Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 2: I'm a journalist who's spent the last twenty five years
Speaker 2: writing about true crime.
Speaker 3: And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
Speaker 3: worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 2: Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
Speaker 2: compelling true crimes.
Speaker 3: And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
Speaker 3: new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 2: Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
Speaker 2: cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 3: Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1: This is Buried Bones.
Speaker 3: A Kate, I guess we have a second part to
Speaker 3: a two parter today we do.
Speaker 2: We have a kidnapping of a young girl, seventeen year
Speaker 2: old named Leslie Whittle, and she is from a village
Speaker 2: in West Midlands of England, and she is from a
Speaker 2: very wealthy family. Somebody has come into her home she
Speaker 2: shares with her mother. She has an adult brother who
Speaker 2: lives not far away, but it's just the two of
Speaker 2: them in a house that you and I talked about
Speaker 2: being sort of visibly exposed to people because it's sort
Speaker 2: of walls of glass almost the second floor, so she's
Speaker 2: been taken. It looks like just wearing a robe and
Speaker 2: her slippers, and if she was wearing pajamas, and the
Speaker 2: police have not seen her. The kidnapper or kidnappers have
Speaker 2: left behind notes, odd notes.
Speaker 1: Using a label maker, which is an interesting choice.
Speaker 2: They are confusing instructions and her brother can figure it out,
Speaker 2: and they keep missing each other and this is not working,
Speaker 2: and there are cassettes that are being played over the
Speaker 2: phone of Leslie's voice. There is a guard who was
Speaker 2: shot by it sounds like our prime suspect here, a
Speaker 2: man they've dubbed the Black Panther because they were able
Speaker 2: to use some ballistics in some fingerprinting to connect this man,
Speaker 2: this violent robber, with the shooting of the security guard
Speaker 2: and with the murders of four postal workers the year
Speaker 2: before to Leslie's kidnapping. Because in this guy's car they
Speaker 2: find items of hers, as well as the tape recorder
Speaker 2: and cassette tapes that have some instructions that were just
Speaker 2: never delivered. And the police are kind of at a
Speaker 2: dead end. They don't know what to do next. They
Speaker 2: haven't done such a hot job it sounds like they
Speaker 2: were at a location where Leslie could have been kept,
Speaker 2: and they did sort of a discreete sweep.
Speaker 1: They said.
Speaker 2: But other than that, they have not hear from Leslie
Speaker 2: for it looks like almost two weeks. And then when
Speaker 2: they find out about this Black Panther, this you know
Speaker 2: man who they've dubbed the Black Panther for killing all
Speaker 2: of these people and being very sneaky, then it starts
Speaker 2: to be very concerning. And you said you were very
Speaker 2: concerned at the end of episode one about Leslie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, this Black Panther has shown a proclivity
Speaker 3: to utilize violence. You know, he's killed four postal workers.
Speaker 3: He shot at a security guard six times, I'm sure
Speaker 3: with the intent to kill, as well as now he's
Speaker 3: got possession of seventeen year old Leslie. This is a
Speaker 3: very serious offender that is capable of committing homicides. So
Speaker 3: now in my mind, Leslie's safety is in question. And
Speaker 3: I'm not even convinced at this point that he kept
Speaker 3: Leslie alive at all. You know, he pre planned these crimes,
Speaker 3: He thought ahead, had her record multiple planes on the
Speaker 3: cassette player. He may have decided, you know, during his
Speaker 3: planning process. Trying to keep her alive was just logistically cumbersome,
Speaker 3: and he would be more successful being able to move
Speaker 3: around and hopefully get the money he wants without Leslie
Speaker 3: being drug along.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that we've seen in previous
Speaker 2: cases where it seems like the kidnapping victims, the ransom
Speaker 2: victims have been kept alive, is how upsetting it is
Speaker 2: to find that out that they've been kept alive. There
Speaker 2: could have been a chance that they were not murdered,
Speaker 2: that they were reunited with their families. But getting the
Speaker 2: media or getting the police involved, well meaning citizens just
Speaker 2: MUCKs up everything. On the other hand, I'm certainly not
Speaker 2: advocating for not getting police involved in these situations. But
Speaker 2: this is the kidnapper who has shown in the past
Speaker 2: to have the most violent tendencies, right the robberies and
Speaker 2: with Gerald, and like you said, right, he's willing to
Speaker 2: use a weapon. I'm not one hundred percent sure we
Speaker 2: I've seen that in any of our previous cases. They
Speaker 2: felt in a little like haphazard some of those kidnappings.
Speaker 2: But this guy, you're right, sounds very serious. Do you
Speaker 2: have anything to add before I tell you what happens next.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you don't know this. I'm kind of curious
Speaker 3: what the black panthers, you know, with the postal workers
Speaker 3: that he killed, he left some alive, you know, did
Speaker 3: he make any statements to them about what he was after,
Speaker 3: et cetera.
Speaker 2: Three murders occurred in nineteen seventy four of the year before,
Speaker 2: involved violent robberies of post offices in different locations across
Speaker 2: the country. So there were three of them and all
Speaker 2: three men ended up dead.
Speaker 3: Okay, So black Panther is going into a post office
Speaker 3: and killing a postal worker inside the.
Speaker 1: Office, That's what it sounds like, right, Okay.
Speaker 3: And then he is he is touching surfaces during this
Speaker 3: process maybe you know, part of the theft aspect where
Speaker 3: he doesn't have gloved hands on, which is interesting, you
Speaker 3: know during this timeframe usually say usually, but you know,
Speaker 3: of course, that's the one form of evidence back in
Speaker 3: the seventies that could be used to identify him, you know.
Speaker 3: So there's a little bit of carelessness on his part
Speaker 3: in these post office robbery homicides. And then now he
Speaker 3: shoots the security guard, leaves the car abandoned. The shooting
Speaker 3: of the security guard, I wonder if Leslie was in
Speaker 3: the car at the time, you know, or he had
Speaker 3: put Leslie somewhere and was just concerned that the security
Speaker 3: guard would connect him to either the robbery homicides or
Speaker 3: the abduction of Leslie. You know. But obviously he's he's
Speaker 3: willing to pull the trigger for self preservation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me remind you what they found inside this
Speaker 2: car eight days after this happened. There's the gun that
Speaker 2: he used to shoot Gerald. There's a box of bullets.
