Hannah Mary Tabbs
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free money free money is out there just go get it by starting your podcast today so let's jump right into our players so first we have annie richardson this is the niece daughter scandal scandal and she hi yellow we got john tabs who is the husband we've got wakefield gains who y'all know is the mrs

You've got George Wilson, who is the accomplice, and Hannah Mary Tabbs, our murderess.

Alright, so we're going to start this episode giving you a bit of background. It's taking place in 1880, so we got to go back a little bit with this one. Way back. You know? So, at this time, we've got, what, the Civil War going on. She's like nine years old when the Civil War is happening. The Emancipation Proclamation is January 1st, 1863. So, we have the abolishment of slavery, but you know, we weren't even really free until 1865. Right. Juneteenth. Right. Right.

You've got that whole shit going on. You've got, like, some people are slaves, some people aren't. You've got people fighting in this war, and of course, you know, men have got to get off their stress, and who do they take it out on? A black woman. Right, the women folk. Right. Especially the black women folks, because, as y'all remember from Ruby McCollum, they were allowed to?

And the government didn't get... And it wasn't called rape. Right. This is taking place in Boston, and you have, like, a lot of newcomers coming to the area. You've got Southern black people coming up north, you know, for better treatment and shit. You also got immigrants coming in, and that's kind of disrupting the whites because it's like, okay...

Mr. Italian and Mr. Irishman, your skin's a little dark and you're looking a little different to us. Do you still classify as white? Like there's a whole lot of, then you got trying to figure out what is race in America because you know, the white people have to figure out how to categorize it now that we're people, right?

So it's a whole lot of that going on. So Hannah Mary is from Maryland and I'm not sure exactly where, but we know that when she grew up, she was specifically in Annapolis when she met this older gentleman named Richardson. Now Richardson, we weren't too sure about who he really is. He, is he white? We think that he probably is because, and also is that relationship consensual, which y'all already know who can tell. Right. And,

After Richardson leaves, then we have Annie, who comes out real high yellow. And Hannah Mary says, oh, this isn't my child because...

having a child out of wedlock is just like, oh my goodness, how dare you? This is my niece. And to make the story believable, she would tell everybody, oh, we'll say, oh, her parents died of yellow fever and so now I'm taking her in. And that made a lot of sense to people because yellow fever was very common at the time, you know? And that made people not question the fact that Annie was really fair-skinned because she'd just taken some baby and...

And at least you're not fucking a white man because, you know, interracial marriage is very much illegal. Right. In 1870, Hannah marries about 18. She moves to Baltimore, and as far as we know, she never saw Richardson again. She meets this man named John Tabb. John was a former Civil War soldier. He's a good man, respectable, good reputation. Had him a job as a railroad porter.

So, you know, had that money coming in, which was good because she had a kid to take care of. He was willing to take care of Annie, like, and raise her as his own. He was like, oh, I love Annie. Yeah, come in, you know. Come on in, stepdaddy. Yeah. So he's like an older gentleman. So I guess, you know, he's ready. He was like 10 years older than her. Right. So I guess he's ready for that phase of his life. She pretty much found herself the perfect man. On June 4, 1873, they get married and...

And after the wedding, of course, that's when the flaws start popping up. As they do. As they do. So on one hand, we find out that John is incompetent. My mans can't get it up. He got an injury from the war and... Sex makes the relationship go. It does. And there's no sex. It ended up being very platonic. Like, we're brother-sister that cuddle. Right.

We're best friends that cuddle and kiss. Yeah. We're not having any type of romance. Yeah. So, on the other hand, you've got Hannah Mary, who is rude. John describes her as...

Crass, crazy, and rude. She is yelling at the neighbors, she's picking fights, she just ain't got no couth about herself. John decides to send her to adult school. And here they taught you how to read, they taught you to write, but they also taught you etiquette. And she was a good student. She applied it well, but only when she had to. Her code switch game was on point. The white folks loved her. She was able to get better and better jobs after working with them because she was able to prove herself.

But when she got to the black side, it was said that, you know, she was right back to her rude-ass self. She's yelling and picking fights. So she knew how to act at work, but at home and around her people, she was just known for being mean. Yeah. So the same year they got married in 1873, John loses his job. And, you know, finances, money, art.

Are you going to be able to provide? What's going to happen with that? So he's like, okay, I can't find any work out here. Let me go to Philly, try to get a job, and then I'm going to send some money back for y'all so y'all can come up here and be with me. He does that. Once she gets, she finds herself a job as a domestic servant for a tailor. Still, she at the neighborhood, back at the crib, she is just rude to all the neighbors, rude to everybody. However, at work, all the white people are like, oh, she's so great. She's so amazing. We love her. She does her job with a smile.

So eventually around the mid-1880s, she was able to get a job for a realtor. So she's still a domestic server, but she's getting better, richer white people to work for her pretty much. You know? So this realtor had a coachman named Wakefield Gaines. And now at this time, sis was in her 30s. And Wakefield Gaines was in his 20s. And at home...

