Rewind: "Die With It In Ya"

Hi, I'm Holly. And I'm Haley. Welcome to Mountain Mysteries, Tales from Appalachia. How many beverages do you have currently?

Three. Three, just three. Yes, it's down from my five. I didn't want to have to stop during your presentation to go in.

During my PowerPoint presentation. Click. I have PowerPoint up, I have the drop screen. This is one word while at you.

Oh my god. Listen. I kind of miss seeing a good old PowerPoint on a drop screen. I'm glad you do.

I don't. Oh. Well, that would be me. I was like, well, I miss taking naps.

Why people are presenting that? Mm, that's true. I had to turn all the lights off and it was kind of toasty. Yeah.

It was nice. I go places in my head when things like that happen. Where do you go? Are you with us?

I leave my body. Do you need help? Yes. No, no, no.

You know, like my mind drifts off into other things when people are presenting and I'm like, hmm, whatever. I do those dishes this morning. I actually run the dishwasher. Oh, it's trash.

I didn't take the trash out. Like that's where my head goes. Okay. Like another realm.

So not like the voices aren't talking to you. Great. Excellent. Yeah, excellent.

Oh, my God. Please, no, we're kidding. Are we? Okay.

All right. I don't even know how to segue from that, but here we go. Do we? I'm going to tell it could be to this person in your story has mental health issues.

So there we go. Yes, she may have. Oh, she. Yeah, I'm talking about a lady this time.

A lady killer? A lady killer. Yep. Oh, tell me.

So we are taking this way on back to the year of 1831. 1831. Whoa! I'm so super excited about this because as far back as we've gone was 1936.

Yeah, so I actually found a really cool site. I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts and that's why we drink and they were talking about the site that they found a lot of information on murderpedia. Like Wikipedia, but murder. So I actually just randomly typed in like Appalachia into the search bar and this story came up and I was obsessed with it.

I am so intrigued. And you know last week you talked about some dismemberment? I did. We got some more dismemberment.

It's not even Thanksgiving anymore. I hope everybody had a great and safe Thanksgiving. Sorry, we didn't even add that or just so. I know.

Hope you had a great holiday. Now we're back and ready to saw some bones. Oh my god, I hope none of you have COVID. Everybody was super safe.

I was gloss over the song of the bones. I hope you guys are COVID free. We're safe and we are not over texting our health care system. This has been your COVID PSA.

And you know, hope that you're being safe when you're out at the stores or you're making purchases online which a lot of folks are doing. Yeah, take advantage of that like the Amazon Prime Prime. Let me tell you what, I think the man from Amazon is so tired of me because he will see my name on the package and he's probably, oh, that woman again. I know USPS hates me.

Are you? He's at my house daily. I feel like we almost, you know, we should have a rapport. I know.

I feel like I should be building rapport with the male person because they pull up and have to unload things. And I also order all of my pet supplies online. I think it comes with FedEx. But I feel real real bad for that guy because I want to like two boxes of kitty litter every month.

He hates me so much and I don't blame him. I'm like, I know, it's bad. I'm so sorry. It's okay.

It's okay. I'm sorry. That's what he doesn't just remember you. Oh gosh.

I should walk. I can't let her send her to the store. Oh my God. This podcast has taken us in deep dark places.

Amazon, if you want to sponsor us, hit us up or kitty litter? Yeah, I mean, kitty litter. What do I buy? I got you.

Goodness. So many things. I so many random things. We bought new audio equipment on Amazon.

I am so soaked about this because this makes us look professional. Yeah, it does. Even though I did not order a mic holder for the mics. I just ordered the stand and the pop screen and I put everything together in my house their night and I was like, oh, it's 11 p.m.

the night before we record. I should probably put this together and take it out of the box. Realize there was not a mic holder. Also realized I had a bag full of zip ties.

So I just zip tied the microphone onto the stand and listen, it's working. She sent me a text, a picture of the situation. And I said, oh, well, that's handy that you just had all those zip ties and she's like, yeah, I've got different colors. I'm like, how the hell are you doing?

