Jess: 0:00

I'm not gonna lie, I've been craving some murder stories. Is that wrong?

Hannah: 0:05

No, that's why we started this podcast, because we're weird.

Jess: 0:07

I need murder Okay.

Murder and Mimosas Podcast: 0:18

Lads, do you enjoy getting traumatized on a weekly basis? Well, neither does my co-host, neil.

Murder and Mimosas Podcast: 0:26

People call me a victim more than a co-host.

Murder and Mimosas Podcast: 0:29

Anyway, welcome to the Mortal Musings podcast. I'm your host, megan. Each week we dive into truly dark and disturbing cases. Do you ever find yourself listening to these horrific tales and saying to yourself no, Well, the actual f***.

Murder and Mimosas Podcast: 0:45

why? Why did you do that? Solved it, mate. There's no need for that. They're just acting the b***.

Murder and Mimosas Podcast: 0:52

Our episodes include cases of serial killers, the story of a socialite that was held captive for 25 years, prison riots, wrongful executions and scandals in the death industry. At the end of each episode, we throw in a tale of oddity Anything from medical mishaps to the real-life weekend at Bernie's or Mike the headless chicken. New episodes every Wednesday, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Murder and Mimosas Podcast: 1:20

And remember, here at the Mortal Musings podcast, we like to take the cases seriously, but not ourselves.

Hannah: 1:37

Hello Wanderers. I'm Hannah and I'm Jess, and this is Wicked Wanderings.

Jess: 1:44

Hello Hannah, hello Jess, how's it going? And hello Mom, hi Mom.

Murder and Mimosas Podcast: 1:50

Hi Hannah.

Jess: 1:51

So today we have something special, right? Yes?

Hannah: 1:55

We don't have to do anything.

Jess: 1:58

We just get to make funny jokes all the time. So Mom is doing the episode today.

Hannah: 2:04

Wow, we are so excited. Probably be more clean than some of our other episodes.

Jess: 2:11

Just wait for one more beer.

John: 2:14

You're still here for commentary.

Mom: 2:17

We're still here. So I started thinking about this. I actually was doing some background for Hannah because I thought she was going to do the episode, so don't mind me if I'm a little surprised here. When we, when you were doing the Danny Croto murder and I started thinking a lot about Bunny Croto and being a mom and what happens when somebody hurts you or hurts your family and that's so personal right.

Jess: 2:46

So, personal. Turn into mama bear yeah.

Mom: 2:49

So originally I was looking at women like in Victorian times but honestly that stuff's just not documented real well. So when I started looking at why women kill and why they kill people that hurt them or hurt their family, some women kill because they are mentally ill, mentally deranged, they want insurance, money, they have a lot of other motives, but I'm talking about your average hardworking woman who's raising her family and something extraordinary happens. Where's that breaking point?

Jess: 3:21

Yeah.

Mom: 3:22

Where's that breaking point where women just snap there's a bucket.

Jess: 3:26

I mean there's a whole show on the Oxygen Channel called Snapped.

Mom: 3:30

So yeah, so there is a study that was done in 2016 by Marquette University that says of all the murderers in the United States, only 15% are committed by women Really 85% by men and half of those are done by women who kill their abusers or someone who has hurt their family Deserved.

Jess: 3:53

What was the percentage?

Mom: 3:54

again. So 15% are women, but only half of those are people that reach. It's a reactionary thing to someone who has hurt them or hurt their family.

John: 4:04

So, to put even in more context, 7.5% of all murders in the United States are committed by women against People who are abusive. Right, I think that that's almost that we're nearing 10% of all murders. That statistic statistically significant.

Mom: 4:25

It is extraordinary but, however, and there's a lot of other studies, and but I want to get into these women's stories more A lot of study that if a woman kills her abuser, her prison sentence on average is longer than if a man kills his spouse or are you?

Mom: 4:42

serious it's. There is this huge and there's also a whole racist element. If you're a white woman of means, you are more apt to have spent less time in jail and get more of a cause than if you're a woman of of color. So these the women that well, let's, let's just talk about them. I think the first one I want to talk about is Francine Hughes, because my generation, we all knew who Francine Hughes was and Fairfaucet did the movie the burning bed.

Jess: 5:14

Oh, never seen or heard of Francine, so do tell yeah.

Mom: 5:18

So Francine was born in Michigan in 1946. When she was 16 years old, she married Mickey Hughes oh my god had four children. They were married for 13 years. He was a use of, he was an alcoholic, just like her father, and a piece of alcoholic. She married her father and she finally did divorce him after, you know, 13 years of abuse.