She ain't getting none. So she was like, bet. That's what I want. That's exactly what she did. Wakefield was described in the newspaper as he was copper colored skin. Because y'all were reading newspapers from fucking 1873. They racist as shit. They were.

so much... Roasting these guys. They were roasting every single black person that they talked about in these newspapers. Like, even if they gave a compliment, it was like, eh. It was backhanded. For a colored woman. Like, disgusting. So, they described him as copper-colored and he had stooped shoulders. And,

And apparently, you know, he was looking at her, she was looking at him, so they found themselves up in an affair. But, you know, it's wrong for her to do that. But she didn't care. A man can't get it up, so she had to figure it out. She had to make it do what it do. Right. They'd been married over a decade and had absolutely no sex. That's probably why she was mean. She was sexually frustrated.

You know... Ten years? I thought that, but we'll get there. Okay, okay. Well, let's keep going. It was kind of an open secret that she was having sex. People just around the neighborhood already knew. And John knew about it, but he also couldn't do anything because he knew he couldn't compete where he couldn't compare. It was said that...

Hannah Mary? Mm-hmm. She was being like a little sugar mama to Wilkins. Like, was like, oh, you need your rent paid this month? She was digmatized, boy. I got you, boo. To her point, so to what you were saying, you thought this would have made her nicer? It did not. She became worse at home. She's now verbally and physically abusing John.

And even Annie's getting some of this action. Hannah Mary ended up sending her to the House of Refuge, which they said was a place for delinquent minors, but I'm kind of getting the vibe. It's kind of just like a place where you sent kids who you didn't want to deal with. Right. Or they were mentally challenged or annoying or bad or just, I don't want to deal with you. And I have some money to send you away. Yeah. Right.

You kind of wonder, like, what is all this anger about? Is it a diversion technique to make people too scared to kind of try her? Is she just straight up mean? Is this like trigger from you growing up in a wartime? Because I don't know what's got her so callous or whatever, but it just seems like she wasn't perceived well.

the way the story is told at least. Right. So she is in deep with Wakefield. It's like, you know, Color Purple, she said, She'll look like honey, and I'm like a bee, and wherever she go, I follow. That is her on this man. She's on him like white on rice, okay? She went everywhere that he went. One day, Wakefield gets fired for coming to work drunk, and he needed a new job, so he goes out to Edmonton to work on Brock Farms.

And the farm says they're looking for some good southern help. Sounds like cheap free labor to me. Right. Y'all. Hannah Mary might have took herself right on down to Brock Farms and said that she was from the good old south and had just been in Philly for just a short time but was ready to work and got herself a job on this farm just to be with this man and brought Annie down with her. Which, what is John thinking of all this? Like, you have up and left the city chasing after some niggas.

And he's just sitting there? Just sitting there. He's probably like, thank goodness she's gone. So, yeah, the farm, they believe her story and they hire her. She's like, at first she's excited because she's, you know, with her work field. But...

Annie's kind of growing up and she's developing and she's getting a lot of attention around this farm. She's becoming a teenager and teenagers, as soon as you start to develop, at that time, they're like, okay, time to make a baby. It's time. She's getting a lot of attention around the farm.

Hannah Mary is not happy, especially when the attention she feels is coming from Wakefield. Now she's going to Annie like, listen, that's my man, okay? This here, I'll juke joint. She's like, you need to chill out. And Annie's like, I ain't do nothing, yada, yada, yada. She just beats on her to the point where

she got so mad at Annie one day she was like I'm gonna kill you next thing you know Annie's gone now the rumors twirl did Annie run away did Hanna-Marie kill her only time will tell right so finally Gaines job ends at the farm and he's like all right time to return to Philly so guess what Hanna-Marie does

packs her shit up and says all right we're headed back to philly she was such an intense lover you know she's in her 30s she wants that passion love us to be together but you know he's in his 20s so he still got a lot of fuck boy in his system even for the time you know what i'm saying he was like i ain't even got to be tied down because you know she's married i'm single we do

doing what it do but there are some lines that are here right so in late 1886 he meets Annie Johnson not to be confused with her daughter Annie Richardson this is Annie Johnson Annie Johnson steals his heart he is just in love in fact he says you know what you're the woman for me you're the one I'm gonna marry and they were planning to be married that following June now y'all know Hannah Mary heard about this shit right yeah

Oh, and she was livid. You know it was going to be a problem. So she goes and she confronts Wakefield in front of Annie Johnson. She yells at him. He yells back. She whips out a razor. She slashes him across the face. And he is shot. He's like, this bitch just cut me.

and his fiance runs away scared he goes running after her his sister comes outside she was like stay away from my brother but hannah mary was not done with him she continues to stalk this man she told people let me know if you've seen him around she just would not let it go so you know how annie richardson we're going back to the daughter slash niece now annie richardson is apparently missing possibly dead well a

A letter shows up on January 20th, 1887 from Annie to Wakey. And what does this letter say? I'm glad you asked. Dear Wakey, Mary, Mrs. Tabbs, has reported me run away. I have not run away. I come in the city and Mr. Tabbs asked me to come and clean the house. I didn't like the girl at the house where I lived and that's the reason I didn't go back.