Speaker 2: There's a foam mattress, a flashlight, Leslie slippers, several unused
Speaker 2: Dimo labels, a tape recorder in those cassettes that we
Speaker 2: talked about, So, like everything tying him to Leslie is there.
Speaker 2: They use these bullets. Now, the BBC only says they
Speaker 2: used the bullets found in the car to link him
Speaker 2: to the other murders, these postal worker murders. To me,
Speaker 2: that didn't I was trying to channel you. That didn't
Speaker 2: make sense. I wonder if they meant that they used
Speaker 2: the gun with the bullets to be able to match it,
Speaker 2: because wouldn't that the bullets would be kind of useless
Speaker 2: if it's just a standard gun, right, they'd have to
Speaker 2: fire it through the bullet through the gun to match
Speaker 2: it to bullets found inside the postal workers.
Speaker 3: Right, right, So the gun and we don't know what
Speaker 3: type of gun, if it's a semi auto or revolver.
Speaker 3: But let's just I'm going to make an assumption. Let's
Speaker 3: say all they did is recover bullets from the post
Speaker 3: office crime scenes. You know, as that bullet passes down
Speaker 3: the barrel of the gun, you know, the lands and
Speaker 3: grooves of the rifling of that barrel get him in
Speaker 3: essence impressed on the side of the bullets. And then
Speaker 3: there's very microscopic striations that end up also on the
Speaker 3: side of the bullet, that is to the kind of
Speaker 3: the tool marks that that inside of the barrel of
Speaker 3: the firearm leaves on the bullet. And so, now that
Speaker 3: they've recovered the gun out of this vehicle, they test
Speaker 3: fire that gun and then compare the marks on those
Speaker 3: test fired bullets to the marks on the evidence bullets,
Speaker 3: and they're able to draw a conclusion, yes, this gun
Speaker 3: fired the bullets and these robbery homicides at the post offices.
Speaker 1: Well there you go.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that they feel like there's pretty
Speaker 2: definitive proof, and they're desperate to figure out where he
Speaker 2: is and where Leslie is, and her mother and her
Speaker 2: brother are petrified of all of this. As I had
Speaker 2: said before, now we are fast forwarding fifty one days
Speaker 2: after Leslie was discovered missing. They launch finally a very
Speaker 2: extensive search of Bathpool Park. And now I can show
Speaker 2: you a photo in a second, so you can actually
Speaker 2: see what this place looks like. The reason they do
Speaker 2: it is because some school boys find a flashlight as
Speaker 2: well as a Dimo label that says drop suitcase into hole.
Speaker 2: So they found an old instruction. I mean, this must
Speaker 2: have been what he was talking about, Torch Lane and
Speaker 2: all of the weird torch So you can see the
Speaker 2: next instructions he says drop suitcase into hole. And of course,
Speaker 2: because it's fifty one days later, the police just throw
Speaker 2: out subtlety and decide they're going to do a full
Speaker 2: on search. But this is the reason why they go
Speaker 2: back to this park. I mean, this place, it's foggy
Speaker 2: and it's yeah.
Speaker 3: Now this photo, you know, speaks volumes. First, I'm not
Speaker 3: seeing any residential structures, commercial structures. It literally looks like
Speaker 3: somewhat rolling hills with groves of trees that are lacking
Speaker 3: their leaves. And in the foreground. Now you see all
Speaker 3: these men with all of them look like German shepherds.
Speaker 1: Yep, I'm sure do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's no variety in the breed. No, no bloodhounds here,
Speaker 3: you know, and obviously they're they're searching. And this is
Speaker 3: you know what after fifty one days after Leslie was abducted.
Speaker 3: You know that is not sounding good for Leslie at all.
Speaker 1: No, and no word from the kidnappers at this point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't know about Leslie yet, but you know,
Speaker 2: we don't have anybody who can identify the man who
Speaker 2: sounds to be definitively the Black Panther because the three
Speaker 2: poster workers are dead. No one else could identify him
Speaker 2: except the security guard, Gerald Smith. He's in critical condition,
Speaker 2: but he gave a very detailed description of the attacker.
Speaker 2: And they made a sketch, and we love a good sketch,
Speaker 2: So let me go ahead and show you. They send
Speaker 2: this out to the press. Let me show you the
Speaker 2: sketch and you could tell me from one of the
Speaker 2: quality if you like the quality of the sketch, and
Speaker 2: two you know what parts of it would be helpful
Speaker 2: he looks very menacing.
Speaker 3: This guy.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that's the guy who was prowling around the
Speaker 2: rail yard.
Speaker 3: Okay, so the security guard confronts him outside of the vehicle.
Speaker 3: That would explain some of the lack of maybe firearms
Speaker 3: damage to the vehicle from shots being fired out of it.
Speaker 3: You know. First up, you know, I'm looking at a
Speaker 3: sketch of a man that the sketch is from knee
Speaker 3: height all the way up to the top of his head.
Speaker 3: So the security guard saw this man standing in front
Speaker 3: of him. The first thing that stands out is the clothing,
Speaker 3: whereas this man appears to have something akin to I'd
Speaker 3: call it like maybe a car coat or a half
Speaker 3: trench coat. I'm not sure if that's the correct term,
Speaker 3: but you know, this type of it looks sort of
Speaker 3: like a trench coat, but instead of going down to
Speaker 3: the ankles, it cuts off at the knees. Appears to
Speaker 3: be maybe zipped up or buttoned up. But then there's
Speaker 3: a belt around the waist that's holding the coat closed.
