Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mama Mea acknowledges
Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waters. This podcast was
Speaker 1: recorded on It's just after Midnight On a warm summer
Speaker 1: night in July nineteen seventy seven, on a farm in Ohio,
Speaker 1: an Ida Stutsman wakes up her husband, Get up quick,
Speaker 1: there's a fire in the barn. She alerts him. She
Speaker 1: needs to save some milking equipment, She tells him before
Speaker 1: rushing towards the flames. He follows her, heading towards the
Speaker 1: blazing building, but Ida doesn't survive. A neighbor helps Eli
Speaker 1: carry his pregnant wife's body from inside the milkhouse beside
Speaker 1: the burning barn. She collapsed from a bad heart, he'd
Speaker 1: later tell the coroner. The stress of the fire was
Speaker 1: too much for her. From the very start, there were
Speaker 1: holes in Eli's story, but the Stutsmans were part of
Speaker 1: the Amish community, the very nature of their insular world.
Speaker 1: When the suspicious nature of Ida's death went unspoken for
Speaker 1: many years. After his wife's death, Eli left the Amish
Speaker 1: way of life and took the couple's young son, Danny,
Speaker 1: with him. Within a few years, at the age of nine,
Speaker 1: Danny died too. In fact, there was a trail of
Speaker 1: bodies that could be linked back to Eli Stutsman. But
Speaker 1: he always had a story, an excuse, a version of
Speaker 1: events he spun so confidently. But the truth always has
Speaker 1: a way of revealing itself, and eventually some of Eli's
Speaker 1: stories at least caught up with him. I'm Jemma Bah
Speaker 1: and this is True Crime Conversations a Muma mea podcast
Speaker 1: exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the
Speaker 1: people who know the most about them. The Amish are
Speaker 1: a distinctive Christian subculture of about two hundred thousand people
Speaker 1: who mainly live in North America and are primarily known
Speaker 1: and recognized for their simple living and conservative, old fashioned clothes.
Speaker 1: They follow the basic tenets of Christian faith and live
Speaker 1: their life according to the Bible, but within their world
Speaker 1: there are various subgroups, the most conservative being the Swartz
Speaker 1: and Trouber Amish, who live in central Ohio. They use
Speaker 1: wood stoves for cooking, windmills for water, and primarily live
Speaker 1: off the land. To visit one of their farms, you'd
Speaker 1: feel like you'd been transported back in time by a
Speaker 1: few centuries. They rarely talk to outsiders, which is why
Speaker 1: author Greg Olsen had his work cut out for him
Speaker 1: when he started his investigations into Ida's suspicious death for
Speaker 1: his latest book, The Amish Wife, especially given he was
Speaker 1: dredging up an alleged crime that was more than forty
Speaker 1: five years old. But slowly, with the help of his
Speaker 1: researcher Robin Lasson, a story of cover up, lies and
Speaker 1: an investigation that never stood a chance started to reveal itself.
Speaker 1: An alleged crime that had been buried in silence and
Speaker 1: secrets became impossible to ignore. To talk us through their findings,
Speaker 1: Robin joins us. Now, so people might have heard about
Speaker 1: the Amish community, but today we're talking about a particular
Speaker 1: subset within that who are even more conservative. Can you
Speaker 1: tell us about that? Who are this subset of the
Speaker 1: Amish community.
Speaker 2: That is the Schwarzin Trooper sac the Amish, and they,
Speaker 2: unlike other sects of the Amish, do not allow any
Speaker 2: battery operated devices. So when they're driving or with their
Speaker 2: buggies and their horses, they do not allow any type
Speaker 2: of battery operated devices. For reflectors on the back of them,
Speaker 2: you have to use certain types of pins to pin
Speaker 2: your dresses, as well as certain types of pins to
Speaker 2: pin the men's shirts. So it's the lowest order.
Speaker 1: So is the idea that you're living I guess like
Speaker 1: the olden days.
Speaker 2: Yes, the more simplistic your life, the closer you are
Speaker 2: to God.
Speaker 1: And is that the way Amish more generally are living
Speaker 1: their lives as well. It's just that some of the
Speaker 1: sections or factions do take a little bit more of
Speaker 1: the mod cons of modern life.
Speaker 2: Yes, some of them do and others don't. Some do
Speaker 2: drive cars, Some are more modernized, some are not. They
Speaker 2: will ride on a bus for a vacation. They will
Speaker 2: not have a car themselves, but they have a driver
Speaker 2: for their entire community.
Speaker 1: And is the Amish community quite prevalent in Ohio where
Speaker 1: this story is set.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, there are a lot. That's the thing over
Speaker 2: in Ohio. When I first went over there, I couldn't
Speaker 2: believe it. It was as if I stepped back in
Speaker 2: time two hundred years. It was amazing. And the funny
Speaker 2: part is they're just like us. They make jokes, they
Speaker 2: love their children, they love their family, they cook, they clean.
Speaker 2: They just don't have the modernization of their homes that
Speaker 2: we do. With television and washer and dryers. So, for example,
Speaker 2: when you walk into an Amish family's home, the only
Speaker 2: thing you'll hear is probably the ticking of a clock,
Speaker 2: which sounds eerie because when you walk into someone else's home,
Speaker 2: you may hear a refrigerator running or their dishwasher, But
Speaker 2: when you walk into an Amish person's home, you only
Speaker 2: hear the tick of a clock. For the most part,
Speaker 2: there's nothing else running. So they're all over in Ohio
Speaker 2: and it was amazing to be able to go over
Speaker 2: there and see all these individuals for who they are,
Speaker 2: not just what we think they are.
Speaker 1: You said that some Amish drive cause, but do they
Speaker 1: interact with the outside world in terms of you know, hospitals,
Speaker 1: police stations, schools.
