Writing for Wikipedia: a collaborative task for Year 9 English students
I’ve long been a fan of Wikipedia, which is almost certainly ‘the last best place on the Internet.’ I’m also a big believer in giving students more authentic writing tasks than the deathly boring ‘text response essay’ that they are usually asked to write in English. I therefore thought it would be an interesting task for my Year 9 English class to all pitch in and write their own Wikipedia page after we’d been studying the narrative fiction podcast The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, based on a short novel b y H.P. Lovecraft, and the first of three seasons in the podcast series The Lovecraft Investigations. As those last two links indicate, Wikipedia pages already exist for the existing novel and the overall podcast series, but there isn’t one for the specific season. Or, rather, now there is a Wikipedia page for it, only it’s here (below) rather than actually on Wikipedia. You may notice some inconsistencies in style as each student has written a different section, even though the aim was to follow the guidelines provided by Wikipedia themselves. I’ve done some minor editing for style and to avoid repetition.
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (podcast)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is a series of audio podcasts, adapted from H.P. Lovecraft’s: The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. The podcast takes place on Rhode Island, taking the form of a modern mystery, and details the investigation into a “locked room mystery”. The podcast shares many similarities with the book.
The main cast consists of Matthew Heawood (played by Barnaby Kay), Kennedy Fisher (played by Jana Carpenter) and Dr Willet (played by Mark Bazeley). The podcast is directed and written by Julian Simpson and is produced by Karen Rose. Furthermore, all the music in the podcast is made by Tim Elsenburg. The podcast first appeared on 23 November 2018, with the first every episode being an introduction to the podcast and what it is about. Tim Elsenburg also made the sound effects using creative ways to make different sounds.
The podcast is further continued in two other seasons (the audience still follows Matthew and Kennedy), detailing into secret government operations. In total there are 35 episodes (including the bonus episodes. It is also designed to sound real, with false ad breaks in between, and fake sponsorships. The podcast even states that it is part of (fictional) “Red Hook Stores” (this references a work by H.P. Lovecraft named “The Horror at Red Hook”).
During the taping of the podcasts the crew were subjected to many different recording locations, such as a diner, an underground tunnel, a room that was used to record interviews, etc.
Born in 6th of March 1972, the director and author of the podcast, Julian Simpson, is most well known for being Chief of Staff at IAG. Julian Simpson is a London-based British writer and has worked in film, television, and audio. Julian Simpson has also created an innerweb of stories, set in the “Pleasant Green Universe”. Each and every podcast Julian works on contributes, and can fit into the “Pleasant Green Universe”. The first entry in this alternate universe came in 31th August 2007, titled “Fragments”. The universe expanded with different entries, such as: “Bad Memories”, “Fugue State”, “Mythos”, “The Lovecraft Investigations”, and finally, the most recent entry in 18th February 2022, “Who is Aldrich Kemp?”.
Julian Simpson has also directed 14 separate television series, with 5 of them being nominated for film awards, with four out of five winning awards. The television series are as follows: Cutting Edge: “I Confess” (director), Murder Prevention (director of episodes 3 and 4), In Divine Proportion, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries: “Word of God” (director), Spooks (director of series 4, episodes 9 and 10), Spooks (director of series 5, episodes 3 and 8 and was the writer of episode 8), Final Curtain (director), Superstorm, Hotel Babylon (director of series 3, episodes 1, 2, and 3), Hustle (director of series 5, episodes 3 and 4), Dead Man Talking (director and writer), Doctor Who (director of episodes “The Almost People” and “The Rebel Flesh”), Live Another Day (2nd unit director), and New Tricks (director of 17 episodes).
Premise
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (adapted by Julian Simpson) is a fictional true-crime podcast that mainly takes place in Rhode Island in the USA as well as other areas within Europe. The two main characters, Matthew Heawood and Kennedy Fisher, follow the case of Charles Dexter Ward, a man who vanished from an insane asylum. The two find that they have enveloped themselves into the affairs of a cult revolving around a mysterious being.
Barnaby Kaye is Matthew Heawood, the host of “The Mystery Machine” and one of two main characters. He discovers Charles Dexter Ward’s disappearance and finds out shocking things about his heritage and his origins. He is intertwined in the affairs of Ipqu Aya’s cult and suffers dire consequences from this.
Jana Carpenter is Kennedy Fisher, the investigator for the podcast and one of two main characters. She investigates Charles Dexter Ward and affairs dealing with Ipqu Aya’s cult.
Samuel Barnett plays Charles Dexter Ward, the person who vanished from the insane asylum and the focus of the podcast. Charles is the descendant of Joseph Curwen and is used as a vessel for Ipqu Aya.
Ipqu Aya is an evil necrotic sorcerer that the cult centers around. He found the answer to immortality by using another person of his bloodline as a vessel and possessing them.
Characters
Matthew Heawood
Matthew Heawood is the co-host of the podcast “The Mystery Machine” alongside Kennedy Fisher. He is the head of operations for this podcast however does little hands-on work at the start of the series. He is a curious character in that he is intrigued by the case of Charles Dexter Ward. He has had experience in mystery cases from his previous experience on the “Mystery Machine” podcasts. He is very realistic and is intellectual as well. This curiosity leads him to take up the case of Charles Dexter Ward and sends his friend co-host Kennedy Fisher to America to investigate Charles Dexter Ward’s background. He, on the other hand, feels the need to help with Kennedy as he feels as though he is not pulling his weight for the podcast.
He goes to help Kennedy by meeting an occultist, Amelia Fenner, that had relation to another occultist, Joseph Curwen, a leader of some cults, who Charles Dexter Ward had believed was his grandfather. The occultist had said many things about the occult and what it did for their rituals. Matthew Heawood took this with a grain of salt however and focused on the facts that she said. However how much she said about how the rituals felt otherworldly, but he could not believe her and was sceptical about the rituals and wished to focus on material things.
He is sceptical about the occult and even more about the existence of higher beings. He is frank and is only focused on the facts of what happens and not the maybes. He is hospitalised after getting knocked unconscious by a few henchmen from Charles Dexter Ward’s great uncle for investigating. After regaining consciousness, he fears what might happen. This is a given after getting thrashed by the henchmen. However, his persistence prevails over this fear, and he continues onwards with the podcast. Though this persistence is on the borderline of stubbornness.
This stubbornness is what makes him not open to the fact that these occultists that believe in something higher and that this faith is what makes them commit acts such as rituals.
A meeting with a historian named Eleanor Peck opens up his mindset slightly. She gives Matthew insight into how believers operate and that however ridiculous it sounds he must understand their perspective as well. His stubbornness eases a little and his realist opinion of the occultists also eases. He remains sceptical but understands that he should at least try to comprehend things different beliefs. After this a stream of inexplicable events happens and he is on the verge of breaking apart mentally. However, he perseveres and tries to understand everything that is happening.
Matthew Heawood has met a lot of people in his search for answers in the case of Charles Dexter Ward. Throughout the 10 episodes of this podcast Matthew Heawood is shown to be a curious and very calm and blunt person. However, his curiosity has put him and Kennedy Fisher — someone he cares a lot for — in hot water with the believers of Ipqu Aya. He has also met a lot of new people, some of whom aren’t what they seem to be. Notable characters Matthew meets are Elanor Peck, George Shepley (Dr Allen), and Ezra Whedon.
Matthew Heawood has a partner-like relation with Kennedy Fisher. He usually acts very relaxed and professional when he is interacting with Kennedy. This is shown various times by his tone when recording or investigating with Kennedy. He treats Kennedy like an equal, and this can be seen in episode 2 when he says to Kennedy, “No, you absolutely should. Every indication is that this woman is not — You should not go back in there alone.” This can also show another side of Matthew’s relationship with Kennedy. Matthew also has a lot of trust and faith in Kennedy’s abilities and wits, and this can be shown in a lot of the podcast. Whether it being letting Kennedy investigate by herself or let her take actions into her own hand or her credibility as his partner. An example of this is in episode 10 when Matthew says, “I trust that Kennedy believes she saw those things.”
Kennedy Fisher is also the character that spends with the time with Matthew Heawood and thus they build a stronger relationship throughout the podcast. Matthew acts a calm and collected around Kennedy, but in moments where Kennedy is in danger or hurt, he acted a bit more compassionate. He is also somewhat sceptical of George Shepley which shows that he looks out for Kennedy. Although Matthew doesn’t show it through his calm and somewhat straight to the point personality, he truly cares for Kennedy.
Matthew Heawood has two in-depth conversations with Eleanor Peck. In both Matthew is very attentive and curious when talking with Eleanor Peck. He always asks questions and for clarifications from her. This shows Matthew’s passion and curiosity to the case of Charles Dexter Ward. But it is also shown that he sometimes feels outwitted or insecure about the lack of knowledge he has surrounding the information he has about Ipqu Aya and his case compared to Eleanor Peck. His relationship with Eleanor is a mutual one as both of them have a common interest of Ipqu Aya.
Ezra Whedon is the policeman Kennedy had gone to for help surrounding the case. Naturally since Matthew Heawood has a lot of trust in Kennedy, he would trust the people that had helped Kennedy. This mutual trust that Matthew has with Ezra and Ezra’s status, prevents Mathew from being somewhat sceptical of Ezra’s true motives, unlike with George Shepley.
Matthew also interacts with characters like Godfrey Tillinghast and Dr Willet where he shows he straight the point and was very persistent with his goals while being calm. He earnt some kind of trust with these characters and got what he wants from them being more time to speak with Dr Willet from Godfrey, and more information for the case with Dr Willet.
Kennedy Fisher
Kennedy Fisher, co-host and also the investigator extraordinaire of “The Mystery Machine,” is a resourceful and determined main character throughout the podcast.
In episode 1 we are given a brief overview of Kennedy Fisher. The episode covers her job in the podcast. Fisher is known to be talkative, and even a debater, some would say. In one of the parts in the first episode, we are seen Kennedy talking with Charles’s principal, Clare Rushmore. The principal refuses to leak information on Charles when it came to his behaviour and characteristics. However, Fisher confronts this and answers with, “You talked to the police, Mrs. Rushmore. When they were investigating the disappearance of Charles Ward.” She somehow finds excuses/tricks to get words out of tough people. She also answers with “So it’s a matter of public record. I’m not asking you to tell me what you didn’t tell them.” This sentence further strengthens her point. Ultimately, Mrs. Rushmore couldn’t be reluctant, and had to give Fisher information on Charles Dexter Ward.
In another scene in the first episode of the podcast, Kennedy visits Sylvester Birtwhistle. This is where she goes to see where Charles had once lived. She interacts with Sylvester in a kindly and friendly manner. She carefully observes the house, taking notes and also connecting observations and findings together. It is clear that she was observant “when I heard the noise and I turned around I could swear there was someone there…” Her eyes were pealed and ready to catch anything that was not right. When in doubt, she would always find answers to them.
In episode 2, Fisher appears in most of the scenes. Starting off, she goes to meet Barbara Sayers. Sayers was Charles’s tutor after he had left school in 2007. Instead of going straight to her question, Kennedy starts the conversation normally. This is a good tactic. This is because she makes Barbara comfortable to speak with her. She starts off with “It’s really nice. Comfortable. Thank you. I like the tray.” Barbara later bfeels secure to answer questions Kennedy Fisher askes. Barbara does later become covert in her answers; however, Fisher fights back and further interrogates Sayers. This can be called the “debating side” of Kennedy.
In one of the scenes, a call with Heawood she acts a little stubborn, a little arrogant people would say. When Matthew Heawood asks whether she was going to go to dinner with George Shepley, she answers with; “Well, it’s none of your business.” And “Did I dial the wrong number? Is this a relationship counselling session?” She acts a little flamboyant here and a bit rudely.