Hannah: 5:40

So sounds like he's he should be called a dish, can you?

Mom: 5:44

Oh, he's definitely yes, yeah yeah, and she's only 27.

Hannah: 5:49

She's still so young, so young to go through that much pain absolutely so they get divorced.

Mom: 5:55

She's living on her own. She's going to school, she gets her G E D, she's starting to take classes. Mickey's involved in a serious car accident and she's kind of a compassionate person. She agrees to have him come back into the house.

Murder and Mimosas Podcast: 6:10

No, okay, because he never goes well the abuse starts again.

Mom: 6:15

The alcoholism starts, the abuse starts. I couldn't see anything where he was abusing the kids. All we did kill one of the kids kittens oh my god. Yeah, that's what makes him the douche, can you really? And he would just he everything would arrange him. So Francine snapped and out of her snapping becomes the battered women's syndrome defense, which is now a battered person syndrome defense. If you're in a relationship that is not you a heterosexual one, you can still claim that you're a battered person, so her case set the precedence exactly.

Mom: 6:56

That's pretty cool, exactly so. One night he demanded that she stop taking classes. He burned all her school books. And then, the end of getting into a really bad fight, he was beating her, throwing her on the floor, telling her what she was cooking was just garbage. Three of the kids were home. They're crying in the rooms and she calls cops this. This is what? Six on my craw. They didn't do anything. Cops let her down. They came in and they told her Francine, we didn't see him hit you. Oh, my god. So Nothing we can do. And as they walk out to the cruiser, mickey says to one of the cops she's in for now she called Joe.

Mom: 7:45

Oh my god, and off they go anyways. After they left, she got him dinner. He beat her, he raped her, he continued to drink and passed out drunk in the bed, and this is where the birding bed comes from. She wakes three of her four kids, tells them put the coats on, go sit in the car. She goes and she gets a can of gasoline, douses the bed and sets the man, drunk, passed out, on fire. Sits in her car and watches the house burn down. I don't believe her one bit.

John: 8:19

I do have a question. You said three out of her four kids are in the car.

Mom: 8:22

One wasn't home, oh good, I was like she killed one of her kids too, Watch the house burn.

Jess: 8:27

What did the?

Mom: 8:27

kid do no, because he didn't like dinner either. He wasn't home. So I watched an interview by one of her sons so I think he was at six at the time and he he talked about that night, about sitting in the car watching the house burn, not understanding what was going on, but he recounted the abuse. I mean, he saw it, he witnessed that Francine gets in the car, she drives to the police station and turns herself in. Wow, she said I killed him, I set the bed on fire. I don't feel bad about it.

Mom: 9:04

No and she's. I guess she really didn't. She didn't feel bad about it.

Murder and Mimosas Podcast: 9:08

What year?

Mom: 9:08

was this? This was 50s, no, so I think it was like 1977, I'm guessing. Good for her. Okay, I'd want to shake her hand, her lawyer. Actually it was a brand new case for him, of course, but he was a brand new lawyer. I watched a recent interview with someone from the DA's office and he said she got away with murder and she should have not gotten away with murder because she could have picked up her kids and left. And I think the things that people don't understand is that when an abuser tells you I'm going to kill you and find you, you don't know.

Mom: 9:53

And most of them can't fight back right.

John: 9:55

You don't have options. You have very few options, especially with your. She'd been living with that kind of abuse for what you said.

Mom: 10:04

13 years, 13 years and another five or six years when he came back.

John: 10:09

So that's kind of your whole world, that's kind of your perception is oh, he's right, he's right.

Mom: 10:16

Well, she was found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity and she got off. Good, and there was you got the insanity part, but yeah, no, but in listening to her son there's a lot of ramifications for watching for a child watching.

Mom: 10:34

Oh yeah, for sure you know I would suggest Farrah Fawcett's in that movie and the Burning Bad, and I can remember when it came out 80, Middle 80s that's. I mean, everybody was talking about it. I'm gonna have to watch it. You need to watch. It's hard to watch. It's hard to watch. You have to remember the guys in actor.

Hannah: 10:51

Yeah, Though the movie I'm thinking about is the one with JLo Enough, enough.

Mom: 10:59

That was hard to watch, yeah, but she. But that was definitely a movie because she then, all of a sudden, didn't she get into martial arts and she went back and Beat the shit out of her? Yeah, she did.

Jess: 11:12

The frustrating thing about domestic violence is that it's another one of those not really blame the woman, but kind of like well, there's no evidence, you haven't called the police before, you haven't been to the hospital with black eyes or broken bones yet, and without that evidence there's usually not as much of a case. But women are scared to call because exactly what he did is beat the shit out of her. After the police are called. Yeah.