Speaker 2: I believe it depends on each individual family and what
Speaker 2: sect they are part of. I know that there are
Speaker 2: different Mennonites that will interact with the social norms, say
Speaker 2: going to a hospital and what have you. A lot
Speaker 2: of times when there is an emergency they will call
Speaker 2: on it, But when it comes to police, they like
Speaker 2: to in a way give their own justice amongst themselves.
Speaker 2: And they're very forgiving individuals. So if they don't need
Speaker 2: to call the police, they will not. But if they
Speaker 2: have to call, say someone to come and help them,
Speaker 2: if there's a fire or someone has injured themselves, they
Speaker 2: will call for help in those situations. But when it
Speaker 2: comes to their own justice, they would prefer to do
Speaker 2: that themselves.
Speaker 1: And I'm assuming that in this very strict faction that
Speaker 1: we're talking about today, they're even less likely to reach
Speaker 1: out to those kinds of places.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yes, that is correct.
Speaker 1: Most people have preconceived notions about the Amish. They've got
Speaker 1: a very distinctive look. You can usually spot an Amish
Speaker 1: person by the way they're dressed. But how does the
Speaker 1: reality that you've experienced, you've got to know a lot
Speaker 1: of Amish people through this investigation, how did it differ
Speaker 1: from the stereotypes that we often see.
Speaker 2: I think it goes back to any stereotype of any individual.
Speaker 2: You're scared, you're nervous, you don't want to be judged. However,
Speaker 2: I can say when I first met this Amish community,
Speaker 2: when I went to go do all of these inner
Speaker 2: with Greg, They're giving you something to drink, and they're
Speaker 2: making jokes and they're so welcoming, and before you know it,
Speaker 2: the conversation's very organic and natural. They ask and answer
Speaker 2: questions just like we do. But you wouldn't think that
Speaker 2: if you hadn't met any of them. I think there's
Speaker 2: a preconceived notion that you know they're so godly they
Speaker 2: don't want to talk to anybody on the outside. However,
Speaker 2: they're very welcoming. They're very kind, they're sweet, and their children,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, their children are just adorable. They run,
Speaker 2: they laugh, they play, and when they come and see
Speaker 2: someone that's got a cell phone or a watch on,
Speaker 2: they look at you almost like an alien. But they're
Speaker 2: so kind and sweet, and at the end of the
Speaker 2: day you realize you're both humans with the same needs
Speaker 2: and same wants, where we all just want to be
Speaker 2: accepted and loved throughout life, and that's who they are
Speaker 2: at their core. They're good human beings.
Speaker 1: What can you tell us about Ida Stutsman. She's the
Speaker 1: main character of this story, and I'd love to know
Speaker 1: a bit about her background. How did she grow up,
Speaker 1: where was she from, what was her life like before
Speaker 1: she met her husband.
Speaker 2: She grew up in Ohio along with Eli, and they
Speaker 2: were part of the same sect, and she had met
Speaker 2: Eli when she was really young and fell in love
Speaker 2: with him. Eli kind of won in a sense, so
Speaker 2: his royal oats if that's such a thing still, But
Speaker 2: back then that's what he wanted to do. He went out,
Speaker 2: he experienced things, and then Ida still waited for him.
Speaker 2: She loved him. She thought that he was the be
Speaker 2: all and all. He was handsome, he was kind, he
Speaker 2: was generous, and it broke her heart when he ended
Speaker 2: up leaving the Amish, but she still stayed with all
Speaker 2: of her faith and all of her hope that he
Speaker 2: would come back to her, and eventually he did. And
Speaker 2: Ida was one of several siblings, grew up in a
Speaker 2: loving family. She had lots of nieces and nephews, and
Speaker 2: by all accounts from everyone that knew her, she was
Speaker 2: just sweet. She was kind, she was generous. She would
Speaker 2: do anything for you if you needed it, and that's
Speaker 2: how the Amish work, and she embraced the Amish life,
Speaker 2: and that's who she was at her core, was just
Speaker 2: a lovely human being and wanted to be a mother
Speaker 2: and wanted to be a great wife.
Speaker 1: Did her family have the same opinion of.
Speaker 2: Him in the beginning, No, they didn't. They thought in
Speaker 2: today's terms. She could do better because Eli had a
Speaker 2: little bit of a past where he had lied about
Speaker 2: certain instances that had taken place, as well as just
Speaker 2: his reputation not necessarily being a womanizer, but gossiping. You know,
Speaker 2: there were times where he would tell other friends of friends.
Speaker 2: And then again, I want to preface this. It's like
Speaker 2: the game of telephone. You tell one person, they tell another.
Speaker 2: The story can change. But the general consensus was he
Speaker 2: had talked about Ida and their sexual experiences or the
Speaker 2: way that they try to interact physically with one another,
Speaker 2: and they didn't like that. The way that Ida was
Speaker 2: she was very conservative, just like the faction of her
Speaker 2: Amish community, and so her family did not agree with
Speaker 2: her wanting to be with Eli. But at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, Eli came back into the fold and
Speaker 2: they gave them their blessing for them to be married.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about that time that he left the Amish,
Speaker 1: because it was nineteen seventy two and he went into
Speaker 1: the modern world. I guess what did he do in
Speaker 1: that time period.
Speaker 2: He did a lot of different things. He did seeing
Speaker 2: dated other people, He got a driver's license, started going
Speaker 2: out to bars and gambling. Things of that nature where
Speaker 2: you wouldn't think that he would have done it because
Speaker 2: of the strict faction that he was in. But he did,
Speaker 2: and I'd sat back waiting for him. And in the
Speaker 2: book Abandoned Prayers, it touches more on what Eli did
Speaker 2: during those times, and there's several different accounts of what
Speaker 2: he did or may not have done, but the general
Speaker 2: consensus was he pretty much partied.
