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True Crime Historian

The Ogress Of Reading

True Crime Historian

Richard O Jones

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

4.4729 Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2026

⏱️ 53 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Trial and Execution of Amelia Dyer 

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Episode 43 comes at the request of a listener across the great pond in the United Kingdom. We will be exploring the testimony from the trial of Amelia Dyer, who would take in infants and toddlers for adoption for a fee, and then murder the poor children for the profit. She is said to have once referred to herself as an angel maker. I’ve seen estimates of her carnage at as many as 400 young souls, but she was convicted on only one count, but that was enough for her to pay the ultimate price.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

London, England, April 13, 1896.

0:12.3

A woman named Dyer, alias Thomas, alias Stanfield, etc., was charged at Reading with having on or about March 20th murdered a female child,

0:25.2

about 15 months old, whose body was found by some bargemen floating in the Thames.

0:32.5

The body was wrapped in brown paper, which had the prisoner's name and address on it.

0:39.6

A piece of tape tied tightly around the child's neck might, according to the medical testimony, have caused death.

0:46.1

The parcel was fastened with string, which was identified as having been borrowed by the prisoner,

0:51.9

and the tape was similar to some found in the prisoner's house.

0:56.0

In the parcel, there was a brick to sink the body, but it had been floated by the barge.

1:03.0

The prisoner, a well-dressed woman about 50 years of age, was described as a nurse.

1:10.0

She is a married woman, but her husband is not living with her.

1:13.9

The address referred to was at Caversham, near Reading,

1:17.2

where the prisoner had resided for about three months.

1:21.0

She was traced from there to 45 Kensington Road,

1:24.2

where a number of letters and documents were found

1:27.0

showing that she had advertised

1:28.5

in the London weekly papers to adopt children. It was suspected that she had an accomplice,

1:35.3

and another of other infants were believed to be missing, a number now being estimated at 13.

1:42.6

In the meantime, the police caused the Thames in the neighborhood of

1:46.2

Caversham Ware to be dragged, and on Wednesday, the body of another infant, a few weeks old,

1:53.0

was discovered wrapped in a parcel with a brick in it. When the parcel was raised to the

1:58.5

surface, the brick fell out, and the body was so decomposed that the head severed from the body, and it floated over the weir.

2:08.2

Tape had been tied around the neck of the child.

...

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