Jan. 27, 2026
Brighton: Constance Kent's Five Years of Silence
Road Hill House was no longer home. It was a crime scene that everyone recognised and no one could forget. The servants whispered in corners. New staff refused positions. And somewhere across England, a teenage girl carried a secret that would rattle the nation.
Three-year-old Francis Saville Kent had been dead for five years, but his presence haunted everyone connected to Road Hill House. His wicker cot had been moved to the attic. His toys—the wooden rocking horse, the tin soldiers, the stuffed rabbit he couldn't sleep without—were packed away in trunks. The family attempted to erase all physical evidence of the child who had been murdered in his own home, but some things cannot be buried. This episode examines the devastating aftermath of the Road Hill House murder, tracing five years of silence, scandal, and psychological torment that led to one of the most unexpected confessions in criminal history.
By early 1861, Samuel Kent had made an impossible decision: the family would abandon Road Hill House forever. The whispers, the stares, the neighbours who crossed the street to avoid them—it had become unbearable. Constance Kent, the sixteen-year-old half-sister whom Detective Inspector Whicher had accused of murder, was sent far from England. First to a French convent across the Channel, far from English newspapers. Then, in 1863, to St. Mary's Home for Religious Ladies in Brighton—a place of strict Anglo-Catholic ritual that would transform her utterly. Meanwhile, her brother William built a successful career as a marine scientist, seemingly untouched by scandal. But questions lingered. Had he been involved that June night? Was Constance protecting someone?
At St. Mary's, Constance encountered Father Arthur Wagner—a charismatic Anglican priest whose theology emphasized confession and penance. Wagner's version of Christianity demanded that sins be spoken aloud, that guilt find voice, that secrets be exposed before God. For nearly two years, Constance resisted. Then, in early 1865, something broke. She requested a private meeting with Father Wagner. What she told him changed everything. On the morning of April 25, 1865, Father Wagner and Constance Kent boarded a train for London. At Bow Street police station, she dictated a written confession to the murder of Francis Saville Kent. She provided details that matched evidence Inspector Whicher had gathered five years earlier—details only the killer could have known. Headlines screamed across England: ROAD HILL HOUSE MURDERESS CONFESSES.
The Road Hill House case became a watershed moment in British criminal justice and religious history. Constance Kent's confession raised profound questions about the intersection of faith and law. Had Father Wagner provided genuine spiritual guidance, or had he manipulated a vulnerable young woman? The Anglo-Catholic confession practices at St. Mary's drew intense scrutiny. Victorian society, which had destroyed Inspector Whicher's career for daring to accuse a "young lady of breeding," now had to confront its own prejudices. The detective had been right all along—class bias had protected a murderer for five years. Constance's case also highlighted emerging Victorian understanding of psychological trauma. Her childhood losses—mother's death, father's remarriage to the governess, blatant favouritism toward the second family—would today be recognized as severe emotional abuse.
What remains unexplained is why Constance confessed after five years of freedom. The investigation was closed. The world had moved on. She could have stayed silent forever. Some historians argue the confession was genuine religious transformation—Wagner's theology finally breaking through her defences. Others suggest coercion—a priest manipulating a vulnerable woman consumed by guilt. A third theory persists: that Constance was protecting her brother William, who may have been involved that night in June 1860. Her confession mentioned resentment but offered no specific.
Listeners fascinated by Victorian detective work should explore Episode 2 of this series, which details Inspector Whicher's revolutionary investigation methods. For more cases involving religious confession and criminal justice, Foul Play's archives include coverage of other nineteenth-century crimes where faith and law intersected in unexpected ways.
Next episode: The trial lasted thirty minutes. The death sentence wasn't carried out. And England's most notorious murderess would live to be one hundred years old under a completely different name. Episode 4 reveals the extraordinary aftermath of Constance Kent's confession.
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WEBVTT
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[SPEAKER_01]: five years.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's how long it took.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Five years from the ninth, three-year-old Francis Seville Kent was murdered in his family's country house until someone finally told the truth.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Five years of obisper's and suspicion.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Five years of a brilliant detectives ruined career.
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[SPEAKER_01]: five years of a family scattered across England, running from scandal they couldn't escape.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In August 1860, the charges against 16-year-old Constance Kent were dismissed for insufficient evidence.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She walked free from travel-bridge town hall.
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[SPEAKER_01]: While Detective Inspector Jonathan Witcher,
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[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone had an opinion about who killed Francis.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Almost no one believed the detective who had actually solved the case.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Constance could have stayed silent forever.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The investigation was closed.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The newspapers moved on.
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[SPEAKER_01]: her father sent her far from England, to convince and finishing schools where no one knew her name.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But some secrets are too heavy to carry, and Constance Kent was about to face something more relentless than any detective, more unforgiving than any court, more impossible to escape than any scandal, her own conscience,
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[SPEAKER_01]: Hello friend, welcome to foul play.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is the story of five years of silence and the religious torment that finally broke it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Road Hill House was no longer home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was a crime scene that everyone recognized and no one could forget.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The servants who remained whispered in corners and avoided the family.
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[SPEAKER_00]: New staff refused positions, worded spread across Wiltshire, that the Kent household was cursed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Neighbours who once called for tea now crossed the street when they saw the Kent family carriage, the high walls that had once protected the family's respectability, now felt like the walls were prison.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Some you can't try to maintain appearances, he still held his government position as factory inspector, still attended church services every Sunday.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Still hosted dinners for local society, that the guest lists grew shorter each month.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But every conversation eventually circled back to the same unask question.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What really happened that June night?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And young Francis?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Three years and ten months old when he died.
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[SPEAKER_00]: His nurseries did empty now.
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[SPEAKER_00]: His wicker cot were Elizabeth Gough had found only rumpled blankets that terrible morning.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Someone had moved it to the attic.
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[SPEAKER_00]: His toys?
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[SPEAKER_00]: The wooden rocking horse, the tin soldiers,
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[SPEAKER_00]: As though erasing the physical evidence could erase what had happened.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Mary drew Pratt the stepmother who had replaced Constance's real mother seemed determined to prove that life continued.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She gave birth to another son, Akland, in July 1860, just weeks after Francis's murder.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Another daughter Florence followed in 1861.
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[SPEAKER_00]: New children to replace the murdered child knew life to bury the death, but some things cannot be buried.
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[SPEAKER_00]: By early 1861 Samuel Kent made a decision, a family would leave road hill house forever.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They moved away from Wiltshire, away from the whispers and the stairs, and the neighbours who would never forget.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And Constance, the daughter half of England believed
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[SPEAKER_00]: she would be sent away when no one knew her name.
