The Haunting Murder Case of the Hammersmith Ghost

[Music] this week on buzzfeed unsolved we walked through a ghost hunt from over 200 years ago that turned into an actual murder case the hammersmith ghost 200 years ago that sounds like peak ghost time they all like from then when do you think the first ghost was adam and eve hmm was one of them a ghost i don't know how it works i don't know was jesus the first girl we're getting a little off track okay yes we are we are right a supernatural case that turned into a true crime case or a murder case it's a beautiful marriage of the two shows it's funny because over the years doing this show i've often thought of making our supernatural cases into murder cases what is that supposed to mean you son of a [ __ ] let's get into it okay on the north bank of a winding section of the river thames in london sits the village of hammersmith while less than five miles west of buckingham palace in the early 19th century hammersmith represented the border between the countryside and the city and in late 1803 this village of freshly built homes had a ghost problem late at night a tall specter covered in a white shroud would emerge to roam the areas around black lion lane thought to be the spirit of a villager who had slit his own throat the year prior the ghost would accost harass and sometimes even attack travelers out late this sounds like a level 10 ghoul a level 10 ghoul if it's wearing a white sheet like charlie brown i don't know what white shroud mean that could mean a blanket or that could mean it's shrouded in like a white mist i think it's a classic blue ghost i'm gonna say it's a mist because no one's gonna get scared of a little sheet with holes cut into it i have to disagree erase from your mind the concept of the classic blue ghost yeah now suddenly a blue ghost appears who it's a boo ghost you seen that as a bow ghost he's just wearing my sheets that's not how you'd react you know that if you were 200 years ago ain't never seen a bugose you'd be screaming bloody i think it's disrespectful to think 200 years ago someone wouldn't go that's a guy under a sheet you're in a sheep mate like that yeah like that you just get out of there you want to sheep before mike i'll get out of there mate this man's pissed drunk he's wearing his bed in one incident the driver of an eight-horse wagon carrying 16 passengers became so frightened by the ghost that he fled on foot abandoning his passengers and horses it's a big ass wagon for you to leave behind and be like see you later just take it off oh that's true you don't want to leave that wagon i guess not the horses were probably confused imagine the trim on that baby probably mahogany maybe i damn dude just sanded to perfection probably some gold leaf maybe just slides off the skin like butter smoking man anyways don't leave your wagon full of passengers behind the horses are probably scared too eat horses winning at the same time that's deafening watching your master run off while there's like some bulgos going i still don't think it's a dude in a sheet i think it's like a a white mist around this thing people describe ghosts as having like a like a white it's like an ethereal okay i see crisps i haven't seen that so no you certainly haven't in a ghost the ghost i saw look like a person why don't you continue the story one man thomas groom described walking through a church yard with his hands in his pockets and a jacket under his arm went from behind a tombstone someone grabbed him by the neck with two hands the hands spun groom around but there was no one to be seen when he pushed out with his fist it felt as though he were punching a large coat but he didn't contact anything solid well i'll just go for a stroll through you know he's not telling it that way though this is like a war story like so there i was walking through the cemetery and all of a sudden i got these two hands in my neck and i turn around and i knock them out i [ __ ] kill the ghost mate i [ __ ] kill the ghost how do you grab someone and then turn because that's not easy can you imagine doing i mean like if it's a ghost we're talking about the laws of physics being broken yeah i guess what do you think about him punching and not feeling anything solid but feeling like a coat boy i'd give a million bucks to watch this guy do that you were just like eating an apple by a tree and you saw this guy walking around just looked like a horse's ass i'd be like you all right in another incident a pregnant woman was walking near the churchyard around 10 pm suddenly a white specter materialized from the tombstones and came after the woman she tried to run away but was caught the ghost began to press her into his arms and the woman fainted a few hours later some neighbors found the woman woke her and took her home there she reportedly went to bed and never awoke just when you think you're out of the woods you got bear hugged by a ghost it's strange for a ghost to hug someone right yeah to embrace that's why they're legal yeah actually i'm curious do you think it's possible to have a literal heart attack because you were of so much so much fright attacked your body at that moment that you had a heart attack is that possible i think that