Hellish Nell, the Last Witch of Scotland

There's a moment in almost every true crime story where someone knows something they're not supposed to know. Sometimes it's a witness, other times it's a spouse or a friend or just the wrong person in the room when the right conversation happens. And sometimes the danger isn't even what they know. It's that they say it out loud. Because knowing something isn't the issue. Saying it at the wrong time is. In today's story, the question isn't simply whether a woman could talk to the dead. It's whether she was a gifted medium or a practiced con artist or someone who by chance or design kept getting it right. And whether those truths came from spirits. Coincidence or manipulation. What mattered most was that she said them out loud. I'm Harvey Guillen and this is Killer Stories. Today's story, well, the full story wasn't supposed to be told for another 20 years. Parts of it come from a British government file labeled "closed until 2046." But some stories have a way of coming to light. Even if that means breaking through the strongest of barriers. And nobody knows that better than Helen Duncan, aka Hellish Nell. Hellish Nell, aka Hellish Nell. In the 1930s and 40s, she was one of the most well-known spiritualist mediums around. As in, her job was to hold seances to commune with the dead. She claimed the dead would give her information from the beyond. And sometimes, it was information she wasn't supposed to have. Things the military considered top secret. Which would eventually put a big target right on Helen's back. But before we get into how Helen did it. And how Hellish Nell raised Hell during World War II. Here's what you need to know about her. Helen is born in the Scottish Highlands in the 1890s. This is a place that loves itself some supernatural entities. Fairies. Changeling babies left behind by naughty fairies. Dogs that are also fairies. There are entire books dedicated to their rich folklore about fairies. So it's not all that strange when young Helen starts to believe. She. Has psychic powers. But she also earns a certain reputation. She's a rough and tumble kid. She dishes out bad news prophecies to kids on the playground. And her favorite place to play is the local haunted cemetery. She's basically that kid you don't want to babysit because they're going to casually mention some 8 foot man who lives in their closet. You know the kid I'm talking about. You know exactly the kid I'm talking about. Anyway. That's how she gets her nickname. Hellish Nell. And people are actually calling her this as a little girl. But eventually she finds a way to live up to her nickname. And make it work for her at the same time. By turning her reputation into a lucrative business. By 1930 she's an up and coming medium hosting seances for money. Now this is a true crime show so here's the part where I should mention. The general consensus nowadays is that Helen was a con artist. And so were a lot of the other con artists. And so were a lot of the old mediums. And yeah they could put on an amazing show. There's not a huge difference between a medium and a magician. Except the medium is pretending like she's not doing magic tricks. And she's taking people's money. And making them believe that they're talking to their dead loved ones. Now we don't know for certain how she pulled off all of her tricks. So I'm going to put you in the shoes of an audience member. Okay. If you were attending one of Helen's seances. This is what it would look like. Outside the seance room. Female audience members inspect Helen's naked body. This is to ensure she's not hiding any tricks up her sleeve. Or you know. Elsewhere. After her special robes are examined. She throws them on. And it's time for the show. Helen enters a darkened room. Pitch black. Except for the light of a single red bulb. She takes a seat. And a makeshift curtain. And a makeshift curtain drops. Hiding her from the audience. They wait as Helen falls into a trance. It's always signaled by her loud snoring. Like a chainsaw. Not hard to miss. And that's when she begins to secrete something called ectoplasm. It's like this shimmering long white veil. Supposedly the ectoplasm is a spiritual energy in a tangible form. And only certain types of mediums like Helen can produce it. The ectoplasm creeps out from Helen's mouth. Or sometimes her nose. And snakes its way down her body. Until it peeks out from underneath the curtain. Then it somehow gathers itself up into the shape of a man. This is what Helen calls Albert. He's her spirit guide. Albert is actually able to sense what's going on inside her. He's able to see what's going on inside her. He can see what's going on inside her. air, so she must be hiding it somewhere on her body when she begins a seance. If Price can just find out where she hides it, her whole story falls apart. So Price