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[SPEAKER_00]: First were French convents across the channel, far from English newspapers in English scandal.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Then, in 1863, to St Mary's home for religious ladies in Brighton.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A place of prayer, a place of strict routine, a place where constant Kent would finally break her silence.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There were someone else who knew what happened that night at Roadhill House, someone who returned to boarding school in the autumn of 1860.
04:37.032 --> 04:43.663
[SPEAKER_01]: Built a career, married, had children, and never faced a single question from police again.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Someone who may have been in that nursery alongside Constance, her brother, William,
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[SPEAKER_01]: William Seville Kent was 14 years old, in June 1860.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He slept on the same floor as Constance.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He shared her grievances against their stepmother, Mary Drew Pratt.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He had witnessed the same systematic erasure of their real mother's memory.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He had endured the same favoritism, shown to the second family's children.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In an 1857, Constance and William had run away together, disguised themselves as boys, fled to Bath before being discovered.
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[SPEAKER_01]: These two siblings were capable of conspiracy.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The evidence at the time raised questions, no one wanted to pursue.
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[SPEAKER_01]: William's testimony at the inquest was evasive, nervous, contradictory.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Inspector WichÐµÑ noted in his reports that the boy avoided eye contact and swatted through simple questions, but WichÐµÑ was focused on constants.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The local Gestabulari was focused on protecting the family from scandal.
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[SPEAKER_01]: No one pressed William the way they pressed his sister.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and then there were the practical problems, with constants acting alone.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Francis Seville can't wait approximately 30 pounds.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The distance from nursery to outdoor privy, 30 yards across rain soaked ground in the dark.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A 16-year-old girl carrying a struggling three-year-old child, while also carrying her father's razor,
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[SPEAKER_01]: navigating stairs that creaked, opening doors that should have woken the household.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Did she really do this alone?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Modern historians, including Kate Somerscale, who wrote the definite account of this case, have suggested a disturbing possibility.
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[SPEAKER_01]: William helped.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He may have held Francis while Constance cut.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He may have carried the body to the privy.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He may have retrieved the razor and disposed of it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And when Constance confessed five years later, she may have confessed alone to protect him.
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[SPEAKER_01]: William Seville Kent graduated from boarding school, attended university, became a marine biologist of considerable reputation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In 1884, just one year before Constance was released from prison, he immigrated to Australia, was this coincidence, or was he putting an ocean between himself
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[SPEAKER_01]: William died in Bournemouth, England, in 1908, age 62.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He never faced charges, never publicly acknowledged his possible role.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Never explained why he fled to Australia, the moment his sister's release approached.
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[SPEAKER_01]: taking whatever he knew to his grave.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But while William built his respectable career, Constance was about to tear her life apart, not through investigation, not through evidence, through something far more powerful than any detective.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Religion.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So Mary's home for religious ladies in Brighton was not a typical church of England establishment.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was run by Father Arthur Wagner, a priest of the Anglo-Catholic Movement.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes called High Church Angvacism.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Balkan believed in rituals that most English Protestants associated with Roman Catholicism.
08:40.504 --> 08:54.027
[SPEAKER_00]: In sense clouding the sanctuary air, elaborate vestments embroidered with gold thread, bells marking the elevation of the host, and most critically for Constance Kent, the sacrament of Confession.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Arthur Wagner came from wealth and influence, his father Henry Mitchell Wagner had been vicar of Brighton for 46 years, one of the longest tenures in the Church of England history.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Arthur used his family inheritance to build churches in poor neighborhoods and established homes for what Victorians called Fallen Women, unmarried mothers, former prostitutes, troubled girls.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Samaris' home was one of these establishments.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But Wagner's theory was intense.
09:25.340 --> 09:34.432
[SPEAKER_00]: He believed that Sin had physical weight on the soul, that guilt accumulated like sediment, layer and pond layer, until the soul could no longer bear the burden.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That confession, genuine, complete, sacramental confession, was the only path to absolution.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And the early justice and Heavenly forgiveness were connected.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You could not receive God's mercy while hiding mortal sin from the world.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Constance Kent entered St. Mary's home in 1863.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She was 18 years old.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Constance said she was there to recover from the trauma of being accused of her brother's murder.
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[SPEAKER_00]: To find peace through prayer and structure religious life.
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[SPEAKER_00]: To escape the scandal that had followed her family since that June night, in reality she had entered a pressure cooker of guilt.
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[SPEAKER_00]: For the next two years, Constance lived in an environment of inconstant religious intensity.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Daily services at dawn and dusk, weekly confession, seasonal rituals that emphasise sin, sacrifice and redemption.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The letter Jai Cool calendar became psychological pressure, lents 40 days focus on repentance, good Friday's meditation on innocent blood, easter's promise of resurrection, but only through truth.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Every week, constants knelt in the confession booth with father Wagner.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The wooden partition between them, the smell of incense and old wood.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Wagner's voice asked the ritual questions about sin and contrition.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Every week, the same unspoken question hung between them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And every week, bargain as theology pressed harder.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Your soul cannot find peace while you hide mortal sin.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Earthly justice must be served before heavenly forgiveness.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The seal of confession, sacramental secrecy, meant that he could tell no one what she said in that booth.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But he was free to guide her conscience to remind her week after week that
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[SPEAKER_00]: This was not sudden dramatic conversion.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This was slow, accumulated weight.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Two years of daily services, two years of weekly confession.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Two years of liturgical seasons emphasising blood and guilt and redemption.
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[SPEAKER_00]: By Easter 1864, something in Constance Kent was about to break.
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[SPEAKER_01]: While Constance Kent, Nelt and Confession Booth, and Brighton England moved on, the Roadhill House murder faded from the front pages.
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[SPEAKER_01]: New scandals, new crimes, new sensations, captured public attention.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A child's murder in a country house became yesterday's news, replaced by fresh horrors and fresh outrages.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Most people assumed the case would never be solved.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Inspector John Witcher certainly knew better, but no one was listening to him anymore.
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[SPEAKER_01]: his evidence had been sound, his logic impeccable, his detective work brilliant, he had identified the killer within days of arriving at Roadhill House.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The missing night gown, the circumstantial evidence pointing to constants, the psychological profile of a teenage girl, driven by jealousy and neglect.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But in 1860, being right meant nothing against class prejudice,
12:57.040 --> 13:01.446
[SPEAKER_01]: The newspapers that had destroyed his reputation moved on to new targets.
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[SPEAKER_01]: His colleagues at Scotland Yard distance themselves.
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[SPEAKER_01]: No one wanted association with the detective who had accused a gentleman's daughter and failed to convict her.
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[SPEAKER_01]: By March 1864, which was forced into retirement at age 50,
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[SPEAKER_01]: real reason.