Speaker 3: And then what appears to possibly be a t shirt
Speaker 3: of some type or shirt underneath this coat. But then
Speaker 3: he's got a backpack on, and he's got a bag
Speaker 3: in his left hand, you know. So you know that
Speaker 3: in part I never see the composites like this. You know,
Speaker 3: that's really detailed in terms of the clothing and the
Speaker 3: backpack and the bag that he's holding. But the face,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of detail in this face. You know, first,
Speaker 3: this is a very good artist just in terms of
Speaker 3: the ability to sketch, because this is close to photo realistic,
Speaker 3: not really photo level, but in terms of when I
Speaker 3: look at this face, I see a human face that
Speaker 3: is something that I could envision in the real world.
Speaker 3: You know. Oftentimes there's some composites and you're going, well,
Speaker 3: you know, proportions aren't quite right, but you know, the
Speaker 3: composite is trying to convey the distinguishing features. The man's
Speaker 3: eyes stand out. He's obviously got somewhat of a scowl
Speaker 3: and an angry look with kind of a firm set jaw,
Speaker 3: you know, and of course he's being confronted by a
Speaker 3: security guard, so this is kind of the you know
Speaker 3: what the facial expression would probably be accurate too, is
Speaker 3: he's not happy that a security guard is standing in
Speaker 3: front of him. You know. So this, yeah, this is
Speaker 3: a very interesting composite, and I can't speak to the
Speaker 3: accuracy of it right now until we know who this
Speaker 3: guy is and can look at the actual face of
Speaker 3: this guy side by side. But you know, this is
Speaker 3: something most certainly you'd want to put out to the
Speaker 3: public because it is so detailed.
Speaker 2: So Gerald is helpful from you know, his hospital room.
Speaker 2: He gives us this really good sketch, you know, really
Speaker 2: good description. Okay, so now we need to go back
Speaker 2: to the park. So we are at Bathpool Park. They
Speaker 2: are doing a search because they found a flashlight and
Speaker 2: they lay that says drop suitcase into hole. So this
Speaker 2: is March sixth. The next day they have zeroed in on.
Speaker 2: Now this just sounds like a nightmare to me to search.
Speaker 2: There is an extensive drain and tunnel system underneath the park.
Speaker 2: There are various levels and platforms with this thing going
Speaker 2: totally underneath the park. They think that this would have
Speaker 2: been the best spot for a kidnapper as both a
Speaker 2: hiding place and a potential escape route should he need
Speaker 2: it out of the park because there are all these
Speaker 2: different exits and entrances and stuff that people just don't
Speaker 2: know about. So what do you think about that? I mean,
Speaker 2: this just sounds like the beginning of a bad horror film. You're,
Speaker 2: you know, sending some police officers down underground to try
Speaker 2: to find this girl who might still be alive a kidnapper.
Speaker 2: There could be a whole team of kidnappers down there,
Speaker 2: and they have to go through this extensive tunnel system.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that would be a process. You know, anytime you search,
Speaker 3: you need to track where you've searched. And when you
Speaker 3: have tunnels like this, I could see we're just trying
Speaker 3: to stay on top of well what has been searched
Speaker 3: and what hasn't been searched could be problematic.
Speaker 2: Well, let me give you They did a mock up
Speaker 2: of some of the tunnels where they think that this
Speaker 2: might have happened.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to show you that real quick. So
Speaker 1: this is there. Now.
Speaker 2: I don't even know what this is made of, but
Speaker 2: this is their rendition of this section of the tunnels.
Speaker 2: I don't know what the material is. I don't understand it.
Speaker 2: I just see a series of tunnels along with you know,
Speaker 2: like ways to climb down ladders and stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, it looks very complicated.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I'm looking at you know, this photo, which
Speaker 3: is a it looks like the cross section of part
Speaker 3: of you know, this bathpool park, and so most of
Speaker 3: what I'm looking at it took me a while from
Speaker 3: my eyes to adjust. But in essence, they've used some
Speaker 3: sort of for lack of a better term, like a
Speaker 3: clay to represent the earth, and then they've got cross
Speaker 3: sections of pipes to illustrate the tunnels. At the right side,
Speaker 3: they have a very tall vertical tunnel if you will,
Speaker 3: that shows rungs that somebody would have to use to
Speaker 3: climb down into or up out of this vertical section
Speaker 3: of I would say maybe a pipe to get to
Speaker 3: the surface. Then there's a long horizontal area with two
Speaker 3: other vertical connections to the surface. Neither one have the
Speaker 3: man ladder built within them. One to the furthest left,
Speaker 3: which is the shortest one, has some sort of cage
Speaker 3: on top of it. I think what strikes me is
Speaker 3: the diagonal part of the tunnel that's on the right
Speaker 3: hand side of the image that kind of dives from
Speaker 3: the long horizontal tunnel. It dives diagonally to underneath the
Speaker 3: vertical pipe that has the man That diagonal aspect tends
Speaker 3: to suggest that this tunnel system may be more for waterflow,
Speaker 3: you know, plumbing aspects, drainage aspects of the park. At
Speaker 3: this point, we don't know if the offender actually used
Speaker 3: this tunnel system. But if he did use this tunnel system,
Speaker 3: how does he know about it? You know, that's something
Speaker 3: that I'd be wanting to know once we identify the offender.
Speaker 3: Does he have a connection to this park? Did he
Speaker 3: have a connection to this tunnel system? And then that's
Speaker 3: why he knew about it? Yeah, But to hole up
Speaker 3: inside of this system, this looks like it's going down
Speaker 3: probably I don't know, twelve fourteen feet for that first
Speaker 3: horizontal long section, and then goes even deeper than that,
Speaker 3: you know, into I'm assuming it's some sort of drainage system.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can give you some more information to It's
Speaker 2: just a daunting to look at something like this and
Speaker 2: to think this is, you know, potentially where this young
Speaker 2: girl could be. And it's fifty one days now, fifty
Speaker 2: two days. Okay, So he sends an officer into the
Speaker 2: system's main shaft. So I don't know who pulled the
Speaker 2: short straw on that one, but this guy.
Speaker 3: God, that's what we called the rookie job.
