Our Strange Meanderings: Weird Musings on Strange Travels.

On the Trail of the Witch of New York and extra videos published to YouTube

Our first look at a case from Christmas 1843 concerning the murder of a mother and daughter on Staten Island has been released. We travelled to the site of the crime scene, where the 1st trial of the accused took place, and cemeteries.
Mary ‘ Polly’ Housman Bodine was arrested on January 1st 1844 for the murder and subsequent housefire that killed her sister in law, Emeline Van Pelt Housman, and niece Ann Eliza. Bodine was the subject of Tabloid sensationalism during her three trials over a two and a half year period.

In the end she was acquitted as well documented in the book by Alex Hortis, “The Witch of New York.” This book I utilized for information during the video, and about the people involved from family, to attorneys, associates and locations. It is a must read for fans of this subject.

Below are links to view the main video and a few extras that did not make it into the main video.

This is the main video and below are the extras cut. In the main video I visit the graves of the victims Emeline and Ann Eliza. I did a walkthrough of the cemetery showing the sad state it was in plus an extra about the adjacent Baron Hirsch Cemetery. These did not make the cut, but perhaps are of interest to readers/viewers. The first cites Emeline Housman’s Van Pelt ancestors at rest at Historic Richmondtown, the 2nd is the further walkthrough of Hillside Cemetery where she is at rest.

Continuing our cemetery crawl is the walkthrough of Hillside Cemetery with many broken interesting graves, and the sad state it is in.

Finally here is the clip where within Hillside Cemetery where I note the significance of that cemetery in the search for missing Staten Island children during the 1980s and earlier

This wraps up our coverage of The Witch of New York. If you are interested in “true crime” topics we are nearly finished with filming our forthcoming video “The Jersey Thrill Killer Then & Now.” This concerns the serial killer Richard Biegenwald, and his victims.