"'Be careful of mother, for she is making threats, "'and you don't know how treacherous she is. "'For God's sake, don't give me away. "'I tell you for your own good.'"

Sounds like a letter trying to warn him of something. Same month, January, right? A man named George Wilson shows up at Hannah Mary's door. The Lancaster Examiner describes him as nearly white with straight black hair and decidingly good looking.

Another newspaper said he had one feature that you could see African descent. So like this nigga was passing, passing. Right. They were like, oh, you know what? I see just a little bit of nigga in him. He comes on her door and he was like, hey, I know where your niece Annie is and I can bring her home for you if you like.

And this is great news for Hannah Mary, but is it great news because she misses her niece? Or is it great news because... She wants to clear her name. For murder. Y'all keep thinking that I killed her and I didn't do that. Right.

So she was like, okay, what you need to make this happen? And he's like, oh, just give me some bus fare and some clothes for Annie. And I'll have her home by Sunday. Sunday came and went and Annie was still not there. So, you know, this once again pissed her off. So later that week, she just happened to run into George. And she's like, um, hello, what the fuck happened? You were supposed to pay money. She tells him, she starts yelling at him. She starts screaming at him, cussing his ass out. And then she tells him, you better have...

my money and those clothes returned to me or I'm making sure that you get arrested. He's like, oh, no, no, no, it's not even like that. She was too sick to travel. She couldn't make it. Like, she actually still exists. I can bring her to you. I'm not, you know, I'm not lying. But she saw through that shit. Mm-hmm.

So, it's...

It's the 16th of February. They're in there arguing. And Wakefield has enough. And he slaps her across the face. And Hannah Mary loses it. She starts scratching and clawing at him. And the next thing you know, George walks in.

He sees Wakefield beating on him, so he joins in and he starts hitting Wakefield. And now these two men are going back and forth, wrestling around the kitchen. They're hitting tables, walls, even a sewing machine. Each one getting punches in when they can. Then George grabs a chair, lifts it over his head, and whacks.

whops Wakefield upside the head. Wakefield falls against the stairs, slumps onto the floor, and just like that, he was dead. George never meant to kill him, but Hannah Mary is quite pleased. Now her brain is racing, and she has to figure out how to put this all on him and leave herself out of it.

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Not a lot, but there's blood places. She tells George to go around and ask for a meat cleaver. The knife that they was trying to kill Sebastian with on the Little Mermaid. That one. So he's scared. And they say we're not kid friendly. He returns with the knife and he's really not that bright. He's kind of scared. So he's just doing whatever she says, right? And she says, you leave, come back in a bit and I'll tell you what to do.

And that's what he does. While he's gone, Hannah Mary takes the body of Wakey and cuts off his head. Then she cuts off every single one of his limbs.

Then she wraps them individually in a brown paper satchel, which I can only assume is like butcher paper type of thing. Right. And when George returns, she gives him the brown packages and she says, you need to get rid of these. So I'm thinking like, you know, brown paper packages with some string around it. Exactly. That's exactly what I have in my head. She gave him every single piece of the body except the torso. Okay.

Hannah Mary is left with the torso of the body. She has like the package maybe under her coat, but inside her coat, but under her arm. So she gets on the train and she headed toward some town, Conwell or something like that. But she gets off early at Eddington, right? She's sitting on the train and she opens up the window. And this is kind of like alarming because it's February and it's cold. So why you got the window open? Right. Right.

Maybe she was flush from holding the body. Maybe she didn't want it to stink. I'm thinking it stunk, right? And she wanted to air it out a bit. Anywho, she's just like being very weird, right? She's definitely made an impression in the conductor's mind. Like, you know, she got off early. She's got the window down and it's cold as shit outside. And she's got some big package underneath her arm.

But she said that she had just left the hospital and she, you know, wasn't feeling too well. And that's why she needed some fresh air. And so he leaves her alone. She gets off the bus and she heads towards a house. Well, she's trying to go to Brock Farms, right? But...

