Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Good evening, and welcome to the Boo Review. I'm Jill Stanley. Tonight's bulletin is based on a newspaper article out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, dated January 14, 1823. This is a chilling tale of unsolved murder mystery. It deals with the tragic fate of Miles Mayfield, a man caught in a whirl of paranormal events allegedly lost at sea on a whaling expedition to Nova Scotia. For more on this, please welcome Jennifer James at the bulletin desks. Jennifer?
[00:00:50] Speaker B: Thanks, Jill.
Our story begins in a cold and fetid jail cell in January 1824.
Nathaniel Phillips shivered in his reeking jail cell, hearing water dripping behind him once again.
Terrified, he shut his eyes and pressed his face against the icy bars.
Although the jail was far from the bay, Phillips could now smell sea water and stale fish and decay.
Water continued to drip on the flagstones, and there was no denying that Baker had followed him here.
The simple truth was Jesse Baker was dead.
Witnesses agreed he had fallen over the side of the boat off Hawkins Point near Baltimore and drowned in the cold, dark waters of the Chesapeake Bay on Christmas Eve, 1823.
When these same witnesses, Nathaniel Phillips and Edward Gad, arrived in Annapolis several hours later, they both appeared quite distraught. To onlookers describing the accident to anyone who would listen, they said Baker was dead, that it had been an unfortunate accident, but that they had seen his ghost on the boat.
For the next several days, they appeared more and more upset, declaring that Baker's ghost kept reappearing on the boat, and they invited others to come out to the boat and see what they saw.
After four days of this, word of this suspicious and seemingly guilt ridden behavior reached the local authorities, and the two men were arrested.
Now Baker sat in the cell, muttering to himself in terror and desperation.
God save me. God knows I never injured you, Baker. You know it. We neither of us did you any harm. Phillips moaned. I coughing and retching from the growing stink of death filling the tiny cell. God save me, he whispered hoarsely.
A jailer struck the bars of the cell with a dirty tray and yelled at the prisoner to be quiet.
Phillips lurched backwards so as not to be struck in the face, and as he turned, he glimpsed Baker's waterlogged ghost looming silently in the corner.
Baker had been tall in life, and his matted hair nearly touched the low ceiling of the cell.
Phillips shut his eyes and prayed, but the stink grew worse and worse.
His trial would be tomorrow. The law believed he was acting as a guilty man, that he had harmed his partner, murdered him, and now must pay for the crime.
The next day, Phillips sat in a crude courtroom on the stand.
In your own words, Mister Phillips, could you tell the court what happened?
Well, we were all in good spirits. Gad and I were surprised to see Baker, but glad for the help. It was supposed to be an easy delivery out to Poplar island across the bayou. We shared a Christmas toast. Baker passed around spice rum in a fancy pewter cup. Ten minutes later, he leaned over the side just as a large wave hit the boat and he fell in. We tried to save him, but he slipped under the water immediately and we never saw him come up. He just sank like a stone. I tell you, we tried to save him. There was nothing we could do but go on. So we did. But an hour later I was at the stern, my hand on the tiller, and I saw Baker standing in the bow.
I called out to him, but he never said a word. I shouted and shouted until Gad came up onto the deck, thinking I had lost my mind. And maybe I had. But then he saw him, too. We both saw Jesse Baker standing in the bow, drenched and silent.
Gad tried to walk to him, but he fell to the deck, crying. He said that Baker's eyes burned like hellfire. We turned the boat around and landed at the first port we could, trying our hardest not to look at the silent figure in the bow. We tied off and fled for land and didn't sleep a wink at all that night.
The prosecutor continued his questioning. Mister Baker, you were partners, correct? You owned the boat jointly, but in fact, with Mister Baker dead, you are now the sole owner of a lucrative commercial enterprise, are you not, Mister Phillips?
Phillips nodded miserably, as if he had been caught in a terrible lie. They thought this awful thing about him, and there seemed to be no way to change their minds.
The barrister addressed the court. Mister Gad has submitted testimony identical to Mister Phillips, but he has since fallen too ill to appear before this court.
Murmuring arose at this news.
Phillips thought he heard the word guilty whispered a dozen times from the jury box.
Myles Mayfield was called to the stand as a witness.
Mister Mayfield, do you know the accused?
Yes, sir, said Miles. I've worked with Mister Phillips and Mister Gad before, helping them load and unload cargo on Mister Phillips's boat.
But in fact, the boat was owned jointly by Mister Phillips and the deceased. Are you aware that Jesse Baker was an equal partner? Yes, sir, but I never met Baker. He didn't work on the boat like Mister Phillips did. Mister Mayfield, what did Mister Phillips say to you on December 26? Miles Mayfield explained.