happens all the time it makes me scared about all these places we go to yeah because i could just straight up get killed i'd probably make him funny the whole time too is there anything more embarrassing than finding my stiff corpse in the middle of a dusty hallway with that stupid erector set camera on my chest and a spirit box in one hand it's just especially because we'd have the gopro footage of your your still face and then i communicate with you through the spirit box yeah and i'm going i'm god shane save me please take me to the hospital get still time and i'm like i didn't turn this [ __ ] thing off the citizens of hammersmith began to stay inside after dark unless absolutely necessary and made a point of avoiding the areas with reported sightings some villagers however became convinced that what was haunting their town was no ghost at all but simply a person wearing a sheet and they were tired of living in fear would you hold a town hall meeting and be like we gotta stop this guy yeah i would i'd literally get some pitchforks just a pitchfork a torch yeah you'd be pretty scary with a pitchfork and a torch actually yeah i mean i already have a sort of pitchfork would look like a fork someone on twitter told me i have colonizer hair right now yeah it's got a point i look like a pilgrim i mean you might as well complete the whole set get that pitchfork i do look like i'm about to burn some witches maybe get a rosary just this with pitchfork scripture [Laughter] respect the scripture determined to catch this public nuisance some men in hammersmith set up armed patrols to survey the streets at night in hopes of catching the culprit unfortunately it proved impossible to monitor the countless routes in and out of hammersmith and the spirit continued to terrorize residents one night a patrolman spotted the spectre and gave chase he later reported seeing the spirit rip off a large white cloth before escaping pursuit now is this the actual origin of of the sort of bugost white sheet no of course not they were doing that to scare people into thinking they were a ghost so obviously it had been popularized in some form before that so now we've arrived at the more tangible true crime element of it where it is sort of somewhat up to some hijinks by january 3rd 1804 29 year old francis smith had had quite enough of the hauntings the fact that someone was scaring his fellow villagers and the fact that this person had thus far eluded capture infuriated him smith resolved to bring the ghost down once and for all according to some reports smith prepped for his patrol by drinking in a pub anybody knows the best way to prep for your first day as a vigilante is to pre-game it at a pub i respect this guy that he's had enough of the ghost because it's bothering his lads that's true a real sense of community there he's a protector yeah a guardian so at least his intentions are good even if he's 100 going to die yeah in the midst of a drunken stupid well you know guinness can often muddle good intentions it was certainly a time of heightened nerves in hammersmith and few were as well acquainted with that fact as thomas millwood millwood worked as a bricklayer and as such wore a uniform of white linen trouser a white flannel waistcoat and a white apron all white yeah oh no you may see where this is going stay tuned millwood had twice been mistaken for the hammersmith ghost while walking at night in his all-white get-up one time a man and two women riding in a carriage spotted millwood and shouted quote there goes the ghost end quote millwood said he was no more the ghost than the man in the carriage then asked the man if he'd like a punch in the head could you imagine being politely asked would you like a punch in the head obviously the answer's no but for a split second i'd be like no yeah obviously no but yeah the way you asked it made me think like you're asking me if i'd like to go to the pub or something i'm like yeah i'd love to go but what if it was more aggressive though like do you like a punching head oh yeah that's a little more mean no then the answer is definitely a no in an effort to stop folks from suspecting her husband of being a ghost millwood's wife asked him to cover his work clothes while in public millwood refused i just i just don't know what the logic is like if someone told me hey they're on the lookout for a person dressed in all white at night and they're ready to kill this guy so i think you should maybe not wear all white yeah at night [ __ ] you where do you get off on the evening of january 3rd the night francis smith resolved to stop the hammersmith ghost's reign of terror millwood stopped by his parents home to chat with his mother and sister anne meanwhile frances smith was on patrol around 10 30 pm smith encountered watchman william gerdler in beaver lane when smith told gerdler he'd planned to hunt the ghost that night gerdler said he'd join the man after he finished calling the hour and surveying the lanes he's probably so jazzed as it gets close to any hour it's 11 p.m and all is well get inside my name is william gerdler it's me gerdler once again and it's 11 get ready to go to sleep i love you shut the hell up out there we got big ben i love you i said it was a