She ends up getting lost and she knocks on the farm of a different person. Some white lady opens the door and she's like, hey, do you know how to get to Brock Farms? And she was like, yeah, you're going to go down here, hook a left, and then it'll be 50 acres down, whatever, right? She goes, but the white lady was like, here, my servant will show you the way. And the servant comes out with a lantern and he was like, hey, you want me to take you? And she was like, no.

no cause she's got this body to hide the servant is like oh okay and is still kinda walking with her and she's like trying to ditch this nigga and he's not getting a hint so she kinda like walks up faster and kinda

hides over in some bushes or whatever and like when she went to this lady's house she dropped the body out so that she didn't walk up to the door with the body so like she's trying to get back to the body without this nigga noticing her she finally gets enough ahead of him where he loses her he ends up blowing out his lantern and he heads back to the house so she grabs the body she gets to the bridge and she's like i gotta drop this thing she tries to throw it and it doesn't really go anywhere

It's like not sinking. And I guess it's because it was muddy out. Maybe the shore was back further. But she's just really not working out the way she had it planned. And she went to go and try and retrieve the body. But this guy comes past in a carriage in a buggy. And she's just she's drawn too much attention. She's got to get the hell out of there. So she gets back on the train and she heads back home. When she gets back home, she meets back up with Wilson. You know, he's like, I've got rid of the rest of the stuff.

Lay low. We'll see how this goes. When Hannah Mary comes home, she cleans everything. The blood in the house wasn't significant, so she scrubbed it down and her husband asked no questions.

He just felt over this marriage. He is not here for her or anything or anything at all. So the next day, a package looks like it's just been dropped over in Eddington. And a man goes and picks it up. And it seems like it's wet, maybe? He's like, okay, you know, I found it near the water. That seems like water...

Opens it up and realizes that it's wet from blood. And decides to open it up further because, I guess, curiosity. Yeah. And sees that it is a human torso.

Now the thing about a torso is you don't know if it's male, depending on its cut, you don't know if it's male or female. You don't know the dental records. You don't know fingerprints. It's fucking 1880. So they don't really have DNA. But another thing when they called the police and everybody came is they couldn't figure out the

the race of the torso. They were like, well, it might be black. Might be white. Might even be Chinese. Might be big lotto. Like, we don't know what this person is. Right, and the race of the victim would tell you a lot about the case. Like, who

who might be next, you know? If the victim is black, then probably the perpetrator is black. If the victim is white, then probably the perpetrator is white. So they're like... Because we stayed very much to our own community Everybody stayed to their own time, right? So people wanted... A lot of curiosity started coming up about this case because this torso was found. And then it kind of is like in that point, you know, how much attention should we be giving this? Is this a white person dead or is it a black person dead? You know, how much should we really care? Right, exactly. And so...

But just finding a torso in that way is interesting enough, right? They could not figure it out. Well, you would think it's just, you know, the limbs that make it crazy. Like, oh, it's just a torso. But it turns out while this case was going on, they found other limbs in that river. And once it was confirmed that it was not to this body, you didn't hear stories about it in the paper. Because I guess it was like, oh, no, that's just some black body. Like, it was the...

the ambiguity of it all that was really setting shit off. It was really driving this case in the news, you know? They're trying to figure out who was coming in and out of Edenton, what was happening around the time. Police were putting on their investigator hats, and so they end up talking to the train conductor, and he's like, oh, well, you know, no one stood out except for this one woman who had the window open in February when it's freezing cold, and she just seemed a little jittery. She also got off early, had to do a rebate ticket. It was a whole thing.

I didn't get her name, but I got a good description of her. So he describes her. She said that she was heading to Brock Farms. Police are like, aha. And they go to Brock Farms. And they're like, okay. So they're like, do you have somebody that works here? And they're like, no, but last year we did. And her name was like,

Mary Shepard, Mary Tabb. Mary who gives a goddamn. So boom, they have a name. And they're like, okay, we need to figure out who the fuck Mary is, right? We don't, once again, using a name that's way too close to your name. So the police weren't sure. But was it a cover or was it just bad records? Right. Because that could definitely be the case. And word of mouth versus are you really caring about your employee's name for real? No, like in trying to do ancestry research,

Honestly, black people should get a discount because trying to look back and figure out these records after the slave shit is terrible because it's like very half-assed. They don't, your name will be spelled one way this year and one way the next. So police were like, okay, we need to find out who this woman is. Clearly a little lady would not be able to chop up an entire body, but maybe she knows something, you know?

being good detectives, the streets started talking. Newspapers were talking. There was this bar where everybody would hang out and they would just discuss because small town, everybody's a detective. Right. And even guess who else was hanging out there just to hear what the streets have to say. Oh yeah. Hannah and Mary was in there, but,

Even though they had a name, no one really knew who she was. And she was sitting there kind of, and the name was wrong. She was very much aware of the news and the gossip on the street while everybody's trying to figure out who this person is and who this. So this paranoid her. Oh, she started being like, okay, I got to make sure that I cover my tracks. I got to make sure that I cover my ass. So she decides to talk to somebody very unlikely.

Y'all, she done went to Wakefield's sister who just, you know, told her ass, don't come around my brother no more, right? So she goes to her and she's like, girl, it's been a minute since I seen Wakefield. You seen him? And she's like, no, girl, I ain't seen him. And she was like, well, you know, they've been talking about that body. And I think, I think it could be him.

