Monte Carlo Trunk Murder

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. I cannot tell you how exactly this particular topic got on my list. I suspect it was when I was doing one of those general surveys of like potentially unsettling Halloween episodes. Um, but it's not really Halloween e even though it is a little gruesome. I've been circling it for a long time. Um, it just though it is a murder, and aside from being a murder, it just didn't seem like the right fit for Halloween. Or I was just never in the mood for this particular one when I got there when I was looking at Halloween stuff. But I have been wanting to talk about the Monte Carlo Trunk murder as it came to be called in the press for quite a while now, I would say at least three years. Um. And that's because it's admittedly fascinating as a terrifying crime. But there are also some other elements that come up in the way that it was covered in the papers that really caught my attention. For one, the women involved in the crime get very different coverage than the man involved. And when I say women, it's because like I'm including the victim as well as a perpetrator in there. And for another, there is a particular aspect to the whole thing that comes up near the end that is so soaked in wealth privilege that it is unsettling to me in an entirely other way. Um, obviously, if you have not intuited it from what I have already said, this episode has some pretty grisily information, so heads up. It does also contain mention of a suicide, so just know all that going in. Yeah, I'll note that when you and I were trying to figure out what order we were going to record the things that we had prepared, I was like, this is our first recording session of January. It might be a little gruesome for the very first thing we do, So we put it off for a little bit later. Yeah, it languished for a week. Well, oh, he worked on other things because we didn't quite want to talk about it yet. Yeah. We we are now though, And it all starts with a man named vere Thomas st Leger Gould. Gould was born on October two, eighteen fifty three, in County Tipperary, and it was a well off Irish family. His grandfather was a baronet, his great grandfather was the Earl of Kenmar, and Gould grew up consequently in a life of leisure. He was really free to pursue his interests. He wasn't entirely without concern about his future financial stability though he was the fifth son in the family. That meant that he was not in a position to inherit a ton of wealth, but still a comfortable life. Yeah, and also not in a position to inherit the title. But even if very had not been born into privilege, he likely still would have been enviable. He was very handsome, He was incredibly charming, and he excelled at athletics of all kinds. Some people even described him as being just effortlessly good at everything he sailed. He was a skilled horseback writer, and he was very very good at tennis. He was also extremely competitive, and he was educated at Trinity College in Dublin. Although he played a lot of sports, tennis was what he really became known for. In eighteen seventy nine, Gold won the inaugural Irish Open after beating Charles david Berry, and then from there he progressed to Wimbledon, which was in its third year. He did quite well there as well. He did so well that he made it to the final, where he was matched against the Reverend John Hartley, but goold self sabotaged. He got drunk the night before and showed up to the match with what was described as a roaring hangover and helaw to Hartly. Hartly incidentally remains the only clergyman's who have ever won Wimbledon. Kind of fascinating it was. It was not just called Wimbledon yet at the time, but for the sake of of ease for today's audiences were doing that instead of listing the whole tennis club attorney. For the next several years, Gould continued what looked like a pretty promising tennis career, and he was something of a media darling because remember he was very attractive and very charismatic, but he still also had those same impulse control issues that he had had at Wimbledon when it came to partying, and he did not really progress the way he could have if he had actually dedicated himself to the sport. In eighteen eighty three, he finally left behind his tennis career after losing just a long series of matches. After that, the family estate provided him an allowance, and had it not been for his addictive and impulsive nature, he probably could have lived out his life quite comfortably. In eighteen ninete, eight years into his retirement from tennis, Gould met and married a woman named Marie Girraudin. She was a dressmaker born in France and had moved to England when she was still a child. She had been married and widowed at least once and possibly twice accounts very on that detail. Her dress shop was not especially successful. She was actually in debt to a lot of her clients, which I find fascinating. Yeah, she I think on outward appearances it sounds like it probably would have looked quite