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Introducing: Fresh Hell Podcast

·57 min·3 clips

Mrs. Campbell is found dead with a bottle of poison on the nightstand, and Lizzie later blames Charles Hopkins.

1. Our True Crime Podcast introduces Fresh Hell Podcast with a focus on Lizzie Halliday, a historical murder case shared as a sample episode. 2. Annie and Johanna host Fresh Hell, with Annie in America and Johanna in Austria, and they say they met online about seven years ago. 3. The episode exists to show how Fresh Hell handles murder, mystery, and the macabre throughout history with deep historical context. 4. Annie and Johanna say Fresh Hell won the 2024 Discover Pods Award in the Best History category. 5. They describe Lizzie Halliday as Eliza Margaret McNally, born in Ballymena in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, sometime between 1857 and 1864. 6. The family emigrated after the Great Hunger, and by 1872 the McNallys had reunited in Newburgh after arriving in America in stages. 7. The hosts say Lizzie moved with her family to Greenwich in 1879, then left school and looked for domestic work or a husband. 8. Lizzie repeatedly knocked on Mrs. G’s door until she was hired, then quarreled over a bread-baking mistake and filed a complaint at the justice of the peace. 9. A quoted attorney says Lizzie kept coming back over wage disputes, and he could not tell whether she was trying to swindle people or simply believed she was owed money. 10. The episode says Mrs. M kept her children away from Lizzie after sensing danger, and later learned Lizzie had threatened a little girl with a butcher knife in the basement. 11. Charles Hopkins enters as Lizzie’s first husband, a carpenter and deserter who had been using aliases and courting her while involved with Mrs. Campbell. 12. The hosts describe Mrs. Campbell’s death with a bottle of poison on the nightstand, which they note was ruled a suicide but later treated as possibly Lizzie’s first murder. 13. After Charles Hopkins married Lizzie, the couple moved to Vermont and had a son, Charles Hopkins Jr. 14. Martha later said Lizzie’s behavior worsened after childbirth, and the episode quotes reports of ringing in her ears, a light around the house, and torn sewing work. 15. The hosts connect those reports to possible migraine symptoms or mental illness, while also emphasizing that Lizzie repeatedly lied, attacked others, and avoided remorse. 16. Charles Hopkins dies in 1881, and the episode says the doctor and townspeople raised questions about whether Lizzie had poisoned him. 17. Lizzie then marries Artemis Brewer, a wounded Civil War veteran with two canes, opium pills, and serious mobility problems. 18. The hosts describe Lizzie beating Artemis with his own canes, hiding his pills, and forcing him to do impossible chores until he and others became alarmed. 19. Fresh Hell keeps the tone conversational and historical, with Annie and Johanna trading details, quotes, and side comments while moving chronologically through the case. 20. Listeners interested in historical true crime, Victorian-era social history, and women’s cases would likely stay with this episode, while listeners who want light conversation or avoid abuse-heavy material might skip it.

As heard by us

A conversational poison-and-affair case that keeps its edge by refusing an easy answer.

This episode traces the poisonous triangle between Charles Hopkins, Mrs. Campbell, and Lizzie, and it works best when it shows how an affair can turn into manipulation and violence.

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Why you'd press play

For a poison-soaked affair where the hosts keep the timeline straight and the excuses in check.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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