Blood on the Bridge (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

0:00One morning in early November of 1888, a conductor drove a steam train through the woods outside of Chantilly, France. And everything was business as usual until the conductor noticed, way up ahead, just next to the tracks, there were these two men, two maintenance workers, waving frantically at him and pointing at something that was on the ground on the tracks. The conductor couldn't really tell what they were doing, but he squinted and looked ahead trying to figure out what was on the ground. And when he saw what it was, he lunged for the brakes. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do.

0:39So if that's of interest to you, please invite the follow button to go to the movies with you. But when you get there, be sure to tell the ticket checker about all the secret candy the follow button is sneaking inside. Okay, let's get into today's story.

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1:51Finally, you can feel the fabric, sit on the sectionals, and even open the refrigerators. Plus, our in-store designers will help you bring it all together with free one-on-one design support for any project on any budget. Yep, we said free. Oh, and did we mention the cafe? So what are you waiting for? Come see All That's In Store. Visit the Wayfair store today at Edens Plaza and Wilmette. Wayfair, every style, every home. On the evening of November 2nd, 1888, a 45-year-old man named Ippolita Hoyos got dressed in a three-piece suit in the bedroom of his very cramped apartment in Paris, France. In the next room, he could hear his wife, Alphonsine, cooking dinner while their three young kids ran around playing.

2:35And even though this really should have felt like a happy, idyllic moment, Ippolita instead felt this pang of worry because keeping this family afloat was his responsibility. And recently, he'd had a very hard time doing that. So, Ippolita had grown up on a farm in Belgium, and when he was younger, he'd gotten into some trouble with the law and basically had a really tough time kind of finding his way in life. But about 10 years ago, he had moved to France and he had met Alphonsine, and he also found a steady job running a farm for a wealthy French noble in the countryside. Now, Ippolita knew a lot about agriculture.

3:13He'd grown up on a farm. So in theory, this job really should have been perfect for him. But the problem was no one on the farm really liked him. And it was true. He'd been very strict with the farmhands. But a lot of them had taken that sternness and they had gone to their boss and complained about it, saying that he was overbearing and very difficult to work with. So last month, when Ippolita's contract was up and and he was expecting his boss would renew it, his boss didn't. And so now, Ippolita's perfect life, this amazing life he had built for himself here in France with Alphonsine, felt like it was falling apart.

3:52And so following not getting his contract renewed, Ippolita and his wife and their kids had moved to Paris so he could look for other work. But luckily, they'd also found this very cheap but luckily furnished apartment just the week before, so they at least had a place to live, but Ippolita still needed work. Now, this new neighborhood they were in, you know, understandably, because it was so cheap, it was largely full of, you know, working-class people. And there were lots of factories and lots of warehouses, so it was sort of a little bit rough and tumble compared to what Ippolita had become accustomed to working for this nobleman out in the countryside.

4:26I mean, Ippolita, you know, he wasn't crazy about the area. He had expensive tastes, even though he didn't have an expensive budget. However, Ippolita knew that this whole situation was just temporary. Because, after all, he was about to come into a huge windfall. And he actually had to travel outside of Paris right now to actually get the money, which was what he was currently getting dressed for. And so on this trip, his friend, 52-year-old Louis Barone, would be accompanying him, at least for a portion of the trip. Because he was going the same way for a job interview that Ippolita had actually helped set up for him.

5:01Now, Louis was also from Belgium, and so he had known Ippolita for a long time. But things were tense between them at the moment. Ippolita had arranged for Louis to work on the farm that he used to manage, but when Ippolita was fired, it had also cost Louis his job there as well. The reality was Louis was quite furious. I mean, he was really upset about it. To the point where Ippolita had actually helped pay for a room at a hotel just a few blocks away from his apartment in Paris for Louis. And he'd even let Louis borrow one of his suits to wear to this job interview. And so really, Ippolita was hopeful that by the end of this trip he was going on, his buddy Louis would finally just stop being mad at him.

5:41That was causing lots of problems. So now, after getting dressed in his fancy suit, Ippolita packed up a bag with some extra clothes and some cash, and he put on a hat. Then he went into the kitchen to kiss Alphonsine goodbye. She kissed him back, but she definitely seemed a little bit anxious, and Ippolita figured she was just thinking about being left alone with her three small kids. So he just reassured her that, you know, this trip, this was all going to be worth it. Like, don't worry about a thing. I'll be back soon. Then he said goodbye to the kids and then left for the train station.

6:15Just after dark that night, Ippolita stepped off a train at the station in Chantilly, which is about 30 miles north of Paris. Louis was with him and already dressed for his interview in the suit that Ippolita had given him. And as the two men walked across the platform, Ippolito noticed that Louis was moving sort of slowly and awkwardly, like he was uncomfortable in the suit, like he wasn't used to dressing that way. The men left the station on foot and continued walking down the road towards Senlis, the little town where they were both spending the night. It was about a six-mile walk to get there, and once they got outside of Shantilly, the road was surrounded almost entirely by woods.