Mom: 11:46

And then told, but to tell the police, well, she's really gonna get it now because she called you.

Hannah: 11:51

But it's also with abusers. These aren't women that are, have careers and are accessible to people because they start slowly ripping you away from your friends, your family and like, oh, you don't have to work anymore, I'll take care of you. So then they have no circle of people to trust, so that kind of helps perpetuate. Yeah.

John: 12:11

There's definitely an isolation effect.

Hannah: 12:13

Yeah.

John: 12:13

I mean, I think that some of these women, they can have careers, but I think a lot of their life gets swallowed by their partner. Yes, so maybe they do have a life going on and the abuse continues, but that life is controlled by the partner.

Mom: 12:28

Mm-hmm.

Murder and Mimosas Podcast: 12:29

Mm-hmm.

Mom: 12:29

The happy ending for her, if there's such a thing as a happy ending, is that she did meet reportedly what I read a very nice man in the 80s got remarried, became an LPN. Oh, awesome. And after she retired, she would go to nursing homes and spend time with the elderly and stuff, oh, I love that. Yeah, so she did try to. You know she didn't like oh, I got away with it. You know what I mean. It was like she really tried to.

Jess: 12:57

Cheers to Francine. Yeah, it's a tough name.

Murder and Mimosas Podcast: 12:59

Cheers to Francine. Francine died in 2017.

Mom: 13:02

She was 69 years old.

Jess: 13:04

Oh wow.

John: 13:05

Complications of pneumonia, but she was a tough woman with a good heart, I mean she gave back afterwards and I think that takes a lot.

Jess: 13:12

Yeah, she wasn't an evil person.

John: 13:14

She just yeah.

Mom: 13:15

No, none of these women really are going to talk about the second lady I want to talk about. Her name is Sarah Sands and she's from the UK. She lived in council housing, which is kind of like projects, but yeah. Yeah, kind of like projects. She had five boys. Oh, boy, so the three older boys were a pair of 11 year old twins and a 12 year old. There was a lovely man that was yeah 11 year old twins.

Mom: 13:43

There was a lovely man who was their neighbor. He was very pleasant to everybody in the neighborhood. What they didn't know was he was a convicted pedophile and had changed legally changed his name.

Jess: 13:58

Oh which? Which Are they able to do?

Mom: 14:01

that? Well, they were them. So this is actually this case. Isn't that old? He had 24 prior convictions and had spent time in jail Wait 24.

Jess: 14:14

Why is he out?

Mom: 14:15

Yes, seriously, and he got out. He did his again. We're talking about a system that is letting people down.

Mom: 14:22

Yeah, for sure you know, and I wanted to talk about this because it's not just here in the United States. So he has a job, he's working in a shop and he is having all the young boys come in and fold papers with him and do all that. Oh God. The three kids go to their mother and tell her that he has sexually abused them. The mother goes to the police. Of course he does right. He was right. He was right, mommy, what did?

Jess: 14:50

she do. They arrested him.

Mom: 14:51

Oh good, but the judge, let them out on bail. Why? Because they got back to his little place in Council housing.

John: 14:58

Across from this woman in their kids.

Jess: 15:00

Across from where this woman lives with her five boys After he's already done jail time for the same offense.

Mom: 15:06

But they don't realize at the time that he's the other guy.

John: 15:09

Oh wow, they don't realize that they think this might be like a first offense.

Mom: 15:15

So, and the sons later and the sons now. I watched an interview with them a couple of years ago. They're all like older teens, early 20s. They said they would look out the window and they could see his house and they were scared.

Jess: 15:28

Yeah, I'm afraid so they're scared of him right.

Mom: 15:31

She is so upset that this man moves back across from her that she picks up her boys and goes to live with her mother Because she doesn't want the kids near him. And one night Sarah is home and she's so upset she throws them in a hoodie, she grabs a kitchen knife and she goes over to visit her neighbor. She cut off his dick. Yeah.

Jess: 15:53

She stabs him.

Mom: 15:54

Jess is disappointed.

Hannah: 15:56

She ran into my knife. I was like 10 times.

Mom: 16:01

She goes and confronts him and he says your boys are lying. And she was a mom she knew her boys were lying, Like no, trust my kids.

Hannah: 16:09

Thank you yeah.