particularly dark night reportedly impossible to see objects even on the other side of the road so smith and girdler arranged a secret greeting so they'd know it was the other quote friend advance friend end quote we could do that in haunted houses yeah it'd be fun so you say friend i say advance friend yeah yeah it's reciprocated because we're friends because we're friends right yes we are friends i feel good about it yeah that's good i don't know how many times i have to tell you i don't believe in any time well i don't say it with a lot of yeah you're right we should change the greeting maybe it's just in the dark i go hey [ __ ] and then you respond ah get on over here my buddy boy is that good late into the night back at thomas millwood's parents home the bricklayer finally got up to return home to his wife he said his goodbyes left and closed the door behind him as his sister anne got up and moved towards the door she heard a voice outside call quote damn you who are you and what are you damn you i will shoot you end quote sounds like he's gonna get shot well i mean i'll say this he certainly did say what he was going to do before he did it called his shot he did call his shot yeah probably a good time to chime in with i'm not a ghost no stop millwood's sister anne saw a flash of light as the sound of a gunshot tore through the night she called out to her brother from the window but got no reply she ran out of the house and down the lane where she found her brother lying in the street by the time she was halfway to him she knew he was dead there was no one else around francis smith retreated to the white heart pub where he met up with the watchmen gerdler it's wrong's on me everybody pops open the doors like saloon everyone pack your bags we're good to go home ghost is dead all right do you think smith and girdler still did their little friend advance big time like outside the bar but he said friend in a way that knew gerdler knew he had done the dean friend advanced friend smith girdler and two more men made their way back to whoever the heck it was smith had shot smith confessed to girdler that he feared he had hurt the man badly for his part gerdler noted he had heard smith's gunshot but didn't think much about it apparently gunshots happened very frequently in the area quote every quarter of an hour almost all night end quote if you live in a place in a time where guns are going off every 15 minutes yeah is it perhaps ill-advised to dress as a ghost to scare people on the streets at night during um in that town i used to play a lot of pranks on my roommates and i would always be scared of scaring them if i thought they had like a glass of water or something in their hand or like an iphone because i figured like they might break or they toss the water at me yeah so i can only imagine if they were walking around our uh shitty house with a gun probably not the best idea to get a good boo in i don't think you'd get your booze in if that was the case i don't think i would either i mean i'd get one booin look obviously this guy is a dumb dumb the the vigilante smith yeah but he seems to feel remorseful that he just killed a man in cold blood on the street because he thought he was a phantom so do you think though when he got there he was like i uh i think i've killed the ghost and the other guy was like oh yeah and he was like yeah and he had a sister he was leaving his sister's house yeah and you know he had a heartbeat he said don't shoot i'm not a ghost you just slowly dance on him maybe we should go check on him huh have i done a whoop see when the men got to the body they found smith's shot had struck millwood in his jaw girdler carried millwood's lifeless body to the black lion pub a surgeon summoned by the coroner reported that smith's shot had penetrated the lower left jaw vertebrae in the neck and the spinal marrow the coroner deemed the matter willful murder and a remorseful smith surrendered to authorities who took him to jail to await trial at the old bailey i did shoot him in the jaw i did shoot him with my ghost gat very funny they bring a surge into a bar i guess that's sort of the meeting point in town that's the good thing about pubs in london yeah every uh person of every uh occupation is probably at the pub because it's very much a social thing at any given moment you could have the surgeon the coroner and you probably have a lawyer and a judge you could finish the whole case right there in the pub on january 13th the trial that ensued became a pretty important one in english legal history while smith admitted to killing millwood he was adamant that it was by mistake and entered a plea of not guilty throughout the trial smith showed a great deal of shame and remorse he was physically unable to stand without the aid of someone else and he had difficulty even getting words out in his own defense according to one report quote the pallid hue of his continents during the whole trial together with the signs of contrition which he exhibited commanded the sympathy of every spectator end quote it seems like he got swept up in this ghost fever yeah i almost feel bad for him he was probably a little blotted yeah he got a little ahead of his skis there yeah that's right