Speaker 1: And I think this is an important pot to bring
Speaker 1: in now, because he wasn't just having relationships with women,
Speaker 1: was he.
Speaker 2: No, he wasn't. And you know, it doesn't matter whether
Speaker 2: you're gay, straight, bisexual, trans anything of that nature. However,
Speaker 2: with Eli, he was gay, and I can't speak for
Speaker 2: anyone else, but I can understand how it possibly would
Speaker 2: have been hard for him to be himself and not Era,
Speaker 2: let alone, in that religious faction. That's the thing. It
Speaker 2: was not accepted, it was not tolerated, and even back
Speaker 2: then in the seventies, the thing was it still wasn't
Speaker 2: tolerated in the United States.
Speaker 1: So Noah, was his sexuality accepted in the Amish community
Speaker 1: or outside of the Amish community.
Speaker 2: No, it wasn't. And it's a conundrum when you look
Speaker 2: at it because you're upset with this man through the
Speaker 2: crimes that he committed, and yet there's a bit of
Speaker 2: humanity and compassion for maybe the life he lived. You're
Speaker 2: not saying that you're giving an excuse for the crimes.
Speaker 2: But in that day and age, I think it was
Speaker 2: hard for anyone in America to be openly gay, let
Speaker 2: alone in a strict faction of the Amish community, which
Speaker 2: is the lowest order of it that is not even
Speaker 2: accepting of using batteries, let alone of same sex relations.
Speaker 1: But in the end, he had his fun, I guess
Speaker 1: in the modern world, and decided to go back to
Speaker 1: the Amish community and get married to Ida.
Speaker 2: He did. He came back and got married to Ida,
Speaker 2: and prior to getting married Ida, he had to get
Speaker 2: their family's blessing, like we talked about, and they weren't
Speaker 2: for it, but that's what Ida wanted, and so they
Speaker 2: did the normal thing that was allowed back then, which
Speaker 2: was both parties that were getting married had to take tests,
Speaker 2: medical tests to make sure that they didn't have any
Speaker 2: diseases so to speak. Nowadays, that's not required that back
Speaker 2: then they did actually require that, and so we don't
Speaker 2: know what Eli had However, when he came back to
Speaker 2: announce whether his test came back clean or not clean,
Speaker 2: he said that he had bad blood, but he was
Speaker 2: going to go to someone that would fix it, and
Speaker 2: in the end that's what he did. I just came
Speaker 2: back completely fine, but Eli's test did not, and so
Speaker 2: he went back to someone and he was given a
Speaker 2: tea that then changed his blood and made it pure again.
Speaker 1: Reading between the lines, what are we talking about sexually
Speaker 1: transmitted diseases? What was in his blood?
Speaker 2: Yes? Yes, okay, some states years ago. I don't think
Speaker 2: there are many now that require this. But when a
Speaker 2: man and a woman wanted to get married, they had
Speaker 2: to go and take a test or venereal diseases so
Speaker 2: that way they did not spread anymore. And that was
Speaker 2: required back in Ohio, in the county that they lived
Speaker 2: in at the time, and they did that, and Eli's
Speaker 2: came back tainted or with some type of infection.
Speaker 1: And he managed to get the test overlooked.
Speaker 2: Well, it wasn't just overlooked. What happened was what he
Speaker 2: said and what we have received in interviews, and a
Speaker 2: lot of this stems back to Greg's original race that
Speaker 2: he did in his first book. That he ever did
Speaker 2: abandon prayers. What he said he did was he went
Speaker 2: to a natural path that gave him a tea that
Speaker 2: cured him right, and then he retook the test and
Speaker 2: everything was fine.
Speaker 1: It feels like that story is giving me a taste
Speaker 1: of the lies that Eli liked to spin exactly. So,
Speaker 1: they get married, they get pregnant pretty quickly. Was that
Speaker 1: a happy time for them as a couple? Was married
Speaker 1: life everything I'd hoped it would be.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately No. On the outside looking in, everyone thought it
Speaker 2: was perfect. She had this perfect husband, she was pregnant,
Speaker 2: she was getting a house, and she was starting a family.
Speaker 2: But when you look beyond the confides of just what's
Speaker 2: on the outside, there was a lot more going on,
Speaker 2: just like what we see on Instagram to date. And
Speaker 2: I think she still put up a front of that
Speaker 2: in the beginning with her relationship with Eli, because I
Speaker 2: think it stems back to also, you know, girls, we
Speaker 2: fight with our parents, we want to be with them,
Speaker 2: but once we find out that our parents what they said,
Speaker 2: I told you so, you don't want to admit it.
Speaker 2: You want to believe that that person you fell in
Speaker 2: love with is still there, and you weren't wrong and
Speaker 2: Ida behind closed doors. The thing was Eli was very absent.
Speaker 2: He wasn't there for her. He wasn't a partner in
Speaker 2: her day to day life. And it's very evident through
Speaker 2: interviews as you see the progression of Ida's life with
Speaker 2: Eli first getting married to him, being excited to the
Speaker 2: tragedy that fell upon her. Later on, you could see
Speaker 2: the progression of it where she started to become unhappy
Speaker 2: and saw Eli for who he was versus what she
Speaker 2: hoped he would have been for her.
Speaker 1: So she was raising this some Daniel or Denny as
Speaker 1: he was known, basically by herself.
Speaker 2: Basically by herself, she was and I'm a mother. Your
Speaker 2: kids are your life, so you'll do anything for them. However,
Speaker 2: when your partner is absent, I think that adds a
Speaker 2: different element to it, where you want them to be present,
Speaker 2: not just for your own peace of mind, but also
Speaker 2: as that parent. Their belief is a child should have
Speaker 2: two parents, They should be there, they should be teaching them,
Speaker 2: And she was teaching him, but she also wanted him
Speaker 2: to teach him the things that maybe she couldn't that
Speaker 2: Eli could, whether it was building a milk cow or
Speaker 2: he was so little, but still just being around a father.