Speaker 2: ECLA, listen to this. This is what petrified me. He
Speaker 2: climbs down a sixty foot ladder carrying a flashlight and
Speaker 2: takes notes of what he sees, because you got to know,
Speaker 2: there's no like, there's no lighting system. There are pins
Speaker 2: and batteries. There's a notepad, so they're right, somebody's been
Speaker 2: down here. And down on the platform there's a sleeping bed,
Speaker 2: a foam mattress, and a tape recorder. And there's a
Speaker 2: blue robe hanging off a beam that looks like the
Speaker 2: one missing from Leslie's room.
Speaker 3: Oh well, okay.
Speaker 2: He also finds some wire on the platform. So let
Speaker 2: me show you a photo of this kind of hodgepodge
Speaker 2: of things. Well, first of all, let me show you
Speaker 2: the man meet with this poor guy. Let me show
Speaker 2: you what he had to climb down first. So this
Speaker 2: is a man hole that this officer had to go down.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is not a lot of room to maneuver.
Speaker 3: No. In essence, this is a photo that anybody listening
Speaker 3: is going to be familiar, like with the kind of
Speaker 3: the man covers to the sewer systems and the mill streets.
Speaker 3: This is similar, except it's square, not much bigger. It
Speaker 3: looks like it's maybe two feet by two feet, you know.
Speaker 3: So I don't know what the size of the shaft is,
Speaker 3: but obviously it's a narrow opening that the officer would
Speaker 3: have had to go through. Looks like they've tented over this.
Speaker 3: So and then you have this plain closed detective with
Speaker 3: a couple of uniform bobbies, you know in the photograph,
Speaker 3: and the detective is opening up this cover. You know,
Speaker 3: I think when you said that this officer had to
Speaker 3: descend sixty feet down this shaft, we obviously the mockup
Speaker 3: that I was describing earlier is not to scale. Sixty
Speaker 3: feet is much deeper than what I would have imagined.
Speaker 3: And now this is getting to where this is so
Speaker 3: dangerous to anybody entering in that not only just from
Speaker 3: a fall perspective, but from oxygen oxygen deprivation literally is
Speaker 3: what we would call a confined space. You have to
Speaker 3: be specially trained to go down into something like that.
Speaker 3: In this day and age, OSHA monitors this big time.
Speaker 3: Your vitals need to be monitored. They have to pump
Speaker 3: oxygen down into something that deep. Potentially, it just all
Speaker 3: depends on the circumstances. You know. I've had to go
Speaker 3: underground typically for drug lab scenarios, and I have has
Speaker 3: MATT specialists standing by keeping track of the environment in
Speaker 3: me going down into this space, that's say, taking leslie
Speaker 3: down that deep. You know. One of my concerns is
Speaker 3: is that, well, what is the environment down there just
Speaker 3: to sustain life, let alone to be able to see, Yeah,
Speaker 3: this would be a very scary scenario.
Speaker 2: Well, now let me show you the things. So her
Speaker 2: bathrobe looks like sleeping bag.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's a so you know, this photograph is showing,
Speaker 3: you know, on the left hand side what appears to
Speaker 3: be a sleeping bag. Right in the middle is this
Speaker 3: foam pad that has coils of what appear to be
Speaker 3: metal wire. To the right of the pad appears to
Speaker 3: be the robe, and then right to the top of that,
Speaker 3: which robe is somewhat on top of, appears to be
Speaker 3: a second sleeping bag.
Speaker 2: They're disgusting. I mean, I don't know why I think
Speaker 2: that's a big deal, but it's filthy. They're filthy down there.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, everything looks well, the sleeping bags I can't tell
Speaker 3: as much, but the robe and this foam pad very soiled.
Speaker 3: Is the soiling due to having you know, gone down
Speaker 3: into this environment is a soiling because you've got maybe
Speaker 3: a body that's decomposing. You know what did it smell like?
Speaker 3: You know? So I would have questions. But that type
Speaker 3: of cord, you know, this is if that's what I'm
Speaker 3: seeing and that's this metal cord, and if it's being
Speaker 3: used to control Leslie, this is a type of material
Speaker 3: that would cut into her skin if it's tied tightly
Speaker 3: or if she's fighting against it. This would not be
Speaker 3: This isn't you know, soft binding material for comfort. This
Speaker 3: is like almost like the worst type of material you
Speaker 3: would use to keep somebody under control because it'd be
Speaker 3: so painful.
Speaker 2: Let me show you a close up because I do
Speaker 2: want to emphasize that. Let me show you a close
Speaker 2: up of this is the wire, the circular wire that
Speaker 2: you saw that could have been used to control her.
Speaker 2: It's like a braided metal braided wire.
Speaker 3: So yes, so this man is holding up it's just
Speaker 3: a loop of this cable part and in essence, what
Speaker 3: it is is it's a twisted cable. You've got multiple
Speaker 3: smaller metal wires that during manufacture have been twisted around
Speaker 3: each other, and I don't know what the correct term
Speaker 3: of that is in order to make a larger cable,
Speaker 3: and some of this cable has untwisted, probably because it's
Speaker 3: close to a cut end. And then on the right
Speaker 3: hand side, down near where the man's fingers are that's
Speaker 3: holding this, you can see the original twist of this cable.
Speaker 3: I am guessing that this cable is maybe three eighth
Speaker 3: inch in diameter. I mean, this is not something that
Speaker 3: you could tie a knot in. It is something that
Speaker 3: you could potentially bend around let's say Leslie's wrists or
Speaker 3: her ankles, or use it as a ligature to strangle.
