Preston Castle and the Murder of Anna Corbin | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Ash and I'm Elena and this is [Music] morbid this is morbid it feels like morbid in the
morning but it's like kind of not at all yeah I woke up late today by accident this was the day that late Riser yeah
this was the day that I was going to get up at 6:30 and really move my body ATI yie and prick my finger and figure out
my egg reserve and all that jazz and I didn't wow I had so many you had a lot of plans for this morning no I literally
had so many plans for this morning and I my alarm went off and I said oh let me just lay here for like 2 minutes and
that's always the kiss of death three hours later never say I'll just lay here for a couple more minutes cuz you're not
going to lay there for a couple more minutes you're going to fall asleep yeah and then your alarm is shut off no I'm
thinking about that fry song it's like if I lay here oh yeah if I just lay here is that Snow Patrol yep yeah it is I was
like wait that's not the fry wrong I was like no that's not the fry similar Vibes
though yeah similar like sad boy Vibes oh yeah you know sad boy sad boy Vibes is what the fre and Snow Patrol have
what's going on in your life what's going on in my life I don't know um you know lots of stuff you have overalls on
today that's I have overalls on they're cute thank you you look like I'm trying to like describe what your Vibe is right
now I know it's cute I like it thank you you're welcome I'm making a scary face I'm wearing a sweatshirt that Drew got
me for Christmas and all my uh Real Housewives of Beverly Hills girlies will understand it says name them name them
name them that's what it says it her sweatshirt actually like vocalizes that when she comes in a room actually my
girly Sutton St which by the way on have you have you watched any of the seasons
with Sutton oh I have I saw a little bit of Sutton do you love years ago yeah I think Sutton's funny I love Sutton so
last night she was on a date on the show my girly and she real she revealed that
she listens to True Crime and I said if SU stct doesn't listen to morbid I'm going to cry for eternity I'm just going
to cry you need to know I'm going to put on Snow Patrol I'm going to put on The Fray and I'm going to cry you're going
to lie here just lie here and I'll forget the world um so now listeners it is your duty to get suton St to listen
to us or to see if she does or to see if she already does maybe she does maybe she does who knows I don't know I don't
know either who knows I'd like to know that would be pretty funny I love Sutton name him jealous of what you're ugly
leather pants the best I haven't watched it in so long though this I know this I
know this I know I got to though that I know you know what I have been watching qua uh Fall of the House of Usher on
Netflix I heard that's good [ __ ] I just saw episode two and if anybody has been
watching this show you know that I am in emotional turmoil now episode 2 you're already in emotional turmoil should I
watch this two will [ __ ] you up I mean I the end of that episode and for everybody who's watched it you know the
end of that episode reing my jaw was on the floor and I was literally just saying holy [ __ ] over and over it was
one of the most horrifying things I've seen in a television show it was pretty wild wow wild episode what is the
premise of this show it's a loose Loosely based on POS story The Fall of the House of Usher right right right I
don't know if I ever read that and it has other it's like it's got po like the mask of
the Red Death and stuff I love that story and I think that's what episode 2 is Loosely based on okay and some of the
characters have the same names like in mask of the Red Death okay um Prince Prospero okay episode two focuses on the
child named Prospero ah uh who they call like Perry what is like the time period
uh it's it's like now current yeah but it's it's updated to that basically like when you start it you find out um
like you f you're basically watching how certain people die oh [ __ ] in this family started a not a spoiler because
it's like that's the story from po wrote it quite a long time ago um but it's very well done I mean it's Mike Flanigan
oh okay I think Mike Flanigan kills it yeah um he did like midnight mass and um Haunting of Hill House and I still have
to watch that did you watch that man ear and [ __ ] like that um I've only seen some of Haunting of Hill House but I
loved it what I watched and need to finish it I heard it was like beautifully done midnight mass is
literally one of my favorite shows Drew and I are looking for a new show right now but like you know when you you don't
know what you're in the mood for but you also know you don't know what you're in
the mood for but you know what you're in the mood not for yes that's how we feel
and like everything that I'm like oh we could try that I'm like he's not in the mood for and then he's like oh what
about this and I'm like no this is I saw someone describe Fall of the House of Usher as um uh horror succession and
it's oh pretty accurate I loved succession pretty accurate oh and sorry quickly while we're here for my real
house wibes glies again oh we're circling back wait we got to because the you need to watch SLC it's only four
seasons right now you could catch up so quickly it's all on peacock I'm talking to you directly Meena me yes Elena I
mean I'm talking to anybody that hasn't watched it it's so good and the finale last night I texted Ronnie and Ben or I
think the finale was like two nights ago at this point I texted Ronnie and Ben I
was like I'm losing my mind of watch what crappens and they were losing their minds they literally agreed and like
collectively all Housewives fans agree this is the best season finale in Housewives history damn [ __ ] insane
[ __ ] daontis is involved oh [ __ ] yeah and somebody's about to get a seas and
assist for using their name and likeness oh no in my opinion it's my opinion wow so yeah Housewives Fall of
the House of Usher you um Married at First Sight we talked about last week hitting all sides of the spe truly
succession I think I talked about salt bur last week yeah you did oh God so have you watched that yet I have not I
don't know if I will why you haven't spoken super highly of it no I that's that's you're not wrong
about that you said it's incredibly long and you were like I it like is you weren't even sure how to describe I was
like I don't know yeah no I'm I'm still not sure how to describe it and you won't be either but watch it I don't
know I I would like you to I'll give it a shot it's low on my list but I'll give
it a shot isn't that nice of her to to take my recommendation and say [ __ ] that
well I you know what it is John and I have like the most limited amount of time at night yeah to watch these things
so it's precious so it's like we're still not done with peaky blinders and we started that [ __ ] like years ago the
thing about salurn is I don't know if you can like you can't go to bed after you watch saltburn yeah and we can only
watch it at night right before we go to bed the only and youbody walk into living while
you're watching this yeah see that seems like a lot of trouble for something that
I'm not super excited to watch in the first place it's you know it's I don't know what it is but that see in that I'm
like I don't know they said like the actors I watched an interview with them and they were like we wanted people to
leave the theater and like drive home with whoever they came home and saw or came to the theater and saw it with and
like not know what to say for like the entire drive home and I was like I felt that way for weeks
but but I want to talk to somebody about it but like nobody I love has watched it
yet except for Drew and we can't we're just like you just don't know how to even
yeah I need Aiden to watch it he said he was going to text me when he did I I'll
I'll eventually watch it for sure please it's just it's a commitment right now yeah I was going to pick it for scream
but I I can't I can't have like a on mic discussion in detail about that movie like so it's a no there are three scenes
in particular that Hannah burner described it perfectly on Tik Tok she said your face will just
go like that so go find that on Tik Tok that's interesting yeah I'm interested so I guess we'll see MH cuz
you and Dave watched it watch it you're like everyone watch it no serious it's horrifying and long and will ruin your
life but go watch it yeah I think I think I'm going to say it I think it might be good I think it might be good
what of what a rousing endorsement of a film it just so long and it might be good that's the thing I watched it a
week ago and I'm still dissecting how I feel about it PR good that's the thing there's that like and I don't I don't
feel no I don't know I was going to say I don't feel bad about it but I'm like do I you kind of do I feel there are
certain scenes that I do feel a little bad about anybody who has watched it I hope
you get exactly what I'm saying right now and I feel like you will oh yeah I'm sure cuz i' I've seen people reacting
like I don't know how to react so yeah but but you need to we need to move on yeah well and you know what we'll move
on to something um pretty horrifying So today we're going to talk about Preston castle and the murder of Anna Corbin
okay so this is uh we're going to be talking about a boys reform school from like the 50s oh yeah today so I I think
everybody knows where that rolls that's dark sided yeah we're going to get into some specific parts of this school but
like there's I'm sure there's many more things I'm sure there's a on the grounds