takes his investigation to some pretty iffy levels. But to be fair, both Helen and her husband agree to go through with these tests. One day, Price hires a doctor to give Helen a full-body cavity search. He wants to make sure she isn't hiding it where the sun don't shine. But they don't find anything. So Price brings in an x-ray machine, only he doesn't tell her that's what it is. Helen takes one look at it and thinks they're going to use it for another body cavity search. So she does a 180 and runs out of the building while wearing the giant baby onesie. In the end, Price writes a whole book about Helen and claims he has debunked her. He says it's just Helen doing the voice of Albert, the spirit guide. It's Helen creeping around under the ectoplasm pretending to be people's deceased relatives. Sometimes she even brings masks to disguise herself. He concludes the ectoplasm is just a piece of cheesecloth anybody can buy at the store. As for where. she hides the ectoplasm? He never finds out for sure. But he thinks she bundles it up and swallows it before each show. Then, once she's behind the curtain, she vomits it out. Then she wears this coughed-up ectoplasm all night and swallows it again when the show's over so nobody can see it. Price titles his book, Regurgitation and the Duncan Mediumship. But after it comes out, he's hit with backlash. Turns out, people don't really care what he has to say about Helen's abilities. The book only makes her more popular. So she keeps running her seances and keeps taking people's money. But she doesn't stay out of trouble for long. In 1933, Helen's arrested on fraud charges. One night, while she's putting on her show, her audience gets suspicious. For one thing, Helen's not wearing her standard séance robes, so they didn't get to inspect her clothing. For another, one of them can blatantly see Helen hiding behind a piece of furniture. She's working a piece of cloth like a puppet, pretending it's a little spirit named "Pleggie." The group starts to get rowdy. They are not having it. And they don't know what's going to happen to Helen. and they demand she prove she's not hiding anything in her street clothes. To put it lightly, Helen doesn't like that suggestion. According to one witness, she throws a chair at a paying customer and then she hits him with her shoe. Eventually, she does agree to disrobe, but only in front of the women. So all the men file out and Helen angrily throws her clothes off. And out falls a piece of cloth that looks just like Peggy, the little spirit guide. It's probably the closest anybody comes to proving how Helen pulls off her con. And she thanks them by throwing another chair and then taking her money and leaving. But the cops track her down and arrest her. It's not the end of the world for her. Her mediums get arrested all the time. But there's sentences. They're usually light. Helen faces either a 10-pound fine or one month in prison. She has the money, so she avoids going behind bars. This time. But so far, Helen's only ticked off members of the public. A few years later, she makes some very powerful enemies who want to keep her silenced any way they can. This episode is brought to you by Tocayotric. When your mental health is suffering, finding the right treatment, can be overwhelming. That's where Tocayotric comes in. Tocayotric is an online psychiatry practice with licensed psychiatrists who can evaluate, diagnose, and provide ongoing medication management when appropriate. They accept major insurers, can treat anxiety, ADHD, depression, and more. And you can schedule your first visit in days, not months. Go to tocayotric.com slash killers and get matched in minutes. That's T-A-L-K-I-A-T-R-Y dot com slash killers. Tocayotric.com slash killers. There's a part of me that everyone sees. I'm Howie Mandel, the comedian. Apparently, I know what funny is. 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Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. In spite of everyone who says Helen Duncan is a con artist, she's still successful a few years later in 1941. In part, it's because World War II is in full swing. And if you're a medium, war is good for business. People are surrounded by death. The Nazis have just spent months dropping bombs all over Britain during the Blitz. It feels like nobody's safe. And the afterlife is a split second away. So something like a seance could provide some comfort. Because if you believe what the medium is showing you, then even death can keep you apart from the people you love. One day in May of 1941, a Royal Naval Brigadier attends one of Helen's seances. That's when Albert, the spirit guide, announces he has a message for everyone. A great battleship just sank, he says. A British battleship. The brigadier hears this and immediately gets worried. He's a Helen supporter, so he believes Albert could