Speaker 3: But this is not a material that one would use
Speaker 3: an a fender would use to have, you know, basically
Speaker 3: control and compliance from the victim. You know, again, this
Speaker 3: is potentially suggesting that Leslie was not treated very well
Speaker 3: in the early days after her abduction.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, let's get to this, you know, the whole
Speaker 2: part of this, which is you have this officer down
Speaker 2: there in this what I consider to be an absolute
Speaker 2: nightmare of a scenario, sixty feet under the ground by
Speaker 2: himself only with a flashlight pitch black, finding all of
Speaker 2: these terrible things. He finds this wire on the platform
Speaker 2: which he follows. There's wire because it's just laying there,
Speaker 2: but it's leading somewhere. It's tied onto part of the
Speaker 2: platform and he drops further into the shaft. So he
Speaker 2: follows it to the edge of something that goes over
Speaker 2: the shaft and the end of the wire is around
Speaker 2: Leslie's neck. Yeah, she's hanging by the wire, no clothes, naked,
Speaker 2: her feet are just inches from the very bottom of
Speaker 2: the drain system.
Speaker 1: And I can tell you more. Of course, there's an
Speaker 1: autopsy and all that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to know is are her wrist bound
Speaker 3: or her ankles bound? Obviously the offender, it's not like
Speaker 3: she inadvertently fell off this ledge. Sounds like the offender
Speaker 3: either she was dead ahead of time and he hung her,
Speaker 3: or that's how she died as he literally pushed her
Speaker 3: off this edge and this was a hanging.
Speaker 1: It's awful.
Speaker 3: You know when you start thinking about the scenario, you know,
Speaker 3: when does Leslie realize what's about to happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let me tell you about what the pathologist said.
Speaker 2: They had pretty good ones in nineteen seventy five in England.
Speaker 2: But I mean, we'll see I was a little confused
Speaker 2: following the post wartem. They believe Leslie actually died weeks earlier,
Speaker 2: thank goodness, just shortly after she was abducted, so hopefully
Speaker 2: this did not last long. They said that her cause
Speaker 2: of death was determined to be I'm going to say
Speaker 2: this wrong, vag al inhibition bagel.
Speaker 3: And yeah, so the vegus nerve, well.
Speaker 1: This is what they say.
Speaker 2: This is translated in the newspapers as shock or fright.
Speaker 2: Is not mentioned as a cause of death, and the
Speaker 2: AP says that a police surgeon likened this to like
Speaker 2: a diver jumping suddenly into ice cold water and suffering
Speaker 2: cardiac arrest. Based on her autopsy, they did not think
Speaker 2: it was strangulation. They didn't see signs of that kind
Speaker 2: of strangulation. And you had said you thought maybe after
Speaker 2: she died he hung her, you know, as a way
Speaker 2: to hide her or something else.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I would think that at the hanging
Speaker 3: itself was the cause of death. They would see definitive
Speaker 3: signs of that.
Speaker 1: Fatikia, I mean whatever, all the other lists of things.
Speaker 3: Right right, I mean she's hanging. There is going to
Speaker 3: be physical damage to her neck structures, possibly to her
Speaker 3: cervical vertebrae if she fell a distance like you see
Speaker 3: in your typical hangings where the floor is drops out
Speaker 3: from the person that has a noose around their neck.
Speaker 3: You know, that's a lot of force that's concentrated in
Speaker 3: a very small cross section of the neck. You know.
Speaker 3: In terms of this conclusion of like a vagual reflex,
Speaker 3: that almost sounds more like they couldn't figure out why
Speaker 3: she died, you know, and considering that she they thought
Speaker 3: she was dead for for weeks, you know, there is
Speaker 3: going to be decomposition this This location is sheltered from insects,
Speaker 3: but it's I imagine it's still not a great location
Speaker 3: for you know, body preservation. So I kind of think
Speaker 3: that maybe they didn't find any diagnostic features to determine
Speaker 3: a cause of death, and this is maybe the one
Speaker 3: thing that they could think of. You know, I'm not
Speaker 3: sure what they would be seeing in a body of
Speaker 3: this condition that's hanging to be able to draw a
Speaker 3: conclusion that it's a you know, some sort of vagueal
Speaker 3: reflex that caused her death that I would need to
Speaker 3: know more about.
Speaker 2: Well, we'll have more information, I think a little bit later,
Speaker 2: once we get our suspect together. So they're trying to
Speaker 2: find Leslie's killer, they start attempting to link the evidence
Speaker 2: from the drain system, like the sleeping bag and the
Speaker 2: tape recorder to a specific suspect. So they start referencing
Speaker 2: serial numbers and labels, anything, any warranties, anything, but they
Speaker 2: aren't really getting anywhere.
Speaker 1: When the news.
Speaker 2: Gets a hold of this, the media finds out about
Speaker 2: Leslie's body, a couple reaches out to investigators and says
Speaker 2: that they were in the park the night that Whittle
Speaker 2: was there, screaming, this is Ron Whittle, you know, is
Speaker 2: anybody here? But they were there earlier in the evening
Speaker 2: they had seen a car flashing its lights at them.
Speaker 2: They weren't sure why the car was doing that, and
Speaker 2: they wrote it off, this is not Ron's car, this
Speaker 2: is the kidnappers car. So I don't know where the
Speaker 2: timing went off, but they said that during this same time,
Speaker 2: the exact same time, the couple also noticed a police car.
Speaker 2: And this is not a police officer who was working
Speaker 2: on Leslie's case, so it's totally coincidental that he was there.
Speaker 2: But he was in the park in his car. So
Speaker 2: the police wonder if the kidnapper saw this car and
Speaker 2: that frightened him enough to abandon the whole thing and
Speaker 2: then he ends up killing Leslie.
Speaker 1: But I don't know. What do you think about that theory?
Speaker 3: Oh, I think that's a legitimate theory. Now it's curious
Speaker 3: that if the kidnapper is flashing his headlights in this
Speaker 3: what appears to be a fairly wide open space, how
Speaker 3: did Ron not see that?
Speaker 1: I think the timing was different. So this is what
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: Remember, Ron got lost, and I wonder if the kidnapper
Speaker 2: is flashing his lights thinking Ron is there somewhere. He's
Speaker 2: trying to say, this is where I am. But Ron
Speaker 2: was several hours late, so the couple was not there
Speaker 2: when Ron was there. The couple was there much earlier
Speaker 2: because Ron got there I think at three in the morning.