successful. She did have like a pretty big brisk business in terms of people coming in and getting closer. But she, as well discuss in a moment, always had a taste for a life that was greater than what she could finance, and so she would borrow from her clients on occasion, which is just a bad practice. Um. The two of these two people were married in London in a Roman Catholic church. Marie's name on the marriage certificate was Violet Wilkinson, a widow daughter of Ippolite Geraldin her previous husband. Wilkinson was described later as quote an obscure British Army officer. We don't know a whole lot more about him. Marie and Vere made for a match that was both good and horrible. Good in that they were similar in a lot of ways, and they seemed very very compatible and horrible, and that their similarities meant that they also seemed to bring out just the worst in each other. They both loved luxury, and they lived far beyond their means. The pair fell into a lifestyle habit of running up debts and then cutting out of where they were living when their creditors expected to be paid back, and then starting over again in a new location. Again not a good financial plan. Um first, they settled in London, where they had married, and Gould was described to the papers by people who knew him in London later as an absolutely lovely person. He had charming manners, he was kind to children. In a rite up, after the Goulds became the focus of the world, the new York Times reported that quote. A former friend said that it was his habit when coming home late from the club or the theater, to collect stray cats and bring them in to share his supper. As things got dicey in London, the Goulds moved to Montreal and they started over. They didn't seem to tell anybody they were leaving London. Their landlord reported later that when he visited their apartment in early nineteen o two, after he hadn't heard anything from them, he found that all the furniture was gone, and so were the Goulds. In Montreal, they opened up a millinary shop and a dressmaking business, and Marie's stress shop was fairly successful. It was later described in the press having made considerable money. They learned absolutely no lessons from their London experience, though, because once again they ran up huge debts, both in their outright spending and through gambling. When Montreal got a little too hot for them, in about nine four, Verre and Marie moved back to England, this time to Liverpool, and it was around this time that the couple started billing themselves as surveyor and Lady Gould. Gould actually had preceded his wife to Liverpool. He opened a steam laundry business and purchased several other local laundries, but these businesses ultimately failed. Despite the pomp with which they conducted themselves in public, in private, it was clear that their money and their credit were running low. So, and what sounds like the plot of a modern cinema tale, they decided to go to Monaco to try to make themselves a fortune through gambling. When they got there, they settled into Villa Minnesini, and for a while another woman lived with them. She was twenty five, and the Goulds introduced her to people as their niece, Mademoiselle Girodin. This niece pops up in various accounts about the Goulds, but she's seems to vanish before things get really intense in the next part of the story, so we don't know if she really was a relative or just a woman that they were friends with. Yeah, it's one of those things that you'll see in various accounts of their lives, like, oh, there was a niece and that's and it's like, um, and that's what we know. At one point, there was allegedly a woman who was a niece with them. The Goulds had decided that roulette was going to be their game, and initially they actually did pretty well at it. But luck always runs out, and soon they had lost what they had initially won and more as they continued to chase that luck. As they ran out of their funds and then dropped into the red baron, Marie fell back on their well practiced patterns and they decided to find somebody with plenty of money that they could borrow from to keep gambling. Enter Emma Erica Levin. She was Swedish and was the widow of Leopold Levin, who had been a stockbroker and had after very financially comfortable when he died sixteen years into their marriage. When the Goulds met her, she had been a widow for two years and she had really taken to a life of enjoying her inheritance. We're going to talk about the relationship between the Goulds and Levin in just a moment, but first we will pause for a sponsor break. Marie Gould made friends with Levin. Like her husband, she could absolutely turn on the charm when she wanted to win someone over, and Emma Levin was actually pretty quickly one Emma and Marie became friends, and when Marie felt that they were comfortable enough making their move, she asked Levin for a thousand francs. Levin was generous with her friends, Marie was not the only person she gave money to, and this led to some friction as Marie tried to