i can see why he would feel remorseful you know he's trying to trying to save everyone in town and do a good thing by shooting this ghost yeah yeah and then he does it while maybe a little tipsy who knows and he regrets it he feels bad smith testified that upon calling out twice to the white figure nearing him and receiving no response he became so much agitated by what he presumed was now an actual ghost that he fired his gun out of panicked fear when i'm out there looking for ghosts i hear noises i'll think it's a ghost in that moment and then i'll go back and i'll analyze the evidence and then be able to make that determination later right but if my methodology involved shooting everything i thought was a ghost be a lot of dead people a lot of dead people probably you'd be dead as well honestly you'd be locked up i'd be i'd be behind bars yeah and i'd be just saying the whole time look how many ghosts i caught after all witnesses were heard the judge presiding over the case lord chief baron mcdonald addressed the jury explaining that nothing in the case could make the offense anything but murder he gave the example of a man setting out with the intent to shoot not a ghost but a highway robber if that man shot someone he thought was a highway robber but who turned out not to be that was still murder he also reminded the jury that as disgusted as smith may have been at the fact someone was terrorizing the village dressed as a ghost that did not entitle him to go out with a loaded gun and shoot the person i think it doesn't really matter if you believe what you're doing is right in your heart yeah because you could be a serial killer and be like look it's my passion i believe what i do is art and simply to achieve my artistic creation i have to paint with human organs sue me why you take me to prison what's happening nevertheless after an hour of deliberation the jury came back with a verdict smith was guilty of manslaughter a charge that had not been brought against him the judge reminded the jury this was not an option available to them they were either to convict or acquit smith of murder and murder alone the judge further emphasized his point by reminding the jurors that even if millwood had been someone posing as a ghost smith would still be on trial for murder the justices on the cases noted that even if a police officer killed someone he was entitled to apprehend that was also still murder juicy some juicy legal drama killing someone's killing someone doesn't matter if you're like you're thinking you're killing a ghost or if you're a cop killing a murderer or like a robber or something it's still a murder perhaps we as human beings should not take it upon ourselves to uh end anyone's life that's probably a good plan the jury apparently believed that some consideration should be made for the fact that at the time smith truly believed he was firing a bullet at a ghost since there was no room in the law for this interpretation however the jury reconvened and came to the decision that yes smith certainly had murdered millwood smith was sentenced to be hanged the following monday because of the great deal of interest the case had garnered however lord chief baron mcdonald immediately referred the case to the crown who swiftly ordered a quote respite during pleasure end quote i mean it seems like a lot of the public are feeling sympathy for this guy well they wanted that ghost in the net for sure they wanted that ghost netted but meanwhile asap this quote-unquote ghost is still out there that's true allegedly or maybe the ghost was like oh i'm gonna pack it up now yeah i didn't know this guy had ghost bullets all right my haunted days are over i'm going to the knife imagining the ghost walking up on the scene and seeing the guy just being like just as he shoots the other guy and being like [Laughter] by january 25th king george iii had pardoned smith requiring him to serve a one-year sentence of hard labor instead of hanging i'd say that's a hell of a cut off from hanging to your death to being like hey pick up some trash for a year i mean it does sound like he was genuinely remorseful and i look i get it he murdered someone i think this guy got off with a little slap on the wrist when you consider what could have been the alternative i mean 200 years ago though hard labor probably hard while smith escaped the gallows for shooting the unfortunately dressed millwood there's still an unsettled matter at the heart of this story who was the ghost of hammersmith our first theory is the ghost was nothing more than a shoemaker by the last name of graham trying to spook some employees graham was arrested in january of 1804 charged with being a nuisance as he would reportedly go out at night dressed in a blanket graham claimed he only donned the costume in an attempt to scare some apprentices who had frightened his children with ghost stories though he was spotted by more than just the apprentices even the watchmen girdler reportedly saw graham sounds like a funny guy he is one of the ghosts it seems like yeah well yeah he definitely dressed up like a ghost yeah no disputing that grimly graham was a singer at the church and even sang at millwood's funeral a funeral that was the direct