He told me about the ghost and insisted I go with him to see it for myself. I agreed, and Mister Phillips took me aboard. We went down to the hold and Mister Phillips peeked through a crack in the door, peering into the space.
Then he started shaking and whispered that he saw the ghost and invited me to look in.
However, I saw nothing in the hold.
Phillips heart sank as he heard Miles testimony, and he shifted uncomfortably in the splintery seat as he heard the other witnesses testify to his strange behavior.
After his friend Miles Mayfield had testified, Phillips saw him sitting at the back of the courtroom next to Baker's young widow. Right behind her, Baker suddenly appeared and Phillips dropped his eyes.
Several members of the jury whispered they had seen a man too guilty to look upon the victim's widow. Phillips knew he was doomed.
After the guilty verdicts had been read in court, Miles walked sadly to Baker's house. At misses Baker's invitation, he saw a man in a suit carrying a briefcase depart just as he approached the front gate. The man nodded but did not speak to him. Before he could knock on the door, bakers widow opened it and invited him into a warm and cheery parlor. Thank you for coming, Miles. Of course, misses Baker. I just wanted to say again how sorry. Please, Miles, the beautiful widow interrupted. Call me Elizabeth and come sit down by the fire. Ive got to thank you for all your help testifying in the trial and all. Youve made everything so much easier for me in this dark time. She smiled warmly at him and offered him a drink, a spiced rum eggnog in a fancy cup. As Miles drank, he saw money and papers spread across the dining room table. The spiced rum warmed him more than the fire.
My banker has just dropped that off, Elizabeth explained. $500. Poor jesses life insurance. But now that hes gone, we can be married, you and I. The banker also left paperwork for a new life insurance policy for my next husband. Youre a young man. I expect I can get $1,000 of coverage on you. Her smile widened.
Married, misses Baker? I I don't, Miles stammered. You're a waterman, Miles. With Jesse and Mister Phillips out of the way now, you can run the business as a sole proprietor. But being a waterman is dangerous work, you know. You wouldn't want to leave your family without protection if something were to happen, would you, misses Baker? I dont understand, Miles stammered. The widow moved closer to Miles on the couch, still beaming at him. He found he could not move. He couldnt stand, and his head was swimming as if he had had many drinks, not just a single sip of eggnog, of course, Miles. Well be married at once.
Hang what the neighbors say and youll go to work to support your new family and ill be here keeping a fine house for you when you return. Dont worry, my first husband wont be jealous. She laughed and straightened a heavy ring she wore on her ring finger.
Your. Your first husband?
Miles felt like he was drowning.
Now he could see a blurry figure standing in the corner. A barefoot man, his clothes and hair soaking wet and stuck to his bloated, pallid flesh.
His eyes and tongue had been eaten by fish.
Impossibly, Miles saw Jesse Baker standing in the corner of the room, seawater dripping onto the expensive new carpet. He stank of death and rotting seaweed.
Elizabeth followed his terrified gaze.
No, not the unfortunate Mister Baker. I mean my first husband, Miles. My real husband.
I want you to sign the papers, Miles. We will be married in the morning and you can take Mister Baker's business and run it how you like. You will provide for your family one way or the other.
The figure of Jesse Baker took a step closer, wet feet squelching on the carpet or continued. Misses Baker, if you will not, then you will be cursed, just as the others were cursed. And you, Miles, shall sicken and die just as they have died. And you will be damned, just as the others are now damned.
Miles heard a strange quivering cry underneath the peals of laughter and realized that the strangled sounds were coming from his own throat.
He tried to stand, but his legs had no strength and the room spun fast, too fast to see clearly. He dropped to his knees and saw close to his face baker's pale and swollen, rotting legs, wrapped in soaking rags and tangled with seaweed. A stinking stream of water poured onto the carpet and Miles sensed that the thing that had been Baker had opened its mouth wide as if to devour him.
In his desperation, Miles grasped a silver crucifix from around his neck and thrust it blindly upwards.
He felt that the figure looming over him drew back for an instant, and Miles crawled out of the room, chased by Elizabeths laughter. He crawled until he passed beyond the threshold of the front door. Then his head suddenly cleared and he struggled to his feet and fled.
Miles Mayfield shipped to sea the following day aboard a whaler bound for Nova Scotia. It was said that he died a week later, swept into the sea by a freak wave.
Elizabeth Baker remarried soon thereafter. Back to you, Jill.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: Thank you so much for that. Jennifer and Miles disappearance still seems to baffle.
The boo review is produced by Common Mystics Media in association with access paranormal story by Dennis Brose. Thank you so much for listening, and we look forward to seeing you back next month. Happy Halloween.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: It.