In the third episode Kennedy goes to visit Barbara Sayers with George Shepley, however Sayers’ House is on fire. Late in the episode she goes to meet Ezra Whedon. He was an “arresting officer” back in the 1980’s. She starts off talking about his house and how they were both into coffee. “So long as I can get it iced with a splash of almond milk.” Whedon answers with “Oh, you’re yanking my chain. You and I are going to get along just fine.” She does this same strategy when first encountering Barbara Sayers. Making the visitor feel comfortable to speak with her.
She further interrogates Ezra and at one point actually jogs up his memory. “Well, now I think I may remember that siege you’re talking about.” She does this by providing background information. Kennedy is very knowledgeable on what she talks about. Jogging Ezra’s memory is vital, as she gets a lot of information that is needed. Later on, she analyses what she has gathered, and finds out more information about Joseph Curwen.
Throughout out episode 4 of “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”, Kennedy Fisher is not present in most of the episode, as Heawood takes most of the podcast. She only appears when Matthew talks to her about the chat, he had with Eleanor Peck. During the conversation Kennedy remarks “That’d be like finding out your grandma was borking Jim Morrison.” Fisher out of nowhere comes up with a joke. This is not expected as she is a very serious character, but a humour side of her was opened. Interrogation is a key part of Kennedy and is highly demonstrated again “Do you think Willett has begun to agree with this? As if he started thinking that the ward was riding something? And was he really dangerous?”
Kennedy starts of episode 5 with a letter she finds, written by Charles to Dr Willett. Later on, Fisher reaches Dr Allen, a person she wanted to talk to. She is rejected as Allan has an appointment to visit. Kenney doesn’t give up and further follows him.
At one point in the interview Kennedy has with Dr Allen, Allen excuses himself to make a phone call. Fisher sees an opportunity to takes some notes of Dr Willet’s (that were in a box). “So that was a pretty clear sign, right? He left me alone with the box. I couldn’t take anything, but I found the letter and I took a scan of it on my phone.” Here she was cunning but smart, Fisher knew when exactly to take the opportunity.
In episode 6, Kennedy investigates the Devil Park trailer park that Charles was said to have performed his experiments in. She goes to the cabin and finds a trapdoor into the tunnels that were leftover in the Joseph Curwen siege. Kennedy falls down the trapdoor into the tunnels and then the trapdoor and ladder out disappear. She then explores, finds a creature trapped under a trapdoor and then screams before the episode ends.
Kennedy is absent from episode 7, but Matthew frequently states his worries about her.
In episode 8, it is revealed that Ezra Whedon went down into the tunnels to save Kennedy. Kennedy then sends George Shepley to Dr Lyman while she and Ezra go back to the trailer park to investigate the tunnels together. They find the tunnels doused in gasoline and then are forced to run as the gasoline is ignited by Dr Allen. They then find Al Treggore, the manager of the trailer park, dead. After that, Kennedy is out for dinner with George Shepley, when Ezra calls her and reveals that George is suspicious, most likely killed Lyman, and isn’t the school librarian.
In episode 9, Barbara Sayers joins George and Kennedy, and they move from the restaurant. George/Dr Allen reveal that they were behind the funding of the Mystery Machine, and then he and Barbara attempt to recruit Kennedy into their cause. Kennedy denies their invitation.
In episode 10, Kennedy has returned to the UK to meet with Matthew again. Ezra says that he tracked Kennedy, Barbara and George and broke in to the motel where they were performing a ritual. There, Kennedy was ‘catatonic’, ‘non-responsive’. Kennedy then talks to Matthew about Melody and Destiny Cartwright. Kennedy also talks about her experience with the thing she found in the tunnel, as well as the rituals that George and Barbara performed. She talks about her wonder at the creature that she found. After this, Matthew loses track of Kennedy, to later get called that Kennedy and Ezra are in Baghdad, tracking down Melody Cartwright.
With regard to Kennedy’s interactions with other characters, Kennedy is Matthew Heawood’s fellow journalist working on “The Mystery Machine.” Clearly they both care for each other, as Matthew shows concern for Kennedy after the events of episode 6 and episode 10.
Kennedy interviews Ezra Whedon and he provides lots of information about the Joseph Curwen siege. Later on in the series, Ezra helps out Kennedy when she gets trapped in the tunnels, and also investigates the tunnels again before its lit alight. Ezra also rescues Kennedy from Barbara and Dr Allen, and also travels to Baghdad with Kennedy.
Kennedy interviews George Shepley, and he flirts with Kennedy frequently, asking her out to dinner and such. George then frequently works with Kennedy, and this ends up in George inviting her out to dinner and then revealing his identity as Dr Allan.
Kennedy interviews Barbara Sayers. In the interview, Barbara is friendly to Kennedy until she mentions Joseph Curwen.
Kennedy interviews Dr Lyman. Dr Lyman is somewhat hostile and wary towards Kennedy, but then ends up sharing lots of information and even an important letter from Charles Dexter Ward to Dr Willett.
Charles Dexter Ward
Charles Dexter Ward is the title character from the podcast The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, produced by Sweet Talk Productions. In the podcast, Ward is voiced by Samuel Barnet and Harry Kay. The original character of Charles Dexter Ward — although sharing some characteristics with HP Lovecraft himself — is thought to be based on William Lippitt Mauran, a real person that lived on Prospect Street[1]. Lovecraft lived nearby Mauran for a while, and he shares multiple similarities with book Charles, such as living in the same house, and being sick through their childhoods[1], among other similarities.
Early Life
Charles Dexter Ward was born in Providence, Rhode Island, sometime during 1995. Charles lived in a big house on Prospect Street, with his father Howard Philip Ward — who died in 2013 — and his mother, Sarah Tillinghast, who died in a car accident in 2011, a few months before Charles turned 17. Charles was a normal child who showed no signs mental illness, up until the summer of 2006 when he was 11 years old. Charles and his former friend Tyler Green were playing in their favourite location, a derelict house on Olney Street. It was up in the attic that they found a hollowed out section of the wall, which contained letters; correspondence between Barbra Sayers and Joseph Curwen. These letters appeared to be love letters, but upon closer inspection they also contained strange symbols and diagrams — occult information. Charles was obviously intrigued by these letters because he took them home, where he spent his days reading them and stopping seeing his friends. Something in those letters had changed Charles, and they triggered his spiral into mental illness, and obsession with occults.
When Charles was 17, he discovered that his mother’s father was not who she had told him it was, but Joseph Curwen. Barbra Sayers, the librarian at Charles’ school, having worked with Curwen before, told Charles that “[Curwen] was a great man”. Since Charles was already into the cults and magic, he quickly began to idolise Curwen, a big cult leader. Kennedy Fisher speculated that “if Curwen [was] as strange as he sounds, then maybe Charles Ward is acting weird as a kind of emulation”.
Education
Upon interview, the principal of the school that Charles attended until year 9 said that he “was a difficult boy”, but not in the sense that most children were difficult. He was neither bullied nor violent, but “there was a darkness to him” and “something about him the promoted disquiet”. “The other children seemed to sense it,” said the principal, and “[they] were afraid of him”.
Charles was kicked out of school in 2007, for reasons unknown. But Barbra Sayers; a fanatic cultist, who had presumably noticed Charles borrowing all those occult books and taken an interest in him, quit her job to become his private tutor. There she nurtured his dark side, teaching him about cults and Ipqu Aya (pronounced i-p-koo-ar-ya). When Charles is aged 15, Willet became concerned about the books Barbra Sayers was setting Charles for school, because they are presumably occult books.
Psychological counselling
When he started seeing Dr Willet — a psychologist — in year 8, he was already borrowing books about magic and cults. When Willet questioned him about what he was reading, Charles was very reluctant to tell him. By now, early psychological effects of these letters were becoming present in his home and school life.
Sometime before 2013, Charles began to see Dr Allen. They were most likely introduced through Barbra Sayers, and he and Charles started working on experiments. Dr Willet questions this, and Charles acts innocently, and gives answers that don’t match the question, gives short non-descriptive answers, or not answering at all. And then early one morning, Charles is discovered arguing with someone in his room. After listening for a while, his dad realises that Charles is arguing with himself. When his dad confronts him, Charles becomes abusive and punches his father in the jaw. Once again, Charles acts innocent when questioned, saying that he was asleep at that time.
Occult experiments
Later, likely due to the incessant pestering and questioning, Charles convinces his father that he doesn’t need Dr Willet, and switches to Dr Allen. Soon after, Charles gets kicked out of the house by his father and relocates his experiments to the Devils Reef Trailer Park. There he works with Dr Allen performing experiments and rituals in the tunnels beneath his trailer. Three years later, Dr Willet receives a disturbing letter from Charles. In it, Charles explains that he has had a change of mind. He said that he was grateful for how patient Dr Willet has been with the experiments in the tunnels have shown him that what he is doing will not be “for the good of everyone”, and he intends to destroy his work. However, when Dr Willet calls Charles about this, Charles is acting differently. He is no longer concerned about the experiments, but he states that “[he’s] become a new man. A different man”. It is inferred that Ipqu Aya is now possessing him, possibly to stop him from destroying his valuable work. Charles is admitted into the hospitable soon after.
Hospitalisation
The hospital is compared to Arkham Asylum by Kennedy Fisher when she visits there, trying to find out more about Charles. One of the guards tells her that Charles physically changed in the hospital during his time there. Before they admitted him, he had blonde, almost white hair, and he was tall. In the time he was there, his hair got darker, and he lost 3 inches of height. He also talked to himself, but the person he was talking to wasn’t him. He might be talking to Ipqu Aya, who was living inside of him, but it is never confirmed. The guard says that “the man who disappeared from the cell was not the same man [they] locked up”. Dr Willet also says from his cell in England that “it wasn’t [Charles]. It hadn’t been him for a long time”. This shows that possession Ipqu Aya comes with alterations in physique, not just the loss of sanity in the mind.
Disappearance and death
On Monday 6 March 2017, at the age of 22 and after a year in the hospital, Charles Dexter Ward disappeared from his locked cell. There was escape routes, and the police were satisfied that no one had let him out. But it turns out that he didn’t disappear. On the night of Sunday 5 March, Dr Jonathan Willet stabbed and killed Charles Dexter Ward, destroying Ipqu Aya’s host and turning Charles into ash.
Barbara Sayers
Barbara Sayers is a disciple of Joseph Curwen, also known as Ipqu Aya. She is described as tall, willowy, and much younger looking than her age by Kennedy Fisher.
Her story is often sequenced in the story to add more suspense to the plot and ongoings. The listeners during the first few initial encounters with her can tell that she is someone of suspicion, as she actively contradicts current findings, like calling Charles Dexter Ward a “Clever young boy” and “A delight to teach,” and following encounters build to the idea that she is and avid follower of the cult, with George Shepley (known as Dr Allen later) observing “That she’s a wiiitttcchhhh.” She owns the house with mysterious letters sent to it that Charles discovered, and her house burns down after Kennedy Fisher decides to go and try interview her again.
She briefly disappears in episode 4 but reappears in 5 when Ezra Whedon is asked to try and fill in the gaps of Barbara Sayers and does so quite fully. Ezra’s’ report states that:
Barbara Sayers left Rhode Island Province around the time of the siege.
Travels across the United States; some points of interest are New Orleans, San Francisco, Nevada, and New Mexico.
She is temporarily lost in 1984.
In 1986, she flies to France with no record of reason. Travels to the east to supposedly find the Necronomicon, from Istanbul to Morocco to Algeria to Egypt to Damascus to Iraq.