6:52It was dark and it was late, so there weren't many people that were out and about, and the two men didn't talk much, so the walk was very quiet. Eventually, as they were approaching Senlas, they came to this narrow stone bridge with metal railings on either side that passed over a railroad track. And as they reached it, Ippolita heard this rustling in the trees. He stopped and he listened, and as he did, he felt his heart start to pound, because this whole walk has been just like eerily quiet, and so to hear anything was just sort of alarming. But as he stood there listening, he couldn't hear it anymore, so he decided he must be imagining things.

7:32Now, Louis did not appear to hear the sounds at all, and he was still walking ahead across the bridge. So Ippolita, he took a deep breath and then hurried onto the bridge to catch up with him. The next morning, two road maintenance workers were hauling a gravel-filled cart down that same wooded road that connected Shantilly and Senlis, the road that Louis and Ippolita had been on the night before. And so these workers were looking for potholes that they would fill in with this gravel. So they're moving along, they're filling in potholes, and then eventually they got to that narrow bridge by Senlis.

8:05And when they did, one of them noticed a man's hat lying near the bridge's railing. And as they got near the hat, they looked on the pavement and saw these dark splatters of blood. Now, the workers were immediately on edge. They're looking around. They don't see anybody. But at some point, one of them looked over the railing. And when he saw what was down below, he immediately shouted that they had to go tell the police. Later that morning, a judge named Jean Oberton walked down a small hill by some railroad tracks. At the bottom, a police officer and two road maintenance workers stood next to the tracks, staring down at a dead body.

8:44So in France at the time, judges were responsible for leading investigations instead of police. So Oberton would essentially function as the lead detective on this case. And all he'd been told so far was that a body had been found on this stretch of train tracks, and he really didn't know what to expect beyond that. When Oberton reached the group down below, the police officer explained that the two workers, the road maintenance workers, had found the body that morning. They'd flagged down a train conductor who had stopped just in time and then waited for them to move the body off the tracks. And then the conductor kept going in his train and notified the police at the next station.

9:22And so Oberton, he knelt down to get a better look at the body. And, you know, right away he could tell that it was clearly a man with blonde hair and that he was wearing a nice three-piece suit. But that was really about all he could conclude, because his face was just completely mangled and his head was almost completely severed from his body. Many of his teeth were also broken and there was also a deep gash on his left foot near his ankle. Now, at first glance, Oberton wondered if he had just jumped off the bridge and got hit by a train. But when he looked closer, the pattern of the wounds on his face just did not look like they'd been caused by a train.

10:03These were long, distinct gashes going in multiple different directions. It looked more like this man had been attacked with a sharp weapon, like an axe or something. And Oberton's best guess was that whatever happened to this guy very likely happened the night before. There wasn't much decomposition, and this railroad line got a lot of traffic. So the body couldn't have been here for very long, or another train conductor would have seen him earlier, or maybe wouldn't have seen him, and then run him over. And then, you know, his body would be completely mangled. As Oberton stood up, one of the workers told him that they had seen blood up on the bridge.

10:38So Oberton, he climbed up the small hill onto the bridge, and he saw that hat that was lined by the railing, and then just a ton of blood all around the hat on the ground. And to Oberton, I mean, there was so much blood up here that he figured his theory that this guy was attacked had to have been right here. I mean, he very likely was attacked right here on the bridge. And he either fell over the edge during the assault, or maybe after the assault, his killer threw his body, maybe to make it look like a suicide, or perhaps to dispose of evidence. And so at this point, Oberton felt pretty much certain that this was a homicide, and he knew he would have to identify this victim as soon as possible.

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12:20Plus, our in-store designers will help you bring it all together with free one-on-one design support for any project on any budget. Yep, we said free. Oh, and did we mention the cafe? So what are you waiting for? Come see all that's in store. Visit the Wayfair store today at Edens Plaza and Wilmette.

12:44On the afternoon of November 4th, 1888, the day after a man's body was found mangled in the woods near Seine-Los, France, Judge Olberton walked down a busy street in a working-class part of Paris. Now, by this point, he'd already gotten the autopsy results back, but they didn't really tell him much that he didn't already know, which was that the victim had been killed by multiple strikes from a sharp weapon like a hatchet. Now, even though the body itself had not given Olberton too much to go on for this investigation, the clothes that the victim had on had given him something. Olberton had spent the past day piecing together clues that he had found in the victim's pockets, including a piece of paper with an address to a location in Paris and the initials HH embroidered on a handkerchief.