eliminate any other companions of Levin's who might drain her marks coffers. There was another woman who had befriended Levin named Madame Castellazzi, and Castellazzi and Marie Gould did not like each other. As the conflict between the two of them escalated, it really became the talk of Monte Carlo and mL Levin was not pleased at all to be at the center of that drama, and she wanted to just remove herself from the situation as quickly as possible. Her social reputation had started to suffer from her association with the Goulds, and she was trying to save what she had left of it. So to that end, she began packing up and preparing to leave Monte Carlo to return to Sweden. One piece of business that Levin needed to handle before making her exit was getting her money back from the Goulds. On August four, seven, she went to their apartments to demand a repayment. She was never seen alive again. After that meeting with Levin, the Gould's abruptly left Monaco and they headed to Marseille on August six. They intended to book passage on a ship back to the UK, and it was at Marseilles on August six that a porter named Burrow was tasked with handling a trunk belonging to the Goulds that they needed to have forwarded to London, and he noticed that the trunk smelled horrible. The road's boss, Luis Paul, passed through the baggage room to inspect it after Borrowed had moved the trunk there. He was in the habit of making a pass through and double checking that all the bags were accounted for and organized so that they could be correctly routed to their next destination, and he noticed that this bad smelling trunk was using a red liquid from its underside. Pond noted the name and the destination of the owners of the trunk from the luggage ticket, and then he contacted Inspector Shaws dupin So, the baggage room was inspected and the Goulds were contacted at their hotel. When Vere and Marie were questioned about this mystery trunk, they claimed that they had put freshly slaughtered poultry in their bags to take home. I have so many questions about why that would be a good explanation. But when the trunk was opened by police, Emma Levin's dismembered torso was found inside. At the Gould's hotel, police discovered her limbs and head in a valise. When the Goulds were questioned about what had happened to m. E Leven, they gave a bunch of different and kind of cockamami explanations. An early version was that Levin's lover had burst into the room while she was there and killed her and then fled, And then the Goulds claimed they were trying to dispose of the body so they would not be implicated. I have so many thoughts um As the couple was questioned, a post mortem examination of Levin's body was performed. There were two stab wounds, evidence of blunt force trauma to the head, and multiple contusions on her face. Levin's abdomen had been cut open and some of the viscera had been removed. The coroner believed that the stabbing had been the cause of death and that the intestines had been removed to slow decomposition as the couple attempted to transport the body elsewhere for disposal per French law. At this time, the investigation and trial were kind of concurrent happenings. Magistrate was assigned as soon as the crime came up and was reviewing things and conferring with police throughout the investigation. Because court activities were a matter of public knowledge, this meant that the papers could cover the murder investigation as it was carried out, and any evidence introduced into court became available to journalists. This is such a wild concept to me, Like, could you imagine if every time police uncovered a clue it just got reported everywhere instantly, Like it's so um, it's such a strange idea. And immediately though this story was, as you might suspect picked up by the press and it was broadcast all over the globe. The grizzly nature of the discovery and the connection to well just proved irresistible to readers on August nine, so just a few days after this whole thing started seven, The New York Times ran an article titled alleged murderer, Maybe a Baronet, which noted, quote, the finding of the dismembered body of a woman at Marseilles has created a sensation here where the Goulds were regarded as persons of leisure and respectability. Seemingly instantly, stories were popping up featuring interviews with people who had known the Goulds. On August ten, an account from a Miss Charlotte Shrans of Ottawa was in the US papers. Shrans had worked for the Ghouls when they lived in Montreal. She was very willing to talk to reporters, and according to her, the dressmaking business continued after the Gould's left Montreal, but managed by another woman, and it was operating in a deep debt. Their gould was, according to Ms. Shran's, a heavy drinker with a gambling problem, and he showed poor judgment in his business. She told reporters that his millenary business had failed. It came out in that same interview that when the Gould's left Montreal, they had claimed that Vere's older brother had died and that Vere