from your gastrointestinal tract. So if you administer it orally, supposedly about 50 percent of the dose is absorbed into tissue within five minutes.

Oh god, that's so quick!

So pretty nasty stuff. And you don't need a very high dose. Obviously, there's no human testing on it because it's horrible, but anywhere between 30 and 120 milligrams. Your standard paracetamol tablet is 500. And that is all I have on strychnine.

So, the murders appears to have started with a woman named Maude Clark, who was working for the Drescher family as a maid and nanny. Nine years before the investigation into the poisonings had started, Maude had been left alone with Drescher for several days. And one morning she suddenly started convulsing, and died half an hour later, hand clenched around Mr Drescher's trousers, in the laundry room. A few days after Maurd...

Maurd. [Laughter]

A few days after Maude was murdered a Dr Grey, the coroner investigating Maude's death, fell seriously ill and was admitted to hospital. His entire family had fallen ill, but fortunately they all recovered. Strychnine was found in a sugar bowl on the Grey family dining table, but the mystery of where the poison had come from was never solved due to lack of evidence. Although Dr Grey suspected Maude to have been a victim of poisoning, Drescher had convinced a second coroner that Maude must have poisoned herself due to being depressed, or as he said: "often sad", and no autopsy was done. I'm surprised that nobody was like: "wait a second".

Well he was the county coroner, so he's in a position of power.

Yeah. So an autopsy of Drescher was performed by Dr Pierson, who removed his stomach and sent it off to the state board of health in Indianapolis for examination. There, an analysis of the stomach, by Dr Noble, found that no radishes or strychnine was present in the stomach of Drescher. Dr Noble stated that: "death frequently is caused by poison which has passed through the stomach". So I'm guessing the thing that you said, that it's absorbed very quickly.

I would like to know why, under these suspicious circumstances, they didn't examine the liver or kidneys.

Yeah. That's a good question.

He was under suspicion of suicide from ingestion of poison. You assume he takes it orally, so you check his stomach. Oh, nothing in there. What's the next key organ that, I don't know, filters out your blood? It might be those funky things at the back called kidneys.

Whaaaat.

Chop them out, stick them in the post with the stomach, be like: "have a look, geez. Anything in there?", comes back: "ah yeah, bunch of fucking strychnine in there, in't there".

You mean there's a natural filter system in the body that might have processed the poison?! Whaaaaat.

That might have actually tried to take toxins out of his blood system like, you know, their entire functional purpose. Or, given that strychnine is mainly eluted in the urine, you know, they might have looked into that organ that specifically filters out your urine so that you're only bypassing anything to waste.

Whaaaaat. You mean there's an organ in the body...

Ah, what is that one called? Oh. It's the main... it's the fucking liver! [Laughter]

I think that maybe they checked his stomach and then...

No. Natural causes.

It was officially ruled as a suicide, so I'm guessing they still thought that the poison just had been absorbed.

Or is that because they couldn't find anything else? "Has he got a bullet hole in his head?", "oh, which bit's the head guvnor?" [Laughter]

Do you mean there's an organ...

"Bloody head, it's the bit at the top that does the thinkin'", "oh. No, that bit looks alright", "Oh. Must have been suicide then. Case closed, clean him up!". [Laughter]

I think that it was probably the note, as well. They were like: "a note, must be a suicide".

"Well everyone knows radishes are fucking poisonous. What's that lunatic doing, eating radishes? He was a fucking doctor, he should have known better".

They're fucking red, man. Nature's sign of poison, obviously.

"You ever eaten a ladybug? No you haven't, cause they're red. Why would you eat a radish?" [Laughter]

The motive behind Drescher's many alleged murders is unclear, though some people speculated that he might have committed these murders to increase his undertaker business, some cases seem to have been more personal. William Blair, for example, an undertaker working in Patricksburg, had received one of these "free sample" bottles of quinine in the post.

Oh, did you hear that confidence?

Oh, you fucking nailed it, mate. Oh. Hold on, I need to bash one out. [Laughter]

He had told investigators that Drescher had been angry with him, as Drescher believed that the undertaking jobs that Blair had been taking on should have gone to him. Charles Surber told investigators that, before defeating Drescher for a nomination in the democratic primaries, he had been warned that he would not live to hold the office if elected. Surber had received a "free sample" bottle shortly before the election, but had noticed that the cork had been tampered with, and had turned it. In. To. The police. Good lord.

Oh, it was going so well.

I know, right? At the state laboratory... "At the state laboratory". [Laughter] I just love the "library", and "laboratories".