of pre and actually I first heard Preston Castle even mentioned it's in California um oh I didn't expect that
yeah on um Girls Next Level podcast Bridget was talking about it cuz she's like a ghost hunter like Bridget's
always been into that [ __ ] and she's like she goes to all kinds of places and she professionally ghost hunts all that
cool stuff and she had mentioned Preston castle and I was like interesting oh [ __ ] and when I started looking into it
I was like oh [ __ ] like there's some [ __ ] here oh [ __ ] shout out to Bridget
and that girl's next level for even putting this into my Orbit her and Holly are so cool I love them both so much um
now when it opened in 1894 M yeah it it opened up long ago mhm uh the Preston what was once called the
Preston School of Industry represented a change in how criminal offenders and Wards of the state were going to be
treated in American society they wanted to shift more towards like the compassionate mission of Reform over
punishment that was the idea but while the mission may have represented a more Progressive approach to reforming young
offenders the daily life for the young what we deemed inmates was often been as brutal as it would have been in an adult
prison Jesus so it didn't really like jive with the actual Mission and the school actually closed in
2011 2011 yeah the [ __ ] it went on that long and it's been and it's been it's stood as a Historic Landmark and
cultural institution that is actually open to the public um but a lot of people believe that behind the facade of
cultural significance and historic importance Preston's dark history has caused the building to definitely be
haunted by the spirits of many boys kids inmates what whatever you deem them who
suffered and died at the school and the spirit of murdered head housekeeper Anna
Corbin whose killer was never punished and whose death remains unsolved is seen a lot oo now there's also a graveyard
like a cemetery on site where boys were buried when they died of like ill or anything else and there's like a lot of
kids in there oh that's really sad and it's like it just makes you wonder cuz there was a lot of violence there was a
lot of horrible misss how many deaths were marked as they were so sick yeah it's like they got sick and it's like
did they uh I'm sure many of them did but now in the latter Deca Decades of the 19th century Progressive politicians
and activists started advocating for dramatic changes to many social institutions in the United States among
these changes were going to be things related to welfare and treatment of children specifically in places like the
workforce and the penal system this ultimately led to children being considered and treated as their own
distinct social class separate from adults and heavily protected which is how it should be yeah but at the time
children were typically treated as though they were simply small adults at least when it came to the economy and
really a lot of other social institutions like reformed schools and prisons essentially Jesus now at the
midpoint of the 19th century the American prison system still operated on a pretty archaic European model of super
harsh discipline discipline discipline and corporal punishment so it's just like intense it's what you are
thinking when you think of that kind of stuff inmates would be kept in solitary confinement for absurd lengths of time
like unnatural lengths of time they were whipped they were beaten for the slightest infraction and even sometimes
not for an infraction just for the hell of it and they were treated with a lot of Cruelty by guards now throughout the
17th and 18th centuries few Americans really question the system and its effect as a whole on Society at large
like right is this going to be a problem when we're just beating the [ __ ] out of
kids and like and adults for that matter like just like putting them in a c beating the [ __ ] out of them and then
later releasing them to the public like is that probably does it feel like something in between that needs to
happen however by the 19th century significant population booms led to a big increase in the population in US
prisons because more people more crime it just happens and this created scenarios where there was a ton of
overcrowding and that was leading to like a rampant spread of disease and death among the prison populations and
now they were being looked at more more now among the factors that led to the overcrowding of US prisons was that the
criminal justice system tended to treat all criminals the same right regardless of their age and the crime that they
were being sentenced for which is wild this meant that a person charged with vagrancy could be sent to the same
prison as someone sentenced for murder or that an adolescent criminal sentenced for a petty crime like theft would be in
a prison alongside hardened criminals serving life sentences for violent crimes which is only going to lead to
more violent crimes exactly now recognizing this for the objectively disastrous and ineffective system that
it was Progressive Advocates started pressuring politicians to put some major reforms to the laws in place that would
create just what they wanted was just like a more nuanced justice system like we can't just do a blanket coverage for
everything there needs to be a little Nuance here and they wanted to put an end to the deplorable environments in US
prisons well that's good now although this was a complicated process that was going to
unfold very slowly and is still unfolding today one of the ways prison reform was achieved was by separating
criminal offenders by age and gender now until the end of the 19th century adolescents weren't just sent to adult
prisons they were effectively treated as adults in every step of the legal system
so they were tried sentenced and punished as though they were adults which could on rare occasion
result in the execution of a child that's so [ __ ] now luckily among the more significant achievements of the
reform movement was the establishment of a juvenile justice system or what was then referred to as a children's Court
which is like such a sad a children's Court yeah that's really sad first established in Chicago in 1889 the
children's Court really embraced this Progressive ideology that was heavily favoring reform and Rehabilitation over
corporal punishment and this was belie this was basically based on the belief that future
criminality could be prevented by providing a rigidly structured environment where negative and harmful
behaviors would be corrected it was presented to the public as a more compassionate and productive
alternative to prisons these reformatories or what we called training schools at the time became the standard
punishment for those under 18 years of age when they were convicted in sentence okay now
like their adult counterparts reform schools placed a big emphasis on Rehabilitation over punishment and they
just tried to correct behaviors and correct the underlying issues for things by providing or what they said they were
providing was education vacational training and taking the child out of an environment that seemed to be kind of
nurturing this criminal behavior from the outside looking inome great that's what we needed to do
all along yeah like this is going to turn out awesome but while reformed schools may have been born of a
progressive ideology those same ideals and perspectives were not always shared by the staff and administration in the
reform schools problem because these people had to operate within the daily realities of the Justice the Juvenile
Justice System but as a result of this physical sexual psychological abuse very common
and this is a reformed scho these are children the of well it's also like how are you working at a reform school as a
[ __ ] criminal doing criminal behaviors criminal Behavior that's the thing and this this environment would
frequently undermine any positive goals that were intended for the residents of these reformed schools and they would
just further traumatize what at the time was an already vulnerable and marginalized population of kids yeah
which again is only going to lead to more violent crime exactly and in these kind of schools some of these kids that
were going in here were just Wards of the state yeah they weren't even even Comm a crime they just didn't have
anywhere else to go so now they're being treated like they which they shouldn't be treated that way anyways but it's
like now these kids didn't even do a crime they didn't even like do anything bad to get in here you know like it's
just like what the hell to to become a ward of the state already the horrors you probably must have had you have
endured yeah exactly and then you go into somewhere like this and it's probably exactly what you experienced or
10 times worse oh absolutely so sad now in the winter of 1889 California state Senator Edward Preston introduced uh
State Bill 402 which basically proposed the establishment of a juvenile reform school and it was going to Pro they
wanted to provide for the maintenance and management of that school now initially it was going to be housed on
the property of fulam prison where juvenile offenders were already being housed by the way in fome prison um but
an amendment was offered that proposed the school be located about 30 m away in Lone California better idea they figured
that to locate the school on the prison quote would be a taint upon those who went there you would F it's like yeah
you're trying to move away from the prison life you should probably move it off the prison ground maybe don't set up
camp right next to it just saying now the Preston School of industry was named for that Senator and it was intended to
not only house criminal offenders under the age of 18 but like I said before anyone who was deemed a ward of the