was going to inherit the baronet title. That was not true. His brother James Stephen Gould, was very much alive, although he lived in Australia, he did not use his title. The New York Times later printed that James had quote carefully hidden his identity, owing to his distaste for a title and his lack of means to support one. When Vere and Marie became headline news, James, who was well respected in his community in Australia, was said to deplore quote the discovery of his identity. At that point, James and Vere had not really even seen each other since they were children, and they had not really kept in touch there, and Marie had made it seem as though they were traveling to London to handle the business of the title inheritance, but would return to Canada shortly. No one in Montreal saw them again for two years, though, during which they were apparently moving around Europe. During that time, Charlotte Shrans was expected to send them money from business accounts to cover their expenses. When the Goulds did finally return to Montreal only temporarily, Shrans had tendered her resignation and management of the shop turned over to the woman that was mentioned but unnamed in the interview and only described as being French. During her brief interactions with Marie and Vire while they were back in Canada, Shrans said that she learned that there had been working out a system to break the bank in Monte Carlo playing Roulette. That woman that was not named by Charlotte Shrands was Madame Samuel LeDuc. She was also interviewed for an article that appeared in the Montreal paper The Gazette. Mrs LeDuc was described as quote looth to think they would be guilty of such a crime as that with which they are charged. When the murder story main had line, she was a bit confused. She had been under the impression that Mrs Gould had died the year before, so she doubted that it could be the same woman, particularly because she had always found the Goulds to be quote honorable and respectable. The article that featured statements from Madame Luduc mentioned that their Gould had not had success in business when he lived in Montreal and that quote for years had not actively been involved in business pursuits. At this point, investigators believed that there and Marie had murdered Emma Levin when she told them she needed her money back. Then they had dismembered her body and taken her jewelry, which was estimated to be worth a hundred and twenty five thousand francs. The Goulds were still trying to pitch the idea that another party had killed Levin, and they were stuck in the middle and afraid of being blamed. They claimed that the guilty party was a man named Barrett, who was arrested, questioned, and then released. The Gould story obviously did not hold water, and soon they told a different version of what happened in their apartment on the night that m. E. Levin died. But before we get into that version, we will take a quick sponsor break. On August, the Gould story about Levin's death changed their Gould confessed to the murder, but he was very insistent that his wife Marie had nothing to do with killing Emma Levin, although she had helped him, he said, pack the body in the trunk. According to the new version confessed to the examining magistrate, Gould said that Levin had come to him and asked for a hundred dollars to give to a young man that Mrs Levin was possibly romantically involved with. Gould said that he had refused, and that Levin had attacked him. At that point. According to his story, he flew into a rage and kill to her. His exact statement, as it was relayed to the press by the court, was quote, I had been drinking and becoming angry. I seized a hunting knife and buried it in Emma's back. She fell dead the next day. I dismembered the body with a saw and a knife and placed the torso in a trunk on the head and legs and a las. I stabbed the woman only once. The other wounds on her body must have been caused by shaking around in the trunk. Marie corroborated this story mostly. She said that Emma Levin had asked for a hundred dollars and then wanted a hundred more for a man friend, and it was then that there refused her. She corroborated every other aspect of their story, including the claim that they had taken Emma Levin's jewelry not to sell it, but so that it would not be discovered in their apartments. Another version of the story emerged later. Gould still acknowledged responsibility for Levin's death, but he said that they had planned to knock her unconscious and take her jewelry, and this version, instead of filling unconscious, she screamed, and it was then that she was killed to silence her. On August fourteenth, seven, the Boston Globe reported the latest developments under the headline killed her in a fit of anger. It reviewed all of the newly established details of the case, and then at the bottom of the article a brief additional segment was listed under a subheader of reported a suicide, and that read quote in a dispatch from Marseilles, a correspondent of the Telegraph says that vere