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[SPEAKER_01]: His career had been murdered alongside Francis Kent.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But the Rhode Hill House case would not stay buried.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In 1868, three years after Constance's confession, Wilkie Collins published a novel that would change literature forever.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The Moon Stone.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Colin had followed the case obsessively.
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[SPEAKER_01]: His fictional detective Sergeant Cough was modeled directly on Inspector Richard.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The country house setting, the family scandal, the missing night-gown evidence, the solution that no one wanted to hear.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The moonstone is often called the first modern detective novel, without the roadhill house murder, without Inspector Richard's brilliant and tragic investigation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Detective fiction, as we know it, might never have existed.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But while Richard retired in obscurity, in Collins' road fiction,
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[SPEAKER_01]: and Easter 1864 was approaching.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Easter Week 1864, Constance Kent was 19 years old.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Four years had passed since the murder of our half-brother Francis.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Four years of daily services, four years of weekly confession, four years of the church school seasons emphasizing sin, blood, sacrifice, and redemption.
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[SPEAKER_00]: and now the most intense week of the Christian calendar had arrived.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The exact date of Constance's confession to Father Wagner remains unknown.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The seal of confession means no records exist.
15:16.927 --> 15:24.058
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was sometime during Lent or Easter of 1864, as she finally spoke the words aloud in that wooden booth.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She had murdered Francis Seville Kent.
15:28.698 --> 15:35.204
[SPEAKER_00]: She had taken her father's razor from his dressing room, around midnight on June the 29th, 1860.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She had gone to the nursery.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She had lifted her three-year-old half-brother from his cot.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The boy had received all the love she had been denied.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She had carried him through the dark house, down the stairs, out into the rain-soaked garden.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In the outdoor privy, 30 yards from the house,
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[SPEAKER_00]: She had wrapped his small body in his own nursery blanket and stuffed him down into the vault.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The night gown, the missing night gown that had haunted inspector witches investigation, she had burnt or otherwise destroyed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It would never be found.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What she said about William was her brother-helt, whether he knew, whether he carried the body or disposed of evidence.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Remains unknown, that secret, if it exists, stayed in the confessional.
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[SPEAKER_00]: While the Wagner's response was clear, Constance must give herself up.
16:32.775 --> 16:34.138
[SPEAKER_00]: She must confess publicly.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She must accept whatever punishment the Lord demanded.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In his theology, earthly justice was required before heavenly forgiveness could be complete.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Was this spiritual guidance or religious coercion?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Vargna saw himself as saving her soul, guiding a young woman toward redemption through truth.
16:56.090 --> 17:05.021
[SPEAKER_00]: Modern observers might see a priest manipulating a vulnerable penitent, using religious authority to compel a confession the courts had failed to obtain.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The truth likely contains both.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Constance agreed, whether from genuine remorse for murdering a three-year-old child, whether from theological fear of eternal domination, whether from the desperate desire to finally end four years of unbearable secret.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Or perhaps, to protect her brother William by taking full responsibility alone.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She agreed to surrender.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Nearly a year passed before she acted.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Time to prepare.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Time to settle her fears.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Time for Wagner to arrange the logistics of a public confession.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The date was set.
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[SPEAKER_00]: April 25, 1865.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Both street police station in London.
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[SPEAKER_00]: After five years of silence, Constance Kent
17:52.150 --> 17:53.895
[SPEAKER_00]: was going to tell the truth.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The morning of April 25, 1865, Father Wagner and Constance Kent left St. Mary's home in Brighton.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They boarded a train for London.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She wore modest traveling clothes, dark fabric, nothing that drew attention.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He wore his clerical collar.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They spoke little during the journey.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There was nothing left to say.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Bows Street Police Station was one of the most famous in London.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Home of the original Bows Street Runners, predecessors to the Metropolitan Police.
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[SPEAKER_01]: When Wagner and Constance arrived in mid-morning, she asked to speak to a magistrate.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What happened next took less than an hour?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Constance Kent dictated a written confession.
18:50.238 --> 18:55.587
[SPEAKER_01]: She admitted to the murder of Francis Seville Kent on the night of June 29, 1860.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She provided details that matched the evidence Inspector Richard had gathered five years earlier.
19:03.419 --> 19:06.784
[SPEAKER_01]: Details only the killer could have known.
19:08.086 --> 19:09.829
[SPEAKER_01]: She said she acted alone.
19:10.957 --> 19:22.153
[SPEAKER_01]: Her stated motive, when pressed, she refused to elaborate, the confession mentioned resentment, but offered no details, was she protecting William?
19:22.994 --> 19:24.876
[SPEAKER_01]: Was there something darker in the family?
19:25.617 --> 19:26.939
[SPEAKER_01]: She still wouldn't reveal.
19:26.979 --> 19:32.627
[SPEAKER_01]: Her silence on motive has puzzled historians for over a century.
19:33.907 --> 19:37.272
[SPEAKER_01]: By evening, telegraph wires hummed with the news.
19:38.313 --> 19:46.744
[SPEAKER_01]: Headlined screened across Europe, Hill House murderous confesses, Constance Kent surrenders after five years.
19:48.206 --> 19:49.769
[SPEAKER_01]: The public was stunned.
19:50.950 --> 19:54.195
[SPEAKER_01]: Half of England had defended her in 1860.
19:54.235 --> 20:00.403
[SPEAKER_01]: They had attacked Inspector Witcher for daring to accuse a young lady of breeding
20:01.565 --> 20:05.290
[SPEAKER_01]: They had called him a monster for interrogating a teenage girl.
20:06.471 --> 20:09.876
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, she admitted she was guilty all along.
20:11.137 --> 20:16.324
[SPEAKER_01]: Samuel Kent, her father, reportedly said he always feared it was her.
20:17.846 --> 20:25.796
[SPEAKER_01]: But he had spent five years fighting anyone who suggested his daughter's guilt, protecting her, defending her.
20:26.937 --> 20:29.901
[SPEAKER_01]: His favorite son murdered by his second favorite daughter.
20:31.197 --> 20:40.193
[SPEAKER_01]: his family destroyed, utterly, and somewhere in London, a retired detective named Jonathan Witcher, heard the news.
20:42.437 --> 20:44.080
[SPEAKER_01]: He had known since July 1860.
20:44.100 --> 20:50.632
[SPEAKER_01]: He had tried to tell them they had destroyed his career for it.
20:51.553 --> 20:54.859
[SPEAKER_01]: Now five years to late, everyone knew
20:56.965 --> 21:03.012
[SPEAKER_01]: Constance Kent was remanded to custody and transported two devices to a weight trial.
21:04.173 --> 21:10.961
[SPEAKER_01]: The newspapers that had destroyed Inspector Richard five years earlier, now admitted they had gotten it wrong.
