Foul Play: A Historical True Crime Podcast · Shane L. Waters, Wendy Cee, Gemma Hoskins

S39E04 - The Longest Inquest

March 24, 2026·21 min·10 clips

Jane Cannon Cox returns to the inquest. She had been the key witness at the first inquest, because her account of Charles' alleged confession helped support the conclusion that he died by suicide. The room is paying close attention. On July 17, 1876, Cox takes the stand again, calm and exact, repeating her story without changing a detail and insisting that Charles said, "I took poison, don't tell Florence." Sir John Holker does not leave the claim alone. He takes her back through the evening of April 18th minute by minute, pressing her on where she was when Charles collapsed, who else was in the room, and the exact words he used. The questions can sound repetitive, but they are meant to strip the story down and show that only one witness heard the decisive words. Marianne Keeber complicates things. She was in the room for much of the night and heard no such statement, while the doctors who treated Charles also never reported a confession to suicide. Cox stays composed. When pressed on the gap between her account and everyone else's silence, she says Marianne may have stepped away for a moment and that she cannot speak to what others did or did not hear. People still disagree about her tears, then and now, but no one disputes the public damage of her exposure. The case tightens around one crucial confession, and Holker's cross-examination turns the hearing into a lesson in corroboration: a suicide story can rise or fall on who heard what, and whether that hearing can be trusted.

As heard by us

A measured inquest account that makes one witness's certainty the central question.

The piece builds an inquest around whether Jane Cannon Cox's testimony can really hold a suicide narrative together. She returns to the stand, while Sir John Holker picks through the night of Charles' collapse minute by minute, weighing what she says she heard against what…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

One witness, one alleged confession, and a courtroom story that tightens by the minute.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Foul Play: A Historical True Crime Podcast