Saint Leger Gould, the confessed murderer of m e Leven, has hanged himself in prison. This was not the only paper to run that news. It showed up in print across Europe and the US, but that seems to have been incorrectly reported. Gould, it seems, was in a state of mental breakdown, so it's possible that he did attempt to hang himself but failed. A story in the New York Times dated August seventeen, so that was three days after the report that he had hanged himself, described additional behaviors that suggests that their st ledgerg Gould was in the middle of a breakdown. Quote. Last night, Gould suddenly jumped out of bed, hammered frantically at the door, and clamored for help against imaginary enemies, who, he said, We're trying to cut off his legs and put him in a sack. This morning, when he was allowed to see his lawyer, he was seized with another fit of fury and attacked his visitor with his fists. The lawyer now declines to see his client again. Gould's condition will be used in his trial in support of a plea that he is a madman. On August seventeen, The New York Times reported that police in France thought Gould's confession was kind of dodgy, just like every other explanation he and Marie had given for how they ended up with a woman's dead and dismembered body in their luggage. According to The New York Times right up quote, this version is considered unconvincing. This article goes on to break down all of the points of the story as told by the Goulds. That just made no sense. Number one, Mrs Gould said that she had been quote in neglige costume and so she left there and m e Leven alone. But Mrs Levin had visited them at tea time, which is five pm, and had an invitation, so this wasn't a surprise visit. There was no reason that Mrs Gould should have been unfit for visitors. Number two Marie had told the court that she freaked out when she saw the body, but witnesses had spotted her on the balcony apparently quite calm, just a few minutes after m. E Leven's voice had been heard for the last time. And number three M eleven would have no reason to borrow money from the Goulds. She had just paid for her hotel bill. She had plenty of valuables on hand that she could have liquidated if she actually needed quick cash. The Goulds, on the other hand, were broke. That particular write up goes on to state that a popular theory with the prosecution was that Mrs Gould was the actual mastermind of the entire crime. It also managed to get in a little kind of gross victim blaming along the Way, writing of M. E. Leven quote, the victim herself was one of the most singular personalities of the affair. She belonged to a class of women who, though quite respectable, loved to be regarded as Demi Mondn. She gambled at the Monte Carlo casino beyond her means, and often remained in a well known cafe until two o'clock in the morning. Friends repeatedly warned her against making promiscuous acquaintances, but the attraction of appearing to live a dissipated life proved too strong for her. On December seven, the verdicts were handed down. Both of the Goulds were found guilty. Marie got the steeper sentence. The New York Times reported quote, the court found that Mrs Gould was the chief instigator of the crime, sentenced turned to death by guillotine. Mr Gould was held less responsible by reason of his being under the influence of liquor at the time the murder was committed, and he was sentenced to imprisonment for life. An article that was called a Special Cable to The New York Times told the story of the trial's conclusion under the headline Monte Carlo angry with the Goulds. Yes, the angle of this particular article was that the resort of Monte Carlo had been put out by this whole business because it quote has not known such a criminal trial. And years now and then an Italian workman has appeared in court for stabbing a companion, or an occasional English or American black leg has been hustled over the border. But such a trial for such a crime is entirely out of place, especially now when the fashionable season is just beginning. The entire article reflects the biases of the journalists and the court, and presumably money Carlow's wealthy patrons that led to the verdicts and the sentencing. Marie Violet Gerald Dan Gould emerges as the clear villain, clearly not a tennis star born into a good family. Because the judges gave Mrs Gould a death sentence, everyone saw it as evidence that the court believed that their st leger Gould had quote committed the crime through hypnotic suggestion. The write up explains that four different doctors found there not to be in his right mind, all believed that he had been dominated by and pushed into committing the murder by his wife of Marie. The unnamed journalist wrote quote, Mrs Gould is one of the ugliest women I ever saw. In contrast to her dilettante husband. She appeared altogether course and vulgar. Monaco was apparently additionally irritated because while a death sentence had been issued, there was no guillotine or executioner in the municipality to carry it