state and quote boys whose daily life and home environment are leading towards a useless and criminal career now the
school's general purpose was to quote make useful citizens of wayward Boys by providing training and instruction and
it was going to prepare them to be productive members of society this all sounds great oh yeah so flowery and when
the school was announced the Press was told that quote it is the aim not to have the re reform accomplished by
punitive means but by proving to the boys the value of Good Conduct and good reputation that's one way to put it so
they're being like no no no we don't want to punish we don't want to be crazy here we just want to show them what life
can be like and what what you can get out of being good citizens and it's like okay that sounds great but totally now
construction of the school began in 1890 and was completed in 1894 and it was that year that the C
curriculum plan for operations was developed and basically the school was going to consist of three departments
academic military and Industrial uh each boy was going to participate for 4 and a half hours per
day before moving on to the work portion of their day so four and a half hours of
like schools and then moving on to the work portion uh the work portion was basically agricultural work on the
school's Farm okay the military portion of their education was going to involve instruction and quote such branches of
military training as are ordinarily used in government service giving special emphasis to those parts which secure
secure to the cadet an erect and soldierly bearing a neat appearance and respect for
superiors okay the problem with that is that these are children yeah if it was just maybe a high school I guess I could
see that as almost like an Roc kind of thing yeah but like how old are the boys going through some of them were as young
as seven like seven-year-old in my opinion at the very least doesn't need to be involved in military training no I
don't in my opinion it that doesn't make sense to me either I think that that could get abusive very quickly ab and it
did of course it did yeah the the end result here is not great yeah now also the industrial branch of the school
vocus focused on vocational training and preparing students to enter the workforce which great which vocational
schools great love a vocational school you can enter training into a field right off the bat I think that's a great
option for some kids and it's like so that sounds great but again this wasn't best laid plans you know yep now like we
said the work portion of the day uh happened on the school's 300 acres of Farmland it's terrifying the students
helped to quote produce on the farm the larger part of fruit vegetables hay and grain which was used at the school so
they farmed their own food essentially which can be such a great learning experence such a great learning
experience and the farm served a dual purpose because it provided Hands On Learning Experience that could be
applied to the workforce leader and it also helped cut costs of operation by providing a lowcost solution for food
and other overhead so this was actually a larger plan that the school had to make the school kind of self-sustaining
okay which is also a great idea I'm pretty ahead of its time it included future plans for quot quote clothing and
shoes of the boys to be made at the institution wow and for eventual they were going to add like printing
carpentry Plumbing blacksmithing and that's the thing you're if you are teaching these kids all these different
trades and they get to choose and like really find their passion and like really work at something and see that
they can be good at something and see the success that comes out of that and the feeling of of Pride and all that and
finding a passion that's the idea it's like them learning to be proud of themselves and see that they can do be
good at something that's not stealing and not hurting someone and not doing you know vandalizing not things that are
going to get them in trouble it's like you can be good at this yeah now after meeting with the approval of the state
and the prison board that was going to be responsible for the oversight of the school the Preston School of Industry
opened in June 1894 and they transferred seven young men from the state prison at San Quenton
to the new reform school there were kids in San Quinton that's the most [ __ ] up
thing all of them were under the age of 18 and were serving sentences ra ranging
from 2 to 10 years for robbery burglary and gr Larsen but several of them had prior arrests or were known to have
engaged in violent Acts including murder oh before long the school was populated
with boys as young as seven and as old as 17 so seven-year-olds are in there with 17-year-olds who have may have
committed murder yeah and like I said some were just unfortunate Wards of the state right right it's so sad uh but to
the outside world the Preston School of industry was a prime examp Le of progressive polit policies and reform at
work like this looked great once Wayward boys taken off the streets out of adult
jails and given three meals a day and a solid education and a well-regulated environment what what more could you
want what could go wrong the school had a farm where they were learning industrial and agric agricultural
schools like looking at this from the outside you're like oh my God there's a farm they had tennis sry Farm is too big
too big one might say as soon as I heard 300 acres I was like that's a lot of [ __ ] [ __ ] that could go on well o had
tennis courts a rose garden and quote a 7,000 book library with a veranda overlooking the town wow the building
itself was a 46,000 sqt Monument of Romanesque Revival architecture that had 77 rooms 43 fireplaces it was super
ornate like ornate fixtures Outside Inside 257 windows that were all looking out on like the Northern California
landscape it seemed seems like the perfect place to actually do some good [ __ ] it does what a waste sounds like it
and as far as most were concerned if these boys had to be confined for something that they had done we better
to serve your time than Preston School especially when the alternative was San Quenton or fome prison little different
now inside the walls though life at the school was not easy and it was frequently dangerous boys entering the
school for the first time were stripped of their clothes and they had their hair
shaved from their heads and bodies to get rid of any lice that alone is so traumatizing and then they were dunked
in a bath of costic chemicals to rid any other bugs or parasites that they could
potentially bring in with them huh and for many of the boys that were entering Preston head and body lice were regular
occurrence as were open sores and cuts which would have made the delousing process excruciating yeah once they were
inside they were expected to follow the rules exactly as they were given to them
and those who didn't and even some who did because who the [ __ ] cares were subject to whippings beatings or
sometimes worse now some of the horrors experienced by residents at the school were inflicted by the hands of guards
and administrators that absolutely happened a lot I'm sure others were simply a product of the era
unfortunately for example residents that needed medical care or surgery in the first two decades of operation at the
school were operated on or treated on the floor what in the middle of the place what
because they just didn't have the professional facilities so they made this beautiful school and never put in a
medical facility or they didn't in the begin the first two decades it's like you can't just like bust them to a
nearby medical facility no you're just operating on them in the middle of everything right out in the open do you
know how [ __ ] clean an operating room is yeah I'm like you're ensuring that you give them a chemical bath when they
come in and then just like bloodborne pathogens everywhere you're just like what the [ __ ] my God now things only
worsened with the onset of the 1918 flu epidemic oh [ __ ] during which nearly half of the staff and onethird of the
boys got the illness wow and those who managed to avoid it somehow or the need for surgery in the middle of the [ __ ]
floor ended up being affected by any other illness like tuberculosis at the time a lot of them were suffering with
drug addiction and the effects of alcohol withdrawal and they were just suffering with not a lot of medical help
oh God now within the first four years of operation the school reported four deaths so one a
year uh one from spinal menitis one from pneumonia and septicemia and two from quote exploded
appendix whoa which I was like damn that's insane and I'm also like so they were in pain and Bing up to needed that
appendix out and they couldn't get it out cuz they didn't have this so an exploded appendix I
myself an exploded appendix but I know people who have and I can't fathom and obviously it
kills you if you don't get it in time right now while most residents were resigned to serving their time with as
little conflict as possible they just wanted to get out of there others were less inclined to do that uh Escape
attempts were common and while most ended with the Escape being caught either still on the grounds or just like
immediately outside of them right a few had more unfortunate endings in January 1913 for example 15-year-old John Miller
was shot and killed 15 oh my God during an escape attempt he was escaping and he
ended up striking a guard in the shoulder with a pickaxe holy [ __ ] like damn and Miller had made a previous
escaped attempt from another institution before arriving at Preston 6 months earlier and was generally considered to