Flies back to London in 1987, again with no record.
In 1990 she gets a job as Lucy Hawthorne’s nanny.
Barbara Sayers then heads home to Rhode Island, enrols as a mature student studying ancient languages and gets the job at Charles Dexter Wards’ school as librarian in 2003.
In episode 9, her “sister” Melissa Talbot who stated earlier in the story (ep.3) that Barbara was the intelligent type as a child and always read books but is now revealed to have always been Barbara the entire time.
The final mentions of Barbara Sayers in season 1 are the final series of events, where she teams up with Dr Allen and kidnaps Kennedy Fisher to convert her over to the occult side by using a ritual, but eventually they are caught by Ezra Whedon who shoots Dr Allen dead and Barbara Sayers flees the scene to try and find the last remaining member of the Tillinghast line, Melody Cartwright.
Her role in the plot of the story is to act as a middle line of both modern and ancient times: a medium in the conflict of modernised person and ancient Mesopotamian, following Ipqu Aya but acting as a subordinate in the modern world, being able to search for heirs and other valuable artefacts and not drawing any suspicion in doing so. This role is essential to the story, as to create a threat which the mystery machine crew can begin pulling to further unravel the massive plot that The Case of Charles Dexter Ward carries and carrying on throughout the story as an antagonist to aid Ipqu Aya with Dr Allen, and further revealed Ezra Whedon in the search for the final heir: Melody Cartwright.
George Shepley/Dr Allen
George Shepley/Dr Allen first appears in Episode 2 of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. His last appearance is in Episode 10 where he meets his demise. Adam Godley the Voice Actor for Dr Allen.
Dr Allen/George Shepley is an antagonist that serves the New Forest Coven (a cult). George Shepley is a fake persona created by Dr Allen. He is inspired by the character of the same name in the original novel The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P Lovecraft.
Dr Allen is a violent and deceptive man. He uses the false persona of George Shepley to gain information for the “New Forest Coven,” from Kennedy Fisher and Matthew Heawood. He is a murderer who is devoted to his cult.
In Episode 2 George Shepley is introduced to the audience as the school librarian. George Shepley says “I could give it to you if we met up. Maybe dinner? Or…?” This line here teases some form of a romantic relationship between Fisher and Shepley. Fisher and Shepley find Sayers’ home in flames.
Dr Allen is mentioned for the first time in Episode 4. Dr Allen was working with Charles Dexter Ward in the past. He had worked with Joseph Curwen even further in the past.
In Episode 5, Shepley shares a letter written by Charles Dexter Ward to Dr Willet. This letter gives information about the trailer park. This letter leads Fisher toward the trailer park.The end of the letter mentions Dr Allen. “Shoot Dr Allen on sight and dissolve his body in acid. Don’t burn it.” The letter mentioning Dr Allen shows that at one point in the past their working relationship is broken likely due to Dr Allen betraying Charles Dexter Ward.
In Episode 6, it is revealed that the land at the Devil’s Reef trailer park is owned by Dr Allen. Dr Allen’s trailer park is the same place where the Joseph Curwen siege took place. Dr Allen had been working underneath the trailer in some sort of secret lab. The trailer was littered with occult books. The lab contains desks, workbenches, notebooks and anatomical “stuff.” As Kennedy Fisher observes, “This is real Frankenstein stuff.” There are bits of blood and flesh on the surgical utensils. There is an unknown, horrifying creature inside the lab.
In Episode 7 we are shown a brief flashback in which Charles Dexter Ward calls Dr Willet. Dr Willet tries to interrogate him, but Dr Allen is quick to tell Dr Willet not to call back again.
George Shepley interrupts Kennedy and Heawood’s conversation in Episode 8. Shepley reveals that he has been “keeping up with the podcast.” Later it is revealed that he is doing this to gain intelligence on the last heir of Ipqu Aya. Kennedy reveals her suspicions of Dr Lyman being Dr Allen, so she asks George Shepley to interrogate Dr Lyman. Dr Allen cleans up the trailer and douses the place with gasoline. Kennedy and Whedon enter but Dr Allen sets the place on fire. Dr Lyman calls Heawood and says that a man called Dr Allen is outside. Dr Lyman starts screaming in pain as he gets stabbed to death. Dr Lyman has been murdered by Dr Allen. Kennedy is waiting at a restaurant for Shepley, who is running late. Whedon calls Kennedy to tell her that he has suspicions of George Shepley who knew about both the trailer park and Dr Lyman. Whedon also reveals that George Shepley wasn’t even a real librarian. George Shepley arrives at this moment. George Shepley apologises for being late. At this point, Kennedy knows that Shepley and Allen are one and the same.
In Episode 9 George Shepley and Kennedy start conversing. Kennedy reveals that she knows his identity. Dr Allen reveals that he and Barbara Sayers were funding the Mystery Machine podcast to find information about something previously unknown to them (the last heir of Joseph Curwen). Dr Allen wants Kennedy to join them because Kennedy is “curious,” which can be useful.
In the final episode Whedon tells Heawood about how he found Kennedy. Whedon thinks that Dr Allen and Barbara Sayers had done some sort of ritual on Kennedy. Kennedy had been harmed by the ritual and was “catatonic.” Dr Allen and Sayers had shown Kennedy something “indescribable.” When Whedon busted in, he could hear Kennedy’s screams. According to Whedon, Dr Allen/Shepley came at him with a knife, so he shot Dr Allen. This was the death of Dr Allen/Shepley.
Jonathan Willett
Jonathan Willett is a fictional character appearing in the first series of the show The Case of Charles Dexter Ward in The Lovecraft Investigations’ podcast The Mystery Machine. His voice is done by Mark Basely. Dr Jonathan Willett is a psychiatric doctor that serves as Charles Dexter Ward’s therapist. The character is at first unmoved by Charles’s belief in witchcraft and magic but is eventually convinced that in order to save the world from destruction, he had to murder an innocent woman named Lucy Hawthorne, a crime he committed after being urged by Charles to destroy the human vessels which will be inhabited by Ipqu Aya, the spirit of a sorcerer dating from millennia before.
From the age of 12, Charles Dexter Ward had been seeing Dr Jonathan Willett, who was hired by his family as a psychologist for Charles’s antisocial behaviour. After Charles left school, he was tutored privately by Barbara Sayers, who was a co-leader of a cult and the lover of Charles Dexter Ward’s grandfather, Joseph Curwen.
Dr Willett was first introduced in as Charles’s therapist and at the end of Episode 1 he was shown to be the murderer of Lucy Hawthorne by Mathew Heawood’s mystery contact who had also said, reacting to Mathew’s question as to whether it was possible for him to visit the doctor in his psychiatric hospital, “not a chance, there’s no way the warden’s letting an ex-columnist with a podcast talk to a paranoid schizophrenic in maximum security.”
At the beginning of Episode 2, after Charles has started being home-schooled by Barbara Sayers, Dr Willett is concerned at Charles’s attitude change and further absorption into the subject of witchcraft. Comparing these voice recordings to the actual Dr Willett who has gone mad and murdered a woman, it seems extremely strange that such a character diversion could occur, with the podcast implying this was a result of Charles Dexter Ward being his patient.
In Episode 4, another voice recording from when Charles first entered the asylum shows that Dr Willett is starting to become extremely concerned with how strange Charles’s behaviour had become. The first part of the recordings showed that Dr Willett became aware of a figure called Dr Allen, and that he and Charles had been doing ‘experiments’. In the second part, Charles claimed that he was ‘sound asleep’ while his father Howard had heard two voices conversing in his room at night, both of which belonged to Charles and turned aggressive once his father had gone in to check.
In Episode 5, George Shepley read a letter from Charles to Dr Willett explaining how they must kill Dr Allen together, if Charles survives to answer the door. However, an associate of Dr Willett, Dr Lyman told Kennedy Fisher about the history with Charles and his therapist. Dr Willett was rather unconcerned with Charles’s behaviour until Barbara Sayers appeared, allowing him to borrow cult related books. After Charles left school and Barbara became his tutor, Dr Willett became increasing worried about his mentality, and Barbara Sayers subsequently convinced the Ward family to remove Dr Willett as they believed that his help was no longer needed. He was re-appointed as his therapist after Sarah died, however, he was fired again just before Howard died.
Episode 7 features a voice recording from the last time that Charles and Dr Willett spoke. It was a phone call from Charles to Dr Willett, about how his experiments have been ‘transforming him into a new man’ and he also called Dr Allen a ‘dangerous man’. The call is abruptly ended when another voice, presumably Dr Allen, tells Dr Willett to not meddle in their business. Eleanor Peck says that whatever caused Dr Willett to kill an innocent, young woman that he’d never met before, he was so convinced by it and believed in it so much that he didn’t care if the belief was true or not.
In Episode 9 it is revealed that a recording of Dr Willett was sent to Dr Lyman a few minutes after he murdered Lucy Hawthorne, a suspected descent of Ipqu Aya. Breaking into her house he claims, ‘I know who you are,’ and mutters some incantations. At that, Lucy Hawthorne briskly stops struggling and calmly states, ‘You’re not even saying it correctly.’ She starts to chant a similar spell which is echoed by demonic voices. She offers to take Dr Willett to ‘where she goes in her dreams’, where the doctor then starts screaming in terror. Mathew Heawood is taken by Godfrey Tillinghast to see Dr Willett.
In the final episode Mathew Heawood visits Dr Willett in his maximum-security prison cell, led by Godfrey Tillinghast. He appears extremely mad when talking. He talks about how Charles was no longer Charles. He says, “He was gone long before that,” when replying to Mathew Heawood asking about how Charles had gone missing in his cell. He also claims, “That wasn’t Charles, that’s when I understood that wasn’t him,” and then, “Charles stopped existing after the night of the phone call, and that Charles stopped existing, and it took over.” Then Dr Willet tells Mathew Heawood that he had stabbed Charles until he went to dust, just like he killed Lucy Hawthorne. Dr Willett also indicates that the body of Lucy Hawthorne police discovered was not actually hers.
Dr Willett as a character in the podcast series mainly acts as a supporting and recurring actor. His main purpose, appearing in a chain of voice recordings with his patient, is to provide context and information that we would overwise be unaware of, so to help the story build much more effectively and let the audience have a deeper understanding of who Charles was a person. This would have been impossible with the recordings with Dr Willett as Charles was already dead from the beginning from the show.
Ezra Whedon
Ezra Whedon is introduced in Episode 3 of the podcast. He is voiced by Alan Armstrong. Kennedy Fisher finds him after looking at the arrest report made for the siege which led to Joseph Curwen’s death and discovering that Whedon was the arresting officer on the report. Throughout the podcast he is shown to be on Matthew and Kennedy’s side, though it is revealed at the very end of Season One that he is in fact working with Barbara Sayers. He has minimal interactions with anyone except Kennedy Fisher throughout the entire podcast
In Episode 3 Ezra is introduced into the story. Kennedy Fisher comes to his house to interview him on the siege which lead to Joseph Curwen’s death. He reveals that the room that Joseph Curwen died in was full of dust, instead of his bodies remains. Later in the podcast it is revealed that the same thing happened to Chares Dexter Ward.
In Episode 4 Ezra provides information on Barbara Sayers and her connection to Lucy Hawthorne to Kennedy Fisher. Barbara Sayers was the nanny to Lucy Hawthorne, the woman killed by Dr Willett.
Ezra calls Matthew in Episode 8 to update him on Kennedy and where she is. Later in the episode, he and Kennedy decide to go down the tunnels under the trailer park. He calls Kennedy to inform her that Mark Lyman was killed and that “George Shepley” is actually Dr Allen.
