The Case of Charles Dexter Ward Episode 1

## Synopsis

An investigation into the disappearance of a young man from a locked room in an asylum.

## Plot

English ex-columnist Matthew Heawood and American investigator Kennedy Fisher co-host a British true crime podcast called *The Mystery Machine*. They have just started investigating the disappearance of a man named Charles Dexter Ward, who vanished from a locked room in a secure psychiatric hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, on the 6th of March 2017. According to the reports at the time, Ward's psychiatrist, Dr. Jonathan Willett, visited him for an hour that night, but there was no evidence that anyone had let Ward escape. The podcast had looked into this case at the time, but found it unsolvable and moved on. However, two months prior to the airing of this episode, Dr. Willett was arrested in London for murdering a woman named Lucy Hawthorne during a schizophrenic episode and was subsequently incarcerated in Broadmoor Hospital. Not believing this to be a coincidence, Matt and Kennedy have started a new series called *The Case of Charles Dexter Ward*, and have so far found it to be the strangest story they have encountered.

Beginning their investigation, they learn that Charles had been seeing Willett since he was 13 and Willet made recordings of their conversations. Listening to one particularly static-y recording, made shortly after Charles' mother, Sarah Ward, was killed in a hit-and-run car accident, they learn he was interested in his ancestry and that he believed a man named Joseph Curwen was his maternal grandfather. Kennedy interviews Charles' former principal Claire Rushmore, who tells her that both students and staff at the school were scared of him, and that she was worried Charles would become a 'school shooter'. Claire talked to Sarah and her husband, Howard Philip Ward, about this, and felt that Sarah too was scared of Charles. Kennedy visits Ward's house with the property's estate agent, Sylvester Birtwistle, and finds it to be affluent yet unwelcoming. Birtwistle tells her that while nothing untoward happened in the house, the hostile atmosphere has prevented it from being sold. Investigating Charles' now empty bedroom by herself, Kennedy is startled when the door to the room slams shut. In her account, Kennedy claims she saw a man watching her in the doorway before it closed.

Returning to London, Kennedy talks to Matt in the café across the road from the studio. She plays Matt a recording of her visiting Charles' former school library, with a plan to understand Charles' personality by looking at the library books he took out. She meets the current librarian, George Shepley, who reveals that the librarian at the time let Charles loan occult texts from the Providence Municipal Library. Shepley asks Kennedy whether she knew what happened to Charles after he was expelled from the school, and Kennedy tells him he had a private tutor named Barbara Sayers. When Kennedy tells him she's going to meet her the following day, Shepley asks her to call him afterwards but does not say why.

Whilst Kennedy is in America, Matt investigates what Dr. Willett was doing in London. He calls a contact to ask about whether he could interview Willett in Broadmoor, but the contact says it's impossible. The contact encourages Matt to look into Hawthorne, having heard rumours she was 'well-connected'. After doing his research he tells Kennedy that Lucy Hawthorne was a video game journalist, but that her maternal grandfather was Sir Godfrey Tillinghast, British Cabinet Secretary between 2008 and 2016, and that he still likely has influence in the British government. The two discuss whether any of this is relevant to the Ward case, and whether she was a random victim or not. Matt tells the audience that two days after this conversation the case got much stranger, but that they are saving it for the next episode.

## Cast, Characters, Crew

* Barnaby Kay as Matthew Heawood
* Jana Carpenter as Kennedy Fisher
* Mark Bazeley as Dr. Jonathan Willett
* Samuel Barnett as Charles Dexter Ward
* Madeleine Potter as Claire Rushmore
* Nathan Osgood as Sylvester Birtwistle
* Adam Godley as George Shepley
* Ben Crowe as Contact

## Notes and Trivia

* Charles Dexter Ward had been seeing Dr. Willett since he was 13. A recording of one of their conversations from when Ward was 17 reveals that Ward believed himself to be the grandson of Joseph Curwen.
* Ward had been taken out of school when he was 15.
* The Ward family house is in an affluent area of Providence. It's a great house, but it won't sell. It has been empty since 2016, when Ward disappeared.
* Heawood tries to pull strings to talk to Dr. Willett in Broadmoor, but is unsuccessful.
* Godfrey Tillinghast, who was Cabinet Secretary from 2008 to 2016, is Lucy Hawthorne's grandfather. Kennedy has a hunch that Lucy Hawthorne was not chosen randomly as a victim.
* This episode marks the first appearance of Barnaby Kay in the Pleasant Green Universe.
* A number of the books taken out by Ward are real-life occult texts:
	+ *Turba Philosophorum*
	+ *The Complete Mystical Records of John Dee*
	+ *The Book of Thoth*
	+ *Enochian Magick*