Transcription
Have you ever seen a policeman's jaw dropped to the floor in shock? Today, we're diving into the wild but true story of Alsa Thompson, the little girl who walked into a police station and confessed to being a serial killer like it was just another Tuesday.
Hey y'all, I'm Christina and you're listening to History and Hearsay. Now, just a quick little disclaimer. This story was really confusing to research at points because different newspapers were reporting different things. As we often talk about in these stories that are 100 plus years old, there wasn't a whole lot of verifying of facts that was going on. Before these stories were being reported, the news outlets seemed to be more concerned with being the first to break the news than they were on making sure that what they were reporting on was actual facts, which sadly still seems to be the case in our modern news cycle sometimes. As always, I'm sharing the details that are most accepted as fact. And if there are ever any conflicting details in the story that I feel need to be discussed, I'll share both stories so that we can decide what sounds more likely to be the facts of the situation.
Elsa Thompson was born on April 23rd, 1917 in Canada. Her parents were Russell and Claire Thompson who went on to have twin girls in 1920 when Elsa was about 3 years old. The twins were named Merl and Mildred. And about a year after having the twins, they had their fourth daughter named Maxine. Now, why did all the other kids have M names and also was the only one who was given an AAME? I don't know. Unfortunately, when they were just 2 years old, the twins passed away from an intestinal disease that was said to have been a very painful protracted stomach ailment. Now, I had never heard of a protracted stomach ailment. Apparently, this is a way of describing a stomach problem that lasts for an extended period of time, like weeks or even months.
Now, not long after this tragedy, in 1923, when Also was just 5 years old, the family decided to make a fresh start in the United States. They moved to Los Angeles, California, where the parents, Russell and Claire, got jobs working at a confectionary store. And Claire also decided that she wanted to try to become an actress. Unfortunately, Claire had the typical experience that most people have when they head out to Los Angeles with dreams of making it big in Hollywood, and that is a bad one. Claire was putting in so much work, but she wasn't really getting anywhere with this career. During this time, the Thompson's marriage also started to break down, which I didn't find too surprising based on everything that they had been through. Of course, we don't know the exact reason for their move or their divorce, but moving to a whole different country right after the death of a child, in this case, two children, sounds to me like maybe they were running from their grief, which interesting fact, I was under the impression that divorce rates were really high after the loss of a child because that's what I've always heard. But when I looked up the current statistics, they showed that only 16% of marriages end in divorce after the loss of a child, which is quite a bit better than the overall average. So, it actually sounds as though more couples cling to each other than push each other away, which honestly I find so encouraging because I've always thought that it has to be so horrific to go through losing a child and then also lose the rest of your family through divorce. So, while we can speculate, we obviously don't know exactly why the Thompsons divorced, but we do know that it had a profound effect on the children, as divorce always does.
So, once the couple divorces, Russell moves to Orange County, which is a few hours south of where the family has been living, while Claire stays with the girls in Hollywood, and continues to pursue her dream of becoming an actress. But of course, this wasn't paying the bills, and so she got a job as a store clerk in the city. Now, with their dad gone and their mom working two jobs, there's no one to look after and Maxine. Back in those days, they didn't have the traditional daycare centers that we have now. But what they did have was something that was akin to what we would now day call inhome daycares. These were mostly run by women in their 40s or older who had already had their own children and either their children were already grown or they were still young. And they would keep these other people's children in their home alongside their children. But where this differs from modern-day in-home daycares, at least in the case of Elsa and Maxine's situation, is that their mother didn't drop them off during her work hours and then come back and get them at the end of her shift. They were boarded out with these families, which meant they basically lived there full-time. Can you even imagine being a kid, your parents just send you off to live with total strangers? I mean, I don't know what their situation was that they felt that they couldn't even pick their kids up and let them sleep at home, but that had to have been so difficult for these kids.
Okay, someone's joining us. What are you doing? Hi. All right, she's going to distract y'all now. The first daycare provider was a Mrs. Steel who was in her 80s. She was also originally from Canada and took in borders to make money. She had a 48-year-old daughter named Nelly who was unmarried and lived with her. Shortly after, Mrs. Still started taking care of the Thompson girls. Nelly passed away after a two-month battle with a very painful protracted stomach ailment. Now, at this point, there are some reports that say that Elsa had started stealing from people that she was living with, but I'm not really sure when that started or even if she was ever caught by Mrs. Steel or ever even stole from her. And there is a little bit of confusion with the reporting because of the fact that the daughter, Nelly, was often referred to as Miss Steel and the mother was called Mrs. Steel. So, it's unclear if the girls moved out after Miss Steel, the daughter's death, or if they stayed with Mrs. Steel, into her death, which Mrs. Steel was in her 80s. So, either of these are possible. Regardless, it wasn't long before the girls had moved out of the Still's home and they were on to the second family that they were to be boarded with. And at this point, also was about 7 years old.