In Episode 9 Ezra calls Matthew and tells him about the George Shepley/Dr Allen situation, and that Kennedy Fisher and George Shepley/Dr. Allen left the restaurant they were at along with an old woman, presumably Barbara Sayers.
In the final episode Ezra brings Kennedy back to London and explains to Matthew what had happened with her. Ezra tracked Kennedy’s phone to a Motel outside of town, where Dr Allen and Barbara Sayers were, with Kennedy Fisher hunched in the corner of the room. Ezra says that there was a strong smell of incense, and strange symbols drawn on the walls of the room. He shot Dr Allen, who, supposedly, tried attacking Ezra with a knife. At the very end of the episode, Ezra reveals that he is in the Ipqu Aya cult, and that Matthew has ‘lost’.
The person Ezra is closest to in this story is Kennedy Fisher. Throughout the podcast, he rarely interacts with anyone except Kennedy. Ezra is shown to be protective of Kennedy, saving her on multiple occasions. He is an apparently reliable information source for Kennedy throughout the entire show.
Ezra and Matthew Heawood do not interact much in the podcast. The very few times they do, it is generally sharing information. This includes information on the Ipqu Aya cult, or on Kennedy.
Though Ezra and Barbara Sayers never explicitly interact on the podcast, in the very last episode it is revealed that he is in fact working with her.
Professor Eleanor Peck
Professor Eleanor Peck is a lecturer in the podcast The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. She is first introduced in Episode 4, where we learn she is a lecturer in Early Modern History. She is also the author of numerous books on the history of witchcraft in both Britain and Europe. She is well versed in the knowledge of old witchcraft, including dark magic and cults relating to it. She is 45 years of age. She appears in Episodes 4 and 7, where she provides crucial information to Matthew Heawood, including information about Joseph Curwen and the “New Forest”, which in turn was the basis for establishing the relation to Charles Dexter Ward and Joseph Curwen, as possible family. She also provides necessary background information regarding witchcraft and cultists at the time. Most importantly, however, she formally introduces the concept and the belief of Ipqu Aya, in a rather aggressive fashion in Episode 7.
Dr Eleanor Peck seems to be an extremely talkative but blunt woman. There are numerous instances where she rambles on about somewhat unrelated things when conversing about a topic, talking for minutes at a time without taking a breath. She has also seen to be quite blunt and sarcastic, raising her voice when attempting to explain things to Matthew Heawood. She gets frustrated quite easily and does not have a lot of patience when conversing with Matthew. She is a scholar of great knowledge and talent and has very neutral stances on topics. She maintains a mindset of “it could not be real, but at the same time, could be”, and recognises the both the difference and the similarities between magic and science.
When Matthew Heawood first looks into “New Forest” witches, he finds books and articles about them written by Eleanor Peck. They get in touch, and only when Matthew has “mentioned Joseph’s Curwen name” does she invite him down to her home in Lewes, Sussex. Eleanor goes on to mention Gerald Gardner, who was the original creator of the modern “Wicca Movement” in New Forest in 1938. Apparently, he and his gang had prevented the German advance through Europe, during WWII. She goes on to mention that Gerald could’ve done this, but there was no proof as to whether he did or not. Gerald claimed to have been admitted into a secret group of witches located in New Forest. The leader, who was referred to only as “Old Dorothy” seemed to have been a leader figure in the occult community, “dabbling in the black arts and all that.” Joseph Curwen had once referred to Old Dorothy as “Iqpu Aya.” This was the Mesopotamian sorcerer who Curwen was obsessed with. Professor Peck proceeds to mention a ton of names and possible people Curwen was associated with, half of which Matthew Heawood “had never heard of.” Peck gives prized information to Matthew Heawood regarding who Joseph Curwen really was, an extremely important figure in the occult community, as well as the conclusion that Charles Dexter Ward was related to both Joseph Curwen and Ipqu Aya in some way.
In Episode 7, Matthew Heawood has just gotten out of the hospital and has found Kennedy Fisher missing. He does not have a lot of concerns, however, as Kennedy has done this in the past, often chasing down a big lead. He does, however, call the police, and a patrol group is sent out to where Kennedy was last seen, Charles Dexter Ward’s trailer. Matthew goes back to Professor Peck, replays the contents of Episode 5, which Kennedy Fisher had recorded, and asks for her insight. Peck, right after listening to the podcast, deems that Matthew Heawood has been doing everything wrong: “You’re making a mess of this…I understand why, I realise you have this whole true crime pull-the-threads-and-see-where-they-lead approach. But if you were in one of my classes, you’d get a clip around the ear.” Peck proceeds to explain how they were doing everything right if it was a standard crime case. But it isn’t:
“The belief, all these people believe in something.”
“Ipqu Aya.”
“Yes, you are saying it. But you don’t know what it is…And it’s all very real-world. And the motivations are pretty clear. And reasonably logical. That’s not the case here. You’re dealing with faith.”
Peck establishes the fact this is isn’t the standard crime case, with missing people and murder crimes. This is religion, faith, witchcraft, concepts which Matthew Heawood has yet to understand. Peck proceeds to start from the very beginning. The start of how Ipqu Aya came to be. She talks about 612 BC, the city of Nineveh in Mesopotamia and how a man, Ipqu Aya, was an evil sorcerer, who had apparently figured out a way to transfer his soul, into another “younger, healthier, physical body, a willing recipient.” Peck explains that even if Curwen wasn’t real, even if Ipqu Aya wasn’t real, it doesn’t matter. The followers still believed in him and that’s all that mattered to them. They believe in “Ipqu Aya, and they believe in his bloodline, which is Charles Dexter Ward and Lucy Hawthorne.” She compares Lucy Hawthorne’s death to the idea that if people could kill Hitler when he was “painting postcards” would they? Peck claims that Dr Willet came and murdered a young woman in cold blood. But “Willet was convinced that Lucy Hawthorne was all set to wreak absolute havoc on the human race”. The episode ends with Professor Peck implying that the followers are still active and looking for a vessel fit to reincarnate Ipqu Aya.
The Episodes
Episode 1
The episode starts off with a man who introduces himself as Matthew Heawood. He tells the listener about some of their previous podcasts and about how the show’s financing comes directly from the listener. The Mystery Machine is the name of their podcast, and they have a new case that they have started on, but what they have uncovered so far is — ‘intriguing doesn’t really do it justice.’
The Mystery Machine is always on the lookout for new stories, and they seem to have found a ‘locked room mystery.’ On the sixth of March 2017, a man had disappeared from his room in a secure psychiatric hospital. The only person who had seen him the night that he disappeared, was his doctor who, according to multiple accounts, talked to his patient for about an hour. When the orderlies entered his room the next morning, he wasn’t there anymore. The doors were locked from the outside and the windows were secured, so there was no way in or out. The most logical explanation was that someone had let him out. But the police had interviewed everyone it is seems that no one had let him out. There wasn’t anything on the CCTV and the guard outside hadn’t left his post. There just seems to be no answer to the mystery so The Mystery Machine moved on. Two months later, Kennedy Fisher, the Mystery Machine’s investigator extraordinaire had ‘planted a flag.’
The name of the missing patient was called, ‘Charles Ward.’ And the last person to have seen him was his psychiatrist, Dr Jonathan Willett. Willett had already given a statement to the police and there was no suggestion that he had done anything wrong. But two months ago, Willett had been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Lucy Hawthorne. Young Miss Hawthorne’s house had been broken into and she was stabbed many times with a knife. Dr Willett had apparently been experiencing an acute paranoid schizophrenic episode and was sent to Broadmoor, a high-security facility down in Berkshire. Kennedy had found a coincidence between Willett and Charles Ward. They decided to call this podcast ‘The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.’
Suddenly we get played a recording of Charles speaking to Dr Willett when he was 17. Charles tells Willett that he has found something in the attic and his birth certificate was there. The name on the certificate was ‘Joseph Curwen.’ His mother had died just a few months ago and Charles had been seeing Dr Willett since he was 13. Charles had always seemed to be a problem child, and Kennedy had tracked down the principal of the school Charles was in at ninth Grade: ‘Claire Rushmore’; she doesn’t work at the school anymore, but she seems to remember Charles.
Claire Rushmore had sensed a sort of darkness within Charles, and he was more difficult than every other student. Charles wasn’t violent, but all the other children were scared off him and seem as defensive towards him as the teachers. Charles’ father didn’t seem to be around much, and their relationship had felt very distant. Claire Rushmore also says that if a school shooting had occurred, and Charles was a suspect, she wouldn’t be surprised.
100 Prospect Street, College Hill was, until a few years ago, the location of the Ward House. Kennedy contacts the realtor of the property and he says that the house gave off a very unwelcoming atmosphere. Kennedy steps inside the house to have a look around and the door slams behind her. But Kennedy could’ve sworn that there was a man standing with his back towards the wall staring at her. Matthew and Kennedy meet up in the café across their studio to discuss their findings on Charles Ward so far. Matthew suggests that Kennedy could get an insight into Charles by looking at what sort of books he checked out.
Kennedy goes to Charles’ old school and meets George, the current school librarian. George helps Kennedy out by searching the school records for Charles Ward. Charles seemed to be very into occult type books. The old librarian had left the school to become Charles’ private tutor, and her name was ‘Barbara Sayers.’ Kennedy decides to visit Barbara Sayers and Matthew tries to figure out the connection between Lucy Hawthorne’s murder and Charles Ward’s experiences that sent him crazy. Matthew contacts the warden of Broadmoor to try get to talk with Dr Willett.
Lucy Hawthorne lived in Highgate and worked as a video game reviewer. Her grandparents on her mother’s side had gone by the name ‘Tillinghast’ and the grandfather’s name was ‘Godfrey.’ Godfrey Tillinghast was Cabinet Secretary (the head of the civil service) from 2008 to 2016. Godfrey and his wife have one child, Emma, who is Lucy’s mother. Lucy was very well connected but it doesn’t seem very relevant unless she wasn’t randomly chosen as a victim.
Why did Dr Willett target the granddaughter of a senior civil servant? And how was it connected to Charles Ward’s disappearance?
Episode 2
Episode 2 of the BBC podcast adaptation of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward begins with an old recording of Dr Willet talking to Charles Dexter Ward when he was 15. Dr Willet, who was Charles’ psychiatrist since he was 13, comments on Barbara Sayer, his tutor, and her unusual curriculum. Charles defends his position, saying that it was tailored to him, and concludes by accusing Dr Willet of being frightened of Barbara Sayers. This indicates that Sayers could be a powerful and dangerous woman, and that Dr Willet is one of the rare few who know this.
After explaining what the recording was of, Heawood outlines how Charles was expelled from his school in 2007 and had since been tutored at home by Barbara Sayers. Barbara Sayers was his tutor from 2008 up until his mother’s death in 2011.
Kennedy Fisher goes to talk to Barbara Sayers, a tall and willowy woman. Kennedy Fisher describes that ‘she’s in her late 60s, but, standing in the room with her, she could easily be 10 or 15 years younger than that’. Sayers’ apartment is very neat, and Fisher describes it as being nice and comfortable. However, what Fisher doesn’t know is that Barbara Sayers serves Ipqu Aya, the god that this story revolves around.
Sayer serves some tea on a tea tray she got ‘in London back in… 1990 or thereabouts.’ Fisher notices a ‘really unusual motif’ on the tea tray. ‘It’s a series of circles, or maybe globes I guess, joined by this web of interconnecting lines,’ Fisher explains.