Speaker 1: So it's bad timing.
Speaker 3: I could see where if it's dark out and the
Speaker 3: kidnappers sitting there waiting for Ron, and then this patrol
Speaker 3: car rolls out its headlights on, and kidnapp thinks it's
Speaker 3: Rod and then recognizes, oh shit, that's law enforcement. Now
Speaker 3: there's panic. So yeah, I think that's a bona fide
Speaker 3: theory right there.
Speaker 2: It's awful and I'm sure when Ron finds out this theory,
Speaker 2: you know if he had known how to get there, but.
Speaker 1: Then the kidnappers giving him terrible instructions. It's just awful.
Speaker 1: I mean all of it.
Speaker 3: I will tell you. If Ron had shown up on
Speaker 3: time with the money, I think both Ron and Leslie
Speaker 3: would be hanging in that shaft.
Speaker 1: I was thinking that too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is not a guy who seems to be
Speaker 2: playing by any kind of moral rules at all. He
Speaker 2: would have just pulled out a gun and killed him.
Speaker 2: It probably did save his life that he got lost. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I'm not convinced that Leslie was alive even at
Speaker 2: that point.
Speaker 1: He's not gonna be strapped with a teenage girl.
Speaker 2: You know that just is so risky this guy, no
Speaker 2: for sure, Okay, all right, nine months nothing happens. They
Speaker 2: cannot find Black Panther until December eleventh, nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 2: So this is eleven months after she is initially kidnapped.
Speaker 2: Two policemen stop a man they believed is being suspicious
Speaker 2: near a post office the sky and his post offices
Speaker 2: in Mansfield, which is about one hundred miles northeast of
Speaker 2: the Wittulls home in Highly. When the guy is questioned,
Speaker 2: he gives a false name, and then he pulls a
Speaker 2: gun and he orders the officers to drive him to
Speaker 2: a nearby village. Remember they don't carry guns the police officers.
Speaker 2: There's a struggle that results in everybody exiting the car,
Speaker 2: and as the man starts to run, they restrain him.
Speaker 2: They flag down customers from a nearby restaurant, and then
Speaker 2: everybody overpowers this guy and they arrest him. So they
Speaker 2: go and do a search. I would not red herring you.
Speaker 2: This is our guy. They find various paraphernalia, including firearms
Speaker 2: and face masks that are directly linked to Black Panther.
Speaker 2: And there is also a wire that looks just like
Speaker 2: the kind of wire found around Leslie Snack. And they said,
Speaker 2: this is it. This is the guy. His name is
Speaker 2: Donald Nielsen. And when you're ready, I want to do
Speaker 2: a comparison of his photo and our fantastic sketch artist
Speaker 2: to see if there's a like this here or not.
Speaker 1: But this is the guy. That's his name.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm just kind of curious, is Donald Nielsen?
Speaker 3: Is he from the United States? By chance? No? UK? Why?
Speaker 3: Just because of the use of the firearm. This sounds
Speaker 3: more of like an American type crime than a British
Speaker 3: type crime.
Speaker 1: No, but he was in the armed forces.
Speaker 3: Oh there you go.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll tell you about Donald once we get further
Speaker 2: into here. Let's look at the sketch and look at
Speaker 2: the photo. So let me show you the sketch first.
Speaker 2: So that's the sketch menacing guy, and then we have
Speaker 2: him menacing guy.
Speaker 3: You know. So I'm looking at what appears to be
Speaker 3: a mug shot of Donald Nielsen. What appears similar to
Speaker 3: me and the sketch. It definitely the eyes. Even in
Speaker 3: this mugshot, he has that hard stare, the heavy eyebrows.
Speaker 3: You know, There's definitely some differences in terms of the
Speaker 3: face shape. But I would say that's well within tolerance.
Speaker 3: I think the composite is close enough that if somebody
Speaker 3: saw it and knew Donaldson and especially that outfit and
Speaker 3: the composite will go, hey, you might want to look
Speaker 3: at this guy.
Speaker 2: Absolutely well. He does not look like somebody you want
Speaker 2: to meet in an alleyway, that's for sure. He looks
Speaker 2: pretty upset, mad, and he eventually will tell us what
Speaker 2: happened with Leslie. So his mom died when he was eleven,
Speaker 2: and he was the constant butt of jokes. You know,
Speaker 2: throughout his young adulthood and adolescence. He was born with
Speaker 2: the last name Nappy, and this is a word for diaper,
Speaker 2: common word for diaper in the UK.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he that would not be good.
Speaker 2: He adopted the surname Nilsen in the sixties after his
Speaker 2: daughter was born because he wanted to spare her the
Speaker 2: same ridicule. He was in the Armed Forces, as I
Speaker 2: had mentioned to you before, so there's a reference with
Speaker 2: the gun. He struggled really a lot. He struggled financially
Speaker 2: after he left the military, and he was in various
Speaker 2: careers including carpentry and security, and then he went into crime.
Speaker 2: By the mid nineteen sixties he was carrying out a
Speaker 2: lot of burglaries to boost his family's income. Police say
Speaker 2: four hundred burglaries without being caught. He started robbing post
Speaker 2: offices because he needed more money between sixty seven and
Speaker 2: seventy four and he carried out about nineteen post office
Speaker 2: raids in Yorkshire and Lancashire. So he admits eventually to
Speaker 2: being the Black Panther and the man responsible for kidnapping Leslie.
Speaker 2: He read about all of these lucrative kidnappings in the
Speaker 2: United States and decided that that would be a really
Speaker 2: good idea. So he targeted her after reading about the
Speaker 2: inheritance and that everybody was calling her an heiress. So
Speaker 2: that is that he's very violent. He's had a long
Speaker 2: his of crime. You know, clearly has no problem killing people.
Speaker 2: He does detail what happens. I want to get your
Speaker 2: impressions of Donald right now, and then I'll tell you
Speaker 2: what he says happened, and you can tell me what
Speaker 2: you think.