Cause you know, him and Wilson used to get into it with each other about my Annie. She's like planting seeds y'all. She's like him and Wilson or him and George used to get into it about my Annie. And you know, now he's missing. And I just, I,

I just wanted to make sure it was okay. But if you ain't heard nothing, you know, I'll keep you posted with what I hear. You call me, I'll call you. Right. And she was like, okay, girl. She left. She was like, I don't believe none of that shit. Went straight to the cops and was like, listen, Hannah Mary done came down here saying a story that's real suspicious and y'all need to look into it. She was beating my brother ass down there the other day, done cut his face with a razor, and now he missing. He comes to see me every day, and I ain't seen him since Tuesday.

Right, and that's the thing. She left town to go see her, and then when she got back in town, the police were waiting on her ass. As soon as she hopped off the train in Philly on February 1st, 1887, and that was a Saturday, she was arrested. The police were waiting for her right there. Streaming October 6th on Paramount+. First place I learned about death was a pet cemetery. Dead things buried in that land would come back.

There's something else. Something's wrong with Timmy. He needs time to adjust. That's not Timmy. Something's fucking driven him.

Sometimes dead is better. Pet Cemetery. Bloodlines. Rated R. Streaming only on Paramount+. So people are trying, so the police are trying to figure out who this woman is. What does she know? So now they're looking for character witnesses. Who knows this woman? How accurate is anything that she tells us? And some people were saying things like, oh yeah, she's cool.

But there was one person that was spilling all the tea on who Hanny Mary Tab was. And her husband said, as a matter of fact, that woman right there, she cheated on me.

she was out here with this motherfucker she was doing whoop-de-whoop with whoever and hell yes she is violent because she beat my ass all the fucking time she ain't shit she ain't not a lick of shit and then to white people it was like oh she hold down the job she's doing really well real polite real polite real nice she smiles while she does her work so you've got this black man who is married to her saying she's crazy but you got these white people in society saying actually you know she's pretty good who they gonna believe in 1887 which

Which is like this, that code switching we were talking about at the beginning of the episode, this is where it comes in. And this is like...

Why we do it. To get past the white folks. To get past the white folks so that we can live. At first it seemed as though she didn't know anything. And the sheriff was like, listen ma'am, you're facing a murder charge. So you might want to sit in here and think about what you have to offer us. And if you want to get in touch with me, you just tell that man and he knows where to find me. I'm going to come back and I'm going to check on you. And she sits there and she thinks and she says, you know what, I do think I got something to tell you.

And he comes in there, and he's like, well, what's up? And she's like, why y'all don't got George? Why y'all haven't asked George anything? And they're like, who the hell is George? And she's like, you know, George. The one that did it. Not I. She said, George was at my house around 1 o'clock, you know, that day. Maybe he knew something. So they're like, go find this George and bring him to the station.

So George is over at his auntie's house. They pick him up, and they bring him to the station. And George says, I demand to know what y'all had me in here for. And they says, listen. She said, Hannah Mary just told us that you killed this man. She said you were jealous. You were fighting him over her daughter Annie. Now we're about to get you for murder. And George is like, duh.

that is not at all what happened. But George is a man and this is like a heinous crime and a woman couldn't possibly do this. So maybe George didn't do it by himself, but they're pretty convinced at this point that George did it. Like we've got a man on the name, like that's all we need. So it's not just that she was like, go look into George.

Sis wrote a full written confession. They wrote it down for her. She read it. They read it back to her. They said, is this you? She said, yeah. They said, you agree? She said, yeah. Signed it. Y'all, in this confession, she's like, okay, here's the stitch. I've got this beautiful, light-skinned mulatto daughter slash niece. You know, she's like a child of mine.

She's pretty. She turns head. She was turning the heads of Wakefield and George. Now, I must admit, although it ain't right, I love me some Wakefield. And I wanted him to myself. So, you know, I wanted her to get with George. And maybe then Wakefield would love me. But, you know, it was still an argument. Every time George and Wakefield saw each other, they came to blows over my precious niece. And to the point I had to send her away because it just wasn't safe.

Child ain't safe in a family of men. She's like, they come to blows every time over her. So I just, I sent her away. And this is why. And at this point, you know, I'm there. It's happening in my kitchen. He told me I'm just as guilty. So I needed to help him cover it up. And that's why I didn't say anything because I'm

I thought that, you know, I was just as guilty like he said. Now, you telling me that she was manipulated by this little 18-year-old boy. Who, by the way, the papers describe as idiotic looking. She's code switching like a motherfucker out here. You know, very damsel in distress. Right, and even the damsel in distress to the point where the detective came in to visit her. And he was like, she had a handkerchief on. He was like, how you doing? And she's like, ugh.

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This waiting cell is just so nasty. I just don't feel good. He's like, have you eaten? And she's like, oh, no, I haven't eaten. He's like, oh, let me get you some breakfast. They said they gave her a good breakfast. A good breakfast. Because she's just, ugh, I'm such a lady and I can't do anything on my own. I'm telling you, them etiquette classes came in handy. Okay, because she knew exactly what they wanted, when, and where. She was playing chess, not checkers. Okay? Okay.