These borders, the Platts, were much younger than Mrs. deal and still had school-aged children at home. Now, almost immediately after moving in with the Plats, things kind of started going downhill. Mrs. Platt said that after the girls were in her care for about 2 weeks, Maxine started having sudden stomach pains and Mrs. Platt noticed that Maxine was burned around her mouth and thought that maybe Maxine had gotten into some type of poison. So, she said that she gave Maxine the usual antidotes, but Maxine was so sick that for 2 days, Mrs. Platt was worried that she might die. She also called a doctor during this time as well, and he had treated Maxine, but had been unable to determine what was causing this illness. And the doctor also noted that it was particularly odd the way that this illness held on.
Now, during this time, Els was blamed for a lot of trouble in the Platt's house, and she would later accuse the plat of mistreating and abusing her, but more on that in a bit. According to reports, the way Mrs. Platt described Assa. She fit the modern stereotype of a psychopath. She said that Assa lacked emotions, was known to kill animals such as the plat's pet birds, and stole things to give to her other classmates. She was considered hyper intelligent, and was in the eighth grade at only 7 years old, which I'm not sure how that's even possible, but her teachers remarked that she was polite and studious. In fact, some reports say that she was the best performing child in her grade. When referring to Alsa, Miss Anna Henry, her teacher said, quote, "She is just one of the average children of the class. She has never been conspicuous by her studies, and yet she is not one of the worst scholars. She's just a normal child." End quote. Which I don't know how you say she's just a normal child if she was 7 years old in the eighth grade. But I think what this teacher meant was that Elsa didn't strike her as odd and just seemed like a normal kid personalitywise. That's my assumption anyway.
So within a couple of weeks of Alsa and Maxine arriving at the Plat's home, the entire family had gotten sick at some point or another from various painful stomach ailments. And after several incidents of this, Mrs. Platt decides that she is done with Assa. She starts accusing her of trying to poison her family and drags Assa to the police and says, "This little demon child is trying to poison my family." The police take one look at this little 7-year-old with raven black hair and pale blue eyes. She just looks so sweet and so innocent, and they're like, "Really? Really? This this is a demon child?" Police immediately think that Mrs. Platt is the one who's crazy, but she is insistent that this little innocent looking seven-year-old is trying to kill her whole family. And she is determined that the police are going to do something about it. So, the police are kind of like, "Okay, we'll talk to her." But much to their surprise, Oza just straight up confesses. She's like, "Yeah, I did try to poison them." And once she started talking, she's admitting to all kinds of things, things that she wasn't even accused of. She tells the police that she poisoned her two-year-old twin sisters when she was just 5 years old.
Now, according to what was printed in the Los Angeles Times in 1925, Alsa's statement was, quote, "I took a glass jar out of the kitchen and broke it on the walk in front of the house. I gathered up the little chips of glass, put them in my apron, and I brought them back to the kitchen. I put these pieces into the cornflakes, which were in two bowls on the table. When my mother came in and asked if I wanted breakfast, I told her I wasn't hungry. I knew the glass would kill them because mother told me one day when I was playing with some that it would kill me if I swallowed it. When my sisters were eating breakfast, I went out and played. Then I brushed up the rest of the glass on the sidewalk and I threw it in the alley. My sisters got sick 2 days after. The doctors thought they had typhoid fever. I heard them crying and it made me feel good all over. But I'm sorry now that they died. One of them was so pretty." What do you even say to that? The police are like jaws on the ground. I also went on to say that not long after the twins died, her parents started to fight and then they moved to Los Angeles and shortly after that got a divorce. She then started talking about her time living with Mrs. Steele and her daughter who she referred to as Miss Steel. She said, "I didn't like Miss Still. She gave me a licking once, which side note, if you don't know, that's how people used to refer to what we now call spanking. They called it a licking. So anyways, Elsa said, but she'd also shown me not long before that licking the ant paste that she had purchased to poison the ants. And she had warned me, never eat the ant paste because it will kill you. Which of course gave me an idea. I put the ant paste in the grape nuts that she was about to eat. The dish was on the table and she was in the other room watching one of the other children. And so, as I said, she told me that the ant paste was poison and would kill me if I put it in my mouth. And that's how I knew it would kill her. She ate the grape nuts and she died in great pain." So, after Elsa made the confessions about Miss Steel, she was asked how that made her feel and she said, "Just like how I felt when I made my little sister sick." which of course she had said that made her feel good all over.