21:12.342 --> 21:21.032
[SPEAKER_01]: The young lady of breeding had murdered her baby brother, Victorian England had chosen
21:21.012 --> 21:29.588
[SPEAKER_01]: For those who had defended Constance in 1860, the confession was a betrayal, they had believed in her innocence.
21:30.730 --> 21:34.297
[SPEAKER_01]: They had attacked the police for prosecuting a respectable family.
21:35.379 --> 21:38.785
[SPEAKER_01]: Now they learned they had been protecting a murderer.
21:40.098 --> 21:54.636
[SPEAKER_01]: For Inspector Richard, the vindication was better, too late to save his reputation, too late to save his health, too late for anything, except the cold comfort of being right.
21:56.118 --> 21:57.760
[SPEAKER_01]: But questions remained.
21:58.901 --> 22:02.646
[SPEAKER_01]: Why had Constance Kent confessed after five years of freedom?
22:03.827 --> 22:06.190
[SPEAKER_01]: Was it genuine or religious conversion?
22:07.351 --> 22:10.795
[SPEAKER_01]: Father Wagner's theology finally breaking through her defenses.
22:12.256 --> 22:23.009
[SPEAKER_01]: Was it religious coercion, a priest manipulating a vulnerable young woman, or what she taking full responsibility to protect someone else?
22:24.730 --> 22:33.240
[SPEAKER_01]: Her brother William, who had built his career while she built her guilt, and what would happen next.
22:35.144 --> 22:36.386
[SPEAKER_01]: the charge was murder.
22:37.507 --> 22:40.050
[SPEAKER_01]: The standard sentence was death by hanging.
22:40.991 --> 22:51.224
[SPEAKER_01]: Would Victorian England execute a 21 year old woman for a crime committed when she was 16, which she finally revealed her true motive.
22:52.365 --> 22:53.887
[SPEAKER_01]: Would anyone else be implicated?
22:55.489 --> 23:04.780
[SPEAKER_01]: On July 21, 1865, Constance Emily Kid stood
23:06.329 --> 23:11.556
[SPEAKER_01]: He had confessed to murdering her three-year-old brother, the prosecution wanted her dead.
23:13.138 --> 23:16.342
[SPEAKER_01]: Her defense lawyer wanted her committed to an asylum.
23:17.844 --> 23:22.089
[SPEAKER_01]: In constants herself, one had something no one expected.
23:22.109 --> 23:31.341
[SPEAKER_01]: To take full responsibility, accept her punishment, and finally, perhaps find peace.
23:32.587 --> 23:35.924
[SPEAKER_01]: But the British legal system wasn't done with its surprises.
23:35.964 --> 23:39.019
[SPEAKER_01]: And neither was Constance Kent.
23:41.024 --> 23:45.470
[SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, remember, guilt doesn't keep a calendar.
23:46.471 --> 23:48.915
[SPEAKER_01]: Constance Kent could have stayed silent forever.
23:49.956 --> 23:51.438
[SPEAKER_01]: The investigation was closed.
23:51.999 --> 23:56.845
[SPEAKER_01]: The world had moved on, but some truths are too heavy to carry alone.
23:57.686 --> 24:03.114
[SPEAKER_01]: And five years of religious pressure, finally broke what Victorian justice never could.
24:04.375 --> 24:09.462
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes the confession that saves your soul is the one that destroys your life.
24:10.977 --> 24:17.493
[SPEAKER_01]: next week on foul play the trial that lasted 30 minutes.
24:17.513 --> 24:24.109
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for listening, friend.
00:04.081 --> 00:04.923
[SPEAKER_01]: five years.
00:06.265 --> 00:07.568
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how long it took.
00:09.050 --> 00:17.406
[SPEAKER_01]: Five years from the ninth, three-year-old Francis Seville Kent was murdered in his family's country house until someone finally told the truth.
00:18.909 --> 00:21.393
[SPEAKER_01]: Five years of obisper's and suspicion.
00:22.776 --> 00:26.022
[SPEAKER_01]: Five years of a brilliant detectives ruined career.
00:27.436 --> 00:33.506
[SPEAKER_01]: five years of a family scattered across England, running from scandal they couldn't escape.
00:34.748 --> 00:42.640
[SPEAKER_01]: In August 1860, the charges against 16-year-old Constance Kent were dismissed for insufficient evidence.
00:44.263 --> 00:46.807
[SPEAKER_01]: She walked free from travel-bridge town hall.
00:47.888 --> 00:53.477
[SPEAKER_01]: While Detective Inspector Jonathan Witcher,
00:54.757 --> 00:58.083
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone had an opinion about who killed Francis.
00:59.505 --> 01:03.912
[SPEAKER_01]: Almost no one believed the detective who had actually solved the case.
01:05.355 --> 01:07.619
[SPEAKER_01]: Constance could have stayed silent forever.
01:08.921 --> 01:10.483
[SPEAKER_01]: The investigation was closed.
01:11.365 --> 01:13.288
[SPEAKER_01]: The newspapers moved on.
01:14.433 --> 01:20.961
[SPEAKER_01]: her father sent her far from England, to convince and finishing schools where no one knew her name.
01:22.123 --> 01:40.727
[SPEAKER_01]: But some secrets are too heavy to carry, and Constance Kent was about to face something more relentless than any detective, more unforgiving than any court, more impossible to escape than any scandal, her own conscience,
01:42.074 --> 01:44.641
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello friend, welcome to foul play.
01:44.701 --> 01:52.000
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the story of five years of silence and the religious torment that finally broke it.
01:54.359 --> 01:56.421
[SPEAKER_00]: Road Hill House was no longer home.
01:57.022 --> 02:00.466
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a crime scene that everyone recognized and no one could forget.
02:01.347 --> 02:04.591
[SPEAKER_00]: The servants who remained whispered in corners and avoided the family.
02:05.492 --> 02:11.199
[SPEAKER_00]: New staff refused positions, worded spread across Wiltshire, that the Kent household was cursed.
02:12.140 --> 02:23.033
[SPEAKER_00]: Neighbours who once called for tea now crossed the street when they saw the Kent family carriage, the high walls that had once protected the family's respectability, now felt like the walls were prison.
02:23.013 --> 02:31.999
[SPEAKER_00]: Some you can't try to maintain appearances, he still held his government position as factory inspector, still attended church services every Sunday.
02:32.841 --> 02:38.136
[SPEAKER_00]: Still hosted dinners for local society, that the guest lists grew shorter each month.
02:38.116 --> 02:42.820
[SPEAKER_00]: But every conversation eventually circled back to the same unask question.
02:43.641 --> 02:45.683
[SPEAKER_00]: What really happened that June night?
