Before the Cabbage Patch Kids, there was Amelia Dyer. And she didn't give babies certificates. She gave them white tape — around their necks — and threw them in the Thames.

In Part 1 of the Angel Makers series, we go back to where it all started: Victorian England, where baby farming was legal, advertised in major newspapers, and almost entirely ignored by the government for decades. We're talking about the women who took in infants for a "small fee" — and what happened to those babies when nobody was watching.

This episode covers:

🪡 The system that made baby farming possible — the 1834 Poor Law, the workhouses, and the laws that stripped single mothers of every option except desperation

🪡 Margaret Waters — the Brixton Baby Farmer, the first to hang, and the woman whose execution changed almost nothing

🪡 Amelia Dyer — trained nurse, serial killer, and quite possibly the most prolific murderer in recorded history. Up to 400 babies. Thirty years. Three names recovered. The rest: unknown.

🪡 The Butterbox Babies — Nova Scotia, Canada, 1928–1947. A minister, a midwife, and a maternity home that sold healthy white babies to wealthy couples from New York — and starved the rest in butter boxes.

🪡 The thread — baby farming, orphan trains, asylums, and Cabbage Patch Kids. Same bones. Different clothes. We're just getting started.

Plus — your first Time Killer Files prompt: Tell me about your Cabbage Patch Kid. And does it feel different now?

Content note: This episode contains detailed discussion of infant death, child neglect, and systemic exploitation of vulnerable women. Listener discretion advised.

Just Killing Time is a true crime and conspiracy podcast hosted by Elizabeth Stanton, a Derby, Kansas native with a personal connection to the stories she tells and a deep belief that the forgotten deserve to be remembered.

New episodes drop every Tuesday & Thursday. Find us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Submit your Time Killer Files at JustKillingTimePodcast@gmail.com.