Fisher asks about Charles, and Sayers proceeds to criticise the modern education system, claiming that ‘Charles was far too bright for that environment’. She continues to flatter Charles’ brightness and attentiveness, praising him as ‘a delight to teach’. But whenever Fisher mentions Dr Willet, who was Charles’ psychiatrist, Sayers discredits him, constantly reminding Fisher that ‘we know what became of him’. Sayers is clearly referencing how Dr Willet went to England to murder Lucy Hawthorne, before being locked up in prison.
Fisher then asks about the name Joseph Curwen. Sayers immediately goes onto the defensive, suggesting she has something to hide. ‘I see your agenda here… it’s cheap sensationalism, and I’m sorry but I’ll have no part of it’. Sayers concludes by praising how ‘Charles Dexter Ward was a charming boy and a diligent student’. She affects to get angry and offended, saying, ‘you’ve wasted both our time coming here’, before the recording ends abruptly and Fisher is kicked out of the house.
George Shepley, who Kennedy Fisher believes is the school librarian, asks to check in with her after she’d met with Barbara Sayers. But unknown to Fisher is that George Shepley, like Barbara Sayers, is in fact a worshipper of and worker for Ipqu Aya and his real name is Dr Allen — George Shepley does not exist and is certainly not the librarian of the High School that Charles Dexter Ward went to. They have a phone call and Fisher calls Sayers ‘eccentric’, and also mentions how ‘she kind of freaked out towards the end’ when she mentioned Joseph Curwen. George Shepley initially pretends to not recognise the name, but he then “suddenly” remembers the name. ‘Wait wait, is this the cult leader? There was a guy… uh… maybe his name was Curwen… I think it was.’ Since both Dr Allen and Joseph Curwen served Ipqu Aya, Shepley is clearly bluffing to pretend to be unrelated to Ipqu Aya. This is obviously very classified information. He proceeds to explain that in the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was ‘one of those siege type scenarios’, with Curwen as the ‘guru’ who got shot or died in the house somehow. Obviously, Shepley is not willing to reveal any more information than what is known to the public.
Fisher then inquires about Sayers and Shepley jokingly replies, ‘she’s a witch!’ Shepley then gets serious and explains how she got into some ‘pretty serious stuff’ to do with cults. Back in 2007, when Charles Dexter Ward was expelled from his school, Sayers left her position as school librarian just to tutor him. Shepley mentions a resume from the school files and suggests meeting up over dinner to give it to her then so that they can discuss it then.
Matthew Heawood asks whether Fisher will go and have dinner with him. Fisher replies, ‘Well, it’s none of your business.’ After Heawood attempts to probe further, Fisher goes on the defensive and they move on from that topic.
After agreeing that it would be pointless to go and see Barbara Sayers again that day, after what happened earlier that day, Fisher explains that she is ‘just about to get on a train to New York,’ where she had recently found Tyler Green, a childhood friend of Charles’ before he was expelled from school.
Dr Willet asked Charles Dexter Ward what he did for that day. Charles replied that he’d read books and letters all day. Tyler Green, his friend, had found the letters, and Charles had read and then burnt them. Willet is sceptical about this, as it seems like a way to dodge the question, so he says that he doesn’t believe Charles burnt the letters. Charles mentions that Tyler Green left Providence soon after and goes on to say that he himself would ‘like to move away’ to London.
Tyler Green now lives in New York City, working in publishing.
Kennedy Fisher takes her train ride to New York City to see Tyler Green, a childhood friend of Charles Dexter Ward. He explains that Green was ‘a pretty normal kid’ who was ‘taller than most of us.’ He was also gawky and ‘he had this hair that was so blonde it was almost white… no I think it got a little darker as he grew up.’
Tyler and Charles used to play in a derelict house nearby, and he remembers that Charles, being fascinated with old things, always wanted to pretend to live in that house. The house, and the whole of Olney Street, was demolished in 2008 by the government.
On one hot day, late during summer vacation, Tyler noticed something sticking out of the wood panelling of that house’s attic. The twelve year old boys investigated and found a hiding place full of handwritten, scrawly letters. The letters were ‘definitely R-rated in places,’ and naturally, this made them interested in them. However, ‘they found there was more to them than meets the eye.’ ‘There was a bunch of weird stuff in there — stuff written in other languages, these weird symbols and diagrams.’ However, the letters were signed with the initials JC — could this have been Joseph Curwen?
Charles wanted to take the letters home, and the next day, when they were supposed to be hanging out again, Charles never turned up, claiming he was busy with something. That was the last time Tyler saw Charles, as Tyler and his family soon moved to Vermont.
Fisher goes to the City Hall, Providence, to ask to see who owned the derelict house. After nearly an hour of searching, — the search is delayed because the street doesn’t exist anymore — Alice, a staff member, finds the file. They discover that the house had been derelict since 1980. In 1985, a man called L. R. Western had bought the cheap property but didn’t seem to live in, or do anything with it, even though it was in need of many repairs. It had been eventually bought out by the city and knocked down, along with the rest of the street, in 2008. But then they finally find who the previous owner was. Barbara Sayers had owned the house from 1977 to 1980. Fisher has found the missing link.
On a phone call with Matthew Heawood, Fisher reveals what she found out with Alice, and Heawood joins the dots to suggest that these letters were what turned Charles Dexter Ward from a normal kid into ‘this dark character’. The conclusion he has come to is that in the late 1970s, Joseph Curwen was sending letters about something to Barbara Sayers. Sayers hid those letters in a wall in the attic of the house, but many years later Charles found them, and inspired by them, studied them. These letters had the negative influence of this something on him, so after being expelled from school, Barbara Sayers arranged for his education of this something to continue. What they don’t know is that this something is Ipqu Aya.
Heawood asks Fisher to retrieve those letters, and then tells her to go back to Barbara Sayers, with George Shepley as a bodyguard. This shows that Heawood and Fisher don’t know that Shepley, who is really Dr Allen, is in league with Sayers.
Fisher and Shepley are on their way to Sayers’ house, and are planning on what to say, when distant sirens foreshadow what is to come. They arrive to see Sayers’ house in flames.
Episode 3
The episode begins with a recording of a conversation between Dr Willet and Charles Dexter Ward. Charles mentions his “real” grandfather, Joseph Curwen, stating that “Joseph Curwen was a great man”, saying that Miss Sayers (Barbara Sayers) told him so. This then cuts to the show intro.
The next scene starts with Kennedy Fisher and George Shepley, with Matthew Heawood on the phone. Kennedy stands outside Barbara Sayers’s house, which had burned down in the previous episode. Matthew explains to the listener in a voiceover that Barbara Sayers was the ex-school librarian and ex-tutor of Charles Dexter Ward and the most likely recipient of several letters that Charles had found in a house in Providence. In a moment out of the voiceover, Kennedy mentions that Barbara Sayers may not be dead. Matthew explains that Kennedy has stayed on the street for the whole night.
Kennedy discusses the wreckage of the house. There was no body in the wreckage, and none of the neighbours had seen anyone leave the house. Kennedy thinks that the fire was intentional, while Matthew tells her not to jump to conclusions. Kennedy says that the house burned down suspiciously, saying that her companion George Shepley agreed with her.
Matthew lets Kennedy and George continue their investigation on Charles Dexter Ward, while he goes to find more information on Barbara Sayers. Matthew calls Barbara’s sister, Melissa Talbot. Melissa mentions Barbara’s childhood, saying she loved books. She continues, saying that Barbara went off to Rhode Island to meet some ‘fella’. This man turns out to be Joseph Curwen, who Melissa calls a ‘religious nut’. She talks about how enthusiastic Barbara was, and how she eventually stopped contacting her, her reason being that Joseph told them to stop talking to ‘non-believers’. Melissa says that Curwen got involved with the FBI somehow and that the last contact she had with Barbara was when she (Barbara) was in London in 1985.
Matthew and Kennedy discuss what they found from their investigations. Matthew mentions a siege at a cult called ‘The Soldiers of Ipqu Aya’, where Joseph Curwen disappeared. Kennedy says that she checked the arrest reports and plays a conversation between her and an ex-police officer who was there at the time.
Kennedy talks with an old man called Ezra Whedon, who was the arresting officer for the siege. After a short introduction and a cup of strong coffee, Ezra recounts what happened at the siege.
Ezra explains that he got a complaint about a cult. Some officials were sent to check up on them, but when the officials showed up at their doors, they were shot by the cultists. This caused the problem to go higher up to the FBI and the ATF. Because this was a firearms problem, and had nothing to do with kidnapping or crime of that sort, it was the ATF’s problem (the ATF is the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms). But the ATF would always ask the local police department to help. The police department used to refer to those people as ‘human shields’. The Cranston department was supposed to be there, but their chief pulled out, so it was Ezra’s job. The ATF raided the cult, and Ezra’s job was to sit outside and make sure no one escaped. This turned out to be futile, as the cultists fled by underground tunnels, not the road. The tunnels were built there long before the cultists had arrived, but the cultists knew them back to front and evaded capture.
On the arrest report, it stated that Joseph Curwen was killed. However, no body was found. Instead, the room he had been in was covered in a layer of dust. After the siege, the ATF searched the whole place and found the tunnels, thus discovering how the cultists had escaped. More importantly, everyone who was sent into the tunnels came back out insane. The insane officers were sent off to a psychiatric hospital. Ezra described them as having a ‘thousand-yard stare’.
After listening to the recording, Matthew thinks that their investigation is heading in the wrong direction and starts investigating again. He goes to the local library and searches their family records. He finds that Lucy Hawthorne’s grandfather was Godfrey Tillinghast. Godfrey had a sister called Eliza. Eliza moved to America, and then had a child called Sarah. Sarah Tillinghast married a man called Howard Philip Ward. Sarah was Charles Dexter Ward’s mother. Lucy Hawthorne, the woman murdered by Dr Willett, was Charles’s second cousin.
Episode 4
Matthew Heawood looks into the past of Charles Dexter Ward, figuring out why he became as he is. He infers that it began when Charles discovered a correlation between Babara Sayers, his to-be tutor, and Joseph Curwen, a local cult leader, and was convinced that Joseph Curwen was in fact, his grandfather.
Assuming that what Charles believed was true, it would mean that Joseph Curwen was in England in 1962 together with Eliza Tillinghast, who was his wife and the grandmother of Charles Dexter Ward, before she left for America to have her baby. Coincidently, there was a resurgence of interest in witchcraft in the UK during that period. However, Matthew explains that Joseph Curwen was involved with the occult much earlier, as there are records of the police breaking up a cult, which involved Joseph, performing a ritual in the forest 1957. Joseph Curwen and other cult members got arrested for disrupting the neighbourhood with loud noises and nudity.
Trying to find out more about Joseph Curwen, Matthew Heawood invites Dr Eleanor Peck, an author who wrote books about the history of witchcraft, which one of them included the rituals held in the prementioned forest. According to her research, the leader of the cult was ‘Old Dorothy’, presumably a senior figure of the community. There are also records of Old Dorothy being mentioned as Ipqu Aya, a ‘supreme being’ Joseph Curwen was obsessed with. Eleanor Peck mentions that one cult member named Amelia Fenner is still alive, living in a nursing home in Barnet.
Matthew Heawood sets out to meet Amelia Fenner. Amelia Fenner explains that Joseph Curwen was a high priest of the cult, and then goes on to praise him, calling him “Brilliant, energetic, Inspiring, (and) Charismatic”. Amelia says that everyone was nude during the ritual, and even herself went naked even after deciding that she would be keeping her clothes on during her visit. This was supposedly due to the mushrooms they put in the tea she drank. She then goes on to explain the feeling of a ritual. Amelia says that “lightning passes through you”, but “it doesn’t hurt you in any way”, “it fills you up as it passes through”, but then “it just stops”. Matthew Heawood asks Amelia Fenner if she witnessed anything ‘supernatural’.