02:46.704 --> 02:47.705
[SPEAKER_00]: And young Francis?
02:48.325 --> 02:50.547
[SPEAKER_00]: Three years and ten months old when he died.
02:51.308 --> 02:52.669
[SPEAKER_00]: His nurseries did empty now.
02:53.350 --> 02:57.934
[SPEAKER_00]: His wicker cot were Elizabeth Gough had found only rumpled blankets that terrible morning.
02:58.555 --> 03:00.036
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone had moved it to the attic.
03:00.617 --> 03:01.177
[SPEAKER_00]: His toys?
03:01.978 --> 03:07.583
[SPEAKER_00]: The wooden rocking horse, the tin soldiers,
03:07.563 --> 03:11.549
[SPEAKER_00]: As though erasing the physical evidence could erase what had happened.
03:12.911 --> 03:19.702
[SPEAKER_00]: Mary drew Pratt the stepmother who had replaced Constance's real mother seemed determined to prove that life continued.
03:20.503 --> 03:27.353
[SPEAKER_00]: She gave birth to another son, Akland, in July 1860, just weeks after Francis's murder.
03:28.415 --> 03:31.680
[SPEAKER_00]: Another daughter Florence followed in 1861.
03:31.660 --> 03:39.849
[SPEAKER_00]: New children to replace the murdered child knew life to bury the death, but some things cannot be buried.
03:41.171 --> 03:47.698
[SPEAKER_00]: By early 1861 Samuel Kent made a decision, a family would leave road hill house forever.
03:48.639 --> 03:54.726
[SPEAKER_00]: They moved away from Wiltshire, away from the whispers and the stairs, and the neighbours who would never forget.
03:55.567 --> 04:00.452
[SPEAKER_00]: And Constance, the daughter half of England believed
04:00.432 --> 04:02.975
[SPEAKER_00]: she would be sent away when no one knew her name.
04:04.216 --> 04:09.402
[SPEAKER_00]: First were French convents across the channel, far from English newspapers in English scandal.
04:10.243 --> 04:15.769
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, in 1863, to St Mary's home for religious ladies in Brighton.
04:17.010 --> 04:23.858
[SPEAKER_00]: A place of prayer, a place of strict routine, a place where constant Kent would finally break her silence.
04:26.555 --> 04:35.269
[SPEAKER_01]: There were someone else who knew what happened that night at Roadhill House, someone who returned to boarding school in the autumn of 1860.
04:37.032 --> 04:43.663
[SPEAKER_01]: Built a career, married, had children, and never faced a single question from police again.
04:45.406 --> 04:51.516
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone who may have been in that nursery alongside Constance, her brother, William,
04:52.863 --> 04:56.708
[SPEAKER_01]: William Seville Kent was 14 years old, in June 1860.
04:57.169 --> 05:00.554
[SPEAKER_01]: He slept on the same floor as Constance.
05:01.776 --> 05:05.982
[SPEAKER_01]: He shared her grievances against their stepmother, Mary Drew Pratt.
05:07.424 --> 05:11.850
[SPEAKER_01]: He had witnessed the same systematic erasure of their real mother's memory.
05:13.079 --> 05:17.907
[SPEAKER_01]: He had endured the same favoritism, shown to the second family's children.
05:17.927 --> 05:28.805
[SPEAKER_01]: In an 1857, Constance and William had run away together, disguised themselves as boys, fled to Bath before being discovered.
05:30.407 --> 05:33.352
[SPEAKER_01]: These two siblings were capable of conspiracy.
05:34.794 --> 05:38.901
[SPEAKER_01]: The evidence at the time raised questions, no one wanted to pursue.
05:40.349 --> 05:45.897
[SPEAKER_01]: William's testimony at the inquest was evasive, nervous, contradictory.
05:47.139 --> 05:57.754
[SPEAKER_01]: Inspector WichÐµÑ noted in his reports that the boy avoided eye contact and swatted through simple questions, but WichÐµÑ was focused on constants.
05:58.935 --> 06:03.061
[SPEAKER_01]: The local Gestabulari was focused on protecting the family from scandal.
06:04.223 --> 06:07.167
[SPEAKER_01]: No one pressed William the way they pressed his sister.
06:08.277 --> 06:12.705
[SPEAKER_01]: and then there were the practical problems, with constants acting alone.
06:14.448 --> 06:18.355
[SPEAKER_01]: Francis Seville can't wait approximately 30 pounds.
06:18.375 --> 06:24.747
[SPEAKER_01]: The distance from nursery to outdoor privy, 30 yards across rain soaked ground in the dark.
06:25.949 --> 06:32.361
[SPEAKER_01]: A 16-year-old girl carrying a struggling three-year-old child, while also carrying her father's razor,
06:33.556 --> 06:38.845
[SPEAKER_01]: navigating stairs that creaked, opening doors that should have woken the household.
06:40.007 --> 06:41.509
[SPEAKER_01]: Did she really do this alone?
06:42.551 --> 06:51.666
[SPEAKER_01]: Modern historians, including Kate Somerscale, who wrote the definite account of this case, have suggested a disturbing possibility.
06:51.646 --> 06:52.567
[SPEAKER_01]: William helped.
06:53.669 --> 06:57.093
[SPEAKER_01]: He may have held Francis while Constance cut.
06:58.154 --> 07:00.037
[SPEAKER_01]: He may have carried the body to the privy.
07:00.998 --> 07:03.802
[SPEAKER_01]: He may have retrieved the razor and disposed of it.
07:05.264 --> 07:12.473
[SPEAKER_01]: And when Constance confessed five years later, she may have confessed alone to protect him.
07:12.453 --> 07:21.308
[SPEAKER_01]: William Seville Kent graduated from boarding school, attended university, became a marine biologist of considerable reputation.
07:22.650 --> 07:38.376
[SPEAKER_01]: In 1884, just one year before Constance was released from prison, he immigrated to Australia, was this coincidence, or was he putting an ocean between himself
07:39.723 --> 07:44.894
[SPEAKER_01]: William died in Bournemouth, England, in 1908, age 62.
07:45.194 --> 07:51.207
[SPEAKER_01]: He never faced charges, never publicly acknowledged his possible role.
07:52.209 --> 07:58.542
[SPEAKER_01]: Never explained why he fled to Australia, the moment his sister's release approached.
07:58.522 --> 08:01.246
[SPEAKER_01]: taking whatever he knew to his grave.
08:02.487 --> 08:15.445
[SPEAKER_01]: But while William built his respectable career, Constance was about to tear her life apart, not through investigation, not through evidence, through something far more powerful than any detective.
08:16.867 --> 08:17.408
[SPEAKER_01]: Religion.