Mom: 16:10

She was so enraged she did? She stabbed him eight times. Good, okay. But then here's this woman. What does she do? She goes to the police station and turns herself in, because that's what women do they take accountable, right, so they don't blame other people. She was sentenced to three and a half years in prison, really, but they said afterwards they changed it to seven and a half years because they said eight times was excessive. That was, eight times was excessive.

Jess: 16:41

So is 24 Counts counts of pedophilia. A good point, jess.

Mom: 16:47

Oh, anyway, she actually spends four years in prison. Her boys are living with her mother and she, she, she got charged with manslaughter but not murder. She is now working to change the laws that allow sex offenders to legally change their names and be able to start new lives. In a BBC interview that I watched, the boys said when they were young they were relieved he was dead, but they wish they hadn't told their mother because they they spent those four years.

Mom: 17:21

Without her, but there's a woman. There's a woman now, not someone who abused her, but someone that touched her family. Watch the interview, watch the BBC, and she's a young woman. Wow, I mean. She's a young woman with with these kids. Yeah, I mean I go ahead, jonathan.

John: 17:41

I was just gonna say it was like what I appreciate about the story and it's just like subtle details of this guy sexually assaulted these boys, and these boys knew Not only is this wrong and it's not my fault, but if I tell my mom, everything's gonna be okay.

Jess: 18:01

Yeah cuz.

John: 18:02

Some kids in that situation would be like I eat. Maybe it's my fault, or maybe my mother won't believe me and she believed them. I mean, this is a. These are well brought up kids as far as we can tell yeah and the mom's like I need to defend my family. This is not going to. I'm not going to let the law Disappoint us.

Murder and Mimosas Podcast: 18:20

Mm-hmm.

John: 18:20

This is something I have to do, and she took accountability for it.

Hannah: 18:23

Yeah, it's a lot of character like what happened with Danny not necessarily Danny himself, but with all those other kiddos that Were saying that the priest was abusing the parents, like oh no he's a man around you, like it's fine, you know. So to have a parent that actually is gonna listen to you is huge.

Mom: 20:12

She said she had no intention of killing him. She just wanted him to admit that he did it. Hmm and when he, she said when he's accused, or sons, of lying, she was just so enraged she lost control. She admitted it in court. She did.

Jess: 20:29

She just spent four years in prison, though, you know what would you do for your kids like, is the four years worth it knowing your kids are safe?

Murder and Mimosas Podcast: 20:37

Yeah, honestly I.

Jess: 20:40

Would have maybe stabbed him once to whatever incapacitate. He would. I would make sure. Well, I mean, she made sure he didn't have another chance, but I would make sure that If he lived, he would not definitely not have another chance to do anything. Fuck that guy.

Mom: 21:03

Sorry. Sorry, mom and here's a case that's a little more recent and closer to home. This is 1990 up in York, maine.

John: 21:10

Oh, York, Maine. That's where we go every summer, yeah well. Love me, so we always summer on the south coast.

Hannah: 21:18

It's not that bougie.

Mom: 21:21

Jacqueline bevons was married to Jack bevons. I'll call her Jacqueline, even though they called her Jackie, because he's Jack, I can Jackie he was a well-known Philan. The war Land or taste philanthropy.

John: 21:35

Land or not, our hard.

Mom: 21:39

He did share with others. He had over a hundred affairs, so he knew about sharing.

John: 21:45

He was great at managing his time.

Mom: 21:49

That's a way to put it, he also. He had a business, something to do with concrete, and supposedly he had ties to organized crime. So I mean, imagine being being Jackie and being in this position. You're married to this man who's down in the Cayman Islands. He has a concrete business, reportedly will organize crime and he's a beater, he's an abuser. She put up with a lot with him. I mean, people saw him throw toasters at her and stuff from you know, like the Fire poker and all of that. She used the battered wind drum, battered women's syndrome Defense. This was the first time it was using the state of Maine and I think that's why the cases as we're talking about something from the 70s and it's 15 years later before it hits, it hits the state of Maine. Jackie was waiting for her psychological evaluation after she kills Jackie, but what she does is so you have to understand, she ends up shooting him 15 times. Now See, this is where the quirk gets. They feel like when women kill it's, it's excessive.

Mom: 23:14

Because we it's pent up rage overly emotional quote on yeah eight stabbing this, the pedophile, eight times and now she shot him 15 times as he was coming on the tub and the court said that that 15 times was excessive.

Jess: 23:30

Yeah, but I can go into arguments about when you shoot a gun and you're in the heat of the moment and how quickly Rounds come off.

John: 23:39

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point.