Speaker 3: Well, first, I don't have any sympathy for him with
Speaker 3: the last name of Nappy. Try having the last name
Speaker 3: of Holes. Oh, come on, I have been referred to
Speaker 3: about every body orifice as possible.
Speaker 1: I know that as a young kid.
Speaker 2: I'm sure, I mean, the worst the worst I ever
Speaker 2: got was Awesome Dawson, So I know, I'm sorry, Oh poor.
Speaker 3: You Kate the great I mean, I'll let anybody listening
Speaker 3: use their imagination to how the surname Holes could be
Speaker 3: referred to. But okay, so obviously kind of a disrupted childhood.
Speaker 3: He was in the military. You didn't go into the
Speaker 3: details of what he experienced in the military. Did he
Speaker 3: see action? Was he on the front lines? That can
Speaker 3: be very traumatic and then the getting out of you know,
Speaker 3: the service and now struggling financially. It's it's still you
Speaker 3: make You can make a choice, you know, there are
Speaker 3: other ways to make money. He chose the criminal route
Speaker 3: all along. The post office robbery homicides as well as
Speaker 3: the Leslie abduction. They're financially motivated, you know. He's a
Speaker 3: financially motivated offender. He chose to go down a criminal path.
Speaker 3: He has a predisposition for violence. You know. He most
Speaker 3: certainly could you know, commit robberies without doing the homicides.
Speaker 3: And you know, I don't know the circumstances of the
Speaker 3: post office crimes, you know, but chances are My guess
Speaker 3: is is that he made a decision to kill these
Speaker 3: postal workers. He possibly could have successfully robbed these places
Speaker 3: and walked away. He's got a gun, they don't, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: So he chose to kill them. He chose to kill Leslie,
Speaker 3: you know. So he has that violent predisposition thought and
Speaker 3: may have had some struggles in his early life. There's
Speaker 3: nothing about his upbringing or anything, as far as I'm
Speaker 3: concerned that should cause anybody to have any sympathy for him.
Speaker 2: No, And he's a parent too. I mean, that's just nauseating.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you what he says. He had planned
Speaker 2: all of this pretty meticulously. That night, January fourteenth, he
Speaker 2: entered the house wearing a hood in all black clothing,
Speaker 2: such was his way. He forced the door open and
Speaker 2: gagged and blindfolded Leslie in her bedroom upstairs and brought
Speaker 2: her out to his stolen vehicle at gunpoint. She was
Speaker 2: just wearing her robin slippers, so what police thought. He
Speaker 2: hit her in the back of the car beneath a
Speaker 2: foam mattress, and he drove her over sixty miles to
Speaker 2: Bathpool Park, where he imprisoned her in the dark, damp
Speaker 2: drain shaft. I mean, he just says, very straightforwardly. I
Speaker 2: gave her nothing to keep her warm and comfortable except
Speaker 2: for the sleeping bag. He made her take off the
Speaker 2: rope so she was completely naked. I will say, there's
Speaker 2: a note that says that there has never been a
Speaker 2: suggestion that she had been sexually assaulted. He never said
Speaker 2: anything about that. It could have also been that they
Speaker 2: just didn't find evidence. They would have seen evidence. I
Speaker 2: don't know about after fifty one days, but I mean, certainly,
Speaker 2: you know in seventy five, they would have seen physical
Speaker 2: evidence of something.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, do you want me to pause
Speaker 1: there or do you want me to keep going?
Speaker 3: Well, keep going because I need to know more about
Speaker 3: when you know how long Leslie had been dead and hanging.
Speaker 2: But yeah, keep going, okay, So he says he made her,
Speaker 2: of course, make the recorded tapes that eventually he shared
Speaker 2: with her family. This was a very complicated plan that
Speaker 2: he had done before. You know, he knew it was
Speaker 2: never going to be this one drop. He wanted to
Speaker 2: do what some articles were calling a ransom run that
Speaker 2: I've read about before. So a ransom run is requiring,
Speaker 2: you know, the family to go from one location to
Speaker 2: the next to the next, like a scavenger hunt, and
Speaker 2: then finally there's a money drop at a specific location.
Speaker 2: But the plan went off script super early when you
Speaker 2: know Ron missed that phone call because the police said,
Speaker 2: you're gonna miss this phone call. Nielsen had actually called
Speaker 2: that night at midnight when he was supposed to talk
Speaker 2: to Ron, and the police had said initially, well, no,
Speaker 2: you don't go to that phone booth. The kidnapper I'm
Speaker 2: sure has made us by now, and he hadn't he
Speaker 2: did say that the plan got bungled after he saw
Speaker 2: that off duty cop or that cop and got frightened
Speaker 2: in the park that night. So we do have more
Speaker 2: information about sort of what happens and with her death too.
Speaker 2: I can talk about that now. Also it comes out
Speaker 2: in trial that I can skip to that.
Speaker 3: No, I think you know everything he's saying, just mad
Speaker 3: up with the details of the case in terms of
Speaker 3: it obviously was pre planned. Does he ever address why
Speaker 3: he used a box of candy in order to leave
Speaker 3: the message in the first place at the house?
Speaker 2: Now, and it was Turkish delights, which had various definitions
Speaker 2: from the seventies, and so I just said, I'm just
Speaker 2: going to say, a box of candy. I don't know
Speaker 2: if it was significant or just something he had in
Speaker 2: his car, but it would have had his fingerprints on it,
Speaker 2: I'm assuming unless he wore gloves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I think you know the type of
Speaker 3: ransom note that he left. It wasn't like a piece
Speaker 3: of paper that he could he's placing on the kitchen counter.
Speaker 3: It's the strip of this dimo, you know, like a label,
Speaker 3: so you know, containerizing it into a larger object that
Speaker 3: would stand out to the family. I could see the reasoning,
Speaker 3: but you know, why a box of candy? Why not
Speaker 3: something else? And it may have been at what you suggested,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe that was just the one thing he
Speaker 3: had but to have, you know, and thought, oh, I'll
Speaker 3: just use that. The family will look inside that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to make clear that this is something unusual that
Speaker 2: was not theirs. The trial for Nielsen mcgins in June
Speaker 2: of nineteen seventy six. He's charged with kidnapping, grievous bodily harm,
Speaker 2: firearms possessions, and four murders. So the three poster workers
Speaker 2: in Leslie and I have bad news. Gerald Smith died.
