Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast · Blue Ewe Media

414: The Martha Wise Murders w/ Rod Kackley

·55 min·1 clip

Martha heard the devil's voice telling her to kill her mother and aunt—and she did something horrifying to test the poison.

This episode of Most Notorious! features host Erik Rivenes and returning guest author Rod Kackley discussing Kackley's new book, "The Murders of Martha Wise." Kackley specializes in historical true crime, having previously covered the 1945 Thora Chamberlain case on the podcast. The episode delves into the life and crimes of Martha Wise, an Ohio farm woman who poisoned multiple family members in the 1920s. Martha Wise was born in 1883 and grew up in profound hardship on a clay-soil farm in the Hard Scrabble district of Ohio. At age 23, she married a much older man, Albert Wise, primarily to escape her family farm, but found her life of grueling labor unchanged. After Albert's death in 1923, Martha developed an obsessive fascination with attending funerals, sometimes attempting to jump into open graves. She also began exhibiting bizarre behavior, wandering neighbors' properties at night and barking like a dog. A key motive emerged when Martha believed her mother and aunt sabotaged her relationship with a mechanic named Walter Johns, whom she saw as her ticket to Cleveland. Martha claimed the devil visited her in her kitchen and commanded her to kill her family with a slow, painful method. She chose arsenic, testing it first on a neighbor's dog, which died within minutes. On Thanksgiving Day 1924, she poisoned the drinking water and food at a family gathering, using arsenic she had signed for at a local pharmacy. The poisoning caused violent illness in over a dozen people, with symptoms including explosive diarrhea, vomiting, and partial paralysis; her mother, Sophie Hassel, died weeks later. In January 1925, Martha poisoned her family again at a New Year's Day party, leading to more deaths and severe injuries, including permanent paralysis for her niece Marie. A mysterious anonymous letter mailed to Prosecutor Joseph Seymour specifically suggested investigating bad blood between Martha and her aunt, Lily Geinke. The investigation unfolded alongside a wave of arson, livestock deaths, and thefts in Medina County that residents attributed to the devil. Sheriff Fred Rochon and his wife, Ethel, became central figures, with Ethel eventually coaxing a full confession from Martha by invoking God during a rainstorm. The trial was a major public spectacle, with crowds camping out for seats; Martha's sister-in-law, Edith, suspected by some townspeople, committed suicide by cutting her own throat before she was to testify. Martha was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in the Ohio Reformatory for Women, where she worked in the kitchen and garden. In 1962, a parole attempt failed when no halfway house would accept her, and a social worker briefly took her home, where Martha saw a home refrigerator and television for the first time. She was returned to prison and died there in 1971. A surprising insight is that Martha's primary stated motives were a desire for more funerals to attend, a command from the devil, and revenge for a lost romance. The episode reveals the shocking detail that arsenic poisoning could cause partial paralysis in survivors, as it did for multiple victims. It is memorable that Martha's defense argued she was a "moral imbecile," a period term implying an inability to distinguish right from wrong. The involvement of Sheriff Rochon's wife, Ethel, as a key investigator and Martha's only friend, adds a complex human layer to the story. The failed 1962 parole highlights the lasting stigma of her crimes, as even her own children wanted nothing to do with her. The tone is conversational and educational, with the host and guest narrating a detailed historical story punctuated by vivid descriptions from the book. The style is narrative true crime, building suspense around Martha's motives and the investigation without spoiling the trial's outcome. Listeners who love deeply researched historical true crime stories about lesser-known cases will find this episode compelling. Those sensitive to detailed descriptions of poisoning symptoms or early 20th-century mental health stigma might want to skip it.

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