Well, zip ties. Yeah, full. I have a big bag of zip ties that are different colors and sizes. You just never know when you might use it.

You need to zip tie your TV onto a stand because you have cats. You need to zip tie a mic onto a stand. You need to zip tie that big plastic bag full of random things together to dump in the lake. Zip tie your victims.

Yeah. I mean, it did feel apropos for the fact that we are a true crime podcast. It just happened to have zip ties everywhere. Yeah.

And also, the more I'm delving in, Haley, the scarier you become. Listen, I have a whole other life on weeknights. All right. Let's go back to 1831 and just a.

Oh, I want in. Absolutely. Are you still there? Are you still there?

Everybody click away? I'm barely hanging on and it's not because you zip tied me. It's a threat. No, we're good.

So 1831, we're talking pre-civil war. We're talking, she's wearing probably a long dress and even a corset. Oh, I'm going to go in a corset. Got no.

I mean, and where is this? This is taking place in Burke County, North Carolina. Okay. So Burke County is east of Asheville, probably about 45 minutes and a half away.

Yeah. So actually, fun fact. Back in 1831, Burke County and the neighboring county Mitchell County actually shared the territory. So what is now where this murder takes place was considered Burke County back then, but now is actually considered Mitchell County.

Because the county lines changed. It's super weird. I didn't dive into much of that because I didn't think anybody would care. Yeah.

Oh, it's a murder. Yeah, we're just nerds. So, Francis, Frankie, what you want my Stuart Silver was born somewhere between 1810 and 1813. Nobody really knows.

Nobody knew. That's all right. Nobody knew. Nobody knew.

I know what you're doing. What was your birthday? I don't know. 18 something.

I'm alive. Don't even know. So, Frankie had moved to Burke County at age six. She was very smart.

She was very pretty and she worked really hard. I think she worked in it. It's like doing some sewing and things like that. So kind of back in the day for a woman to actually have a job.

It was pretty cool to me, I think. So, Frankie met Charles Silver and everyone said they were perfect for each other. They got married and moved into their own cabin in 1830. So, we don't really know a whole whole lot about their childhood because there's not a lot of records.

And if it got married around 1830, I mean, she was very young. Yes. Anywhere between 17 and 20 years old. Yeah.

So, both these people are super young. I think she at the time that all this kind of ends, she was like 18. So, she was married and she was probably 16ish, 1516. I'm wondering if back in 1800s wasn't.

Yeah, it wasn't really at that big deal. I mean, if you died at 35. Right, you lived a long life. Yeah.

So, Charles Silver was an only child and his mother died in childbirth. His father remarried and then Charles had a lot of half siblings. There's a lot of them. They just kept popping them out.

He was very well liked. He had lots of friends, was a favorite at parties. Same. Not really, I don't get a parties.

I don't want to say same. No, I'm in bed by 10. I don't go to parties. We go to parties for the elderly.

They are over by 2-3 in the afternoon. There's usually bingo involved. Listen, don't bash a bingo. Oh, I'm not freaking love bingo.

You know, I do. That's my favorite game. I love In Jeopardy. In Jeopardy!

Also, RIP Alex. I know. Sorry for the segue, y'all. But I thought we had to.

Well, we had reported episode 8 about a month ago before Alex passed. I know. I really listened to that episode. I like teared up a little bit.

I was like, oh god. I was like, we're such assholes. Yeah, we are in our daily life, too. But it's all right.

That is true. So, back to Charles. So, he was, like I said, at favorite parties. He was very good-looking.

And he played instruments. He was musically inclined. And they ended up, uh, Frankie and Charles. They had a daughter who was 13 months old.

At the time, all this kind of happens. And her name was Nancy. So, according to a family historian, Wayne Silver, who has spent years studying letters and in documents related to this case, he says on the night of December 22nd, 1831. Charles had been sent to town to get Christmas liquor.

Sounds right. I love it. I love it. I love Christmas liquor.

