Appalachian Murder, Mystery And Legend · Larry Bentley

Lydia’s Little Recipe

·22 min·1 clip

The autopsy showed Nelson Sherman's liver was saturated with enough arsenic to kill three lumberjacks.

1. Appalachian Murder, Mystery, and Legend tells the Lydia Sherman case, a Connecticut poison story framed by Larry Bentley’s Appalachian storytelling style. 2. Larry Bentley introduces himself as an Appalachian-born host and sets up the episode around Lydia Sherman, whose name later appears in newspaper headlines as “the poison fiend” and “America’s queen poisoner.” 3. The episode asks how Lydia Sherman moved through multiple marriages, several households, and repeated sudden deaths without being stopped sooner. 4. Lydia Danbury was born on December 24, 1824, in Burlington, New Jersey, and her mother died within a year of her birth. 5. After her father remarried, Lydia chose to live with her uncle John Klege, a New Brunswick farmer. 6. At 16, she met Edward Struck through the Methodist church and married him after he was widowed. 7. Lydia and Edward Struck moved to Harlem, New York, and had seven children together, including Martha, George, Edward, Josephine, Lydia, and William. 8. Edward Struck became sick and died after a few days, with the doctor unable to say exactly what caused the death. 9. Over the next two years, every child in the household died suddenly, and several death certificates listed typhoid fever. 10. Lydia later found work as a housekeeper in Stratford, Connecticut, where she met Dennis Hurlbut, a farmer and real-estate dabbler described as well off. 11. Hurlbut married Lydia in 1868, changed his will to make her his sole heir, and then quickly developed severe pain, fever, and death spiral symptoms. 12. The local doctor, Dr. Church, called in several other doctors to examine Hurlbut before he was dead and buried. 13. Lydia then married Horatio Nelson Sherman, called Nelson, in Derby, Connecticut, and he already had four children: Horatio Nelson Jr., Addy, Nathaniel, and 15-month-old Frankie. 14. Frankie died, then 14-year-old Annie died, and the couple were not sleeping in the same bedroom because they were not getting along. 15. Nelson drank heavily, went to New Haven with drinking companions in May 1871, and later came home sick, angry, and refusing Lydia’s food. 16. On June 1, Nelson drank something Lydia sent him, then two hours later had a headache, fever, and cramps before dying two days later. 17. An autopsy sent his stomach and liver to New Haven for analysis, and the report found enough arsenic in his liver to kill three big strapping lumberjacks. 18. Detectives then followed Lydia, exhumed Nelson’s children, and found arsenic in their livers as well. 19. She was arrested after leaving for New Brunswick, tried before Judge Clatt in Birmingham on July 6, 1871, sentenced to life in Wethersfield Prison on April 25, 1872, and later escaped in 1877 by using the name Miss Brown. 20. People who like old true-crime poison cases and courtroom histories will probably stay with this one. 21. People looking for a modern, restrained narration may skip the dialect-heavy delivery and old-time humor.

As heard by us

A bleak Appalachian family story, told with judgment, grief, drinking, and arsenic front and center.

This episode traces a bleak Appalachian family saga that ends with arsenic at its center. A widower with four children marries Lydia in September 1870, and the home quickly turns heavy with grief, drinking, and suspicion after Frankie dies at 15 months and Annie is later lost at…

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A poison-laced Appalachian marriage story with kitchen-table judgment, bad blood, and no patience for fools.

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