At some point during these confessions, Alsa said that the time when Mrs. Platt had discovered burning around Maxine's mouth, well, that's because Elsa said she had poisoned Maxine. And the reason that the sickness had held on for so long was because Assa had been putting battery fluid in the cough medicines that the doctor had prescribed to Maxine. So then she started talking about some of the poisoning attempts that she had made in the Plat's home. She said, "I got up at night after everyone else was in bed. A friend of Mrs. Plattz had recently installed a radio in the house and he'd shown me the battery and warned me to never put it in my mouth because the acid inside would kill me." "These people really need to stop inspiring this girl," she said. So I went and got the acid out of the radio battery. I used a spoon and I put it into a can. The next morning when I was alone in the kitchen, I put some of it in the coffee. I didn't drink any of the coffee because I put that stuff in it and I thought that they'd all die. So apparently Mrs. Platt would often have dinner parties and when she did, also would help her to make the meals. And there were several occasions where people got sick afterwards. The final straw for Mrs. Platt was when she says that Elsa spread battery acid all over the family's pork chops. Now, luckily, according to Mrs. Platt. They knew that something was wrong with the food because the food had tasted bitter. She also accused Elsa of putting ant poison in the coffee. Now, Mrs. Platt told the police, "I never want to see that brat again. She tried to poison the whole household and has already killed three persons." Elsa responded, "It's all true. What Mrs. Platt says is true, too. I guess I'm a bad girl."
Elsa said that after putting ant poison in the family's coffee, she had expected people to die, but they only got sick. So that night, she had gone to bed and lay awake, picturing over and over the pleasure of seeing the Plat family die. And at last, when she was sure everyone was asleep, she tiptoed downstairs and poured battery acid over some lamb chops or pork chops. Something said they were lamb chops. Something said they were pork chops. Again, those little things that are just mistakes in reporting. So anyway, Mrs. Platt had left this food in the frying pan and had it ready to be warmed up for breakfast the next morning. also said. So, the next night I got up and I got the can of acid and put some of it on the lamb chops that were in the frying pan on the stove for the next morning's breakfast. Mrs. Platt was in bed when I did this and no one saw me. The next morning, too, I put some acid in the coffee and summoned the mush. I don't know what that means. I wanted to kill Lou Platt. I didn't like her. Now, Lou was Mrs. Platt's 12-year-old daughter.
So during all of this, Osa's mother, Claire, was there at the police station for her whole confession along with Mrs. Platt, and she was just super shocked. She just didn't know what to say. Claire couldn't believe that her daughter was capable of doing any of this, but she did mention at some point that when they were living in Canada, the twins had been outside playing with Elsa when they had come inside with sand in their mouths. And when she scolded the young girls for eating sand, they told her that Elsa had made them eat the sand. Elsa then went on to admit that she had put glass in the sand and that's why she wanted them to eat it. Now, this was printed in a different newspaper from the one that said Elsa had put glass in the cornflakes. So, it's unclear if this was a separate event or if these two newspapers are just conflicting stories of the same event and one of them got it wrong, whether it was cornflakes or sand. So, there was another time that the Plats had a friend over and he ate some peaches, which he said were horribly bitter and he got really sick afterwards, and Elsa later said that she had poured battery acid on those peaches. All of this together is what had caused Mrs. Platt to march Elsa's little butt down to the police station. And this, of course, is when Elsa had spilled her guts to the police about everything that she says she had done. She also admitted during this time that she had slashed her little sister's wrists, poisoned five of her classmates, poisoned Miss Steel with, depending on which newspaper you read, either ant poison or rat poison, and even killed some of the Plat family's plants and pets.
Now, it's reported that Elsa was never forced to confess. She was just accused and then seemed happy to confess. Almost like she'd been holding all of this inside and was ready to get it off her chest. She gave a lot of extra details that weren't known about. But even though she was seemingly gleeful in her confessions, the judge just didn't want to believe that this child was capable of such heinous crimes. So instead of just declaring her outright insane, he sends her to an asylum for further observation. The doctors get her to go over her whole story again. And once they heard her confession, they start grilling her on all of these specific details. And eventually they decide they believe her. This little girl actually poisoned all of these people. They made this decision after working for quite a while trying to pick apart her story, trying to see if they could get her to change any of the details or even just trip up in some way. But she continued to tell the same story, never changing any of the details. And that's what made them come to the conclusion that yeah, we think she actually did this. This was a time when psychology was in its infancy and the general consensus among these doctors ended up being that her high intellect mixed with her stressful life situations and living conditions had caused temporary insanity. It was starting to look like 7-year-old Elsa Thompson was going to be spending the rest of her life in an asylum dubbed an insane murderous poisoning psychopath.