Same. You love it in a kind of liquor. Anyway, so apparently he drank it on the way home and got, like, aggressive and mean. So, not good.

Couldn't even wait. No. Pitch the wagon on Thursday. Oh, god.

So, he apparently came in screaming at Frankie and started loading his gun. It was like, you better shut up or all the stuff. I'm going to shoot you and it's just a whole- Very quick escalation. Like, we typically have on this podcast.

Did he have a history of this? Yes. Their marriage was not a happy one. Okay.

It wasn't great. There was a lot of fighting. There was a lot of yelling. Yeah.

Outwardly, he seems like the perfect fit. Right. But internally, he really has an issue and is violent. Yeah.

So, we're in this historian. He figures that Charles probably didn't mean it and wasn't actually going to shoot them. But Frankie went ahead and grabbed the axe, that was in the house. And fearing for her life and her baby's life, she whacked him with it and killed him.

That'll do it. Yeah. Just took that axe right to him. Now, there's also a story out there that Charles was having a failure and Frankie actually found out about it.

And then she killed him in his sleep with the axe. So, either way, Charles is now dead. And on his way to being dismembered. It's a little foreshadowing here.

So, Frankie got super scared because she knew that she would be killed. If anyone found out that she killed her husband. Because kind of back in the 1830s, if a husband killed his wife, it kind of wasn't a big deal. I mean, usually I'm like, oh, well, she probably did something to deserve it.

Yeah. She challenged him so he gave her what for. Yeah. So, he's just taking care of his house, what he was doing.

Right. Which gets into a whole like cultural thing we now have now called victim blaming. Exactly. Victim shaming.

Victim shaming victim blaming gets into all that. Really. Oh, I got dark. Anyway.

So, this is true crowd. It's supposed to be like, this feels good. So, Charles is still dead. So, like I said, she was super scared about, you know, if anybody found out, then she would, you know, be killed.

So, logically, she decided that she had to kind of make pieces to be ratified. That's logically, logically. I mean, if you were going to get rid of a body, how would you do it? Hey, I've never thought about this.

You don't have a plan? No, I, this again, terrifies me that you're like, yeah, I've got a plan that now. I can't believe you took a long time. I've worked with you for a long time and never.

I mean, I guess in the workplace you're just professional, but I guess you hide things well. Okay, so I'm not going to share my plan then. WTF, if you're out there and you want to give me assistance, please, please send help. Okay, so it's best to segue back.

This member, she's deciding she's going to have to chop it up. Yeah, yeah, this is her like only option at this point. So Frankie, nobody really knows if she had help in doing this, but Wayne, the story, and thinks that Frankie's mother and her brother actually came to help her. So I don't know how close you are with your family, but I feel like I could probably call my mom and brother and be like, listen, we got to do this.

Hey, this one, my brother would be like, oooh, goo, and my mom would be a lot more like Holly. Holly, I mean, have you thought about this? Have you thought about the ramifications of this? I mean, already you've killed him.

I mean, if you chop him up, it's going to be worse for you. Why don't you just turn yourself in now? Yeah, my mom's a pretty logical person in a different way than I am. I'm a rule-of-law.

Mm, love a rule-of-law. That's probably shame me for the killing. Probably. I don't care if he beats you.

Holly, if you kill him. You can't do that. I'm sorry, Mommy, you do listen to this. I don't be doing this.

What is this? Okay, so we're back to Wayne. He's still dead. No, Wayne's not dead.

Wayne's telling us about this. Sorry, Charles is still dead. Oh my god. So Charles is still dead.

Wayne's not dead. I don't think, I mean, he might be because I don't know where he's at now, but as of reading this, he was, I think living. I don't know. So Frankie got her mother and brother to help her maybe.

We're not sure. But Charles ended up being cut into pieces and Frankie then tried to burn him in the fireplace. Which if you know anything about burning a body, you know you got to be at least 2,500 degrees to burn a body. Amateur's, not knowing those.

Again. You got to know. You got to know. So this did not work out for her.