Speaker 2: She wanted that for her son, and she didn't get it.
Speaker 1: And divorce was that something that was allowed in her
Speaker 1: fection of Amish.
Speaker 2: Divorce was never an option in that community, unfortunately.
Speaker 1: So in nineteen seventy seven she was pregnant again with
Speaker 1: her second child. She was twenty six, so still quite young.
Speaker 1: But she died in the July of that year. I
Speaker 1: want you to take us to the day, the day
Speaker 1: before the night. What happened during that day in the
Speaker 1: laid up to her death.
Speaker 2: So that day Eli had to go into town and
Speaker 2: he went in his horse and buggy. He had left
Speaker 2: Ida and Danny at home alone, along with their farm hand,
Speaker 2: which was another farm hand boy named Eli, but he
Speaker 2: was there with Ida and the baby. And Eli was
Speaker 2: coming home late that afternoon. According to police reports, it
Speaker 2: was around supper time, so this would have been around
Speaker 2: four or five in the afternoon, and as he's coming
Speaker 2: down the road to his home, he sees lightning strike
Speaker 2: his barn on his property. He hurries back home as
Speaker 2: fast as he can, and all the while Ida and
Speaker 2: the other farmhand, Junior, are on the property. And Ida
Speaker 2: had seen that there was lightning and whatnot, but nothing
Speaker 2: on the property. But she did ask the farman to
Speaker 2: come inside because he had been on the ladder and working,
Speaker 2: and this was a young boy that she didn't want injured,
Speaker 2: so she had him come inside. Shortly after, Eli comes
Speaker 2: home and says there was lightning that struck the barn.
Speaker 2: He tells everyone this, and you know, it's this big,
Speaker 2: elaborate story, and Junior goes into the barn with him
Speaker 2: as well, and it's almost as if Eli is trying
Speaker 2: to get Junior to believe his lies. See look here,
Speaker 2: the glass is broken. See the smoldering of the hay.
Speaker 2: There was a fire here, that's where lightning struck. Things
Speaker 2: like that, And even the farmhand at the time didn't
Speaker 2: believe it, even though he was a young boy. He
Speaker 2: thought it was so strange. And through this time Eli
Speaker 2: had claimed that he was going back every thirty minutes
Speaker 2: to check on the barn to see if the fire
Speaker 2: had smoldered, or just to check on the fire of
Speaker 2: the embers, even though there wasn't any. He told that
Speaker 2: to the police later on, and that evening, Tim Blausser,
Speaker 2: an attorney that he had met through a family friend,
Speaker 2: came over to the house to draft their will.
Speaker 1: Strange timing.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's the thing. It's so coincidental that an attorney
Speaker 2: that he meets through a friend of a friend through
Speaker 2: a place that he's working comes over to the house
Speaker 2: that evening and is like, Hey, let's go out and
Speaker 2: do your will while your wife is sitting here.
Speaker 1: Okay, So they have this weed story about Latining hitting
Speaker 1: a bomb, They ride up their wills, and then seemingly
Speaker 1: they go to bed. What happens next after midnight? Let's
Speaker 1: talk about it through Ali's eyes? What does he say
Speaker 1: happened next?
Speaker 2: So Eli claims that he woke up, and I would
Speaker 2: like to say Eli has multiple different stories of what
Speaker 2: happened that night, but the one that stayed consistent was
Speaker 2: he woke up around midnight to Ida waking him up
Speaker 2: saying there's an explosion at the barn. There's a fire,
Speaker 2: and he wakes up, goes downstairs, and they both go
Speaker 2: to the barn and they attempt to put out the fire. However,
Speaker 2: Ida does not survive that. And then the farm hand Junior,
Speaker 2: comes down and sees Ida on the ground and sees
Speaker 2: Eli running, and Eli tells him, you need to go
Speaker 2: get help, go to the neighbor's house and do this,
Speaker 2: call the fire department, all of these different places. However,
Speaker 2: never mentions once that his wife is dead on the ground.
Speaker 2: And the boy finally asks and says, Eli, what about Ida.
Speaker 2: She's not moving. I think she's hurt, and he says, okay, fine,
Speaker 2: go at it and call the paramedics. It was almost
Speaker 2: an irritation the way the farmhand described it. He was
Speaker 2: irritated that he even asked about his wife. And so
Speaker 2: that is the event of what Eli said happened. However,
Speaker 2: after Greg's investigation through his book, that's not what took place.
Speaker 1: You're listening to True Crime Conversations with me Jimma Boss.
Speaker 1: Up next, we discover how more deaths are linked to
Speaker 1: Eli Stutsman, including that of his own son. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about some of the holes in a life story.
Speaker 2: First of all, there's a.
Speaker 1: Lot of conversation about what Ida was actually wearing when
Speaker 1: she was found dead on the floor. Why was that significant?
Speaker 2: That was significant because after the paramedics had found her dead,
Speaker 2: the thing was she was dressed in her day uniform,
Speaker 2: which can take anywhere from six to ten minutes, depending
Speaker 2: out how good you are on penny and they don't
Speaker 2: wear that to bed. They have nightwhere that they wear,
Speaker 2: just like us, we have nightgowns. We don't sleep in
Speaker 2: our normal clothes. So for Ida to wake up from
Speaker 2: a dead sleep at midnight, get dressed in her day
Speaker 2: clothes and go down and fight a fire doesn't make
Speaker 2: any sense. And every Amish woman that we spoke to
Speaker 2: about that had said no Amish woman would get dressed
Speaker 2: for that. They would run down in their NightWare to
Speaker 2: help mitigate the fire.