Also's case was referred to the Lunacy Commission, which is a group that was tasked with overseeing asylums and the treatment of mentally ill individuals. But up until this point, Alsa had only seen general doctors. And once she was seeing actual psychiatrists, of course, who specialize in mental health, they have a whole different take on this entire situation. They say there's no way Elsa did what she's claiming to have done. Someone had coached her to say all of this. Several experts even testified to this, saying that there was no way Elsa could have killed Miss Steel or the twins, but several others testified that she definitely could have. An expert in poison with a focus as a stomach specialist testified that it was possible that Elsa had committed these crimes. He said that diluted battery acid would not cause much damage unless it was in a higher concentration, but the battery acid also contained arsenic. And adding two tablespoons of battery fluid would be enough to kill. Rat poison and ground glass, however, are extremely dangerous and could of course kill a person. The probation officer that was assigned to the case, Mrs. McCracken, I don't know why that name makes me laugh. She believed that if also was put into a normal living situation, her behavior would improve. She said, "I am inclined to doubt the poison stories. The child is of an imaginative temperament, and she has simply fallen prey to evil influence and suggestions." Judge Walter Sgate was eager to review all facts and determined if also should be institutionalized. He said, "The girl is not insane, but she is mentally ill."
On the stand also was calm and focused. She said, "I wanted to see my little sister suffer because it made me feel good. I broke up a glass jar and sprinkled the pieces in their breakfast food. They suffered for 2 days. I liked it. When they died, I felt sorry for them." Another newspaper quoted her as having said, "I put ground glass in my sister's cornflakes because I wanted to see them suffer. Somebody told me ground glass would do that and I tried it. One of them died right away." So again, unclear if these are two different instances or just an error in the reporting. The people in Assa's life rallied around her, stating that she had a big imagination and none of this was true. Her mother pleaded to the court for mercy, asking that her child not have to face the stigma of insanity. Elsa's father was also there for all of this, and he too insisted that there was just no way that Elsa had done any of the things that she was admitting to. Her grandmother said, quote, "What could she know of death? I feel that Assa simply doesn't know what death means. She is a baby. She has heard older people talk of dying and simply imagined these things." End quote. Her teachers, psychologists, the insanity court, probation officer, and family all stood up to state that she was innocent, that she simply had a high intellect and a creative mind, and aside from these false confessions, was a perfectly sane child.
During the trial, there had been rumors that Mrs. Platt was feeding the child this information. When Mrs. Platt was questioned about this, she went hysterical and almost fainted on the stand. So after just 4 days, Assa ended up recanting her whole testimony. She said that Mrs. Platt made her say those things about the murders and often abused her, even tying her up with the rope. Referring to the deaths of her little sisters, Elsa said, "She kept telling me I did it. I got sick of her bothering me, so finally I just said, yeah, fine. I did it." Of course, we do know that children are highly suggestible. And of course, as we said before, the doctors really did not want to believe that this innocent little seven-year-old was capable of such insane atrocities. So, as soon as she recantss, all the authorities, from the police to the judges to the doctors, were all like, "Pew, thank goodness, she isn't a murderous psychopath. She's just a little kid that doesn't really even understand what she was admitting to." I have a quote that isn't credited to anyone but came out of the trial and it says freed of her fear complex that had been forced on her is a perfectly normal child. She is not emotionally deficient is not sadistic and doesn't want to hurt cats and dogs. She doesn't hate people who've been unkind to her. She only dislikes them.
So the court deemed also normal. She's released from the asylum and handed over into the custody of her father. Now, there was something from her father about how her mother was incapable of raising the girls, which I never found specifics on exactly the reasoning that was given. I mean, maybe it was the fact that she was boarding the girls out, but either way, he was given custody of Maxine and Assa, and they moved with their father to San. The two girls grew up together, traveling and spending time in nature. Alsa married twice and had six children. Now, according to photos and notes on genealogy sites, it appears as though she had a close, loving relationship with her sister, Maxine, and eventually had two other sisters named Viven and Ariel. As far as we know, the rest of Elsa's life was completely normal. And none of us would have ever known about any of this if someone hadn't dug up an old newspaper article.