Like I said, right. Hey, what are you doing? So it's much harder than it sounds just to burn a body. Not speaking from experience.

Wayne, Wayne. I have new guys out there. Always a break. A neighbor, a nosy neighbor, Jack, Carlos.

Got suspicious when he saw all the smoke and smelled a gross smell because apparently burning flesh makes a, it's not a great smell. I like that you say apparently like that. Um, yeah. So gross smell.

He came over to check it out. He came in to the house and he found bone and greasy ashes, which gross in the fireplace and found blood under the floorboards. So my question is, why is he randomly pulling up floorboards in his house? I don't know about you, but I don't walk into my neighbor's house and just randomly pull up their floorboards.

He has a legu either. I just that, that's kind odd to me. Hi, um, here to check your floorboards. So.

And gross sugar. Oh, it's checking on the floorboards. Real. Little boards.

So he's in your house? Probably so. Sorry. Yeah, it may not be that idea.

Anyway, um, so he's pulling floorboards, finds blood and then goes outside and finds Charles's head and torso. Just, you know, outside. Which I don't know about you, but the idea of a headless and limbless torso. But freaks me out.

That's really the, like the visual image of that really bothers me. I was trying to pick something up, but no. Oh, no. Oh, jeez.

And all this mess, I lost my head. Oh, God. Okay. I did so.

I'm here all night. Oh, my God. I hope that we're in your house. Yeah, I am.

So Frankie and her mother and her brother were all subsequently arrested. But they weren't arrested until January 9th. So. But they wanted to enjoy the holiday.

Yeah, of 1832. So I don't really know what happened between that. Maybe, I don't know if she decided that like that night she had to cut him up or maybe she hung out with his dead body for a while. I don't know.

But like I said, this was the 1800s. There's not a whole lot out there. But on January 10th, they were moved and put in a jail in Morganton, which is in Burck County. Currently.

On January 13th, charges were actually dropped against Frankie's mother and brother. But stayed with Frankie. Frankie was indicted for murder on March 17th of 1832. And all mail jury, you guessed it, heard the case on March 29th, 1832.

And the next day, they asked to rehear a witness, but then they came to the United States about the Frankie's guilty. So. Obviously. Right.

Frankie's father and her lawyer told her to plead not guilty. So this meant the state had to prove that she was guilty. So I think they were her father and lawyer were thinking they probably couldn't actually prove anything. But again, this is 1830s.

A woman. Yeah. She's a woman. Come on.

She's a woman in the 1830s. Hang her high is probably the jury said. Yep. So like I said, the state had to prove that she was guilty.

This was not hard to do for the state. This was not a difficult thing. So Frankie was actually sentenced to hang and her execution was set for July of 1832. Wow.

Yeah. So. You were swiftly moving. We'll move in.

We'll move in. We'll move in. We'll move in quick. So before the execution, her family actually broke her out of jail.

They dressed her up as a boy and hid her in a load of hay. The sheriff quickly found her and brought her back to go. So her lawyer. Get in this load.

Get in this hay bale. But her name is Frankie. Yeah. I don't know.

Hey, bale. Get in here. No. I don't know.

Again, I don't know much about the 1830s. But why are they taking a. Trickle of hay into the. Jail.

Like what? Well, maybe. Or a flag in load, whatever they have. We tried to.

Trickle of. This was even before the Model T. So I'm thinking that maybe perhaps they were like, we're headed to the next farm. We thought we'd go visit her at the prison.

And we got her hay into the back. So they went into the prison and they were like, hey, hey Frankie. Get in the say. It's so strange to me.

Frankie, hi this hi girl. Now if anybody actually tell them your name is Frankie. Your boy. Your boy.

Your boy. That's right. This did not work out. You don't know the message.

Oh my god. So like I said, the sheriff quickly found her and brought her back to jail. Her lawyer actually then filed an appeal and the judge filed it on May 3rd of 1832. The Supreme Court rejected the appeal in June.

Obviously. And the execution was then set for fall under the term of Judge David Swain. However, David Swain, that's severely injured. So he could not serve his fall term.