13:31And at this point, Olberton knew what HH meant. It was the initials for the victim, Ippolita Hoyos. Olberton had gone to that address in Paris from that piece of paper, and he found it belonged to an acquaintance of Ippolita's. And this person had not only identified Ippolita, but also he gave Oberton Ippolita's last known address, where he had lived with his family. And Oberton was right outside of that address now. But as he looked up at the building that matched the address he'd been given, he wondered if he had the wrong place. The man whose body had been found was wearing this really nice suit and looked like he was upper class based on the suit.

14:12And this was definitely not an upper-class place to live. This was not a nice area. But Oberton went inside anyways, and he walked up a flight of stairs, and then he knocked on the door of the apartment number that he'd been given. Seconds later, a very tired-looking woman answered the door, bouncing a toddler on her hip, and Oberton asked her if this was the home of Ippolita Hoyos. And the woman just kind of frowned and said, yes, she was actually his wife, Alphonsine. Oberton kept it simple and just said that he was a judge and he was conducting an investigation and asked if he could come in.

14:47Alphonsine got this uneasy look on her face, but she nodded and said, come on in. Once they'd both sat down at the dining room table, Oberton told her that the investigation he was doing was for a homicide, that a body had been found in the woods near Saint-Lazs, France, and he believed, unfortunately, the body belonged to her husband, Ippolita. And to Oberton's surprise, Alphonsine just didn't seem very upset at all. She just sat there expressionless as Oberton went on to explain a little bit further, you know, what actually happened. That, you know, the body had been found on some train tracks and it appeared like that he had been attacked.

15:25Someone had clearly killed him. And as Oberton did this, he kept waiting for Alphonsine to cry or gasp or really show any emotion. But she just didn't. And Oberton couldn't decide whether this was suspicious or if, you know, this woman was just in shock. So after, you know, laying out why he was here, he began just asking her questions to get a bit of read on her. So he asked her, you know, when was the last time you saw your husband? And she just began to speak. She said it was the evening he had left for the train station. He was going to Belgium to collect the inheritance from a relative who had died recently.

16:02She said that she'd been staying home and taking care of their three kids since then and hadn't heard anything from him since he had left. To Oberton, this explained why Ippolita was found in Senlis, because Senlis was about halfway between Paris and Belgium, so clearly he was on his way to Belgium. However, as he was internalizing this new information, he was interrupted by a very loud gasp. And he looked at Alphonsine to see that she had sort of broken out of her muted state and was staring at him with really wide eyes like something huge had just occurred to her. And she told him, you know, maybe her husband had been on his way back with all the money he got from the inheritance.

16:40And she said, you know, maybe he was killed by a robber. Now, Olberton, he considered this and a robbery did make sense to him. Ippolito was very well dressed and there hadn't been any money in any of his pockets. But this whole interview with his wife just felt really off. Alphonsine didn't seem at all confused or rattled or upset in any way. And now, just literally moments after finding out that potentially your husband has been brutally murdered, like he's dead, she's begun pitching theories of how he was killed, like she was trying to point the finger at someone else right away. It just fell off.

17:22Now, to Oberton, Alfonsine did not really seem like she could have been the one to actually kill Ippolita herself. She's clearly here alone with three young kids, and, you know, this took place in Senlis. And more than that is Ippolita was a pretty big guy, and he clearly had been overpowered by somebody or maybe multiple people. And, you know, Alfonsine was quite small. However, if she was involved and maybe hired someone to carry out a hit on her husband, well, that would cost presumably quite a bit of money. And considering the low-quality nature of where they lived, it just seemed unlikely to Overton that she would be able to afford paying a hitman.

18:04And so at this point, Overton didn't think that Alfonsine was a particularly strong suspect. But at the same time, he couldn't completely rule her out. However, one thing he was definitely sure about, just based on a gut feeling here, was that Alphonsine knew something more than she was telling him. That night, when Judge Oberton got back to the courthouse in Senlis, he walked down the hallway toward his office and saw a police officer waiting at his door. And this officer told him that they'd arrested a man that afternoon, whose name was Etienne Bouillot, for the murder of Ippolita Oyos. Oberton's heart began to race, and when he heard Etienne was in a holding cell in the jail right next door, he told the officer to take him there right away.

18:48As they hurried down the hallway and out of the courthouse, the officer explained to Oberton that a group of police had been out at the crime scene near Sinless collecting evidence, and at some point they'd passed Etienne sitting in the woods nearby. And as soon as he saw the police approaching, Etienne had just started running. And so the officers had chased him down and they had caught him, and when they did, they noticed he had blood on his pants and on his jacket. They also found a bloody handkerchief that was in one of his pockets. Now, the officer said that Etienne had claimed he was hit by a cart the night before, and that was why he was covered in so much blood.