be right. But he hasn't heard the news yet himself. So the brigadier slips out. Mid-seance to find a telephone. He calls and asks an officer if there's been any news of a battleship going down. And the officer says, no. He hasn't heard about anything remotely like that. But the brigadier gets a call back that afternoon. He learns that actually, yes. The HMS Hood was sunk by Hitler's brand new wondership, the Bismarck. Over 1,400 lives were lost. There were only three survivors. And if their timeline is correct, then while Albert, the spirit guide, was making his announcement, those three survivors were still waiting to be rescued from the water. Now the brigadier finds himself in a sticky situation. The higher-ups want to know how the hell did he know about the HMS Hood before they did. That's the kind of information they need to know. the crew of the HMS Barham. The sailor speaks to a woman in the audience, his wife, and tells her he's sorry. His ship has gone down in the Mediterranean and he didn't make it. The woman goes straight to the Navy to confirm whether or not her husband's ship really sank and allegedly the officers tell her, of course not. They assure her that mediums and ghosts are not a good source of breaking news and if something had gone wrong, she would be officially notified. That Christmas, she gets a card from her husband, so it seems like he's still alive. But he's not. Helen was right again. Here's what really happened to the ship. The Barham had been sunk by the Nazis that November, but that was top secret info. Even the Nazis didn't know about it. Once they shot at the British ship, they turned and sped away. They left so quickly that they thought they only did some light damage. They didn't realize the British ship ended up sinking because they didn't stick around long enough. So the British Navy is trying to keep news of the Barham covered up. That's why they forged those Christmas cards to the soldiers' families. They didn't want anyone to find out that they were one boat down in the Mediterranean. News of Helen's loose lips talking about sunken ships gets back to a guy named Arthur Charles West. He's the chief constable of Portsmouth, England, a vital port city during World War II. It's also where Helen travels all the time to perform seances. A week-long run there can earn her over a hundred pounds. But Chief Constable West is no fan of spiritualism or of Helen Duncan. It's bad enough she's a con artist taking people to church, but it's not good enough for Helen. He thinks there's been an intelligence leak. And Helen's getting her info from somewhere she shouldn't be, and sharing it with the public, which could put lives at risk. So West arranges for MI5 intelligence agents to infiltrate her seances. One of West's men reports back, "Yeah, boss. She just walks around in some gross barfed-up fabric. It's weird." Maybe Helen knows. Maybe she's being spied on. Or maybe her well of information runs dry. She doesn't share any more military secrets from then on. But the agents keep tabs on her for years anyway, especially once they start planning D-Day. In early 1944, the Allies are secretly prepping for D-Day, which would end up being a huge turning point in the war. But it's only going to work if very few people really know what's going on, and everybody keeps their traps shut. These plans are the most top-secret-y of all top-secret secrets. And West starts getting paranoid that Helen's going to catch wind of the D-Day plans, however she gets her information. And then she's going to blab it to everybody and ruin history forever. I guess it's because Helen's always in Portsmouth, and that's where a bunch of ships are slowly gathering in preparation. Whatever his deal is, he doesn't want to take any chances. So, the next time Helen puts on her show in Portsmouth, she gets raided. These are the moments that make Nordstrom Nordstrom. Celebrating 125 years with new moments still had. Hank joined BJ's Wholesale Club the day he became a father of 30. I coach football. Now, Coach Hank saves up to 25% off grocery store prices. 30 pounds of pasta, three cases of protein bars, 75 sports drinks. And that's just pregame. He knows teamwork, and BJ's knows savings. This is your home, Coach. Home of the Save. Join for just $20 at BJs.com/Mosquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer, new members only. BJ's. Home of the Save. This episode is brought to you by TXU Energy. For the first time ever, Texans have an energy plan that combines free nights all year with daytime summer savings. It's called Free Nights in Cool Summer. You get free nights every night all year long, plus a 25% bonus toward your daytime use all summer. That's a first-of-its-kind plan created for how Texans actually use energy. Discover how much more you could save with Free Nights in Cool Summer. TXU Energy, energy