Colored Red

Historical Murders: The Soap Kettle Murders

Laura Porritt Season 3

On December 15, 1917, in a rural farmhouse around 4 miles from Olathe, Colorado, a young boy's body was boiled in lye to make a human soap. His father, too, would supposedly suffer the same fate. The woman at the center of the murders is Mrs. Mary Bush, a spiteful woman who accused her grandson, the boy in the soap kettle, of stealing $1.35 from her pocketbook.