Witches, Magic, Murder, & Mystery · Megan and Kara

367. MURDER: Madeleine Smith, Socialite and Murderer?

·28 min·1 clip

Pierre Langlier died after violent vomiting, abdominal pain, and arsenic in his body.

Kara and Megan start with their usual easy back-and-forth, a weather check, and a quick correction on how to say Glasgow. They also talk about how people complain when hosts interrupt each other, then more or less shrug and settle into the idea that conversation should sound like conversation. The case they move into is Madeleine Smith's, where private life turns poisonous. Her secret relationship with Pierre matters because he has letters that could expose her. He uses them as leverage. That leaves her in a brutal bind, because going public would mean admitting the affair and risking her reputation, her engagement, and her place in society. The hosts spell out how narrow those choices were for a woman in that era. They also point out that arsenic was not some hidden, exotic substance. It could be bought at a local chemist. Women also used it in small amounts for complexion and other household purposes, which made it even easier to imagine inside a home. Records show that Madeleine purchased arsenic more than once. That detail becomes one of the main anchors of the case against her. The timeline moves to March of 1857, when Pierre becomes violently ill. His symptoms come on hard and fast. He vomits, suffers severe abdominal pain, weakens, and collapses. Doctors are left scrambling because the period gives them very little in the way of tools or treatment. Cholera sits among the early possibilities because it was common enough to seem plausible. Kara and Megan keep circling the question of whether Madeleine was trapped, guilty, or both in some impossible way. They finish by circling back to the fact that she never married again and wondering what that says, if anything, about what really happened. The whole thing lands as a messy, sad, and very human murder story told in the show's familiar chatty style.

As heard by us

A poison case told with warmth, banter, and a steady eye on social ruin.

Madeleine Smith's story is framed by letters, leverage, and a secret affair that puts her future at risk. Kara and Megan keep the case easy to track: they lay out the blackmail, the arsenic purchases, and Pierre's illness in plain language, then keep circling back to the harder…

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Why you'd press play

Victorian poison, secret letters, and a blackmail threat that keeps the scandal tightening.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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