So George ended up getting picked up from his auntie house because that's where he was staying. And he had a couple things stacked up against him. He said, absolutely no, I didn't do it. I had nothing to do with this. I don't know why you called me here. But his job said that Wednesday he left from work early. And he didn't come back.

And then the neighbors were like, oh, we saw him coming in and out of Hannah Mary's house, you know? And then, of course, Hannah Mary was like, I kept quiet because I was so fearful. This man told me what to do, you know?

And then, and then apparently he works at an abattoir, which is basically a slaughterhouse. So he had access to these tools already. So something in this story ain't adding up. Okay, so the newspaper describes that they found ashes at the house. They said that he possibly went to John and Son's whatever the fuck and got a fine saw. And they said they know this because there are ashes.

And so what I'm thinking is like, they said that he got a fine saw to saw the bones and

And so what I'm thinking is any bones that he needed to sever to dismember the body left, like, grinded up bone, like bone dust. And that was the ashes that they're talking about. So, and they said that there were piles there at her house. Now, I don't know why there would be piles, but also they said that he bought a lot of coal. So maybe he burned some parts of the body. Like, I know we've talked about burning bodies before. Can you burn it with coal and kerosene? How hard does it need to be? I still think it takes a lot of equipment. Okay. So, it

It's February 23rd, 1887. Hannah Mary is between 31 and 35 years old. Records are kind of sketchy at this point in time. And she's sitting in a jail cell and her husband shows up. And she goes there and she's like, John...

I've been having an affair, which we already knew. We've already known it's the worst kept secret. So she's like, I've been having an affair and now he's dead and they want me for the murder. And it was George and they was, it was Annie. They were after Annie. And I just, I don't know what to do. I'm sorry. They described it as a tearful confession and it only lasted 10 minutes. So John was completely fed up and,

and realized that he never had to deal with this bitch again. You know what I'm saying? So they go back to their waiting cells. They're sitting there and remember, they're sitting in their waiting cells getting ready to go to their arraignment, right? There's rats, there's poison. It's disgusting. They're not really caring about prisons then just like they're not caring about prisons now, right? George has some type of fit.

in his cell so when they come to get breakfast from him he's kind of laid out they're like okay did he poison himself what is this is he dead turns out he's alive he had a seizure they got him you know cleaned up and he went straight into court they said oh man and tried to poison himself and caught the medics immediately like how dare you try and escape your trial

And then was like, oh, you alive? All right, get your ass in there, boy. Right. Same day. They go to court for their arraignment, like to get a court date set or whatever. I guess they bring all the murderers out at the same time. And they just described both of them looking not especially concerned about

like you're going up for murder and you don't really look fearful or whatever of your life very indifferent they were both described as indifferent he goes up and he was like how do you plead and they say that george gives a firm not guilty and mary you know she's still firm in it but more pleads like i'm not guilty you know working the system code switching she she begging where she need to beg and she pleading where she need to plead so

So they take him back to the cells and at this time, George is getting a little nervous and he's like, check this out. I had something to do with it, okay? I got rid of the limbs. But she made me do it. I came back and she had already had the body chopped up and told me that I had to get rid of the pieces. In fact, I can prove it. I can tell you where I took the limbs. So they're like, you know what? Confess.

come show us they take him out to the boat i took the head i wrapped some bricks around it and i walked ten feet out and i threw the body into skulkle river he was like i did the same thing for the arms and the leg it's all in the river so they get the boat and they're like all right we're gonna run this river and see if we find it

they got out there like what two o'clock they called it quits at seven they was like listen this river is 40 feet deep it's real rocky on the bottom we ain't getting much rain rain just happened it was like listen it was a fat chance we was gonna find it anyways but we're not about to you know we're calling it a night we'll try again tomorrow they never came up with any of the limbs they never found them ever like

Ever. So then George decides, you know what? They can't find anything. I told my truth. Time to bring in a new story where he says, actually, that entire story I told was fake. As a matter of fact, the police harassed me into telling that story. But in reality, I still have nothing to do with it. I don't know who this man is. I don't know who this body belongs to. I am completely and totally innocent. The media kept keeping up with this case because, well...

This case took a long time to finally be in front of a jury. It happened in February and the trial didn't start till May. And that seems like not a long time now, but speedy trial back then, they at least meant that. So on May 16th, 1887, they were arraigned. They had separate indictments that were submitted to the grand jury. And them being on trial brought a large crowd. There were a lot of murderers on trial that day. But here's the thing, most of them were white and the crowd that showed up

They were black. So they're clearly here for the woman on the trial. And also it seemed like the crowd, they were nodding and acknowledging Hannah Mary Tabbs while she was sitting and waiting to be on the stand.

Which is interesting because it seemed like she was described as mean and rude to her neighbors, but it seems like now they're here to support her. They literally said in the paper, it looks like she was the favorite of the two. Right. But they also said in the papers, the crowd was not unruly. It's not like they were heavily in favor of her being unruly.