So everything was put on hold. So it got a little reprieve here from executing people. Now there was a ton of pressure to pardon her from surrounding counties and her own county actually was super enraged as well. So fun fact as well.

In 1831, the person accused of crime could not testify in their own defense. So she was unable to tell her side of the story. That's sad. So like I said earlier, she and Charles had bought their whole marriage and it was just really not a happy time for either of them, I guess.

Especially him because now he did. Anyway, so she said that she regretted killing him almost instantly and that she was just trying to protect her child and herself. And when the jury actually found out about this, they like seven of the 12 came back and said, no, we like if we had known this, we wouldn't have charged her. Wow, that's huge.

So that was kind of where it was sitting at that point of like, hey, we really think this is wrong. So there's a new governor. Now, in North Carolina. Weird turn of events.

It was David L. Swain, the judge that was injured. Apparently he got better and is now the governor. I don't know.

Get hurt, get promoted. Yeah, he's governor. He was from, obviously from the areas, he was from the mountains. And a lot of people thought that this would help the case because he was from the area.

He knew the story. He had heard all about this outrage of people wanting her pardoned. So I thought, right, this is a good thing. It did not help, unfortunately.

He really wanted to create this kind of new image of no leniency and did not grant the pardon. So on July 12th of 1833, Francis Frankie Stewart Silver was hanged in a Morganton, North Carolina. And as she was being hung or hanged, I would say that, I was confused. She went to say something, kind of like a final word, and her father yelled from out in the crowd, died with it in New Frankie.

So I thought that was super weird. Like was she gonna confess like, hey, I really did kill him in his sleep? Or like, ha ha, I killed him. And you know, he could have been fearful that she would have said, yeah, my mom and my brother bought me.

Get him next, hang him high. No, so maybe that was part of your fear. You know, so just like, just die with your boots on. Yeah.

Get up there. So that was super weird. I thought that non-statement for sure. So Frankie was 18 when she was hanged and Charles was 19 when he was murdered.

So that would have made her, like I said, 1516. So who raised the daughter? Do we know? Funny, you should mention that.

No one really knows what happened to Nancy. There were several different possibilities and people in the area actually still talk about it, but no one really knows what happened to her. And if you go on the murder-pedeous site and look up Frankie, you can see there's some kind of possibilities of where Nancy ended up, but none of them are confirmed. But there were several and I just didn't include them.

But if you want to look them up, definitely go. I'm going to. I'd like to know how the story goes on. Yeah, definitely go check that out.

So for a long time, people actually believe that she was the first woman to be executed in Brick County. This is actually inaccurate. And there were several other women executed before her. So I thought that was kind of interesting.

I'd like to learn more about that. And tap into why. Yeah. What was it about?

So Charles, I'm also another fun fact, full of fun facts tonight. Charles is buried in three separate graves in the family cemetery in Kona, Mitchell County, in North Carolina, and I've never heard of Kona. But it's still a place, I mean, obviously. But I don't live in Mitchell County, but I've been there several times, worked there for a little while, and never heard of Kona.

I've never heard of Kona. So I'm not super duper. Right. So he was buried in three separate graves because they did not find all of his parts at one time.

Okay, so I was going to say, what was the deal with three graves? Like this is where they understand it is. It's kind of, yeah, what it is. I mean, like they didn't find all these parts at one time.

I guess some of them burned. So some of them burned. Right. So they buried, maybe they buried the legs in one and the head in one and that weird torso in the other.

I don't know. They couldn't just say, let's just, I don't know, wait until we find some of the feet, I guess not. But hey, guess what? This week we found that is torso.

That's exciting. Hitched the wagons. They're really into me. Oh my god.

Yeah, they just kind of buried the parts as they found them. Just check them all. Anyway, Frankie's father was just actually really sad. So Frankie's father wanted to bring her body home to be buried.

But the heat, because this is July, and it's hot in this area in the summer, made it impossible and her body was like decomposing as he was trying to take her home. So she's actually buried somewhere in Burnt County. But, and then we really know exactly where they have a pretty good idea. In 1952, a stone was actually placed where they think she was buried.