So, what do you think? was a murderous psychopath released into the world and by some miracle just never offended again or was this simply a case of a child who was coaxed into admitting to crimes that she didn't commit. The fact that also was able to recount her story over and over again and never change even one single detail, even when there were multiple adults grilling her, trying to trip her up over some small detail or another, has convinced some people that she was definitely guilty. She had so many little details included in her story, and to never change any of these facts is pretty impressive. I don't know if I could do that even if I was telling the truth. But putting a bunch of small, seemingly unimportant details into a story is often something that people do when they are lying and they're trying to make the story seem more believable. At least that's what all the police profiling videos I watch on YouTube have made me believe. So, personally, I think this part would go into the she didn't do it column. There are a lot of people who truly believe she was just an imaginative girl and made the whole thing up. Either that or she was coached to say what she said. Again, it is hard to believe that a seven-year-old was capable of keeping the story straight through so much scrutiny. But there's the fact that she was basically a genius, which meant she had an incredible memory, and she probably had a mental toughness that was well beyond her years. Maybe she was capable of pulling off such a lie. Some people took the cold-hearted way that Elsa recounted these poisonings and death as a sign that she was a psychopath. But it could also be that she didn't fully understand death and what she was admitting to and that's why she was so emotionalist because if she made this whole thing up, of course she would be detached from the details because none of this was real.
Now, one other detail that I thought was significant is that Mrs. Steel had said that her daughter, Miss Nelly Steel, was diagnosed with stomach cancer. And both Mrs. Steele's statements and the hospital records confirmed that Nelly Steel had not only been diagnosed with stomach cancer, but that she was already sick when Elsa had come to stay with them. So, we can say for certain that Elsa did not kill Nelly at the very least. And some people have speculated that maybe Elsa did still give Nelly this ant paste or rat poison and kind of helped hurry up her death a little bit, but I definitely think that's a bit of a stretch. And if Elsa wasn't responsible for Nellie's death, then it makes some of her other actions a little less suspicious as well. Honestly, the first couple of things I read had me convinced that this girl had gotten away with murder. But once I found a few other articles that filled in some more details, I started thinking that maybe it wasn't quite that simple. And the fact that also went on to live a normal life and was never again suspected of murder makes me think that she definitely wasn't some kind of crazy psychopath because I mean, wouldn't she have committed a crime again? Unless she was just so good that she did it again and she got away with it. That's really stretching it. I honestly think that it's more likely that this is a little girl who was hurting really bad. Her little sisters who she loved deeply passed away and right after that her parents move her to an entirely new country and they start fighting. They get a divorce which means that she and her remaining sister get sent to live with literal strangers. I can't even imagine what that would do to such a young child. I mean, your whole world blows up four different times in the matter of just a couple of years. I think it's very possible that Elsa goes through all of this tragedy. She is already grieving. She's blaming everything on herself. And as soon as she moves in with these strangers, one of them dies. I don't think it's that much of a stress to think that a little innocent seven-year-old would think that death just follows her everywhere she goes, and so she must be the problem. It's her fault that her sisters died and her parents split up. Maybe she was causing issues for Mrs. Platt acting out by taking things from the home and Mrs. Platt just decided she didn't like her and just wanted to find a way to get this child out of her home. And it definitely makes sense if Elsa's claims that Mrs. Platt was abusing her true because Elsa might have confessed to all of this in hopes that she wouldn't have to live with Mrs. Platt anymore. And I mean, let's be real. It kind of sounds like Mrs. Platt was accidentally giving her entire family food poisoning on a regular basis and then just blaming it on this little girl. I mean, in also's confession, she said that the pork chops or lamb chops were left out overnight for breakfast, which this would be extremely concerning if it was pork because I would certainly never leave pork out all night and then feed it to my family the next day, but the way that this is all written sounds like that was a normal thing for her. Also, when pork is rotten, it can sometimes have a bitter taste. I mean, honestly, I think I cracked the whole case. This lady had bad food practices and was just accidentally making her friends and family sick all the time, and she'd rather believe that this seven-year-old was a psychotic mastermind, then she just store her food properly. Again, maybe Assa was acting out, especially if she was being mistreated by Mrs. Platt. And, you know, maybe she took her anger out on the animals. Maybe that part was true. But ultimately, I think Mrs. Platt was the one with the wild imagination. Now, I did read somewhere that Mrs. Platt eventually took back all of her accusations. If that were true, then that feels like the final nail in the coffin for me. So, I think the conflicting reporting in the newspapers the 1920s is part of what makes this story so confusing to some people. Now, some of the article I found like the Medium article, you have to get behind their payw wall, meaning you have to pay to like access the article. And that might be why some people don't have all these details, but there were a few details in those articles that seem to me it's very unlikely that Assa really committed any of these crimes. But what do you guys think? Did she do it? Or was this a grieving child who already felt like she was responsible for all of the bad things that were happening in her life and she was simply vulnerable to manipulation?
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