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True Crime Historian

Allegations Of Arsenic Ice Cream

True Crime Historian

Richard O Jones

True Crime, Performing Arts, Documentary, Arts, Society & Culture

4.5720 Ratings

🗓️ 18 July 2025

⏱️ 89 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Father Stood Trial

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Episode 359 details one of the most chaotic cases I’ve yet to come across. The investigation left a lot of unanswered questions and the prosecution seems motivated by political pressure and retaliation rather than evidence. Was the youngster murdered by his father or one of his playmates? Let me know what you think.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Popular.com

0:03.0

Grand Rapids, Michigan, September 19, 1933.

0:14.0

Coroner H.C. Wolf and police detectives yesterday started an investigation into the death of 13-year-old Gerald Van Gilder,

0:23.0

son of Mr. Mrs. William Van Gilder, 2.05 Hall Street Southwest, who died 4 o'clock Monday morning.

0:32.4

The boy became ill Sunday evening and may have died of tomein poisoning, although police were investigating a report

0:40.3

that two boyfriends, now in juvenile home, had given him liquor to drink, which may have contained poison.

0:48.3

The lad, together with other boys of the neighborhood, went to the airfare on Sunday, but returned home in the afternoon,

0:56.8

and Van Gilder accompanied two boys to a garage where they dissembled a bicycle, said by police to have been stolen.

1:05.9

The two boys in juvenile home because of the stolen bicycle, told police that Van

1:11.4

Gilder became ill while with them and went home. They denied they had seen him

1:17.3

eat or drink anything. The parents told coroner Wolf that they called the

1:22.9

city physician's office at 11 p.m. Sunday and asked for a doctor. They said they called again at 11.30 and at

1:31.2

midnight and several other times before the boy died, but that a city doctor did not arrive until

1:37.7

after the boy had died. On each call after the first they were told that a doctor was on the way, they said.

1:47.9

Dr. Paul W. Kyniskern, city physician, reported last night that an investigation in his office

1:55.5

revealed the information that no call for a physician was received from the Van Gilder residence until about

2:02.4

4 a.m. and that a doctor was sent on the call within a half an hour. Dr. Kinniskern said that he

2:10.1

was informed that an ambulance was dispatched also within a half hour and that the boy died in the

2:16.3

ambulance on route to the hospital.

2:19.3

Sergeant Ray McBride of the 3rd Police Precinct Station said last night he did not recall

2:25.3

exactly what time the first call was made for a doctor at the Van Gilder residence,

2:30.3

but said he believed it was about 3 o'clock, although it might have been a half hour earlier

...

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