Mom: 23:41

So and anyway, that's my not very good point so Jackie Part where she's waiting for her psychological evaluation, decides to get a whole new legal team very smart lady, very smart lady. She was really stonbale. She moved in with a friend and over the next 14 months that new defense lawyers team dug into their whole life together. What are the things that she had done? Because now all we do is we'll snap selfies. She documented everything in her diary, mm-hmm. So they had Blow by blow, literally, of everything that he had done to her. You know her, her son, his stepson, had witnessed some of it. They uncovered his alleged ties to organized crime. They uncovered a possible plot to kill Jackie yeah, it was kind of. And Jackie had claimed that Jack had like 126 affairs again His, the, the details, and I'm not gonna go into them, but if you want to like that kind of Really disgusting detail, it is in the. So the legal, it's some very disturbing.

Mom: 25:00

Very disturbing, but it isn't in the court records. So the prosecution came in. I mean, she never said she didn't do it again. Another woman who says I killed him, I'm taking responsibility. I mean, this is what I think remarkable about these three women. They all are. Nobody said he made me do it.

Mom: 25:20

How many times we heard men who are batterers. Oh, she made me. She made me do it, she made me hit her. Look at you made me do this one, like I did it, and this is why I did it. And here I am and I'll take. I'll take accountability for it I think that's actually pretty admirable. The prosecution said that 15 times was excessive and it was only because she was jealous over the latest girlfriend.

Jess: 25:43

Oh, my god, the jury, take him Guilty.

Mom: 25:48

Oh good, yeah, she went back to her restaurant, she volunteered in the community and in 1999 she got a position as a on the board of select men and we reelected in 2001. Wow, so where to go, jackie? These I don't think it's. These women are not impacted by what they did, but it almost seems like you know, they, they, they Go and they're helping people in nursing home, they're raising their children, they're serving in the community this is something that happens to them and and they take care of business. Yeah, and I, I bet you, they all had terrible, terrible Remorse and guilt.

Jess: 26:33

Oh, for sure.

Mom: 26:33

Sarah in the UK. She talked about how much remorse she had over killing the man. Was she sorry that she killed him, that she had to kill him? Yes, I think that's where the remorse was not. Maybe not that she did it.

Jess: 26:47

Well, also, I think there's some psychological effect of actually taking the life of another human being.

Mom: 26:53

Who it? Is yeah yeah, I was. I watched one woman's interview that happened, I think, outside of the Chicago area. She was a black woman and and she spent 15 years in jail for killing her abuser, and that's why I think the laws are just. The laws are really hurt women of color or who don't have means.

Jess: 27:19

Yeah, for sure.

Mom: 27:23

It's just really, the laws are terrible. And then, when you, if a woman kills a, loses his cool and kills his wife, he's apt to get less jail time than some of these. So it's it's really, though, the whole situation, but you know what causes you to snap.

Jess: 27:38

Yeah, few things so much.

John: 27:43

Yeah, thanks I've never heard of any of them, and they were all so Interesting and thought-provoking and if they're all a little bit different.

Mom: 27:52

You know there's a lot of and the cases that I looked at from the 1800s are interesting, but because of the documentation you don't really know why it's hysteria, yeah right.

Jess: 28:05

Witchcraft, witchcraft, witchcraft. There you go, witchcraft. It was the cocaine or the teats.

Hannah: 28:13

Well, I mean in the 50s and 60s.

John: 28:15

We can definitely say some of the murders were pretty good yeah probably.

Hannah: 28:18

But, Thank you Well done, Mom. Thank you for bringing that.

Mom: 28:22

Thank you for letting me share.

Jess: 28:24

Oh, anytime. Those are welcome anytime.

Murder and Mimosas Podcast: 28:27

Open invitation. Bye Wanderers.

Hannah: 28:30

Bye. Thanks for listening today. The show wouldn't be possible without our amazing producer and editor, Rob Fitzpatrick, who works tirelessly behind the scenes to bring you the best content and a special thanks to Tyga Soundprod for providing the captivating intro music.

Jess: 28:45

Cinematic intro 24.

Hannah: 28:47

And of course, we can't forget the hauntingly beautiful outro music, Rhino's Theme, composed by Kevin MacLeod.

Jess: 28:54

If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to leave a rating and review on our your favorite podcast platforms like Spotify, apple and YouTube. Your feedback means the world to us.

Hannah: 29:05

Also be sure to follow us on Instagram for behind the scenes glimpses, updates and more thrilling content. You can find us at Wicked Wanderings Podcast.

Jess: 29:13

Thank you so much for listening and being part of our Wicked Wanderings community. We appreciate each and every one of you.

Hannah: 29:20

Stay curious, keep exploring and always remember to keep on wandering.