logo
episode-header-image
Nov 2022
50m 13s

S2 E8: Madam Nerva Sees Death

Pushkin Industries
About this episode

Rachel Dobkin has come to see her psychic advisor, Madam Nerva. After years of bitter disagreements and financial wranglings with her estranged and violent husband, Rachel wants to know what the spirits think she should do next. Through Madam Nerva the spirts tell Rachel not to go near her husband again... but will she heed their warnings? 

The case of Rachel Dobkin is another face of wartime crime and not the work of the Blackout Ripper - but it reveals a common thread. It shows how some men thought the disruption and chaos of war would help them get away with murder. 

Further reading:

Carroll, Niamh. ‘The History of the Boundary Estate’, Bethnal Green London, 14 May 2021,

Cole, Mike. ‘The Battle of Cable Street’, Historic UK.

Cowan, Colin. ‘Mental observation wards: an alternative provision for emergency psychiatric care in England in the first half of the twentieth century’, History of Psychiatry

Eilers, Nicole Kvale. ‘Emigrant Trains: Jewish Migration through Prussia and American Remote Control, 1880 - 1914’, in Brinkmann, T. (ed), Points of Passage: Jewish Migrants from Eastern Europe in Scandinavia, Germany, and Britain 1880 - 1914 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2013).

Lefebure, Molly. Murder on the Home Front (London: Sphere, 2013).

Marks, Lara V, Model Mothers: Jewish Mothers and Maternity Provision in East London 1870 - 1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994)..

Odell, Robin. Medical Detectives: The Lives and Cases of Britain’s Forensic Five (Cheltenham: The History Press, 2013).

Roberts, Elizabeth. A Woman’s Place: An Oral History of Working Class Women 1890 - 1940 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995).

Summerscale, Kate. The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story (London: Bloomsbury, 2020).

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Up next
Jun 17
Warlords, Espionage, and Disinformation | Introducing Hot Money: Agent of Chaos
In 2020, the Financial Times exposed a 2 billion euro fraud at Wirecard, a high-flying German fintech. Many thought that was the end of the story. But for reporter Sam Jones, it was just the beginning. This season on Hot Money: Agent of Chaos, from Pushkin Industries and the Fina ... Show More
38m 58s
May 19
Listen Now — Deep Cover: The Truth About Sarah
The new season of Deep Cover, a podcast about people who lead double lives, reveals a story of stolen valor and misplaced heroism. Sarah Cavanaugh was many things to the people who knew her: a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a young woman fighting cancer. Sara ... Show More
41m 43s
Dec 2022
Raising the Dead - Behind the Scenes of Bad Women
The rich and famous leave many traces in the historical records, but how can you reconstruct the lives of ordinary people who lived decades and decades ago? That was the challenge facing the team behind the Bad Women podcast. Hosts Hallie Rubenhold and Alice Fiennes sit down with ... Show More
44m 1s
Recommended Episodes
Jul 2024
Episode 582: The Murder of Julia Martha Thomas
In early March 1879, fifty-five-year-old widow Julia Martha Thomas disappeared from her home in southwest London. Julia often travelled by herself on moment’s notice, so neighbors thought nothing of her absence; however, when several female body parts were discovered in the Thame ... Show More
1h 5m
Apr 2022
S1 Ep8: Dorothea Puente, The Killer OAP
Helen Anderson and Danni Howard travel back to 90’s America to visit a boarding house for people down on their luck, run by sweet little old lady Dorothea Puente… but is Dorothea all that she seems? After discovering a body in her front garden, detective John Cabrera has a hunch ... Show More
54m 53s
Dec 2024
The murders at Rillington Place: postwar London's grisliest crimes
On 24 March 1953, a tenant of 10 Rillington Place, Notting Hill made a gruesome discovery. Inside the walls of the downstairs flat, he uncovered the bodies of three women. More were to follow. A nationwide manhunt was launched for the prime suspect, Reg Christie, and the murders ... Show More
36m 40s
Feb 2025
#286 - The Black Cap Farce (Edith McQuaid, Soho, UK)
On 1st January 1932, in the attic room of 27 Old Compton Street in Soho, 19-year-old domestic servant Edith McQuaid gave birth to a baby boy. Whether he died of natural causes, or she took his life by infanticide will never be known. But she wasn't alone. Edith was one of 1000s o ... Show More
1h 1m
May 12
Episode 671: The Murder of Carol Stuart
On the night of October 23, 1989, Charles and Carol Stuart were returning home from a childbirth class and drove through the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. According to Charles Stuart, they were stopped at a red light when a black teenager forced the driver’s door open and robbe ... Show More
1h 7m
Jan 2025
Episode 635: Gordon Cummins: The Blackout Ripper (Part 1)
In response to the onset of German bombing raids during World War II, many of England’s most vulnerable citizens evacuated or were temporarily evacuated out of urban areas to safer, more rural parts of the country. Those who remained in the cities would ultimately spend years end ... Show More
44m 48s
Dec 2024
Episode 628: The Murder of Nancy Evans Titterton
On the morning of April 10, 1936, Nancy Evans Titterton, novelist and wife of NBC Radio executive Lewis Titterton, was found sexually assaulted and strangled to death in the bathtub of her apartment in Beekman Place, a prominent New York City apartment building. Upon first inspec ... Show More
1h 3m
Jul 2024
Episode 586: The Murder of Bessie Darling
On the morning of October 31, 1933, a gunman burst through the door of Bessie Darling’s home in Foxville, Maryland and shot the woman to death. Police quickly arrested George Schultz, Darling’s boyfriend and business partner, who’d unsuccessfully attempted suicide after shooting ... Show More
44m 7s
Dec 2024
Weekend Woman’s Hour: Keira Knightley and Sarah Lancashire, Sutara Gayle, Uterine fibroids, Surviving grief, Josie Lloyd
Powerhouse actors Keira Knightley and Sarah Lancashire are starring alongside Ben Wishaw in new Netflix spy drama Black Doves. It follows the story of a female spy seeking revenge for the murder of her lover – whilst outwardly being married to a high-ranking politician. Keira and ... Show More
54m 38s
Feb 2025
Episode 646: The Unsolved Murder of Jeannette DePalma
On the afternoon of August 7, 1972, sixteen-year-old Jeannette DePalma left her house in Springfield, NJ and was never seen alive again. Six weeks later, Jeannette’s remains were discovered when a neighborhood dog returned to its owner at a newly built apartment complex, carrying ... Show More
1h 18m