be by the administration they considered him disruptive and disrespectful so to them it was like yeah it's like I wonder
what the escape attempt really was about yeah probably escaping the horrors that
were those walls he is one of those 18 boys that I mentioned buried in the cemetery at Preston really um and a lot
of them died of illness or disease quote unquote quot that allegedly but he is one of them and he was killed now though
they were overwhelmingly the targets of abuse the residents of Preston weren't the only ones who ex experienced violent
assaults at the school guards were often subject to physical and verbal assaults
at the school and at least three staff members were murdered between the school's opening in 1894 and the closure
of the main building in 1960 wow uh because although it end it um closed in 2011 for good y the main building was
closed in 1960 so it it didn't function like it did for that long okay um all three of these murders of staff are a
tragedy in the school's already dark history of course but only one of them garnered
any public attention really wow and there was a lot of controversy involved in this one um and this is really the
murder that contributed to Preston's really notorious reputation now and that is the murder of Anna Corbin I was
wondering now on the afternoon of February 23rd 1950 a little before 2 p.m. 17-year-old
Robert Hall was sent to get the head of housekeeping Anna Corbin from her office
so he reached her office and saw that the room was empty and when he looked around he noticed just a pool of blood
that was collecting in front of the padlocked door of the utility closet [ __ ] so he was worried obviously that
she was hurt or what the hell was happening in the closet well then to be a student to stumble across that scene
are you going to get accused of whatever just happened exactly so but he kicked down the door cuz he said he was worried
she was inside and hurt and he wanted to get to her and unfortunately he discovered 52-year-old Anna Corbin her
face was severe beaten and she had a rope tied tightly around her neck Jesus and there was a rug just casually draped
over her quote blood spattered body my God now according to the initial press reports quote she had been beaten in the
face and head so badly that it couldn't be determined whether she was bludgeoned
or stabbed what the [ __ ] now a little about Anna Anna was born in Emporia Kansas in
1898 and she spent her early life in the midwest where she was raised by her aunt
and uncle who adopted her in 1918 when she was only 20 years old she ended up marrying Robert Corbin and the following
year the couple welcomed their first child Harold and began making their way west they settled in Colorado for a
little time where they had a second child Avis and when then they eventually settled in Lone California where Anna
took the job as head housekeeper at the Preston School of industry and Robert took a job as a group supervisor at the
Preston School of Industry okay so Anna settled into life in California super easily because she was a cool cool lady
she joined the local Women's Club she participated in her Methodist church choir she was active in several other
local Civic and social groups she was like that kind of that kind of gal just doing it all everybody liked her she was
very well liked at Preston she was known as quote a strict disciplinarian but not
harsh or cruel okay so she liked she liked the rules but she was not harsh and she was not cruel she was wasn't
beaten these kids no and people liked her and I think that's why people respected her is because she wasn't
harsh and cruel but she was strict they respected that she wanted things to be the way they were but she wasn't going
to hurt you right and although this attitude she wasn't she was very well-liked but like obviously some of
the troublemakers she was not popular among them because they didn't want to listen to anything um but it and
honestly it had earned her some verbal and written threats from students over the years
didn't want to listen but again this was just they didn't want to listen to her not because she was cruel in any way um
but mostly those were only a handful most of these boys looked to her for support and they respected her for the
meticulous and thorough performance of a very frequently overlooked job as well cuz remember she's head of housekeeping
she keeps that place clean right which back then Jesus she's having to clean up after [ __ ] surgeries on the floor
she's contending with a lot and people respected her for it cuz they were like you do your damn job job and again for
boys to look to her for support like that tells you something she was very motherly I was just going to say it
sounds like she was almost like a mother figure and to even give you more of Anna
she had even taken courses in Psy psychology and sociology just to gain a better understanding of the boys at the
school and the circumstances that had led them to be there and that shows you her dedication to them went out of their
way and it's that's somebody who's not in there going I'm just going to collect my paycheck [ __ ] these kids see you
later she 's there because she's like yeah this is a job but I give a [ __ ] about these kids and I would like to see
them leave and be better members of society and I'd like to be a mother figure for them and have them come to me
because I have now gained a better understanding of why they are the way they are exactly that's like Anna's cool
like that's just really cool she respected what they were supposed to be doing there in did not need to do that
and the fact that she did a so badass and school and actually the school super tendent Robert Chandler told reporters
quote she was like a mother to the boys oh Anna's murder came as a shock to the staff and many of the residents at
Preston obviously according to the coroner JJ daer the cause of death was most likely blunt force trauma to the
skull although he couldn't be certain wow when asked about the rope that was tied tightly around her neck he told
reporters I doubt if strangulation was the cause of death I'm inclined to believe death was due to blows on the
head it appears miss Corbin was not knocked to the floor and the injuries to her head indicate she could have been
hit by a club or her head banged against the floor oh god there was no evidence of sexual assault and the office hadn't
been Disturbed at all indicating that robbery was definitely not the motive it was Anna to kill her to investigators
the murder was I guess what they deemed it as like kind of ordinary for this time period And I guess this uh
environment right meaning there wasn't anything that stood out to them as like a signature kind of thing besides the
Rope yeah but they also didn't think that made it any easier to solve it was like this is kind of like somebody was
unfortunately beaten to death in a job where like you know there's a lot of people around her that are crial so this
makes it harder for us to solve and there's really nothing that's like standing out as like oh I bet it's this
kid because of this thing it could be anybody now at the time there were 657 boys being housed at the school wow
most of them have committed criminal offenses obviously and as far as authorities were concerned any of them
could have been the killer now based on the state of the room detectives theorized Anna had been attacked and
then quote dragged through the supply room and into the adjoining store room because there was blood spatter and
significant blood Trails leading from one room to the next my God however an initial search of the scene didn't turn
up a murder weapon there were no bloody clothes and in the absence of any obvious Clues to point out who could
have done this investigators began the very long and tedious process of interviewing all
657 residents holy [ __ ] and scrutinizing their clothes their hands their fingernails for any blood or trace
evidence this particular murder really shook everyone up and according to a group of Anna's closest friends during a
recent outing with them she had told them about a disturbing incident with one of the boys that seemed a little
significant in the wake of her death uh-huh according to Anna she had been working alone in the administration
building with a boy assigned as her Helper and that boy turned her and said are you afraid to be with with me alone
in here and when she said no I'm not the boy proceeded to tell her how easy it would be for him to kill her and even
described how he would do it I'd be like so we're going to go ahead and move on to the next area now according to Anna's
friends they said it bore a remarkable similarity to the way she had been killed and disposed in the closet oh
investigators located this boy who had supposedly made this threat but at the time of the murder he was actually in
solitary confinement because he had tried to escape a week earlier okay so he was like I was in this room
terrifying that two people within that school had very similar ideas yeah just thoughts of that now according to those
who knew her Anna Corbin had no enemies and she had not been involved with any men since her husband had died 3 years
earlier so she was she hadn't gone dates she wasn't dating anyone grieving superintendent Chandler told reporters
it is inconceivable to even think one of the boys here could possibly have disliked her as much as to commit this
crime so even they're like this doesn't make any sense like she did nothing yet Chandler nonetheless acknowledged that
the killer was almost certainly one of the students and even suspected that two students might have been responsible for