result of the hysteria over the hammersmith ghost he was like wait a minute i dressed up like a ghost too hang on after graham's confession the hammersmith ghost seemingly did stop making appearances according to one source however ram was only responsible for one appearance of the ghost on december 29th leading to our next theory look you can never make sweeping judgments like this but i would say him feeling protective of his children like that makes me think that he wouldn't hug a pregnant woman to death no don't read spooky stories to my children you spooked my boys can you imagine if someone came up to us in the middle of the street and yelled at us they have my children won't stop watching you on the youtube and now they won't sleep would you like a punch in the face our second theory is that multiple people were responsible for dressing up as the ghost it's unclear whether it would have been a coordinated group or rather individuals taking advantage of a legend to have some fun at the expense of their neighbors i like the idea that it's a group of people because this reminds me of when there was those clowns clown sightings and that seemed like it was different people all over the country who caught wind of like maybe one sighting and then were like yeah let's make this happen that was around the time when we saw a clown in mexico yes it was and i was scary we had a clown walk up to our car and he was cleaning our window and after about 20 seconds of him cleaning our window i realized he had no cleaning supplies he was just miming and we all just sat there in terrified silence as we watched i hope that light changes soon well so yes it could have been though it could have been a group like that indeed while sightings of the ghost stopped after graham admitted to trying to scare his apprentices the ghost resurfaced in 1824 this time with hooks and reportedly even the ability to breathe fire this iteration turned out to be a young farmer who was caught and sent to the house of corrections despite this in 1932 hammersmith was yet again troubled by reports of a ghostly being one dressed in white that could climb walls and bushes using long claws it's very scary to imagine a boo ghost you know was a she scrambling up a wall imagine all this sort of billowing going on him scrambling making screeching noises i don't give a [ __ ] our final theory is that an actual ghost haunted and continues to hunt hammersmith some locals claim that every 50 years at midnight on a full moon the hammersmith churchyard is visited by a white spectre floating through the graves it's probably just somebody [ __ ] around i mean if there really is a ghost at least millwood didn't die because of a little prank there was actually a ghost in hammersmith yeah it probably wasn't but yeah of course it's possible all three theories are responsible perhaps some townspeople saw an actual ghost in hammersmith word spread and some folks with an extra sheet lying around decided to dress up as it including the shoemaker gram i do think it's possible that there was an actual ghost sighting that spread to a couple people and then like we just said it it took a little bit of a life of its own and people started to dress up as the ghost my money's on flesh and blood baby as someone who doesn't believe in ghosts if i were walking alone at night and someone in a sheet came up to me and hugged me i'd be upset well as someone who has seen a ghost yes i did see the ghost and i didn't faint and die so you know or did you no i'm alive oh yeah i'm alive i'm i'm or are you the case of francis smith spurred debate about self-defense law in england that wouldn't be fully clarified until the early 1980s one thing however is quite certain if you see a ghost don't fire a gun at it if it is a ghost a bullet's probably not going to do much to it anyway and while some claim the ghost of thomas millwood haunts the black lion pub where the watchman girdler brought his lifeless body as for whether hammersmith was haunted by someone playing a deadly prank in a sheet or an actual spectre remains [Music] unsolved another season finale in the books any closing thoughts well that was a real corker ryan thanks for uh telling me another story you're welcome don't shoot a ghost use a net that's the ghoul boy promise ghosts are real don't shoot them disagree put them in a net shoot em [Music] you

Channel: BuzzFeed Unsolved Network

Views: 712,947

Rating: 4.9711747 out of 5

Keywords: BuzzFeed, BuzzFeed Unsolved Network, BuzzFeed Unsolved, Unsolved, Mystery, investigation, Ryan bergara, Shane madej, Mini doc, Cold case, Creepy, theories, unsolved mysteries, cold case, unsolved, PL-Unsolved, bizarre, unsolved true crime, PL-UnsolvedTrueCrime-S7, buzzfeed unsolved network, PL-UnsolvedTrueCrime, unexplained mysteries, unsolved mystery, unsolved network, ryan and shane, mystery, true crime, The Haunting Murder Case of the Hammersmith Ghost

Id: xi4wZJ-7ZCg

Length: 27min 15sec (1635 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 20 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/pm_me_your_molars]

I'm not even halfway through and this is easily the best episode all season.

[u/FAR1X]

this is sooooo good, hope there is more of this quality