A journey into the past to find the truth and shatter generational trauma
Not everyone jumps into ancestry research trying to solve a murder almost a century old.
Somehow, it’s what I found myself doing off and on for the last decade. Mental illness, trauma, addiction and even violence have all had stirrings and detonations within my family. When I first read somewhere that trauma is often generational, I had no idea how far back it would really go. I study serial killers and their psychology out of some morbid fascination, but nothing can prepare you for the complete obsession that engulfs you when it’s so close to home. When lies and deceit and decades of unfounded stories weigh heavy from one generation to another, only for that house of cards to crumble with one death certificate.
In this case, documents are all I have. None of the people involved or who may know are alive. Nor did they pass down anything more than rumours and speculation, the truth perhaps withheld for eternity. But those documents point to something I am almost convinced of:
My great-grandmother murdered, or was complicit in the murder of, my great-grandfather.
Silence is powerful. In this case, it means little remains of this story outside of official records and a lie. My great-grandmother, Theresa Agnes Semken, told her kids and let them believe that their father, Frederick George Bull, shot himself on a ship, committing suicide. His death certificate which I ordered offers a different story, as does his probate and will record.
His death certificate states that his cause of death was “drowning, with no way of knowing how his body got in the water PM (post-mortem)”, and that his body was found floating off King George V dock. No mention of gunshot wounds. His probate and will record state that he was last seen alive on June 8, 1923, then found dead on June 19, 1923. I have found no newspaper reports, no missing persons reports, nothing to indicate Theresa reported his disappearance within those two weeks. And then the story that circulated within the family about him shooting himself, which started with Theresa.
Sex/Love. Money. Revenge. The trio of murder motives. So which was it? What would drive a woman with four children and a decent life to get rid of her husband? How did she do it? How complicit was she? Why did she lie to her kids? Did any of them know their entire family lived a lie? Was her second marriage simply a sign of the era in which she lived, or a sign of something more sinister?
Come along as I share details of the family murder mystery over which I’ve obsessed for many years. I'll share the documents, triumphs and setbacks, and what I know so far. I try to answer the questions above in my ongoing quest to uncover the truth for Frederick, and his kids who have all since passed on, never knowing.