the murder oh investigators shared Chandler's belief that the killer was definitely a student and after clearing
the staff and teachers they narrowed their focus um basically I think they were naring it
down to a a much smaller group of boys at this point it was basically boys that would have had access to the
administration building on that particular morning okay I mean that seems like a good lead to follow exactly
now authorities investigated Anna's murder while news of the death had reached the wider public and quickly be
became a political talking point for those who opposed the more Progressive policies of both the school and the
California Juvenile Justice System system basically people who don't want you know um criminals to be treated as
anything less than animals kind of and especially kids y like why not treat them like animals too yeah totally um in
a press conference held just days after the murder Amador County Supervisor Harold cor Coburn told reporters he
would quote press a demand for a grand jury investigation in the case and as far as he was concerned Anna's death was
as much the result of the LAX policies of the California Youth Authority as it was the individual who actually
did it doesn't sound like the policies were that locks I didn't it didn't sound like it to me but they were projecting
that idea out that's the thing to politicize it at the time a lot of Anna's family members shared that
sentiment which you can understand absolutely now other politicians however were strongly disagreeing um Amador
County district attorney guard Chism told reporters it will not at this time Aid in any way in the investigation to
think that way okay now most County Supervisors and others in positions of political power sided with the district
attorney basically saying that as an active participant in the investigation he knew best yeah but still Anna's
family and those critical um critical of the school itself continued building a campaign to hold the school and what
they believed to be its failed approach to Justice responsible because I get it like that's it's tough yeah it's like CU
if you look at you can see both Ides here I understand why her family wanted to hold that school responsible I
probably would have done the exact same thing that's my exact thought so it's like I get it but then you see the other
side of it where it's like yeah so it makes sense right Anna's nephew Herbert Morris said in a statement to the Press
I do not Harbor any animosity nor am I out to gain revenue for the brutal murder but the situation of laxity and
the operation of the Reformatory has existed a long time and maybe this will wake up officials expenses of the school
to the have doubled in the last few years while conditions have become increasingly
worse and that's a problem and I think that's what they're more concerned about kind of going with is like this isn't
the progressive School you were talking about before where like everybody's being treated like a human and stuff
like you guys are preaching this whole thing but the conditions there are deplorable right you're whipping these
kids beating these kids treating them like animals but then touting this Progressive approach to reform and it's
like you got to get your [ __ ] together or is it the other yeah you're making animals in there what do you expect
animals to do is basically what they're saying like you got to fix this yeah which I agree I agree now while their
grief and frustration over Anna's death was obviously very genuine it's worth noting that the anti- Preston political
rhetoric coming from certain politicians not Anna's family and P you know certain
segments of the public were typically framed in ideological terms terms and seemed more often focused on how
criminals should be treated yeah instead of focusing on the specific investigation into Anna's death right
they were using the family was trying to say we need to look into this my family
member's death and what the school has to do to make sure this doesn't happen again and politicians were using it as
their own little platform to as a whole talk about criminal reform like a a bird's eye view of it all yeah and get
their agenda across now whatever rhetorical battle was happening on the outside really had little effect on the
investigators they were like we still have a murder to solve yeah that's kind of our primary focus here good luck with
your campaign like bye uh but they narrowed the pool of suspects from 600 to 20 wow um and intensive interviews
were done polygraph tests were administered and they weren't really getting any closer to the truth uh guard
Chism told reporters in a press conference we haven't got a thing to hang our hats on oh no the district
attorney added that the evidence collected from the scene which included seven bloody fingerprints had proven to
be little use to getting a suspect that's a bummer among the 20 boys considered to be suspects was one who
admitted to the crime but later denied that and recanted it and another whose polygraph results showed deception
regarding his whereabouts during the murder but School administrators were quick to add that they didn't think
either boy was actually the killer they just didn't have anything with it and the polygraph like we know is tough hot
dog um so the break in the case came about a week later okay when doing a room by room search investigators
discovered a bloody Preston uniform hidden in the bedroom of 19-year-old Eugene Monroe he was a student who was
among those regularly assigned to work with Anne Anna excuse me Monroe had been sent to the school about 6 months
earlier after a conviction for burglary in Los Angeles and in addition to the bloody uniform he took a polygraph and
it showed repeated attempts at Deception so like when when paired along with it it makes your your eyebrow go up that's
the thing also during further interviews several of the other boys at Preston admitted to investigators that they had
known of Monroe's involvement in the murder but been afraid to come forward okay so we're heating up in the
investigation here so it turned out this was not the first time Eugene had been a
suspect in a murder case oh okay we're really ramping this up 3 years earlier in 1947 Monroe was the prime suspect in
the murder of 17-year-old vestel vestel sapenter who was an honor student and res of the housing project where Monroe
also lived like Anna Corbin sapenter was brutally beaten about the head and face
and had a rope tightly wrapped around her neck using the same square knot as the Rope found around Anna's neck so
that's ano right there she was found by her 14-year-old brother carile who was coming home from the playground oh my
God she was found partially nude in her own bedroom and they think she was attacked while she was just hanging up
like uh shap on her window Jesus Christ yeah um Monroe had delivered Furniture to the residents on the day of the
murder and according to Vesta younger youngest brother Carlile Eugene had returned to the apartment later that
afternoon but the boy didn't know why right in the case of vesta's murder the sheriff's department wasn't able to
corroborate the brother's story or find sufficient evidence to connect Monroe definitively to the crime but Lieutenant
RR copage told reporters he always believed Monroe was guilty of the murder and felt the investigators were right on
the right track with the Corbin case he said he was like I you better keep following that lead and he was actually
quoted as saying about the Vesta murder he said I'm am certain this boy did the job but we were just never able to prove
it he was the only one in the house at the time and had ample time to commit the ACT wow I wonder why they were never
able to prove it I think they just couldn't get physical evidence which that's so tough especially just have a
14-year-old saying that he saw him right and the other Witnesses the murder victim just the fact that nobody was
there yeah damn now Eugene Monroe was arrested on March 1st 1950 though he vehemently denied any involvement in
Anna Corbin's murder two days later district attorney guard Chisum filed former formal murder charges against him
and he was transferred from Preston to the county jail to await a preliminary of like hard falling all over my words
heing the following week now on March 10th 1950 Eugene Monroe appeared before Justice of the peach peach that's cute I
am the justice of this Peach I want to be a Justice of the peach how cute would that be like I love peaches so I'll be
the Justice of the peach PE are so cute they are and they smell good and then you'd kind of be a Justice of the booty
at the same time it's a nice little double dipping yeah uh but unfortunately he did not appear before a Justice of
the peach it was a appeared before a Justice of the Peace LP Gard uh this was for his preliminary hearing among those
who testified before the court was 17-year-old Preston student Jack Mercer who testified that not only had Monroe
told him two days before the killing that he attended intended to attack Anna but also that he witnessed the
murder Mercer said on the stand quote Mrs Corbin started to reach for the telephone but he knocked her back into a
chair Mercer claimed he wanted to help Anna but he was scared and instead did nothing
when Monroe's attorney Nathaniel Coley asked why the boy didn't report the crime to the police Mercer claimed
Monroe had told him quote if you tell anyone you will wish you were dead oh [ __ ] and in the environment he was in
snitches get stitches and I can understand why this child was terrified you see this man do this like
obviously you wish this kid would have said something and as an adult I'm like say something kid but I don't know what