out. There were already calls to have her sentence changed to life in prison, just so she could be shipped somewhere else and no longer be a burden on the playground of the wealthy. In February nineteen o eight, Monte Carlo got its wish. Marie Violet gould sentence was commuted from death to life in prison. Marie was imprisoned in Montpellier, and after being incarcerated briefly in France, Very was sent to Devil's Island in French Guiana, and he did die by suicide, as had been reported in nineteen o seven, although this was not until September eight, nineteen o nine. This was less than a year after having been imprisoned at the penal colony of Cayenne. If you recall our episodes on the Dreyfus affair, you may remember that Alfred Dreyfus had also been imprisoned on Devil's Island. Dreyfus wrote in his book Five Years of My Life that he thought his life might end by suicide quote, to escape from insanity during is incarceration there. When Gould's death his actual death was announced, it ran in many papers as a syndicated blurb that once again included incorrect information. This time it said that quote his wife, who was transported with him, died at Cayenne in July of typhoid fever, though there had been reports that Marie had died before her husband their The final mention of her demise was actually published in multiple papers several years later, in January nineteen fourteen, though as you will see, that also has incorrect information. It was written up as quote, Mrs Gould, the American who was concerned in the notorious trunk murder at Monte Carlo in nineteen o seven, has died in the Montpellier prison. Her husband was executed in nineteen o nine, so Marie had served just six years for the murder of m eleven before her death this story. I have many things about it that make me angry. Sure, I mean, which we can talk about in our behind the scenes. Because this is a gruesome one that is frustrating in many ways, I wanted to end on a funny one that has my own funny addendum in terms of what our listener mail is. This is from our listener Jenna, who says you made me order a caesar salad at one am Oh, I'd love this one. I do too, uh, for very specific personal reasons. I also love it Jenner Rights. Hey ladies, thanks as always for your awesome podcast. I love it and recommend it to anyone asking for entertaining and educational podcasts. And I used the interviews to make lists of books to get for my dad. I just wanted to drop a quick, hopefully fun note about the recent eponymous Foods episode. I love caesar salad and got such a strong craving for it while listening to the episode late at night. I'm a night owl that I ordered some at around one in the morning since I didn't have any fresh salad ingredients in the house. Growing up, I loved lettuce to the point where sometimes my veggie for a meal would just be half ahead of plain Iceberg, making caesar salads perfect for me. I don't know when I was first introduced, but needless to say, I quickly became obsessed. There's nothing sadder for me than getting food from an Italian or pizza place and their salads only come in family sizes when I can't justify the cost of that along with whatever else I'm getting. Anyway, I hope that makes hell smile. I'm off to enjoy my salad. Now attached as also a kiddie tax. These are my bub's angus and aria. Uh oh, Jenna, how I feel you uh because one. Thank you for writing this. It's very funny and I appreciate a late night salad. I have also always loved caesar salads. I think I said so either in the episode of the Behind the Scenes, but something about that episode has triggered a weird behavior I have not had since I was a kid, which is like when I was a kid, and I may have mentioned this on the show before, I would get obsessed with only eating certain foods, like I ain't nothing but smart berry crunch for several years, I wanted only cheese and bread. After I read Heidi like I just I have eaten more caesar salads in the last month and a half since starting on that. I have one every day for breakfast right now, and that's been going on for over a month. Great. It's a great breakfast. I love it because it's refreshing and delicious, but also you get some I put I put chicken on mine, sorry Caesar cardini. Um. And it's just the perfect start to the days. Caesar salad. So I feel you. I'm obsessed, obsessed that. Um. That episode came out while I was traveling for my anniversary, and everywhere we went, I was like, do they have a caesar salad on the menu? Do they have a seedar salady? Yeah? I really need that. It's gotta happen. It's caesar salad. There are worse things to become obsessed with, that's for sure. If you would like to write to us about whatever food we accidentally made you eat, or anything else, you could do so at History Podcast at iHeart radio dot com. You can also find us on social media as missed in History, And if you would like to subscribe and you haven't gotten around to it yet, you can do that as well. On the I Heart radio app, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.