Laughing, Amelia Fenner explains that Matthew’s question itself is wrong, and that ‘Joseph Curwen’ never did any of the things he described, and in fact, that it was Ipqu Aya. She says that Joseph Curwen is a very small fraction in time of Ipqu Aya, and that Ipqu Aya was countless others before he was Joseph Curwen. Confused and not understanding, Matthew moves on to the next topic, and asks Amelia Fenner if she knows two women named Caroline Hughes and Eliza. Amelia says that Joseph chose them as the next vessels for Ipqu Aya, as “the mortal body doesn’t last very long”. Matthew Heawood asks if Ipqu Aya ‘possessed’ Joseph Curwen, but Amelia says this was not the case. According to her, Joseph Curwen was the embodiment of Ipqu Aya.
Episode 5
Forthcoming…
Episode 6
Kennedy Fisher goes to the Devil’s Reef Trailer Park, a place that was suspected to be the home of Charles Dexter Ward’s trailer. The trailer is supposedly the place where Ward moved all “his books and experiments to”, when he cleared everything out on Prospect Street. Kennedy visits the trailer park by herself, as “George Shepley said he has librarian stuff to do”, while Ezra Whedon didn’t pick up the phone.
Kennedy’s first impressions on arriving at the park are that it is quiet and “pretty run down”. Kennedy explains to the manager of the trailer park, about the trailer that Ward owned at the park. She tells him that the county records office had records about it. They both head over to the manager’s office.
Ezra contacts Kennedy, telling her to leave a message. She responds back telling him that she thinks everything is fine, however the trailer park is “pretty empty, and…a little spooky and the manager is strange”. As Kennedy walks over to the office, she discovers that the manager’s name is Al Treggore. The manager fails to find any trailer under the name Ward but found one under the name “Dr Allen”, someone that is suspected to have contributed to the disappearance of Ward.
As Kennedy and the manager walk towards Dr. Allen’s trailer, the manager explains to her that he had tried to sell the land that the trailer park was on, but no one wanted it, as it was believed to have been “cursed and what not”, from a“cult [that] got into a gun battle with cops”. This links back to the siege with Joseph Curwen. The manager also tells Kennedy that there are tunnels at the trailer park, but they were “all blocked up”, and were originally used by smugglers.
The trailer wasn’t so much a trailer, but more of an abandoned old cabin. Kennedy finds a stash of old occult books inside, and on inspecting one, finds what seems to be “spells or rituals”, written in “a whole different alphabet”. Kennedy finds a trapdoor inside of the cabin. On opening it, she says that it is “eight feet down or so” and that is “looks like it heads out to sea”. As Kennedy lowers herself down using the ladder, the ladder then suddenly vanishes, along with the trapdoor. She describes the tunnel as “going downwards” and “bending to the right”.
Kennedy, despite the dangers and fear that the tunnels possessed, ventures down the tunnels, and stumbles upon a chamber. Inside the chamber, she finds shelves and shelves of occult books. She describes her findings as “some kind of bizarre experiment”. She finds a workbench, with what seems to be “surgical instruments”. The surgical instruments Kennedy finds are “dried and caked”, with something that looked like “blood and bits of people”. On the side of the table, she finds a notebook, with more of the strange alphabet, and inside it sees a “symbol drawn on [the] page” and identifies that the tray Barbara Sayers has had the same symbol on it. This indicates that Barbara Sayers plays a role in this mystery and is somehow linked to all of this.
Upon attempting to pronounce “Ogthrod ai’f geb’l ee’h Yog-Sothoth”, which is a phrase written in the strange language, a ghostly voice begins to mimic Kennedy. In shock, she stops. Startled, she continues to the other side of the chamber, which leads to another tunnel that continues down. Signs of light appear. The tunnel is still “going down” and “curving”. Kennedy is met with yet another chamber, this time describing it as “a medieval jail” and that there is “no obvious work or research purpose to this space”. She also describes it as “one side of the room is lined with cell doors barred floor to ceiling”. However, she does spot a pile of something that she isn’t prepared to investigate, most likely decomposing parts.
As she investigates further, she discovers a trapdoor. Kennedy describes it as “circular [and] made of metal with holes punched through it”. There are several of these trapdoors around this chamber, and inside them there is no sign of a ladder, but she can “vaguely hear water down there”. She turns to another trapdoor and slides it open. “There’s something down there. It looks like a person”, Kennedy exclaims. The creature begins moving, and the blood-curdling screams of Kennedy are the last thing heard in Episode 6.
Episode 7
Episode 7 of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward starts off with an audio clip of a phone call from Doctor Willett to Charles questioning him about the letter he sent to Dr Willet. In the audio clip when Dr Willett mentions Dr Allen, Charles, in a concerned tone, says “be careful around him, he’s dangerous, he’s a very dangerous man.” When Willett asks what is going on Charles responds with “I’m in a period of transition… Like a butterfly… I’m becoming a new man, a different man,” The phone call ends as someone interrupts Charles and Willett’s conversation saying, “this is none of your business Doctor,” and proceeded to end the phone call. Matthew Heawood then starts narrating the podcast and tells us that that was “last time Doctor Willett spoke to Charles Dexter Ward.” Heawood hadn’t had contact with Kennedy since she sent him a message saying that she would go into a trailer park to investigate a trailer that supposedly belonged to Charles Dexter Ward.
After not knowing what to do he sends the audio files of episode five to Doctor Eleanor Peck, a historian, to get her insight and opinion. What Kennedy found out intrigues Dr Peck, who has looked into Ipqu Aya herself and proceeds to tell Heawood that their investigation wasn’t executed well and they “were all over the shop.” “All these people believe in something… you’re saying it but you don’t know what it is.” Up until this point Kennedy and Heawood know that Ipqu Aya was something a cult worshipped but don’t have any background knowledge on what Ipqu Aya really was. The story of Ipqu Aya originated in 1612 BCE in the city of Nineveh in Mesopotamia. Dr Peck says that “religions are all based off fear of some kind… one of the chief fears of the Mesopotamians was black magic.” She refers to Mesopotamia as an advanced society as mathematics, the way time is counted, the use of copper and metals and irrigation systems were all developed there. Ipqu Aya was a sorcerer and was looked down upon by those around him. He was supposedly “a pioneer in the world of magic,” and according to legends he was working on a way to preserve his soul because he believed that there was a part of the human body that was contained within it that didn’t die or decay after physical death and he figured out a way to transfer his soul into an artefact to transfer into another member of his bloodline. Dr Peck then reveals that shortly after Ipqu Aya was sentenced to death the city of Niveneh was besieged and the artefact containing Ipqu Aya’s soul and the tablets with the instructions for the rituals were both lost. Dr Peck then talks about Abdul Alhazred, someone Kennedy investigated earlier. Alhazred was a member of the Ipqu Aya cult, and he went back to the ruins of Nineveh and found many of Ipqu Aya’s teaching carved into clay tablets. He then went to a desert where he claimed to have found an underground chamber that had a race of being that inhabited the Earth before humans did. There he spent 10 years learning the secrets of death from the creatures under the desert and when he surfaced from the dungeon, he recorded all of his findings into a book known as The Necronomicon. Alhazred dies via being devoured by an “invisible being” and The Necronomicon disappears.
In 1816 a man named James Murrell obtained the Ipqu Aya artefacts and he performed the ritual on the tablets, releasing the soul of Ipqu Aya into the body of his apprentice, a boy named George Pickingill. Pickingill went on to live as a black magician, scaring all those around him just as Ipqu Aya did when he was alive. When he finally died in 1909, he was 103 years old, the oldest person in England. Ipqu Aya’s soul was transferred around to many people. When Dr Peck gets to Joseph Curwen she said she couldn’t find any information on him and he just appeared in the New Forest claiming he was Ipqu Aya but never had any record of ever existing. She talked about the siege in Rhode Island and said, “the cops kicked in the door and there was no one there, Curwen had vanished… or was he ever there in the first place?” Dr Peck loops this back to believe and faith and says it didn’t matter whether he existed or not the followers of the cult believed that he was Ipqu Aya and they believed in his bloodline who are Charles Dexter Ward and Lucy Hawthorne. Dr Peck states that “belief itself is enough to make people do terrible things,” and that Matthew Heawood wasn’t attacked because he mildly insulted a group of people but because he offended a whole religion that meant more to them than he understood. Dr Peck goes back to Dr Willett killing Lucy Hawthorne, saying that in the most basic understanding, Doctor Willett killed an innocent girl in cold blood but compared it to a question of “if you could go back in time and kill Hitler while he was still painting, would you?” To everyday people if Hitler was murdered it would seem like an innocent man died but they wouldn’t have known what he would have become and the same is true with Dr Willett killing Lucy Hawthorne.
The episode ends with Dr Peck telling Heywood that “they” will keep searching for another vessel for Ipqu Aya and that “there needs to be another out there… Ipqu Aya, the idea, needs a body”. The belief of Ipqu Aya doesn’t care if two known descendants of Ipqu Aya are dead, they will keep looking for someone to inherit his soul.
Episode 8
Matthew receives a message from Ezra Whedon relating Kennedy’s current condition, after Matthew had met with Dr Eleanor Peck. Ezra states that he has found Kennedy unconscious in the tunnel hideouts under the Devil’s Reef Trailer Park, and that she is in shock after what she encountered in the tunnels (refer to Episode 6). George Shepley arrives at Kennedy’s door, insisting on supporting her and assisting with her research for the podcast, as well as asking her out for dinner and introducing her to a restaurant. Afterward, Ezra and Kennedy travel to the Devil’s Reef Trailer Park again, attempting to investigate the tunnel further and commanding Al Treggore to keep watch and guard the trapdoor opening the tunnel. Kennedy quickly discerns that gasoline is present in the tunnel, and quickly runs out of the tunnel as the fire is lit. A few seconds later, they exit the tunnel to find Treggore murdered.
Matthew Heawood receives a call from Mark Lyman, a doctor who used to work with Dr Willett. Lyman sends a file to Heawood (the contents still unknown) and notices a man in his waiting room outside his door, claiming that he has identified himself as Dr Allen. A few seconds after Lyman leaves the phone to attend to Dr Allen, Matthew hears Lyman being stabbed, presumably by Dr Allen. Afterwards, he hears through the phone “Amelia Fenner had a child.”
Kennedy waits alone at the restaurant for George Shepley to arrive. Ezra calls her, encouraging Kennedy to leave after hearing the news that Dr Allen killed Lyman and that Kennedy has asked George Shepley to investigate Lyman. George finally arrives at the restaurant, saying that time had gotten away from him.
Episode 9
Dr Lyman sends Matthew a recording that Dr Willett sent him a few minutes after he murdered Lucy Hawthorne. In the recording, Dr Willett shows up at Lucy’s house, and asks to be let in. He says that he has credentials, but she declines him anyway, saying “I know who you are.” Then he starts attacking her and chasing her into the house. Then he starts an incantation. A sound come out of Lucy and Ipqu Aya seems to be partially summoned. Then he speaks the incantation in their voice, to fully possess Lucy. Willett says he had killed Charles, or rather what he became. Ipqu Aya tells Willett that he has many names and has many vessels and asks Willett to take his hand. Lucy’s voice comes back and says that Willett needs to see it to “understand.” Ipqu Aya shows Dr Willett the “real reality.” Dr Willett screams, kills Lucy Hawthorne, then leaves saying, “I have seen the face of god, and it is terrible.”