that environment was like that kid was trying to save his own skin he was terrified of what would happen and again
he's not an adult with like rational thinking skills exactly and who know I sounds like it was really bad in there
so it's like I he was living in a state of fear constantly you're going you're thinking that's going to happen to me if
I say anything he's talking now right at least he eventually came through now in
his closing statement Coy asked that the charges against his client be dropped claiming that the evidence and hearsay
testimony were insufficient to hold Monroe he said quote in the haste to get a conviction we should not rush this man
to trial Justice of the Peace G genhart um overruled the motion and Monroe was bound for trial in the Superior Court
good his trial was set to begin April 24th but just weeks before the start date Jack Mercer threw a little
curveball cuz he recanted his entire statement about what he'd heard and seen [ __ ] did someone get to him yeah me
thinks yeah in a statement provided to the Press by his b by Monroe's lawyer Nathaniel Coley Mercer wrote quote the
testimony I gave in court was not true Monroe never told me that he was going to kill Mrs Corbin and I never saw him
hit her that sounds like somebody sounds like he had some friends that were working in the background for him
according to Coley Mercer only told investigators he'd seen Monroe kill Anna because they promised to release him
from Preston if he did so but he decided to tell the truth once he realized they
weren't going to live live up to that and also quote to clear his conscience before an expected visit from his
mother I don't know about any of this now arguing that Mercer's testimony at the preliminary hearing had been the
only real evidence that District Attorneys had against menroe Coy announced his intention to move that the
charges against his client be dropped oh [ __ ] despite Mercer recanting his statement district attorney Chisum was
undeterred he was like no we're going forward and Chisum told the press it is all right for Coy to make these
statements he represents the defendant I'm convinced Monroe is guilty and even without Mercer's statement we would have
a case I'm also convinced Mercer will tell the same story at the trial that he told at the preliminary hearing huh so
he's saying that's really cute that you have a statement from him when he sits on the stand I think he'll tell the same
story that he told and that's interesting that he was sounded at least very confident in that statement and in
his opening statement at the trial Chism laid out the case for the jury in detailed terms Eugene Monroe was the the
only one who had been alone with Anna that morning and he was the only one who had the opportunity to commit that
murder also when they searched when roose's room investigators found the Preston uniform covered in blood that
was a match for Anna's blood type okay and they had a statement from another boy that Eugene had tried to get him to
burn that uniform the [ __ ] finally there was Mercer's statement that he'd seen
Monroe kill Anna just days after the young man had told him that he intended to do so among the witnesses called by
the prosecution were a number of Preston staff and residents including a bunch of
boys who'd seen Monroe go to Anna's office that morning and when they saw him later that day he quote appeared to
be worried about something a girl the most important witness though was Jack Mercer what did he who did indeed
testify that he had seen Eugene Monroe kill Anna corbman which makes you wonder did he get offered some kind of
protection for you know staying true to his original statement it's like he's on
the stand he knows he's got to tell the truth sworn testimony oh my God isn't this wild and
his mom had visited him so I wonder if he was able to talk to her and she was like you have to tell the truth she was
like you got to sit up there and tell the truth right now Nathaniel CO's defense strategy was pretty simple the
police arrested the wrong person okay in his testimony Eugene described his movements that day on the day of the
murder claiming he'd seen Anna twice that morning but was never alone with her testifying for the defense State
criminologist David bird told the jury that they had interviewed at least 20 boys who they believed could have been
capable of the crime and when they examine the clothes of those boys quote there was more more blood on some of
those garments than on the garments of Monroe do you have them yeah I'm like can you prove that did the blood match
the blood type of the victim as for the blood of Monroe's clothes co co and Monroe said that he had cut his hand
that morning either in the shoe shop or the slaughterhouse but neither the instructor in the shoe shop or in the
slaughterhouse recalled him cutting his hand ever they were like you don't recall which it was and if it was that
bad to have that much blood on your uniform cut you're using two different things in both of those thing like did
you cut it with a saw or did you cut it did you cut it with this like and to cut
it that intensely you don't remember where there's blood all over your uniform right and the instructors are
like no that didn't happen and also are you the same blood type as she is I'd interested to hear now after a brief
deliberation the jury reported to the judge that they were unable to reach a verdict and were hopelessly deadlocked I
can understand why it would be tough to reach a verdict in this case to a degree
because this is a child yeah and I'm sure that Wasing on them and when you find out more about Eugene you're going
to go absolutely he got away with this right but back then not knowing what we know now and what you will know soon is
like I can understand that but sitting on that jury I don't I think they got a good amount of evidence but you know I
could see why there would still be a doubt especially when there was 20 other boys yeah well in eight jury jurors were
in favor of a conviction and four were in favor of an acquittal and after the jury confirmed quote they would come up
with the same vote if they voted for years Yik judge Ralph McGee declared a mistrial and excused the jury what are
you about to tell me now guard Chisum said that's fine we're going to retry him like he was like [ __ ] that I love
how determined this man is he was like let's go Eugene Monroe's second trial began in Amador County on June 11th 1950
same judge same prosecutor same defense um different jury different jury among the hurdles with the previous case was
the lack of motive for Anis Mo uh murder that was the problem that they were really facing in that one and the jury
was like I don't know what the motive is what was the motive with the unsolved murder of the girl that he may have been
connected to it's true but that's the thing it's like if you don't have a motive and it's a little shaky that will
really count a lot more it's like if you have a motive and the rest is shaky you
can you can kind of talk up the motive a little more no motive and some shaky evidence is like I don't feel good about
that so the second time around Chisum was determined to get a motive in Hope of securing this conviction in his
testimony at the second trial Jack Mercer our our guy Jack over there definitely got claimed Monroe had quote
beat and GED Anna to death in her office because she had caught Monroe and himself in what he referred to as a
degenerate act oh no although this information had been known to the prosecution and the defense in the first
trial the jury never learned of the motive because Mercer was told by judge McGee that quote he need not answer
anything humiliating or degrading which and then you wonder if that's why he recanted his original statement because
he knew it was going to get further this time though Jack was willing to give a detailed chronological account of the
events leading up to the murder okay and this is like upsetting because it's it's
just like it's it's sad and it's literally like this is what life was like oh God for these kids okay now
according to Mercer the day before the murder he was propositioned for sex by Monroe and Jack declined but Eugene
responded all right I'll make it rough on you oh indicating that if he wasn't willingly going to he would retaliate
with violence Jack was scared and he didn't want any trouble so he said he finally agreed and the two engaged in in
that in the empty Sunday school room but this was also like not consensual for Jack no obviously like he was agreeing
out of fear he just didn't want any trouble so he was raped that's not consensual exactly so Eugene raped him
um and that's where they were discovered by Anna according to Jack now shocked Anna left the room and made her way down
the hall to get a male staff member but she was pursued by Monroe who reached her just as she got her office door to
her office door and quote according to Jack quote he hit her several times on the face and head and he told the jury
then Eugene tied a rope around her neck and dragged her into the closet which is
when Mercer fled in fear in fear oh God now Chisum was certain that once they learned of the motive for the murder the
jury would have no trouble finding Monroe guilty but after days of deliberation the jury inir formed judge
McGee they were deadlocked this time 11 in favor of conviction and one hold out you wanted oh who is that hold me and
again a mistrial was declared undeterred though Chisum tried Eugene Monroe for a third time this
[ __ ] now unfortunately by then the facts of the case became a little muddled Mercer's testimony was getting
more like intense and Confused the jury in the third trial was also unable to arrive at a unanimous decision and in