Let go or heavily in favor of them keeping her. Like as they were there to actually be, they wanted to see the literally did not care which way it went. So they're testifying in front of a six man jury made up of white men, of course, obviously. And she's the star witness.

which is kind of fucked up on Gaines' part, right? Like, it's really like a he said, she said story, and they're, like, taking it as a she said. She testifies that George Wilson not only killed but dismembered Whitefield and told her to put the body in the lake. She stated that she felt she had to do it because of her womanly duties to men. I mean, she's really playing her role here. Yeah, I think she is just, like, clutching her pearls and...

giving them everything you need. So finally the trial ends and George is found guilty of first degree murder, which gives him an automatic appeal. So during the automatic appeal, they say, okay, we'll give you a plea deal or you can face the jury again. And the plea deal was for secondary murder, which will give you a sentence of 12 years.

He says, all right, I'll take it. Hannah Mary was sitting in the jail waiting for her trial. And she decided, you know what? I'd rather play my cards right. And I'm going to go ahead and plead guilty to accessory to the crime. She gets two years.

of prison two years only serves like half after that she gets out she lives with her brother for a little while she gets on her feet you don't really hear from her again apparently she got married again because she popped up in a marriage record she apparently she got married again and again right but one of them you can't find because remember

87 the only documents are newspapers or death certificates and marriage certificates that are not documented well because continue to strip history from us also also so john actually died four days before she was released from prison right

Right. She was released April 30th, and he died four days before. He didn't want to deal with her. Right. But she was out, and she could go to his funeral. Yes, but she got a widow's pension. And so I think she didn't want that marriage on the record because once you remarry, you don't get that check anymore. And they said she did not cash it into her...

well after her last marriage like she's the one the last record they have of her she finally went up to the social security office like listen i've remarried that's a nice little check to be coming in yeah because they widows really got she never got reunited with annie she where is annie annie are you okay are you okay are you okay annie all right friend i think it's time for well i'm not black i'm oj

I ain't do it. But if I did, this is how I get away with it. Everything was perfect until you decided to run your mouth.

To his sister. I think everything just appeared perfect and everything just hadn't caught up to her yet at that point. She was very confident. Extremely. You know, and I've suffered from that false confidence before, you know? And then it gets your ass hemmed up every time. Every time. I feel she fucked up. She fucked up when she knocked on that white lady's house. At that point...

It was no longer just the conductor. It was that you appeared at the white lady's house. Her servant saw you. The coach and buggy saw you. Like, it was... The coach and buggy did not see her. That was the only thing. It just scared her. But still, two people saw you and could identify you in a lineup. And you looking suspicious as fuck on this train. Put that window up. Right.

I feel like, didn't they have them little big bags? I feel like she could have, like, put it in some luggage. Do you think that she actually chopped him up? Because if he supposedly worked at a butcher shop, but she, the stories are different. So which one is the truth? You don't know. The stories are very different because one is that she was just arguing with Wakefield by herself and he just pops up and saves her. And the next one is that they're fighting over Annie and it's like... Annie's not even there. Yeah.

and he's been missing since you got back from the farm. So it doesn't really make sense for them to be fighting over Annie. That is a little sketch. I feel like, I don't know, this story was presented, this girl named Callie Nicole wrote a book called Hannah Marie Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso. Amazing. If you're in the discussion group, she also wrote the book that I posted in there. If you're not in discussion group, get in there.

So, and she was basically like, I want to tell this story, you know, like we say, we get a lot of questions asking, why are we telling these crimes? And she was like, one, the case was so very interesting. Right. Like, what's going on? But two, you have to be able to accept the humanity that, you know, there's a lot of times where the justice system didn't act right. And there's a lot of time where there was a lot of racial influence. But there are times...

We just did wrong, too, and you have to accept the humanity of that. I thought it was a very interesting case in that sense, but overconfidence fucked her in the ass in multiple places. You can never get comfortable. That's if you're committing murder. That's if you're scamming. You can never be comfortable because that's when you get caught. Mm-hmm.

I think she lucked up by having George kill him. Honestly, if she really wanted to play her card, she should have called the cops right there. She should have ran out of her house screaming and feeling. She knows how to play it, right? Right. She should have ran out screaming right there. Oh, my God!

He killed him. It would have been a wrap right there. Because they'd be like, she came out the house frantic. You know what I'm saying? And he'd be like, what? I don't know. I didn't. She should have right there called it. Wasn't no need to talk about it. That would have been really good. She wouldn't even have that half a year. Wouldn't have had shit. I mean, she got away with it anyways. But she would have really got away with it if she would have just stopped right there and just. You were pinning on him anyways. So just do it earlier. Well, we can't do parole or no parole because she was in and out.

In and out. She had a good time. She didn't have no time for parole. So I think that was another thing. She got like hardly no time. But we talk a lot of the time about how bias does not work in our favor. And as black women, like what bias are we going to get in our favor? But I think...