Kennedy gets captured by Barbara Sayers and Dr Allen at a restaurant. Ezra Whedon tells Matthew what happened, and Matthew calls Barbara’s sister only to find that Barbara was pretending to be her sister and that her sister does not exist. Barbara says that they needed someone to point them in the right direction. Matthew realises that Dr Allen and Barbara Sayers have been following them just as he and Kennedy had been following them. Their “job” was to find a new vessel for Ipqu Aya, and they found out that Amelia Fenner had a child with Joseph Curwen. When Matthew goes to see Amelia, he finds that she died a few hours earlier. He asks if she got visitors before she died, and what she died of, but since he isn’t a relative of Amelia’s they aren’t allowed to tell him.
Then it cuts to Kennedy’s recording, of Dr Allen asking her who they work for, or rather who has been financing them, implying that they’ve been financing them. Dr Allen asks her to join them, because she has seen the monsters under the trailer park. She says that they’re two psychopaths who believe in fairy tales. “You think a religion exists in secret for two and a half thousand years, and all it amounts to is the two people standing in front of you now?” Dr Allen goes on to say that they’re a “tiny cog in an enormous machine”. He says that Kennedy has uncovered a small part of a truth so big it’s impossible to comprehend it. Kennedy says that she knows that they have infiltrated the establishment, and that Godfrey Tillinghast is on their side. He says that they “are the establishment.” “Barbara, I think we need to show her the world as it really is,” Dr Allen says just before it cuts off.
Matthew sees Godfrey Tillinghast. He says that Matthew made up the things on his podcast and joined some improbable dots. He claims he’s never heard of Joseph Curwen, and that he barely knows Charles and Lucy. Tillinghast leads him into a room. He shows him Dr Jonathan Willett, leading Matthew to exclaim, “Oh, dear god.”
Episode 10
Episode 10 begins with Matthew Heawood trying to get information out of Dr Willett about Charles. Dr Willett is currently in a maniacal state which led him to “tip a pan of boiling water on his own head.” Matthew introduces himself to Dr Willett and asks him about Charles Dexter Ward. In response Dr Willett whispers, “It’s gone, it’s all gone, he’s gone, he’s gone, he’s vanished into dust.” Matthew can’t make any sense of this and is forced to leave while Dr Willett laughs maniacally as he is doing so.
Godfrey Tillinghast describes Dr Willett as “murderously doolally” and explains to Matthew that, “the reason I brought you here, Mr. Heawood, the reason I twisted the warden’s arm to allow you in and to allow you to record, is that I would like to put a stop to this nonsense.” Tillinghast also explains to Matthew that he wants him to stop his program. This leads to an argument with both sides threatening each other. Mr Heawood then “crashed out and slept for about 10 hours solid” before heading to the studio.
Kennedy Fisher is waiting for him with Ezra Whedon and introduces Ezra and Matthew to each other. Kennedy then explains to Matthew the situation of what happened while he was gone: Amelia Fenner and Shepley are both dead. Amelia Fenner supposedly died of old age while Shepley got shot by Ezra in self-defence. Ezra was supposed “to call the cops and face the music, because he supposedly shot Shepley in self-defence” but he didn’t and Matthew suspects that Ezra thought Shepley was armed but he wasn’t. But Ezra saved Kennedy that night, so Matthew thanks him.
Matthew and Kennedy go on to explore the Cartwright bloodline. This leads them to Melody Cartwright, the daughter of Destiny, who died in a car crash. Matthew, Kennedy and Ezra go to the UCL campus to try and locate Melody. When they get there they find Akuma, Melody’s roommate, and find out that Melody is away, recording a podcast.
They head back to the studio and think that Dr Willett is their best shot at getting information. Kennedy and Ezra head home while Matthew heads to the prison to see Dr Willett. He manages to get into Dr Willett’s cell and wastes no time trying to get information out of Dr Willett, who reveals that it has been Ipqu Aya all along, moving between the bodies. Dr Willett explains that on the night Charles disappeared, “he did it” because he knew it wasn’t him. He says that he saw “the face of god” and the night of the phone call, that was Charles and that was the last time he existed. Charles and Lucy both got stabbed and turned to dust.
Allusions to real life people and events
Many of the scenes mentioned in the podcast series alluded to real life events or places that took place in the past. For example, in Episode 7 of the series, when Dr Eleanor Peck (the historian) is talking about Ipqu Aya’s history, she mentions the destruction of the ancient city of Nineveh, which was a real city in Upper Mesopotamia in 612BC, as well as the stone tablets from after the destruction of Nineveh, and how they played into the history of Ipqu Aya. In the story, it was said that before being executed, Ipqu Aya transferred his soul into a “temporary vessel” and carved his teachings on the stone tablets for how to perform the ritual for Ipqu Aya’s soul to be transferred into one of his children. However, it was also said that these stone tablets were temporarily lost in the ruins of Nineveh. This event in the story of Ipqu Aya alludes to the real-life destruction of the ancient city and how the stone tablets were found after the destruction of Nineveh.
Another allusion made in the podcast is in Episode 2. After being told to visit the home of Barbara Sayers (the former librarian of the school Charles attended) by George Shepley (supposedly the current school librarian), Kennedy talks to George about the outcome of the visit and how Barbara Sayers reacted when the topic of Joseph Curwen and Dr Jonathan Willett was brought up. Subsequently after this, George Shepely brings up that Joseph Curwen was apparently “shot” by the ATF in a big gun fight during a siege in the 70s or 80s. The “siege” that George talked about alludes to the Waco siege (also known as the Waco Massacre) of 1993, which was a siege carried out by the U.S Federal Government to take over and destroy a compound that belonged to a religious movement group called the Branch Davidians, where a huge gun fight broke out. The reasoning behind the siege was because the group was thought to have been stocking up illegal weapons.
Another allusion that from Episode 7 is when Dr Eleanor Peck talks to Matthew Heawood about the people who acquired the stone tablets engraved with the teachings of Ipqu Aya’s ritual. While explaining, Dr Eleanor Peck mentions a man called Rudolf von Sebottendorf, one of the founders of a occultist group called the Thule Society. Dr Eleanor Peck also mentions that “Taking over the world and killing all the Jews” was a recurring theme for these sorts of people. This further alludes to the Nazis and the Holocaust which happened during 1939–1945.
However, not only did the podcast allude to real life events and places, but it also mentions some real-life people. For instance, the name George Shepley, introduced in episode 2, was based off a real American politician named George Leander Shepley, who was also the governor of Rhode Island in the 1800s. Another character that was based off a real person in history is Gerald Gardner (mentioned in Episode 4), who was the founder of the modern Wicca movement. In the same episode, Aleister Crowley, who was an English occultist, was mentioned as an associate of Gerald Gardner. Jack Parsons was an American engineer who was also mentioned in episode 4, as a member of the New Forest coven. The name Paul Emile Botta, used in episode 7, was based off a French archaeologist with the same name.
Allusions to fictional works
There are quite a few allusions to fictional pieces of work in the podcast, since it is fiction itself, but pretending to be as real as possible. There are also many allusions to real-life events, but the fictional ones are quite interesting.
The first allusion is in the start of the story, when Matthew Heawood says, “So it’s like the start of a Sherlock Holmes mystery.” This is because the locked-room mystery of Charles Dexter Ward is like Sherlock Holmes’ mysteries such as “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” where a woman is killed in a locked room mysteriously. The story is quite like “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” since detectives are investigating an almost impossible mystery, involving someone who died under unknown circumstances.
In Episode 5, Kennedy describes the asylum in which Charles Ward was kept in like “Arkham Asylum” from Batman. This gives the impression that the asylum is for truly insane people and is not properly funded by government. “This building looks exactly like it was the inspiration for those places. It’s a big old Gothic stone pile, bars on the windows, huge oak front door set into a stone arch. It certainly isn’t a place that anyone just walks out of,” says Kennedy while describing it.
The Devil Reef’s Trailer Park had a statue in the front that Kennedy pictures “like the Creature from the Black Lagoon.” This happens at the beginning of Episode 6. The statue looks like an amphibian sort of monster. She says it probably has nothing to do with the trailer park, but soon enough she is proved wrong. After entering the park, she enters the house which Curwen resided in and she says, ‘if you saw the movie Withnail and I, you would get an idea of what it was like.’ The house is badly broken down and damaged, with shattered glass lying on the floor.
After going down a trapdoor in the room, she finds herself in a closed room with a tunnel. Inside the underground tunnel she encounters a room with ‘real Frankenstein stuff’, which is a body that looks stitched together with different pieces. This body resembles Frankenstein’s creature, leading to the allusion. Later on there is a deep well (containing seawater) with a creature that sounds ‘as if crawling through mud’, and which means it is amphibian in some way, relating to the statue in the front of Devil Reef’s Trailer Park. The sight is so horrifying that Kennedy screams out loudly, ending the episode.
In Episode 7, the followers of Ipqu Aya in 1918 plan to bring back Norse Gods, who they genuinely thought were real. They started a society called the Thule Society and drew more people to it. The Thule Society are said to have invented the swastika by putting Thor’s hammer on a sun and sold it as a lucky charm to German soldiers. This is an allusion to the Norse Gods and a real-life object. This eventually led to the Nazis, and they had the intentions of killing all the Jews.
Connections to the Cthulhu Mythos
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, as well as the other 2 seasons of The Lovecraft Investigations were largely inspired by multiple short stories that H.P. Lovecraft wrote, which all took place in the same fictional universe, named the Cthulhu Mythos. Although The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is a reimagined, modernised adaptation of Lovecraft’s short story of the same name, certain elements of the podcast have direct connections to the original short story, and the Cthulhu Mythos.
One aspect of the Cthulhu Mythos that appears as a part of the podcast is the Necronomicon. The Necronomicon (also referred to as the Book of the Dead [1]) is briefly mentioned in Episodes 5 and 10, but is a major part of Episode 7, where its backstory and history are first explained [2]. In Episode 7, Matthew Heawood visits Eleanor Peck, where she explains to him about a sorcerer, or in her words, “a wizard” named Ipqu Aya, that lived in the city of Nineveh in ancient Mesopotamia. He was believed to have figured out a way to transfer his soul into an artefact before he died, where it could be taken in by a new body, essentially granting Ipqu Aya immortality. However, the artefact containing his soul was lost after Nineveh was sacked and destroyed. Ipqu Aya had a cult following, whose members dedicated their lives to searching for the lost artefact, and one of these followers was Abdul Alhazred. In 700 AD, he claimed to have stumbled across an underground chamber, where he discovered the secrets of “older beings”, which had existed for far longer than humans had, and this references the many primordial gods that Lovecraft had created as a part of the Cthulhu Mythos. Alhazred supposedly stayed in the chamber for ten years, studying “the secrets of death” from these elder beings, before finally emerging from the chamber and writing everything that he had learnt into a book, which he named the Necronomicon [3].
The Necronomicon is featured in multiple H.P. Lovecraft short stories, including in his works At the Mountains ofMadness, and The Dunwich Horror [4], which dive deeper into the actual contents of the Necronomicon. In At the Mountains of Madness, it is revealed that the Necronomicon contains a large amount of information about the ‘Antarctic Elder Beings’, who were giant extraterrestrial beings created by Lovecraft, that came to Earth billions of years ago. They were eventually chased to Antarctica by other alien life forms, where they were eventually defeated, with their gargantuan bodies being frozen in the depths of Antarctica, for the main characters in At the Mountains of Madness (a group of Antarctic explorers) to discover [5]. In The Dunwich Horror, it is revealed that the Necronomicon also contains spells that have the power to summon the “Old Ones”, who are the most powerful beings in the Cthulhu Mythos, and as their name suggests, have been existing for far longer than any other form of life [6].