October 1950 a third mistrial was declared and is he going to go for a fourth he said he figured a fourth was
just going to have the same outcome so Chisum declined to pursue it any further the day after the third mistrial was
declared the day after the third mistrial was declared the California Youth Authority announced they would
parole Eugene Monroe I'm I'm sorry what within 60 days think that's going to end he was
just on trial for murder what the [ __ ] and he was a main suspect in a murder before he even got here what compelled
you to parole him and both of those women were murdered in the exact same fashion with a the same knot in the same
GED uh I think it was like um a square piece of rope okay yeah a square knot you're correct and why why do you think
they do you think they paroled him so that he didn't cause any more trouble at the Preston school so that they didn't
get any more bad press in his statement to pre to the Press director of California Youth Authority Carl Holton
said before the murder charge was placed on on Monroe he had an excellent record
at Preston undoubtedly he would have been paroled at this time if the charge had not been
placed but it was and and that's a big [ __ ] charge um so he was free from prison and he left the state in 1950 for
Tulsa Oklahoma where the following year he was arrested and convicted for the rape and murder of 22-year-old pregnant
woman Dorothy Waldrop oh my God Dorothy was a former dance teacher and the wife of Robert Waldrop a taxi driver like
Vesta and Anna Corbin Waldrop was found with a GED uh hemp rope knotted around her neck
she had been literally taken out of her home and killed and disposed on a hill near near her apartment her husband had
come home from work at like 1:00 a.m. and found her missing in the door open now a book stories of the forgotten by
Jamie Rubio tells an even more in-depth Story of All of Eugene's life and deeds it's a very interesting read that person
also has a Blog entitled dreaming casually poetry where they talk a lot about this okay and they talk to some of
the family members and it's very interesting we l shocked now but when asked by the press for a comment Monroe
said it just seems like I am always in trouble even though I never did it oh yeah seems like you always are around
people get murdered and gred with rope that's the thing like three women were murdered and almost the exact same way
and you just happen to be a suspect in all of those murders I'm sorry where there's smoke and then there's smoke and
then there's smoke there's a blazing [ __ ] fire he 100% killed all these women and was he convicted for this
murder now now despite no he was but oh god um despite what he told the Press when
investigators found monro's fingerprints in waldrop's apartment he confessed to the murder were they ever able to go
back then and get the fingerprints this there were seven I don't think they were
able to are you [ __ ] kidding me me crazy that would have been like The Smoking Gun exactly he actually
confessed to the murder of Dorothy Waldrop and was sentenced to life in prison by a Tulsa jury but then never
confessed to the other two murders he was paroled in August 1981 for why yep he murdered a pre he raped excuse me and
murdered kidnapped raped and murdered a pregnant woman and he was paroled how this man who literally was paroled the
first time at 19 like a 19-year-old yeah paroled after being heavily suspected of
a murder twice two different murders and immediately upon exiting murders a pregnant woman in the same fashion and
you think it's smart to parole him like this [ __ ] very well made was like could have been a serial killer
yeah obviously we can't say for sure because he wasn't convicted but sounds to me like he was a serial killer and so
he was convicted of Dorothy's murder but led out of jail cuz why the [ __ ] not he
murdered a pregnant woman after kidnapping her out of her home but like yeah let's just let him back out and do
you don't know what terms he was paroled on no he was pared in August 19 81 and lived for a time in Tulsa which is where
he killed Dorothy by the way uh before returning to Los Angeles and he died there on October 3rd 2007 2007 holy [ __ ]
until 20 never being convicted of either Vesta or Anna's deaths and both of those
cases are unsolved technically quote unquote yeah you have to wonder like they should go back and look at that
time period that he was out of prison as well and see he W he didn't know seral killer these are strangers to him Vesta
and Dorothy complete Dorothy complete strangered to him what the [ __ ] like and
he just walked into these houses like Vesta supposedly he was delivering furniture or something like that but
still complete stranger came back later like afterwards and Dorothy complete stranger he just walked into her house
and kidnapped her and he took the blind like um he took the the pole cords from of her
blind like Venetian blinds and used that to Gat her as well I would be so interested to hear in the time after he
got pared in the time of his death if there was any more yeah I to me I'm like he killed again like that's what that's
how I feel I don't know isn't that wild the fact that he was pared twice and the
fact that that school the California Youth Authority was like he was good understand what the problem is like he
was he's fine he was good until he right after he goes out someone like do you guys feel stupid now yeah now holy [ __ ]
wow so that blew my mind I was just going to say that's mind-blowing and the main campus of the Preston School of
industry was closed in the spring of 1960 10 years later and the residents relocated to other facilities on the
grounds and the school itself was shut down for good completely in June 2011 between 1960 and the closing
ceremony in 2011 a lot of the main building fell into dis repair and became popular with vandals and looters but the
building itself gained the protection of the National Historic regist register excuse me um in recent years because of
its architectural significance because remember it's a beautiful building yeah um so it can't be demolished uh since
1997 the main campus has been leased by the Preston Castle Foundation which is a
nonprofit organization whose mission is to preserve the buildings and promote the history and the heritage of of the
site the group spent the latter half of the 9s and early 2000s renovating the interior in order to make the building
safe right um and for the last decade or so they have tried to raise funds by among other things opening the campus to
the public for ghost tours now the organization regularly welcomes tour groups and even allows groups to pay an
additional fee in order to spend a night in the supposedly haunted castle guests
routinely report seeing orbs Spirits like full body apparitions wander the Halls a lot of a lot of like disembodied
voices and things caught um and many have claimed to see who they believe to be Anna Corbin herself oh wow now the
Preston Foundation board members Carl noock um was initially skeptical he told reporters if there are any ghosts here
they've never talked to me and that changed one evening when Carl and a friend were exploring the castle on
their own and both men said they clearly heard a dis bodied voice call Carl by name I love that they were like hey
skeptic yeah they were just like heyo and Carl was like all right damn so he came back and was like I stand corrected
now ghost tour guide Donnie pige was similarly skeptical at first they said until an incident happened to him in
2010 involving a strong gust of wind and an eerie feeling that scared him off for
6 weeks before he would even return wow now while the ghost tours and overnight stays are they're they're like supposed
to all be in good fun going with the more light-hearted stories from the past and using historic reenactors you know
things to scare people like it's supposed to be this light-hearted thing yeah tour guides do tell and share the
tragic history of the school and its residents according to the Sacramento B Donnie pagee quote Delights in telling
about the crude conditions early on in the infirmary and the cruelty and violence many of the boys experienced at
the hands of the guards um they said contrary to what they said at the time time um this is what Donnie told the
Sacramento be he said contrary to what they said at the time the boys were beaten severely punished and whipped and
thrown into solitary confinement so he's saying like they were projecting this whole image of progressive reform they
were just as bad um despite the playful tone and the theatricality of the events
held at Preston castle by telling and retelling the stories that are Preston's history the foundation manages to
provide a small consolation to those who like Anna Corbin died or suffered within
its walls because they keep their memories alive in the present which is at least a positive for that sure so
that is the story of the Preston School of industry and the murder of Anna Corbin Dorothy Waldrop and Vesta
sapenter that was a whirlwind and somebody truly needs to look into the time period that that [ __ ] was
out of jail I want to look into it let's go please do because I am not convinced
that he just was like let me just live my quiet life yeah violent dude yeah and there's no way those aren't no connected
no way like sorry no damn well pretty horrifying thank you for listening and we hope you keep it weird but that's a
way that you go to a boy school cuz that's scary I don't I don't want anybody to end up there yeah I hate it
all yeah reformed schools are [ __ ] scary don't send your kids there no just love them just love them just love them
just love your kids by [Music]