08:19.700 --> 08:25.115
[SPEAKER_00]: So Mary's home for religious ladies in Brighton was not a typical church of England establishment.
08:25.597 --> 08:30.390
[SPEAKER_00]: It was run by Father Arthur Wagner, a priest of the Anglo-Catholic Movement.
08:31.052 --> 08:33.118
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes called High Church Angvacism.
08:34.313 --> 08:39.522
[SPEAKER_00]: Balkan believed in rituals that most English Protestants associated with Roman Catholicism.
08:40.504 --> 08:54.027
[SPEAKER_00]: In sense clouding the sanctuary air, elaborate vestments embroidered with gold thread, bells marking the elevation of the host, and most critically for Constance Kent, the sacrament of Confession.
08:54.007 --> 09:05.839
[SPEAKER_00]: Arthur Wagner came from wealth and influence, his father Henry Mitchell Wagner had been vicar of Brighton for 46 years, one of the longest tenures in the Church of England history.
09:07.141 --> 09:18.933
[SPEAKER_00]: Arthur used his family inheritance to build churches in poor neighborhoods and established homes for what Victorians called Fallen Women, unmarried mothers, former prostitutes, troubled girls.
09:19.994 --> 09:22.697
[SPEAKER_00]: Samaris' home was one of these establishments.
09:22.677 --> 09:25.320
[SPEAKER_00]: But Wagner's theory was intense.
09:25.340 --> 09:34.432
[SPEAKER_00]: He believed that Sin had physical weight on the soul, that guilt accumulated like sediment, layer and pond layer, until the soul could no longer bear the burden.
09:35.614 --> 09:42.002
[SPEAKER_00]: That confession, genuine, complete, sacramental confession, was the only path to absolution.
09:42.539 --> 09:45.744
[SPEAKER_00]: And the early justice and Heavenly forgiveness were connected.
09:46.365 --> 09:50.191
[SPEAKER_00]: You could not receive God's mercy while hiding mortal sin from the world.
09:51.393 --> 09:54.018
[SPEAKER_00]: Constance Kent entered St. Mary's home in 1863.
09:54.138 --> 09:56.782
[SPEAKER_00]: She was 18 years old.
09:57.764 --> 10:02.291
[SPEAKER_00]: Constance said she was there to recover from the trauma of being accused of her brother's murder.
10:02.992 --> 10:06.117
[SPEAKER_00]: To find peace through prayer and structure religious life.
10:06.097 --> 10:14.119
[SPEAKER_00]: To escape the scandal that had followed her family since that June night, in reality she had entered a pressure cooker of guilt.
10:15.342 --> 10:21.118
[SPEAKER_00]: For the next two years, Constance lived in an environment of inconstant religious intensity.
10:21.098 --> 10:29.288
[SPEAKER_00]: Daily services at dawn and dusk, weekly confession, seasonal rituals that emphasise sin, sacrifice and redemption.
10:30.429 --> 10:43.545
[SPEAKER_00]: The letter Jai Cool calendar became psychological pressure, lents 40 days focus on repentance, good Friday's meditation on innocent blood, easter's promise of resurrection, but only through truth.
10:44.605 --> 10:48.071
[SPEAKER_00]: Every week, constants knelt in the confession booth with father Wagner.
10:49.072 --> 10:52.598
[SPEAKER_00]: The wooden partition between them, the smell of incense and old wood.
10:53.519 --> 10:57.466
[SPEAKER_00]: Wagner's voice asked the ritual questions about sin and contrition.
10:58.568 --> 11:01.973
[SPEAKER_00]: Every week, the same unspoken question hung between them.
11:01.953 --> 11:05.519
[SPEAKER_00]: And every week, bargain as theology pressed harder.
11:06.160 --> 11:09.385
[SPEAKER_00]: Your soul cannot find peace while you hide mortal sin.
11:10.267 --> 11:13.211
[SPEAKER_00]: Earthly justice must be served before heavenly forgiveness.
11:13.932 --> 11:20.223
[SPEAKER_00]: The seal of confession, sacramental secrecy, meant that he could tell no one what she said in that booth.
11:21.004 --> 11:26.593
[SPEAKER_00]: But he was free to guide her conscience to remind her week after week that
11:27.485 --> 11:29.569
[SPEAKER_00]: This was not sudden dramatic conversion.
11:30.050 --> 11:32.015
[SPEAKER_00]: This was slow, accumulated weight.
11:32.776 --> 11:36.644
[SPEAKER_00]: Two years of daily services, two years of weekly confession.
11:37.546 --> 11:41.875
[SPEAKER_00]: Two years of liturgical seasons emphasising blood and guilt and redemption.
11:42.597 --> 11:47.046
[SPEAKER_00]: By Easter 1864, something in Constance Kent was about to break.
11:50.047 --> 11:58.721
[SPEAKER_01]: While Constance Kent, Nelt and Confession Booth, and Brighton England moved on, the Roadhill House murder faded from the front pages.
11:59.963 --> 12:04.650
[SPEAKER_01]: New scandals, new crimes, new sensations, captured public attention.
12:05.752 --> 12:13.725
[SPEAKER_01]: A child's murder in a country house became yesterday's news, replaced by fresh horrors and fresh outrages.
12:13.705 --> 12:17.719
[SPEAKER_01]: Most people assumed the case would never be solved.
12:19.044 --> 12:24.222
[SPEAKER_01]: Inspector John Witcher certainly knew better, but no one was listening to him anymore.
12:25.585 --> 12:37.180
[SPEAKER_01]: his evidence had been sound, his logic impeccable, his detective work brilliant, he had identified the killer within days of arriving at Roadhill House.
12:38.282 --> 12:48.996
[SPEAKER_01]: The missing night gown, the circumstantial evidence pointing to constants, the psychological profile of a teenage girl, driven by jealousy and neglect.
12:50.278 --> 12:55.204
[SPEAKER_01]: But in 1860, being right meant nothing against class prejudice,
12:57.040 --> 13:01.446
[SPEAKER_01]: The newspapers that had destroyed his reputation moved on to new targets.
13:02.468 --> 13:05.532
[SPEAKER_01]: His colleagues at Scotland Yard distance themselves.
13:06.594 --> 13:13.684
[SPEAKER_01]: No one wanted association with the detective who had accused a gentleman's daughter and failed to convict her.
13:15.387 --> 13:25.782
[SPEAKER_01]: By March 1864, which was forced into retirement at age 50,
13:26.993 --> 13:27.674
[SPEAKER_01]: real reason.
13:28.715 --> 13:32.059
[SPEAKER_01]: His career had been murdered alongside Francis Kent.
13:34.402 --> 13:37.145
[SPEAKER_01]: But the Rhode Hill House case would not stay buried.