But they don't know 100% where she's at. Now there have also apparently been several movies, songs, and books written about her. I've never heard any of them. I've never heard any of them.

I've never heard any of them. I've never heard any of them. So they're in this area, just kind of a history about this area and some neat stuff. Ballads are really big here.

Like that's kind of how mountain folk have told stories historically of we put it into song. And I know I do. I love ballads. I think it's such a cool way to tell a story.

I'm writing them right now. I've got this podcast. Yeah. Just wait, just wait.

So there's some ballads out there about her in this story. But yeah, ballads, I feel like we should do a whole episode on ballads from this area. Because a lot of them are very dark and like murder heavy. I feel like this is the point where I get my acoustic guitar out and I start singing.

And then, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he. We hit her in the hay. Oh, my God. I feel like it could be really lovely.

It could be really nice. Yeah, you could do harmonies with me. Oh, thank you. Yeah.

Anyway, totally. But that's it. It's all about. Wow.

I think it was a lot more going on in work slash Mitchell County in 1831 than I thought. Yeah, it was a wild time. This also just speaks to how women were treated in that time period, how women were viewed as less than in the relationship in society. And ultimately the real victim in this, I mean, besides, you know, Charles got hacked up and, and of course, you know, his poor wife, actually his poor wife.

But I mean, we don't know the whole. I know. I mean, she could have like actually like, right. Really murdered him and not in self-defense.

Right. And it could have been because he was having a fake. So the real victim in this, I think, is Nancy. She lost both of her parents.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. And essentially, he was orphaned in a way. I mean, no matter who, I mean, I guess maybe you've raised other parents.

I don't really know what she'll count on that. Yeah. You know, honestly, she really was the victim. Mm-hmm.

That's sad. Yeah. And it really, I mean, I would assume in a event like this would kind of shake the whole community. And I mean, back then, of course, it's, these are small mountains.

These are still small mountain towns. So I'm sure that there are like some old girls who are like, I know that story, you know, like. Hope they're not from the 1830s. Battle.

But you know what I mean? Yeah. This has been passed down. Yeah.

Yeah. One of my stories. One of my stories. One of my stories.

They're used to tell the story. Yeah. You know, that kind of thing. Yeah.

I would have rallied about it. Yeah. They run a ballad. They sing at it.

Thanksgiving. Oh, God, I forgot to thank you. I had a rest area. Oh, my God.

Oh, the rest area is no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. All right. You got it.

Sweet. So next week, we have the story of a mother whose children go missing. Yikes. That sounds bad.

It is. But there's some deception. I don't mind all this. I don't like where this is going.

I know. It's a rough story. So just kind of prepare yourselves. But it's still such an interesting story.

I couldn't pass it up. OK. Holly, you've got a location shout out for us? I do.

Are you guys ready? So ready. All right. So we want to give a shout out to some of our listeners out there who have been really faithful to us, episode after episode.

So we want to give a big shout out to those of you in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Bumill area there. It's probably my family. So hi, I love you. That's so nice.

Yeah. So thank you for supporting me and supporting our podcast. If you're not my family, join us. Thank you.

Thank you. But we do want to give you a big shout out because we realize that's not even Appalachia. And a lot of our listeners aren't even in Appalachia. No.

I mean, there's a lot of people from out of the country, which is so crazy. So just wait. Our next shout out will be from probably another country. Yeah.

I will try to do it in the language. I'll try. Better you than me. OK.

I'll give you a chance. We'll see. If I push it, well, that's appropriate. Because it's a true crime.

It's a podcast. No bug. You're welcome. Oh, god.

All right. If you want us to stop, please send us an email. Headmountmysteries.epilachum at gmail.com. If you want to hear that, valid.

Also, you can follow us on Facebook at MountainMysteries.talesfromepilachia. And give us a follow on Instagram as well at mountainmysteries.epilachia. And we will see you next week. Bye.

Bye.