When it opened in 1894, the Preston School of Industry represented a change in how criminal offenders and wards of the state were treated in American society, shifting towards a more compassionate mission of reform over punishment. However, while the mission may have represented a more progressive approach to reforming young offenders, daily life for the young inmates was often as brutal as it would have been in an adult prison.

Thank you to the incredible Dave White of Bring Me The Ax Podcast and 99 Cent Rental for Research!

References

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. 2022. Cemetery Tales Preston holds remains of 18. October 24. Accessed December 22, 2023. https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/insidecdcr/2022/10/24/tales-from-the-cemetery-preston-holds-remains-of-18/.

Daily News. 1950. "Boys' school housekeeper murdered." Daily News, February 23: 1.

D'Souza, Karen. 2015. "Castle of shivers." Oakland Tribune, September 13: 67.

Grandbois, Ruth. 1950. "Housekeep at Preston School found murdered." Stockton Daily Evening Record, February 24: 1.

—. 1950. "Slaying victim 'like mother' to youths." Stockton Daily Evening Record, February 24: 1.

Long Beach Press-Telegram. 1950. "3 Ione School Inmates held after slaying ." Long Beach Press-Telegram, February 24: 1.

Lowery, James F. 1950. "Stained clothes of Ione suspect get blood test." Sacramento Bee, February 25: 1.

McClatchy Newspaper Service. 1950. "What kind of woman was slain Anna Corbin of Preston?" Sacramento Bee, February 27: 1.

McClatchy Newspapers Service. 1950. "Witness bares motive behind Preston killing." McClatchy Newspapers Service, June 15: 1.

—. 1950. "Inmate tells court he saw Preston killing." Sacramento Bee, March 10: 1.

McClatchy Newspapes Service. 1950. "Employees are cleared in Preston killing." Sacramento Bee, February 28: 1.

McManis, Sam. 2015. Discoveries: Ione’s Preston Castle opens up about its harsh, haunting past. June 28. Accessed December 21, 2023. https://www.sacbee.com/entertainment/living/travel/sam-mcmanis/article25499146.html.

Sacramento Bee. 1950. "Chief Preston killing witness changes story." Sacramento Bee, April 6: 41.

—. 1950. "Murder trial of Eugene Monroe is nearing close." Sacramento Bee, April 28: 1.

—. 1950. "Preston suspect was grilled in 1947 LA murder." Sacramento Bee, March 6: 1.

—. 1950. "Prosecutor plans parade of witnesses in Monroe trial." Sacramento Bee, April 26: 10.

—. 1950. "Youth Authority decides to free Preston inmate." Sacramento Bee, October 20: 1.

Sacramento Union. 1951. "Eugene Monroe, Preston parole, confesses sex-murder in Tulsa." Sacramento Union, July 28: 1.

Sacremento Daily Record-Union. 1889. "The reform school." Sacremento Daily Record-Union, February 16: 8.

San Francisco Examiner. 1894. "Preston School of Industry." San Francisco Examiner, August 6: 3.

Valley News Service. 1950. "State planning to reopen case against Monroe." Sacramento Union, April 30: 1.

Wilson, Stanley. 1950. "LA inmate is chief suspect in Ione killing." Sacramento Bee, March 1: 1.

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Brief Summary

The episode covers the Preston School of Industry's dark history and the unresolved murder of Anna Corbin by a student named Eugene Monroe.

Key points

Emotional Turmoil from TV. Elena shares her reaction to a shocking episode of 'Fall of the House of Usher'.
Haunted History of Preston Castle. Exploring the dark past of Preston Castle and its haunted reputation.
The Preston School of Industry. Aimed to reform wayward boys through education and vocational training.
Anna Corbin's Murder. The shocking murder of a beloved housekeeper at the Preston School.
Investigators Narrow Down Suspects. Authorities focused on a smaller group of boys with access to the administration building.
Eugene Monroe's Bloody Discovery. A bloody Preston uniform was found in Eugene Monroe's bedroom, linking him to the murder.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Never say I'll just lay here for a couple more minutes.

Discussing the dangers of oversleeping.

0:56WatchJan 18, 2024

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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