13:38.407 --> 13:47.718
[SPEAKER_01]: In 1868, three years after Constance's confession, Wilkie Collins published a novel that would change literature forever.
13:48.799 --> 13:49.660
[SPEAKER_01]: The Moon Stone.
13:50.990 --> 13:53.193
[SPEAKER_01]: Colin had followed the case obsessively.
13:53.233 --> 13:59.784
[SPEAKER_01]: His fictional detective Sergeant Cough was modeled directly on Inspector Richard.
14:01.226 --> 14:09.218
[SPEAKER_01]: The country house setting, the family scandal, the missing night-gown evidence, the solution that no one wanted to hear.
14:10.514 --> 14:21.148
[SPEAKER_01]: The moonstone is often called the first modern detective novel, without the roadhill house murder, without Inspector Richard's brilliant and tragic investigation.
14:21.168 --> 14:25.613
[SPEAKER_01]: Detective fiction, as we know it, might never have existed.
14:27.256 --> 14:36.167
[SPEAKER_01]: But while Richard retired in obscurity, in Collins' road fiction,
14:37.463 --> 14:40.949
[SPEAKER_01]: and Easter 1864 was approaching.
14:40.989 --> 14:48.401
[SPEAKER_00]: Easter Week 1864, Constance Kent was 19 years old.
14:49.143 --> 14:52.368
[SPEAKER_00]: Four years had passed since the murder of our half-brother Francis.
14:53.069 --> 15:03.707
[SPEAKER_00]: Four years of daily services, four years of weekly confession, four years of the church school seasons emphasizing sin, blood, sacrifice, and redemption.
15:03.687 --> 15:07.373
[SPEAKER_00]: and now the most intense week of the Christian calendar had arrived.
15:08.214 --> 15:12.380
[SPEAKER_00]: The exact date of Constance's confession to Father Wagner remains unknown.
15:13.201 --> 15:15.725
[SPEAKER_00]: The seal of confession means no records exist.
15:16.927 --> 15:24.058
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was sometime during Lent or Easter of 1864, as she finally spoke the words aloud in that wooden booth.
15:25.355 --> 15:27.777
[SPEAKER_00]: She had murdered Francis Seville Kent.
15:28.698 --> 15:35.204
[SPEAKER_00]: She had taken her father's razor from his dressing room, around midnight on June the 29th, 1860.
15:35.904 --> 15:37.066
[SPEAKER_00]: She had gone to the nursery.
15:38.187 --> 15:40.929
[SPEAKER_00]: She had lifted her three-year-old half-brother from his cot.
15:41.550 --> 15:44.052
[SPEAKER_00]: The boy had received all the love she had been denied.
15:45.013 --> 15:50.518
[SPEAKER_00]: She had carried him through the dark house, down the stairs, out into the rain-soaked garden.
15:51.298 --> 15:55.362
[SPEAKER_00]: In the outdoor privy, 30 yards from the house,
15:55.342 --> 16:01.217
[SPEAKER_00]: She had wrapped his small body in his own nursery blanket and stuffed him down into the vault.
16:02.460 --> 16:09.919
[SPEAKER_00]: The night gown, the missing night gown that had haunted inspector witches investigation, she had burnt or otherwise destroyed.
16:10.621 --> 16:11.764
[SPEAKER_00]: It would never be found.
16:11.744 --> 16:20.225
[SPEAKER_00]: What she said about William was her brother-helt, whether he knew, whether he carried the body or disposed of evidence.
16:21.147 --> 16:26.901
[SPEAKER_00]: Remains unknown, that secret, if it exists, stayed in the confessional.
16:26.881 --> 16:32.033
[SPEAKER_00]: While the Wagner's response was clear, Constance must give herself up.
16:32.775 --> 16:34.138
[SPEAKER_00]: She must confess publicly.
16:34.920 --> 16:37.667
[SPEAKER_00]: She must accept whatever punishment the Lord demanded.
16:38.529 --> 16:43.962
[SPEAKER_00]: In his theology, earthly justice was required before heavenly forgiveness could be complete.
16:45.477 --> 16:48.481
[SPEAKER_00]: Was this spiritual guidance or religious coercion?
16:49.462 --> 16:55.049
[SPEAKER_00]: Vargna saw himself as saving her soul, guiding a young woman toward redemption through truth.
16:56.090 --> 17:05.021
[SPEAKER_00]: Modern observers might see a priest manipulating a vulnerable penitent, using religious authority to compel a confession the courts had failed to obtain.
17:06.123 --> 17:08.025
[SPEAKER_00]: The truth likely contains both.
17:08.005 --> 17:23.466
[SPEAKER_00]: Constance agreed, whether from genuine remorse for murdering a three-year-old child, whether from theological fear of eternal domination, whether from the desperate desire to finally end four years of unbearable secret.
17:23.446 --> 17:28.233
[SPEAKER_00]: Or perhaps, to protect her brother William by taking full responsibility alone.
17:29.135 --> 17:30.297
[SPEAKER_00]: She agreed to surrender.
17:31.418 --> 17:33.361
[SPEAKER_00]: Nearly a year passed before she acted.
17:34.022 --> 17:34.864
[SPEAKER_00]: Time to prepare.
17:35.565 --> 17:36.827
[SPEAKER_00]: Time to settle her fears.
17:37.387 --> 17:40.712
[SPEAKER_00]: Time for Wagner to arrange the logistics of a public confession.
17:41.674 --> 17:42.535
[SPEAKER_00]: The date was set.
17:43.296 --> 17:44.038
[SPEAKER_00]: April 25, 1865.
17:46.461 --> 17:48.224
[SPEAKER_00]: Both street police station in London.
17:49.226 --> 17:52.170
[SPEAKER_00]: After five years of silence, Constance Kent
17:52.150 --> 17:53.895
[SPEAKER_00]: was going to tell the truth.
17:57.025 --> 18:05.350
[SPEAKER_01]: The morning of April 25, 1865, Father Wagner and Constance Kent left St. Mary's home in Brighton.
18:06.663 --> 18:08.305
[SPEAKER_01]: They boarded a train for London.
18:09.547 --> 18:14.474
[SPEAKER_01]: She wore modest traveling clothes, dark fabric, nothing that drew attention.
18:15.636 --> 18:17.358
[SPEAKER_01]: He wore his clerical collar.
18:18.540 --> 18:20.182
[SPEAKER_01]: They spoke little during the journey.
18:21.063 --> 18:22.545
[SPEAKER_01]: There was nothing left to say.
18:24.308 --> 18:27.512
[SPEAKER_01]: Bows Street Police Station was one of the most famous in London.
18:28.594 --> 18:34.442
[SPEAKER_01]: Home of the original Bows Street Runners, predecessors to the Metropolitan Police.