Speaker 1: Because assuming the nightwear would still be modest, so it's
Speaker 1: not like they would be worried about that.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's not a tank top and like what we wear,
Speaker 2: you know, things of that nature, especially in the middle
Speaker 2: of July when it's hot here. But that's saying if
Speaker 2: your house was on fire, you stripped all your pajamas off,
Speaker 2: got on all your day clothes, that you would wear
Speaker 2: your pair of jeans, your T shirt, your sweatshirt along
Speaker 2: with your shoes and socks, and put your hair up
Speaker 2: in a bot. Yeah, that's what they're saying she did
Speaker 2: in an emergency, and she didn't.
Speaker 1: What about the lamps or the lights on in the house.
Speaker 2: That was another part that was very interesting, which is
Speaker 2: what led Greg to get further into this investigation. Because
Speaker 2: they have the lamps in the house kerosene and oil
Speaker 2: and whatnot that are only lit until they go to bed.
Speaker 2: Everyone had gone to bed at nine, but when the
Speaker 2: farm hand woke up, it's approximately twelve to twelve thirty.
Speaker 2: So pretty soon after Eli's story of when he says
Speaker 2: this started taking place, all the lamps in the house
Speaker 2: were lit. And that was a big thing because everyone
Speaker 2: turned their lamps off, especially when they're going to bed.
Speaker 2: When sunset is around nine nine thirty, the lamps are off,
Speaker 2: they're going to sleep, the children are asleep, there's nothing
Speaker 2: to do. So around twelve to one am, why are
Speaker 2: all the lamps in the house on. Now? The farm
Speaker 2: boy went to bed earlier that evening, the same time
Speaker 2: that Ida and Eli should have went to bed. His
Speaker 2: door was closed upstairs. There's no way he would have
Speaker 2: known what was or what was not going on. However,
Speaker 2: when he woke up, every lamp in that house was lit.
Speaker 2: And why so?
Speaker 1: I feel like even just these few clues that we've
Speaker 1: spoken about, surely they would have sparked the interest of
Speaker 1: police or any investigators. Did they come to the scene.
Speaker 2: That not they did, and unfortunately none of these parts
Speaker 2: were ever really investigated. There were multiple witnesses. Ida's body
Speaker 2: had been moved several different times. When the farm hand left,
Speaker 2: Ida was right in front of the milkhouse, but when
Speaker 2: the neighbor showed up from across the street, Ida was
Speaker 2: now inside the milkhouse and Eli and that neighbor had
Speaker 2: to actually get her out and carry her. So there
Speaker 2: were so many different stories, and yes police did show up,
Speaker 2: but unfortunately we don't know why they didn't further the investigation.
Speaker 2: And I think that is one reason why Greg wanted
Speaker 2: to look into this further. Why wasn't it investigated, Because
Speaker 2: even now, when you say it out loud, it sounds
Speaker 2: like a common sense thing to ask, why is this
Speaker 2: person's story different than your story? No one asked that.
Speaker 1: So was her death put down as just accidental file
Speaker 1: took her life.
Speaker 2: It wasn't even fire. It was undetermined or accidental, and
Speaker 2: not even fire, but it was the stress of the fire.
Speaker 2: They said that Ida had a bad heart, yet the doctor,
Speaker 2: doctor Lehman, who was her doctor her entire life, had
Speaker 2: said she had never had a bad heart. However, when
Speaker 2: she died he was out of town, which also raises
Speaker 2: questions did Eli know that that's the thing? We don't know.
Speaker 2: We're trying to piece together a puzzle that unfortunately a
Speaker 2: lot of people have passed away on and it's trd.
Speaker 2: You kind of work your way from the outside of
Speaker 2: a puzzle where you get the frame and you piece together. Okay,
Speaker 2: this section's red, this session's pink, this one's white, this
Speaker 2: is black, this one's got some spots, and you go
Speaker 2: through and you try and pieces together the best you
Speaker 2: can when you're researching it. Because the thing is doctor
Speaker 2: Lehman knew Ida she did not have a bad heart. However,
Speaker 2: Eli said she had a bad heart, and that was
Speaker 2: taken at base value or for his word with the
Speaker 2: detectives at the time in the sheriff's apartment.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't an autopsy or a corona or anyone
Speaker 1: that determined that it was.
Speaker 2: Ali Eli was the one that said it. However, the
Speaker 2: individual there was a sheriff. He was the head of
Speaker 2: the entire shriff's department there. This was Sheriff James Frost,
Speaker 2: and he ended up being the main investigator, lead investigator
Speaker 2: for Ida's death and said it looks like this is
Speaker 2: just natural causes. And there was the corner and when
Speaker 2: Ida was brought in, there was never really an autopsy done.
Speaker 2: They don't do that, but they were able to draw
Speaker 2: blood and look at her and determined what was the
Speaker 2: cause of her death. And according to Eli's statements, the
Speaker 2: coroner at the time, JT. Questell, had surmised that Ida
Speaker 2: had died of a bad heart due to the stress
Speaker 2: of the fire and being pregnant. But that's what it
Speaker 2: was left at. No one went further to investigate the
Speaker 2: claims of Eli's statement of Ida having a bad heart
Speaker 2: at all.
Speaker 1: What did you discover about Eli's relationship with these authority figures.
Speaker 2: What we found out was there was a source and
Speaker 2: I won't name him, but it was stated that Sheriff
Speaker 2: Frost was gay and used to go to Eli's house
Speaker 2: and enjoy himself with other men and other individuals.
Speaker 1: So he was in a relationship with Eli.