for everything. Visit TXU.com for more information. Rep number 10004. In 1944, Helen Seance gets raided by police and intelligence officers when they burst into the room and flick on the lights. One of them thinks he sees the ectoplasm suspended in midair. She tries to tackle it, but the ectoplasm seems to disappear. They assume Helen, or one of the attendees, grabbed it and hid it away. A detective orders the room to be searched. Nothing turns up. And the men are too polite to search the mostly female audience members, so they leave the raid without the ectoplasm. Meaning they don't have any tangible evidence she was defrauding her customers, but they do have Helen in custody. Helen is dropped off at Holloway Prison. It's this intimidating fortress with 20-foot walls, but she's like, whatever, let me pay my fine and I'll be on my way. Because usually when a medium is arrested, it's a misdemeanor. Helen thinks she'll fork over a few pounds as a fine, like last time. But this time, some powerful people want to keep her quiet for as long as possible. Or at least until they can pull off D-Day. And they can't exactly be open about why they're really keeping her there. So they hit her with a really antiquated law that nobody's used in forever. It's called the Witchcraft Act of 1735. They charge her with violating Section 4, which says it's illegal to do any kind of sorcery, enchantment, or conjuring spirits. Now, I know how Witchcraft Act sounds. But they aren't really calling Helen a witch. The law was meant to protect the public from those who pretend they have these powers for money. But the press does not care. They see the word "witch" and cartoon dollar signs appear over their eyes. Calling Helen a witch? Now that's going to sell more papers. So they run with it. Helen's tried in 1944. Her old frenemy Harry Price shows up to watch. He even hands over his notes to the prosecution. But he decides he doesn't want to testify because his angina is acting up. You should get that checked out. In the end, Helen's convicted and sentenced to nine months in prison. She's kept under lock and key while the Allies pull off D-Day. After that, Hella Chanel walks away with a new nickname: The Last Witch of Scotland. The last witch of Scotland. And she continues working as a medium almost to her dying day. The British government originally sealed Helen Duncan's file for 100 years. Over time, the rules changed. The documents were declassified. And somehow, that still didn't clear things up. There was never hard proof of where Helen hid her ectoplasm. The barfing it up theory is still just the most plausible explanation. And Arthur Charles West never figured out how she got her hands on sensitive military information. If you ask Helen Duncan's family, she was the real deal. If you ask the skeptics, she was a con artist. Like a lot of mediums back then. Selling a convincing lie to grieving people. And if you ask the British government, they never had to pick a side. Because whether Helen was speaking to the dead or performing for the living, she couldn't have been the victim. She kept brushing up against information that wasn't meant to travel. And in a country at war, saying the wrong thing at the wrong time can make you more dangerous than being wrong. Helen Duncan wasn't convicted because anyone finally proved the trick. She was convicted because someone decided she couldn't be allowed to keep talking. Thanks for tuning in to Killer Stories. A Spotify podcast. New episodes release on Mondays. If you liked today's story and want to learn more, we've dropped some of our favorite sources in the episode description. Until next time, I'm Harvey Guillen. Stay safe out there. Tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college. That's why she shops at BJ's Wholesale Club, saving up to 25% off grocery store prices. Beef jerky, microwave meals, laundry pods, even they can't screw up. Have you met my kids? And with BJ's gas, she gets there for less. They call me the road warrior. This is your home. Home, road warrior mom. Home of the Save. Join for just $20 at bjs.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. BJ's, home of the Save. You get free nights every night, all year long, plus a 25% bonus toward your daytime use all summer. It's a first-of-its-kind plan created for how Texans actually use energy. TXU Energy. Energy for everything. Rep number 10004. Early morning on a Manhattan sidewalk, a shooting caught on surveillance video. It was an assassination-style killing, and everybody saw it. Now, as Luigi Mangione prepares to stand trial for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, which he denies, a new podcast series from ABC Audio and 2020 goes inside this captivating case. I'm ABC News legal analyst Brian Buckmeyer. Listen to Burden of Proof, Luigi Mangione, wherever you get your podcasts.