18:35.671 --> 18:41.228
[SPEAKER_01]: When Wagner and Constance arrived in mid-morning, she asked to speak to a magistrate.
18:42.934 --> 18:45.040
[SPEAKER_01]: What happened next took less than an hour?
18:46.893 --> 18:49.317
[SPEAKER_01]: Constance Kent dictated a written confession.
18:50.238 --> 18:55.587
[SPEAKER_01]: She admitted to the murder of Francis Seville Kent on the night of June 29, 1860.
18:57.550 --> 19:03.359
[SPEAKER_01]: She provided details that matched the evidence Inspector Richard had gathered five years earlier.
19:03.419 --> 19:06.784
[SPEAKER_01]: Details only the killer could have known.
19:08.086 --> 19:09.829
[SPEAKER_01]: She said she acted alone.
19:10.957 --> 19:22.153
[SPEAKER_01]: Her stated motive, when pressed, she refused to elaborate, the confession mentioned resentment, but offered no details, was she protecting William?
19:22.994 --> 19:24.876
[SPEAKER_01]: Was there something darker in the family?
19:25.617 --> 19:26.939
[SPEAKER_01]: She still wouldn't reveal.
19:26.979 --> 19:32.627
[SPEAKER_01]: Her silence on motive has puzzled historians for over a century.
19:33.907 --> 19:37.272
[SPEAKER_01]: By evening, telegraph wires hummed with the news.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Headlined screened across Europe, Hill House murderous confesses, Constance Kent surrenders after five years.
19:48.206 --> 19:49.769
[SPEAKER_01]: The public was stunned.
19:50.950 --> 19:54.195
[SPEAKER_01]: Half of England had defended her in 1860.
19:54.235 --> 20:00.403
[SPEAKER_01]: They had attacked Inspector Witcher for daring to accuse a young lady of breeding
20:01.565 --> 20:05.290
[SPEAKER_01]: They had called him a monster for interrogating a teenage girl.
20:06.471 --> 20:09.876
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, she admitted she was guilty all along.
20:11.137 --> 20:16.324
[SPEAKER_01]: Samuel Kent, her father, reportedly said he always feared it was her.
20:17.846 --> 20:25.796
[SPEAKER_01]: But he had spent five years fighting anyone who suggested his daughter's guilt, protecting her, defending her.
20:26.937 --> 20:29.901
[SPEAKER_01]: His favorite son murdered by his second favorite daughter.
20:31.197 --> 20:40.193
[SPEAKER_01]: his family destroyed, utterly, and somewhere in London, a retired detective named Jonathan Witcher, heard the news.
20:42.437 --> 20:44.080
[SPEAKER_01]: He had known since July 1860.
20:44.100 --> 20:50.632
[SPEAKER_01]: He had tried to tell them they had destroyed his career for it.
20:51.553 --> 20:54.859
[SPEAKER_01]: Now five years to late, everyone knew
20:56.965 --> 21:03.012
[SPEAKER_01]: Constance Kent was remanded to custody and transported two devices to a weight trial.
21:04.173 --> 21:10.961
[SPEAKER_01]: The newspapers that had destroyed Inspector Richard five years earlier, now admitted they had gotten it wrong.
21:12.342 --> 21:21.032
[SPEAKER_01]: The young lady of breeding had murdered her baby brother, Victorian England had chosen
21:21.012 --> 21:29.588
[SPEAKER_01]: For those who had defended Constance in 1860, the confession was a betrayal, they had believed in her innocence.
21:30.730 --> 21:34.297
[SPEAKER_01]: They had attacked the police for prosecuting a respectable family.
21:35.379 --> 21:38.785
[SPEAKER_01]: Now they learned they had been protecting a murderer.
21:40.098 --> 21:54.636
[SPEAKER_01]: For Inspector Richard, the vindication was better, too late to save his reputation, too late to save his health, too late for anything, except the cold comfort of being right.
21:56.118 --> 21:57.760
[SPEAKER_01]: But questions remained.
21:58.901 --> 22:02.646
[SPEAKER_01]: Why had Constance Kent confessed after five years of freedom?
22:03.827 --> 22:06.190
[SPEAKER_01]: Was it genuine or religious conversion?
22:07.351 --> 22:10.795
[SPEAKER_01]: Father Wagner's theology finally breaking through her defenses.
22:12.256 --> 22:23.009
[SPEAKER_01]: Was it religious coercion, a priest manipulating a vulnerable young woman, or what she taking full responsibility to protect someone else?
22:24.730 --> 22:33.240
[SPEAKER_01]: Her brother William, who had built his career while she built her guilt, and what would happen next.
22:35.144 --> 22:36.386
[SPEAKER_01]: the charge was murder.
22:37.507 --> 22:40.050
[SPEAKER_01]: The standard sentence was death by hanging.
22:40.991 --> 22:51.224
[SPEAKER_01]: Would Victorian England execute a 21 year old woman for a crime committed when she was 16, which she finally revealed her true motive.
22:52.365 --> 22:53.887
[SPEAKER_01]: Would anyone else be implicated?
22:55.489 --> 23:04.780
[SPEAKER_01]: On July 21, 1865, Constance Emily Kid stood
23:06.329 --> 23:11.556
[SPEAKER_01]: He had confessed to murdering her three-year-old brother, the prosecution wanted her dead.
23:13.138 --> 23:16.342
[SPEAKER_01]: Her defense lawyer wanted her committed to an asylum.
23:17.844 --> 23:22.089
[SPEAKER_01]: In constants herself, one had something no one expected.
23:22.109 --> 23:31.341
[SPEAKER_01]: To take full responsibility, accept her punishment, and finally, perhaps find peace.
23:32.587 --> 23:35.924
[SPEAKER_01]: But the British legal system wasn't done with its surprises.
23:35.964 --> 23:39.019
[SPEAKER_01]: And neither was Constance Kent.
23:41.024 --> 23:45.470
[SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, remember, guilt doesn't keep a calendar.
23:46.471 --> 23:48.915
[SPEAKER_01]: Constance Kent could have stayed silent forever.
23:49.956 --> 23:51.438
[SPEAKER_01]: The investigation was closed.
23:51.999 --> 23:56.845
[SPEAKER_01]: The world had moved on, but some truths are too heavy to carry alone.
23:57.686 --> 24:03.114
[SPEAKER_01]: And five years of religious pressure, finally broke what Victorian justice never could.
24:04.375 --> 24:09.462
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes the confession that saves your soul is the one that destroys your life.
24:10.977 --> 24:17.493
[SPEAKER_01]: next week on foul play the trial that lasted 30 minutes.
24:17.513 --> 24:24.109
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for listening, friend.