In the podcast, there are multiple instances where Yog-sothoth is mentioned as part of an incantation. In Episode 6,when Kennedy is exploring the tunnels underneath the trailer, she comes across a notebook on a table, and the notebook contains an incantation written in a “weird language”, which contains the name Yog-sothoth amongst other words in the unknown language [7]. In Episode 9, when a recording is played of Dr Willett entering Lucy Hawthorne’s house, the name Yog-sothoth is mentioned twice in an incantation spoken by Willett, and twice again by Hawthorne repeating the same incantation. After reciting the incantation, Ipqu Aya is summoned, and begins speaking through Hawthorne’s body [8]. This suggests that the method that Ipqu Aya uses to transfer his soul into other bodies is somehow connected to the deity Yog-sothoth. In Episode 10, when Matthew Heawood is speaking with Dr Willett, Yog-sothoth is also spoken as part of an incantation by Willett, and is also spoken as part of an incantation by Ezra Whedon at the very end of the episode [9], revealing that he had been working with Dr Allen and Barbara Sayers the entire time.
In the Cthulhu Mythos, Yog-sothoth is an ancient deity that appears as a mass of glowing orbs, and sometimes appears with eyes or tendrils. His abilities include omniscience, immortality, and control of time and space [10]. Yog-sothoth is featured in several of Lovecraft’s works, but plays the largest part in the short story The Dunwich Horror. In the story, Yog-sothoth impregnates a mortal woman named Lavinia Whateley, who gives birth to two children, one a “hideous” looking human named Wilbur, and the other, a monster that more closely resembled its father, Yog-sothoth. The monster child of Yog-sothoth eventually breaks out of the farmhouse it had been trapped in, and begins to devastate the nearby town, killing 2 families and several policemen, until it is finally brought under control[6]. In the short story, Yog-sothoth was revealed to have a connection with the “Old Ones,” the pantheon of immensely powerful ancient deities created by Lovecraft, but it is unclear how exactly they are connected with each other, as Yog-sothoth was never said by Lovecraft to be part of the “Old Ones” group [11].
The Mythos of Cthulhu includes the Necronomicon (a ‘magic’ book) written by Abdul Alhazred, who was described by HP Lovecraft as a “half-crazed Arab” who worshipped Yog-Sothoth (the grandfather of Cthulhu) and Cthulhu (a creature made up of dragon, octopus and human) and was the reason for modern magic. Both ancient, mysterious ‘gods’ are known as the Great Old Ones. The Great Old Ones are malignant beings that seek to rule over the earth. They all settle in various places on earth and are resting and waiting for the time to take over the world. These malicious gods once ruled over the planet as gods or rulers.
In 700AD, Abdul Alhazred finds the teaching of Ipqu Aya carved into tablets located in the ruins of Nineveh and takes them out into a desert to a place called Roba El Califa, also known as The Empty Space. It is said to have had the secrets of beings that inhabited the earth before humans. This causes him to stay there for a decade studying Ipqu Aya’s teachings and the secrets about death from prehistorical creatures noting them down in the Necronomicon when he goes back to Damascus. However, it is said that his deals with these elder beings didn’t include the book writing, and this causes him to get devoured by these “invisible creatures” on the street. In turn, the Necronomicon vanished. The Necronomicon is a book that shows how to revive humans and how to summon ancient creatures, monsters, and archaic deities.
Ipqu Aya was a black magic performer in his day and was treated like a menace to society. They treated him like how serial killers are treated nowadays. The reason why this is the case is that they were not able to comprehend these things. He believed that people have souls and were able to be conserved and his theory was proved to be right, but the requirement for this ritual to be performed was that the person must be a willing recipient and this person has to be their descendent meaning that they must be blood-related, having Ipqu Aya’s DNA in them. The people will turn into dust as they die. He was able to complete this ritual of transferring his mortal soul into a vessel and was left with instructions carved into clay tablets left for his descendent, after completing what he started, he was then executed soon after. However, before his descendants were able to perform the mysterious ritual to bring him back, there was a civil war and the vessel, and tablets were lost, buried under the rubble of the remaining buildings. Soon after, the followers of Ipqu Aya formed a secret society that studied his teaching, and they were supposedly able to revive the dead, partially, like zombies. However, none of them was able to find the artifacts and tablets left by Ipqu Aya until Abdul Alhazred showed up.
Differences to the novel
The podcast of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward highlights an “outsider’s” perspective of this tale of Charles Dexter Ward for the audience to feel a sense of realism within this story as compared to the novel where the audience is stationed more into a story-telling point of view. Although both plots are based off the same story and tale about Charles Dexter Ward, this much more “modernised” approach to the tale within this podcast acknowledges audiences to experience and engage within this story with references about real life events (eg. Hitler, Austin Heyward Layard, etc.), to enhance the communication between reality and fantasy.
The plot within the novel outlines the disappearance of Charles Dexter Ward from a mental asylum in more depth as compared to the podcast. However, the podcast uses this as its foundation to this case. Ward’s disappearance steers to a mystery unsolved by Willett (Charles’ psychiatrist), who later then discovers about Charles’ creation in wanting to resurrect an ancestor (Joseph Curwen) to pursue and resume his plans in necromancy and mass murders. Later, it is discovered that through a magical formula Curwen was resurrected into Ward’s body. Through this information, Willett decides to confront Ward to reverse and overthrow this spell.
The podcast, however, illustrates the perspective of a new protagonist, Kennedy Fisher (a podcast director), who does her utmost to unveil the truth about the tales of Charles Dexter Ward. Kennedy in due course meets new characters within this story, through interviews and friends to help unveil this truth. Later, she then brings to light the truth of Charles Dexter Ward but is also met with the epilogue of “death.”
Through references to real-life events and through a much more developed world with the use of technology, etc., within this podcast, it allows the audience to feel a sense of realism, creating more depth and suspense within this case. The plot within the novel is used within this podcast, however, this plot was used as an “unsolved” mystery which had evidence and reason behind it. With the use of new characters (Barbara Sayers, etc.) and a sharp turning plot, this allows the audience of the podcast to envision the story as potentially truthful.
The podcast can be portrayed as more of a continuation of the novel comparatively than a recreation of the tales of Charles Dexter Ward yet in a form of a podcast. This is due to the difference in the two plotlines, although both plots are about Ward, a whole new idea of unveiling of this mystery through the perspective of curiosity is evident. The plotline within the novel is still evident in the podcast, however it is shown to be very concealed and hidden from the protagonist (Kennedy Fisher) and the audience. This allows not only the podcast to construct tension but also allows the novel to be seemed as the real “truth” behind the tales of Ward being written in 1927.
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (podcast) allows audiences to experience both realism in a modernised world through the podcast and to also see the unveiled truth within the original novel.
The Lovecraft Investigations includes new additions to the original The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Characters like Matthew Heawood and changes made to the former protagonist Marinus Bicknell Willett, who has now had his name changed to Jonathan Willett and now rendered insane from contact with a being known as Ipqu Aya from when he visited to murder Lucy Hawthorne, are examples of changes made to the original novel.
Matthew Heawood (voiced by Barnaby Kay) and Kennedy Fisher (voiced by Jana Carpenter) are the new main protagonists of the Lovecraft Investigations. Their jobs as journalists for the fictional Mystery Machine leads them to investigating strange occurrences, such as witchcraft, the occult, and secret government operations. Because of the show’s format being similar to an investigative journalism podcast like Serial, Matthew Heawood is the main narrator of the podcast. One notable exception to this is when Matthew is unable to narrate for the podcast, notably after the end of the fourth episode and until the duration of the next episode of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, where Kennedy takes over narration for the duration of Episode 5.
Jonathan Willett, originally Marinus Bicknell Willett in the original short novel, has now become a supporting character in the first season. Whereas Marinus was able to retain his sanity and eventually confronted Joseph Curwen, Jonathan Willett has lost his sanity, disfigured himself by pouring hot water on the top of his head and suffers from acute paranoid schizophrenic episodes. However, they both find out the secret of Charles Dexter Ward and learn of a conspiracy related to the entire world and a world beyond human comprehension.
Joseph Curwen returns in The Lovecraft Investigations and is now a supporting antagonist. His role as a primary antagonist in the original story has been replaced by an entity known as Ipqu Aya in The Lovecraft Investigations. Much like Joseph Curwen, Ipqu Aya is dependent on his descendants. However, rather than being resurrected by their modern descendants, Ipqu Aya instead moves through the bodies of his descendants.
Charles Dexter Ward largely fulfills the same role he did in the original The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Both characters suddenly disappear from their cells, leaving the cells to be found very dusty. Both are also responsible for bringing back Joseph Curwen, only for them to turn to dust through the actions of the Willetts.
Many new side characters have also been introduced in The Lovecraft Investigations to help provide story for the interviews like Claire Rushmore, the principal of Charles’ primary school and Tyler Green, Charles’ childhood friend. These characters used in the podcast to build the story and to give personal recounts, an example being Claire describing Charles as a person who “If it was on TV… that a school shooting had occurred, and they had put up a picture of Charles Dexter Ward, I would not have been surprised.”
There are also elements from the original short story, like the concept of “essential saltes” and beings beyond human comprehension, that have been retained and modernised in the podcast. These elements help support the podcast’s original narrative and serves as homages to Lovecraft’s original story.
References:
[1] Wikipedia. (2021). Necronomicon. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necronomicon
[2] The Pleasant Green Universe Wiki. (n.d.). Transcripts. [online] Available at: https://pleasant-green.fandom.com/wiki/Transcripts?so=search#The_Case_of_Charl es_Dexter_Ward [Accessed 17 May 2022]
[3] The Pleasant Green Universe Wiki. (n.d.). The Case of Charles Dexter Ward Episode 7/Transcript. [online] Available at: https://pleasant-green.fandom.com/wiki/The_Case_of_Charles_Dexter_Ward_Episod e_7/Transcript[Accessed 18 May 2022]
[4] The H.P. Lovecraft Wiki. (n.d.). Necronomicon. [online] Available at: https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Necronomicon?so=search#Lovecraft.27s_Work [Accessed 19 May 2022]
[5] The H.P. Lovecraft Wiki. (n.d.). At the Mountains of Madness. [online] Available at: https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/At_the_Mountains_of_Madness
[6] The H.P. Lovecraft Wiki. (n.d.). The Dunwich Horror. [online] Available at: https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/The_Dunwich_Horror
[7] The Pleasant Green Universe Wiki. (n.d.). The Case of Charles Dexter Ward Episode 6/Transcript. [online] Available at: https://pleasant-green.fandom.com/wiki/The_Case_of_Charles_Dexter_Ward_Episod e_6/Transcript
[8] The Pleasant Green Universe Wiki. (n.d.). The Case of Charles Dexter Ward Episode 9/Transcript. [online] Available at: https://pleasant-green.fandom.com/wiki/The_Case_of_Charles_Dexter_Ward_Episod e_9/Transcript [Accessed 22 May 2022]
[9] The Pleasant Green Universe Wiki. (n.d.). The Case of Charles Dexter Ward Episode 10/Transcript. [online] Available at: https://pleasant-green.fandom.com/wiki/The_Case_of_Charles_Dexter_Ward_Episod e_10/Transcript
[10] The H.P. Lovecraft Wiki. (n.d.). Yog-Sothoth. [online] Available at: https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Yog-Sothoth?so=search [Accessed 22 May 2022]
[11] Wikipedia. (2020). Cthulhu Mythos deities. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu_Mythos_deities#Yog-Sothoth