Speaker 2: And that's the thing. We believe there was one or
Speaker 2: at least there was something there. At least from what
Speaker 2: we have research and what we have found out, there
Speaker 2: was definitely some relationship going on. We don't know if
Speaker 2: that did play a factor in Ida's death, one can assume.
Speaker 2: But that's the thing. Greg He plays Devil's advocate for
Speaker 2: all of his books, all of the crime zy researches,
Speaker 2: because you have to be objective and so Yes, although
Speaker 2: Sheriff Frost shows up at Eli's house, who was gay
Speaker 2: and Sheriff Frost in the end turns out to be gay,
Speaker 2: does not mean that there was a releaseship or that
Speaker 2: there wasn't one. But according to sources that we have
Speaker 2: and that we've interviewed, it seems that it was more
Speaker 2: likely than not there was one between them.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about what happened after the file, because Ali
Speaker 1: and Dunny eventually ended up leaving the amage community, didn't
Speaker 1: they Where did they go? What did they do with
Speaker 1: the next few years?
Speaker 2: They did? Eli for the next few years leaves. He
Speaker 2: goes to Colorado and goes down to Florida and sees family,
Speaker 2: and he did everything with his son and met people
Speaker 2: and lived in multiple different places. But by the time
Speaker 2: May nineteen eighty five came around, that's when the body
Speaker 2: of Glenn Pritchett was found, and I think that's when
Speaker 2: people started realizing that maybe there's a little more to
Speaker 2: Eli's stuts than what we feel.
Speaker 1: So who was Glenn and what happened to him and
Speaker 1: how was he related to Ala.
Speaker 2: So when Eli ended up going to Texas, he met
Speaker 2: Glenn Pritchett who was his roommate. And Glenn was twenty
Speaker 2: four years old, was a nice young man. He was
Speaker 2: in the military, and around May twelfth, nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 2: he was found on the side of the road shot
Speaker 2: to death. No one knew why this would happen or
Speaker 2: who would want to harm him, but as time went on,
Speaker 2: it would be learned that that's who Eli was. He
Speaker 2: was the type of person to hurt individuals.
Speaker 1: Was he a suspect in that death when it happened.
Speaker 2: At the time, he was, but they never knew if
Speaker 2: it was him or not. They knew that it was
Speaker 2: a roommate, but he just said, oh, he owed me money,
Speaker 2: and so he ended up leaving and skipping town and
Speaker 2: never paid the money back. So no one ever thought
Speaker 2: to really look further into the investigation for it.
Speaker 1: So Glenn was found dead in the May, and then
Speaker 1: in the December of that same year, another body was found.
Speaker 1: Tell me about little Boy Blue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a sad one and a tough one. I
Speaker 2: know for Greg that was tough, because that's one thing
Speaker 2: that really drew him into his first book at Brandon
Speaker 2: Prayers finding a little boy in a blue sleeper. And
Speaker 2: I think any of us as parents, we know what
Speaker 2: those little sleepers look like with the footies at them,
Speaker 2: and they zipped all the way up from the ankle
Speaker 2: all the way up top to the neck. He was
Speaker 2: found in a ditch in Nebraska by a hunter, and unfortunately,
Speaker 2: he ended up being dubbed a little Boy Blue, and
Speaker 2: he wasn't identified until two years later, and he was
Speaker 2: identified as Eli Stutsman's little boy.
Speaker 1: In Amongst all of this, before little Boy Blue was
Speaker 1: identified as being Donny, wasn't Eli sending letters back home
Speaker 1: pretending that Danny was alive when obviously he wasn't, but
Speaker 1: we didn't know that yet.
Speaker 2: Yes he was. He had sent letters written as if
Speaker 2: he was Danny himself. It's pretty sick to think about
Speaker 2: it that a father would pretend to be their child
Speaker 2: and pretend that they were alive. But he did. He
Speaker 2: pretended Danny was live. He sent letters back to his
Speaker 2: family members and loved ones saying Danny was well or
Speaker 2: speaking as Danny writing as Danny saying that I'm alive,
Speaker 2: I'm well, I'm playing soccer and going on a ski trip.
Speaker 2: And yeah, Eli did that, and no one at the
Speaker 2: time had any idea that Danny was even dead.
Speaker 1: So when little Boy Blue was identified as being Donny,
Speaker 1: what was Eli's excuse? How did he explain what he'd
Speaker 1: been doing for the last year.
Speaker 2: It wasn't until the Reader's Digest came out and a
Speaker 2: member of the Amish community, which was part of the
Speaker 2: community that was a little more lenient, they had a television,
Speaker 2: they had the Readers Digest, and they knew who Eli was,
Speaker 2: and there was a story about the little boy found
Speaker 2: in Chester, Nebraska, a little boy Blue, and they had
Speaker 2: put the picture up of the little boy that was
Speaker 2: a drawing of him, and someone had said, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I think that looks like Danny. That could be Danny.
Speaker 2: And no one had heard from Eliay or Danny in
Speaker 2: a long time, or at least seen him, And so
Speaker 2: they called up the local Chaff's department and Chester, Nebraska
Speaker 2: to report what they had seen in the Reader's Digest,
Speaker 2: and they gave a picture of Danny that they had had,
Speaker 2: and sure enough, the sheriff there was like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: this looks just like the composite of a little boy
Speaker 2: that we found, little Boy Blue. And so as time
Speaker 2: goes on, they start to piece it together that Eli
Speaker 2: Stutsman was a suspect in Glenn Pritchett's death, his roommate,
Speaker 2: and at that point they realized that there's more deaths
Speaker 2: that he's connected to.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we've got quite a lot going on here,
Speaker 1: But focusing on Danny for a second, is Eli arrested
Speaker 1: for murder in that case? Because obviously it's looking very suspicious.