19:24But the police were just not convinced. Especially because Etienne refused to give them an alibi for where he had been the night Ippolito was actually killed. And so the officer and Oberton, they get to the jail and they go inside, and when they reached the holding cell, Oberton saw Etienne sitting inside. And he was wearing very shabby clothes and looked like he might be homeless. And so Oberton, he goes inside the cell and Etienne, he's just sitting there, he's not saying anything. And Oberton, he just sits down and begins going over all the evidence that they had. And a lot of it made it seem like Etienne was their guy.

19:58And at some point when Oberton was done sort of going over what they had, he told Etienne that you're basically our only suspect at this point. So unless he could give Oberton an alibi for the night of November 2nd, the night that Ippolita was killed, then unfortunately, Etienne was very likely going to be charged with murder. At this point, Etienne just sort of looked down for a moment and then let out this long, defeated sigh, like the reality of his situation was really settling in. Eventually, he looked back up at Oberton, and he mumbled that he did have an alibi. He said he had spent the whole night sleeping at an inn in Chantilly.

20:37He said the reason he hadn't told the police this is because he actually left the inn without paying. And that's also why he had run from the police when he was seen in the woods. He thought they were there to arrest him for theft. Oberton looked hard at Etienne. He wasn't sure if he believed him, but he wrote down the name of the inn and planned to go out there and verify Etienne's alibi first thing in the morning. A week later, Judge Oberton walked down a street in Paris, in the same working-class neighborhood where Ippolita and his family lived. He was on his way to check out a lead that he really hoped would reinvigorate his investigation, because over the last week, the case had completely stalled.

21:20Etienne's alibi had checked out. The inn's owner verified that Etienne had stayed there that night, and at some point he had left without paying. Now, this did not completely rule Etienne out, because he could have left his room without anyone noticing to go commit this murder, but it did make it seem much more likely that Etienne was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And since Etienne, Oberton hadn't gotten any more tips about this case until that morning, when he'd gotten word that one of Ippolita's friends was missing. This friend was a Belgian farmer named Louis Barone who had come to France to work with Ippolita.

21:58And this friend, Louis, hadn't been seen in over a week. Basically, since the murder, he's been missing. And so to Oberton, the timing here was just too perfect to be a coincidence. And so now the judge was looking into Louis as a possible suspect who maybe skipped town after killing Ippolito. Oberton came to a stop outside of the hotel where he had heard Louis was most recently living, which happened to be just a few blocks from Ippolito's apartment. The judge went inside and approached the front desk and asked the manager if a guest named Louis Barone had been around recently. And the manager said that yes, they definitely knew who Louis Barone was, but he hadn't been here in about a week.

22:39The manager said that the last time he had seen him, he was leaving the hotel on the night of November 2nd. And when he said that, Oberton perked up because that was the same night that Ippolito was killed. Like again, the coincidence was just too much here. And so the judge quickly asked the manager, like, what else can you tell me about Louis? What kind of person was he? Who did he hang out with? Like, give me anything you got. And the manager clearly didn't know Louis particularly well, but he did say that there was one person he saw Louis with all the time. And often these two people were arguing in the lobby.

23:11Now, the manager said he didn't know who this person was, but this other person that Louis fought with appeared to be a middle-aged man with blonde hair. Now, to Overton, he's thinking, clearly you're referencing Ippolita. Like, that sounds like Ippolita, this guy. And so he asked the manager, like, did you ever overhear what these guys were fighting about? What were the arguments about? But the manager said he really didn't know. He said that, you know, he couldn't ever hear what they were saying. It just always seemed like when they were talking, it was like kind of heated. And he could really tell that Louis appeared to despise this other guy.

23:44Like it was much more Louis hating this guy than the other way around. The manager did tell Oberton that occasionally their arguments did get so bad that it almost became violent. And in fact, the manager at one point or another had had to break them up, like physically separate them, but even still he didn't know what they were fighting about. As Oberton is hearing all this new information, his mind just raced. And as he looked around at this pretty shabby hotel in a rough part of town, he realized that the robbery theory might be partly right. But instead of it being some random thief, Ippolita might have been targeted by someone he knew, like Louis.

24:22And so if this blonde-haired guy that Louis was fighting with was Ippolita, then based on what the manager was saying, it seemed pretty reasonable to assume that Louis and Ippolita didn't get along. And if Louis was an out-of-work farmhand living in a shabby hotel, it wasn't unreasonable to think that he needed money desperately. And if Louis had known that Ippolita was traveling alone to go collect this inheritance, maybe he could have made plans to meet up with him on the way back and then lured him out to the woods and killed him and taken his money and then, you know, after ditching his body on the tracks, fled to avoid being caught.

25:00And if Louis really did have all that inheritance money on him, I mean, with all that cash, he could be anywhere by now. And so Oberton realized he might never find him.