Maybe not the black part, but being a woman, I think, served her very well in this crime. Like, she's got a man to put it on. I'm just going to play that desperate woman and let y'all biases take over.

Because that's what she did. She played on people's thoughts and what they wanted. She knew what people wanted and, you know, knew how to give it to them. She knew exactly how the white people wanted to be treated. They loved her. So she just really just played into that. She's being judged. She's being judged by a jury of people who she knows how to work very well. That's what she did was work to fight white people. And you go, girl, because that's how you win. All right, y'all. That's been another episode. So listen, somebody came.

and again asked us to read the comment y'all names that y'all are giving us are not matching the names that y'all put on the reviews y'all be like shout me out and i'll be like who are you like you'd be like giving me some nickname it's not in here and it could just be that maybe it comes a little bit later but then they start coming in and we're so grateful but mine is not even my real name i don't know where it came from okay so mine comes from alabree alabree

I'm not sure which one it is. It says, Finally, a fun true crime podcast. I could never, ever find a true crime podcast that kept me wanting more, and I finally found it. These two sisters have done a great job. I recommend this podcast to any and every lover of true crime. Can't wait for the next episode. Thank you so much.

So, Chicken Noodle123 says, I've never been into podcasts and have never cared for them, but this is amazing. I love this one. The realness, the jokes, everything. I love. I love. Keep doing what y'all are doing. And we love you. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Can I vent to you guys for a second? I'm fucking tired. I am so tired.

Like, I really appreciate you guys. But this is way more work than I expected it to be. And I'm not complaining. We're literally two months old. We are babies. As a podcast. And we have no idea what we're doing. We are babies. And I am getting requests for YouTube videos with visuals, for merch, for more episodes in a week. And let me tell you, it is...

It's 2.30 a.m. Friday morning. And y'all are about to have this shit out Friday morning. We are doing the best that we can. We are still trying to get our sound together. And I promise you, you guys, we try something new every week. Every single time. And we literally don't know anything about this. But we started the podcast and for the first like three weeks, we were like, oh, we are averaging four listeners per day. Yeah. And that was big for us. And then out of nowhere...

We're averaging 1,000 listens per day, and we can't keep up. We love y'all, so stick with us. We promise that we'll get better. I'm really trying to...

improve on each episode but if it ain't if y'all didn't hear it like y'all wanted to or like I'm trying to get the episodes out on time I'm trying to we're also like really stressed just bear with us guys like I'm not trying to say that I'm giving up or whatever I really appreciate you guys because we're not I'm not like y'all are definitely encouraging me to keep going I really do it for y'all at this point but I'm

I'm really just asking y'all to hang in there. We're tweaking some things. I appreciate all the feedback. We're just trying. Tazzy's trying to speak louder. I really am. I'm really trying to speak louder. Because everybody was like, Mariah sounds fine, but Tazzy, I gotta... And then she's yelling at me. And then she's whispering. Because she's fucking loud all the time. And then like... But I'm also a mumbler all the time. She can't speak. I don't speak well. And now all y'all want to do is hear me speak. Yeah.

So this is definitely testing me and pulling me in a lot of places where my strong, like I'm not shining from my strong suits. I am shining from my weak spots, you know, my writing, my speaking. But you're doing so good. You're doing so good. I just want y'all to bear with me. I'm trying.

But that's all I had to say. I really appreciate you guys. I just needed to vent. And I just, I feel very encouraged by y'all, but there are some people who are just like, uh, this ain't this, and this ain't that. We are babies. We are not professionals. We did not study this. Like, we literally just was like, okay, let's try it and see how it goes. And it went. It fucking went. It went well. But it went well fast. Yeah. And I just, y'all gotta give me time to be on this learning curve.

All right, y'all. I don't have anything else. Follow us on the things. Okay, what do we got? Listen, hold on, everybody.

answer all the questions to get into the discussion group i'm not going to let you in y'all i'm not i'm not i'm the mariah listen she is the mean one she will try and make it seem like it's me she is the mean one and she said do not let y'all in unless y'all have answered all three questions it helps our stats we're trying to figure shit out okay like just answer the fucking questions all right stop letting y'all kids listen to this podcast

So, you can find us on Twitter, Sisters Who Kill. That's where you'll mostly find me at. If you want to interact with me, that's your best bet. Mariah handles most of the other socials. We're both in the discussion group. Yeah. You can find Mariah posting on Instagram at...

Sisters Who Kill Pod. You can find Mariah on TikTok at Sisters Who Kill Podcast. You can buy Mariah some coffee on Cash App with Sisters Who Kill Pod. And you can email mostly me, you know, and I'll attention Mariah to what she needs to be attention from. But I'm in the emails at Sisters Who Kill Podcast at gmail.com. And that's also where you go if you want to have ad space.

So, yeah. Thanks, guys. I'll see you next week. Peace.