Speaker 1: He's been lying about his son. This little boy's being found,
Speaker 1: it's now being identified as being Danny. Surely he's arrested.
Speaker 2: Yes, he's a resident as a Texas and charged with
Speaker 2: concealing a death and abandonment of a body and connection
Speaker 2: with his son's death, Danny. And he ends up receiving
Speaker 2: an eighteen month prison sentence, and he's also convicted of
Speaker 2: Glenn Pridget's murder and is sentenced to forty years in
Speaker 2: prison for that death of Glenn Pridgett.
Speaker 1: So why wasn't he convicted of murder for Danny?
Speaker 2: Because they couldn't confirm when they found the body. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: as decomposition goes and nature and animals and rodents, there
Speaker 2: was no way for them to confirm what caused the
Speaker 2: death of Danny. Eli has different stories that he was sick,
Speaker 2: he was on medication, he was in the back and
Speaker 2: then fell asleep and just didn't wake up. There's another
Speaker 2: story where the exhaust was broken on the back of
Speaker 2: the car he was driving at the time and so
Speaker 2: it leaked into the back seat. There's multiple different stories,
Speaker 2: but that's Eli's m O. Every time someone dies, he
Speaker 2: has five or six different stories of what happened. I
Speaker 2: mean when his wife died, Ida was saving puppies, she
Speaker 2: was taking the milk bats out, she was saving kittens,
Speaker 2: and none of that was true. So who's to say
Speaker 2: what the real story is Except for just Danny and Eli,
Speaker 2: they're the only ones that we'll ever know.
Speaker 1: So there's convictions in place for Denny and for Glynn.
Speaker 1: You mentioned other murders. Who are they.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's two other murders that he's suspected of. He's
Speaker 2: never been charged unfortunately, but that's due to the lack
Speaker 2: of evidence and it is circumstantial. It's Dennis Leader and
Speaker 2: David Tyler both murdered and during Colorado, and their murders
Speaker 2: are still unsolved till this day.
Speaker 1: And what was his involvement with them? He knew both
Speaker 1: of them as lovers, as friends.
Speaker 2: That's one thing we don't know for sure. It is
Speaker 2: suspected as lovers, it's suspected as friends. But that's the
Speaker 2: one thing. It seems wherever Eli goes, there's murder that follows.
Speaker 1: We have his.
Speaker 2: Roommate, Glenn, We've got his son, we have his wife.
Speaker 2: Now we have Dennis Leader as well as David Tyler.
Speaker 2: It doesn't take it rocket scientists to understand that there's
Speaker 2: a pattern of behavior here. But in the way the
Speaker 2: criminal justice system works, you have to have evidence. It's
Speaker 2: not just the story you can tell.
Speaker 1: So when these convictions came through for Dunny and Glenn,
Speaker 1: was Ida's case ever reopened or ever suggested to be reopened?
Speaker 2: Unfortunately? No, That is what Greg is trying to do
Speaker 2: with this story. Greg wants Ida's case reopened and her
Speaker 2: death reclassified as homicide or unnatural causes.
Speaker 1: I mean, with so many decades later now, so it
Speaker 1: didn't happen at the time.
Speaker 2: Yes, And that's the thing, it did not happen back then,
Speaker 2: but that is what caused this entire book to be written.
Speaker 2: Ia Gingrich's brother, Dan Gingrich came forward to Greg and said,
Speaker 2: I found some letters that you should read that Eli
Speaker 2: had wrote to his family or to multiple different people
Speaker 2: that he had kept over the years, and Greg said,
Speaker 2: okay e. Whenever he met him, and Daniel Gingrich wanted
Speaker 2: justice for his sister, which is something very uncommon that
Speaker 2: the Amish do. They don't reach out to law officials
Speaker 2: or authority figures like that to get justice. They do
Speaker 2: that within their own faction, their own sect, their own
Speaker 2: religious way. But because Greg was so close with him
Speaker 2: from the first book that he had wrote about Eli
Speaker 2: and Ida and all the other murders and just Eli's line,
Speaker 2: he felt he could reach out to Greg and so
Speaker 2: he did. And that's why Greg wanted to write this
Speaker 2: book about Ida as well as Danny, to show the
Speaker 2: inconsistencies in Eli's story with everything he's ever said, and
Speaker 2: to have the Sheriff's department finally reopened that investigation and
Speaker 2: label her death as undetermined or unnatural, whichever one that
Speaker 2: they can do.
Speaker 1: The elephant in the room for me is do we
Speaker 1: need to be looking at the Amish community and seeing
Speaker 1: them as being potentially complicit in this crime in terms
Speaker 1: of the alleged murder of Ida, because if more people
Speaker 1: had spoken out, potentially Dunny might not have died or
Speaker 1: Glenn might not have died well.
Speaker 2: And a lot of people asked that question, and the
Speaker 2: same thing that happens with our communities that we live in.
Speaker 2: No one's going to think their husband or their brother
Speaker 2: or their uncle is capable of things like that, and
Speaker 2: so you don't jump to that conclusion. I believe it
Speaker 2: comes back to not just loyalty, but the same way
Speaker 2: we would never think that someone we love could be
Speaker 2: capable of that. I don't think Eli's parents thought that
Speaker 2: he was capable of it. I don't think his friends
Speaker 2: thought that he was capable of killing someone, because at
Speaker 2: the time of Ada's death, yes, he had lied about things,
Speaker 2: but he had never murdered someone. So I don't think
Speaker 2: there was consensus among them that he initially murdered Ada.