"At the state laboratory, where everybody is smoking a pipe".

They concluded that the bottle contained enough strychnine to kill six people. When this reached the news, several other politicians reached out to police over having received the same kind of bottle in the post. Jason Stucky... Oh so plucky, Jason Stucky... had also been on the receiving end of the world's shittiest parcel, and told police that he and Drescher had had a quarrel shortly before the package of death had arrived. And as a side note, they were all clearly labeled with the "free sample" typewritten label over the quinine pharmaceutical label, so they were all the same.

Once it reached the papers that someone was sending poison, 26 individual residents also reported getting free quinine in the post.

Oh god, yeah.

So Drescher really covered his bases. He was like: "why poison the water well when I can just send them each an individually postmarked letter with the poison?".

And also, I'm shocked at how many names there were. In some articles there were like: "six physicians, and these other victims", and in other articles it was like: "and this one, and that one".

I think a lot of the names come from people collating not necessarily autopsy results of strychnine poisoning, but suspicious deaths under which Drescher was the coroner.

Yeah. That could have been it, yeah. So C. W. Edwards, another undertaker, had told investigators that he had found a bottle of whiskey on his doorstep one day, with a note saying that the whiskey was from a friend. But Edwards noticed that the friend's signature was off, and suspicious because of the forged signature, he had turned it into police who discovered that the whiskey contained large amounts of strychnine. And this is where both you and I would have been dead, or at least I would've been. [Laughter]

"Whiskey?! Glug glug glug".

Because I do not recognize the handwriting of my friends.

You know mine.

Well, if it was scrawled in an Elizabethan lady's handwriting, that's probably Joe. But most of my other friends...

Elizabethan lady?! [Laughter]

You have very good handwriting.

Whereas if I received a bottle of chicken scrawl, I'd be like: "yeah, that's Sandra". [Laughter]

True story. But I would have been dead because I would not recognize my friend's handwriting...

You wouldn't have even read the label. You'd have been: "bottle of whiskey, where's the ice?". Not even that, because you don't have ice with your whiskey. "Bottle of whiskey, where's my tumbler? Nah, fuck it. Sip sip sip sip".

I would have read the label and been like: "probably from whatever friend it said", and you would have read the label and then been like: "eh fuck it, free whiskey".

Yep.

Yep.

But then probably would have had a bit, realized it tasted horribly bitter, and drank the rest anyway. [Laughter]

So if anybody's looking to murder me, my favorite brand of whiskey is Talisker.

The Russian bots who are listening are taking notes: "this is the way". [Laughter]

If you want to stab me with a talisker-injected umbrella, then go for it. I have got plenty of ass to aim for. [Laughter]

Oh god. It's true. It's sad, but it's true.

Actually, that's the point where you're meant to say: "no, no, you've got a tiny ass", not: "it's true".

I didn't mean your ass, I meant the way poison us is so obvious. Just like your ass.

I walk into a room and everybody's like: "hot damn, that is jiggly".

That's some meaty backside, right there. So the list of Drescher's possible victims is extremely long, and in one newspaper article it said that the citizens of Owen County held Drescher responsible, as Drescher led the inquest into these deaths and buried most of the bodies. Francis Edward Drescher was believed by investigators to have played a role in the poison-by-mail plot that had taken so many lives in Owen County, but they did not believe that he had acted alone. After his death, three more cases of strychnine poisonings happened, and although several citizens had turned in their "free sample" bottles to police... I think you said 23?

Twenty six.

Crazy. After the story hit the news, no new parcels were ever discovered to have been sent out.

So those three obviously either had delayed delivery, which, if it were by royal mail, not unexplainable, or saw their parcel, popped it down on the side and thought: "I'll save that for ron".

Yeah. I think they probably saved it for later, when they had the flu or something.

Yeah, saved it for ron.

What's the ron?

Later on.

Oh. Should have gotten that.

Wasted on you. I made that joke last episode as well, and it flew over your head.

How do you even remember that? Last episode was four hours.

Because I only have five jokes. [Laughter] Anyway, back to the case.

I think that was it. Maybe I should say that: "and that's the case!".

Now for something completely different. You should put that on the end, because that is a classic. Monty Python - flying circus.

Maybe we should say bye? Thank you so much for listening to Midweek Murders. We'll see you next week.

Bye bye!

Ciao!

[Music]

Topics
  • Francis Edward Drescher
  • strychnine
  • quinine
  • serial poisoner
  • poisoner killer
  • serial killers you've never heard of
  • lesser known serial killers
  • worst serial killers
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