Speaker 2: I think it was afterwards when people start talking and
Speaker 2: looking at the bigger picture, then maybe there could have
Speaker 2: been some inclination of suspicion. But I don't think anyone
Speaker 2: ever really knew wholeheartedly that he was capable of it
Speaker 2: until after the story about Little Boy Blue came out
Speaker 2: and they found out that Eli was capable of it
Speaker 2: because the murder of his son, that the Amish community
Speaker 2: was able to piece together what Eli had done and realize, oh,
Speaker 2: my god, maybe he is responsible for Ida's death. And
Speaker 2: I think that's when people started coming forward from the
Speaker 2: Amish community. So I don't think that they were trying
Speaker 2: to protect him more or less. They just didn't know.
Speaker 2: They didn't understand that someone was responsible for that in
Speaker 2: their own community.
Speaker 1: But then coming forward once they had the paces of
Speaker 1: the puzzle, it didn't do anything.
Speaker 2: It didn't help, No, it didn't. That's the thing. Many
Speaker 2: people back then in the late eighties had talked about
Speaker 2: what they knew about Eli and the Knight of the
Speaker 2: Fire and what he was capable of and even in
Speaker 2: his history, and whether it was they felt they weren't
Speaker 2: listened to, or whether it was law enforcement enough to
Speaker 2: convict him. Right now, I can't speak for all of them.
Speaker 2: Neither can Great, but it's one of those things where
Speaker 2: it does call into question why wasn't it looked into further?
Speaker 2: Why wasn't it looked into at that time when he
Speaker 2: was convicted of concealing the body and abandoning a body.
Speaker 2: Why wasn't Ida's death reopened, especially with all these Amish
Speaker 2: individuals coming forward, which is something that isn't done in
Speaker 2: that community. But they did. They came forward, but maybe
Speaker 2: they weren't taken seriously. I don't know, because a lot
Speaker 2: of those individuals a part of the original investigation, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: have passed away and so we'll never know. And all
Speaker 2: we have now are a lot of police reports as
Speaker 2: well as a lot of interviews from individuals from that time.
Speaker 2: But then again, over time, you know, people's accounts of
Speaker 2: things can change, which is unfortunate, and a lot of
Speaker 2: them have passed away as well.
Speaker 1: What ended up happening to Eli? You said he got
Speaker 1: forty years, He served thirteen and then he got out.
Speaker 1: What happened to him?
Speaker 2: He served thirteen years, and when he got out, he
Speaker 2: ended up moving to Fort Worth, Texas And January thirty first,
Speaker 2: two thousand and seven, was when he was found dad
Speaker 2: in his apartment and he had committed suicide.
Speaker 1: So we're obviously not going to see Eli put behind
Speaker 1: buzz by reinvestigating Ida's case. What is your hope, What
Speaker 1: is the hope of justice for her? In looking at
Speaker 1: this case again.
Speaker 2: When I first got hired with Greg, this was just
Speaker 2: supposed to be short. It wasn't supposed to be something
Speaker 2: big or a huge book. However, with the call from
Speaker 2: AIDA's brother wanting the help in helping to solve his
Speaker 2: sister's murder, with the new information that was brought forth,
Speaker 2: it inspired Greg to move. This was the first book
Speaker 2: he had ever written, the first case he had ever investigated,
Speaker 2: and it has a part of him that I don't
Speaker 2: think anybody will ever be able to understand except for Break.
Speaker 2: This is something that has consumed his life. Even when
Speaker 2: he's in the middle of writing another book or a story,
Speaker 2: he always comes back to this. And even though Eli
Speaker 2: is dead, like you said, there's no justice we're going
Speaker 2: to be able to see. However, I think what Greg,
Speaker 2: as well as Dan Gingrich, what they want to see
Speaker 2: is the Sheriff's department there take accountability for not opening
Speaker 2: up that initial investigation and reclassifying Ada's death as undetermined
Speaker 2: or unnatural, something to show she didn't die of natural causes.
Speaker 2: And for us, we can all look on the outside
Speaker 2: saying no It's just a piece of paper that's says
Speaker 2: one thing, whether you know the truth or not. But
Speaker 2: for some people that's the point of it. They want
Speaker 2: it changed on paper, and who are we to judge
Speaker 2: what they want for their own justice and closure?
Speaker 1: Do you think it'll ever happen?
Speaker 2: I hope it will. I know there is that part
Speaker 2: of the book where Greg and I we go to
Speaker 2: the Sheriff's department and I say a few choice words,
Speaker 2: which I won't say right now, but I said a
Speaker 2: few choice words. They refuse to talk with us, But
Speaker 2: I know Greg is working really closely with the department
Speaker 2: over there right now, and hopefully that happens. I wouldn't
Speaker 2: hold my breath, but it doesn't mean I can't hope.
Speaker 1: And lastly, I just wanted to ask what Ida's story
Speaker 1: means to you. You're a mom yourself. You've mentioned that
Speaker 1: a few times, and that seems to be a big
Speaker 1: connector here we've got a mom of a young kid,
Speaker 1: she was pregnant, she was twenty six, she had a
Speaker 1: whole life ahead of her. Does her story stay with you?
Speaker 2: It does. As moms we try and be as perfect
Speaker 2: as we can or our children or not just her husbands,
Speaker 2: but we just want to do good. And the thing
Speaker 2: is Ida just wanted to do good. She wanted to
Speaker 2: be a good mom, she wanted to be a good wife,
Speaker 2: and she was murdered for it. And her story deserves
Speaker 2: to be told. And that's why I do this, even
Speaker 2: though they don't have a voice. As hard as it
Speaker 2: is to hear it, it was harder for them to
Speaker 2: live it. And that's my motto.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Robin for assisting us to tell Ida and
Speaker 1: her son Danny's story. True Crime Conversations is a mom
Speaker 1: and mea podcast hosted and produced by me Jimma Bass,
Speaker 1: with audio design by Scott Stronik. Our executive producer is
Speaker 1: Lift Proud. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back
Speaker 1: next week with another true Crime Conversation. E