Speaker 2: That's the security guard. You would think he would be
Speaker 2: included in these and it would be five murders. And
Speaker 2: there was something interesting I did not know at the time.
Speaker 2: English laws said that there was something called year in
Speaker 2: a day a year and a day rule which prevented
Speaker 2: murder charges from being brought if the victim died more
Speaker 2: than a year and a day after the attack. Isn't
Speaker 2: that interesting? So it meant that they could not include
Speaker 2: Gerald Smith's death. He survived for over a year, if
Speaker 2: it was over a year and a day, he wouldn't
Speaker 2: be included, and that law has since changed. Okay, here's details.
Speaker 2: I mean, this guy on an asshole. In the trial,
Speaker 2: it comes out that in the final days of her life.
Speaker 2: I don't see how long he kept her alive. It
Speaker 2: did not seem within it was within like two or
Speaker 2: three days.
Speaker 1: It sounds like he.
Speaker 2: Tied her to the side of the pitch black shaft
Speaker 2: using a wire noose that I showed you that was
Speaker 2: fastened around her neck.
Speaker 1: Remember, she was very petite.
Speaker 2: The noose was designed to prevent her from moving it all,
Speaker 2: and he says that any big shift in Police say
Speaker 2: this too, any big shift in position would tighten the
Speaker 2: wire around her neck, which could potentially strangle her.
Speaker 1: He says, I didn't kill her.
Speaker 2: He said she accidentally fell off the ledge into the
Speaker 2: lower shaft of the draining system. That he'd only tied
Speaker 2: the wire around Leslie's neck to restrain her, not to
Speaker 2: kill her. But most people thought that he killed her
Speaker 2: in a fit of rage after probably the cop he
Speaker 2: spotted the cop.
Speaker 1: Or what you know, any number of reasons.
Speaker 2: But the truth is unknown, and you know, the pathology
Speaker 2: report is sort of inconclusive. I wonder Paul knowing where
Speaker 2: she is now though, if she's standing there for days
Speaker 2: naked and it's cold and it's January and it's wet
Speaker 2: down there, if the cardiac arrest theory is not so
Speaker 2: out of bounds.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I think that this is this is
Speaker 3: now getting just from a medical side. It's above me
Speaker 3: in terms of okay, you know, because I've heard of
Speaker 3: you know, the bagel reflex vegus nerve issues causing death.
Speaker 3: In terms of the condition that she was left in,
Speaker 3: you know, the fright that she would be under. I mean,
Speaker 3: imagine if you're a seventeen year old girl and you're
Speaker 3: left alone in absolute darkness, sixty feet down in a shaft,
Speaker 3: and you're hearing sounds, you know, because guess what's down there.
Speaker 3: There's rats down there, There's going to be other types
Speaker 3: of sounds, you know, water running. This would be a
Speaker 3: very very scary environment, and you've got this noose around
Speaker 3: your neck that basically you have to be absolutely still
Speaker 3: or it just continues to tighten. Yeah, you know, that's
Speaker 3: where I think the pathologist is looking at the circumstances
Speaker 3: that she was bound under in the environment versus you know,
Speaker 3: some diagnostic feature he could see at autopsy. I just
Speaker 3: don't if she accidentally fell off that shaft or was
Speaker 3: pushed off that shaft. And I mean she's falling I
Speaker 3: don't know how long, but obviously her body weight, she's
Speaker 3: hanging under her body weight because her feet aren't touching
Speaker 3: the bottom. You know, this would cause some significant damage
Speaker 3: to her neck. And is it possible that that damage
Speaker 3: from the hanging could obscure evidence of strangulation. But if
Speaker 3: she did die of a vaguel nerve reflex, you know,
Speaker 3: was she just laying on the platform and then was
Speaker 3: she pushed off by him or did she you know,
Speaker 3: under collapsing from this vaguel reflex. Now she falls, But
Speaker 3: then I would think that being so close to death
Speaker 3: that it would be indistinguishable. They would find evidence of
Speaker 3: literally strangulation from the hanging. So I don't know. You know,
Speaker 3: that's literally getting a high end forensic pathologist to assess everything,
Speaker 3: and then I would need to hear from that person
Speaker 3: what their thoughts are.
Speaker 1: He killed her no matter what.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, he is absolutely responsible for her homicide.
Speaker 3: I kind of want to go back to the fact
Speaker 3: that she's nude. Yeah, as I mentioned before, like with
Speaker 3: this metal cable. You know, this is not a type
Speaker 3: of binding material one would use if you want your
Speaker 3: victim to be as compliant as possible, because it would
Speaker 3: be so uncomfortable and so painful. You have to think about, Okay,
Speaker 3: if I'm going to be having to control this seventeen
Speaker 3: year old girl, Leslie, how do I I do that
Speaker 3: and minimize her resistance or her And part of that
Speaker 3: is minimizing her discomfort. And now you're down in this
Speaker 3: cold shaft and he's having her take her robe off.
Speaker 3: That further causes discomfort. So that's where I start going,
Speaker 3: Hold on, why is he doing that? I am not
Speaker 3: convinced that once he had her isolated that there wasn't
Speaker 3: any sexual activity. But if she's down there for almost
Speaker 3: two months and dead, they're really not going to be
Speaker 3: able to find evidence of any sexual assault.
Speaker 2: Well, thankfully he has found guilty. Of course, he gets
Speaker 2: five life sentences, no possibility of parole.
Speaker 1: He died just in twenty eleven. He was seventy five.
Speaker 2: This is not an old story. It's seventy five, you know,
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy five. Yeah, so he died at age seventy five.
Speaker 2: He had developed a neurological disease, and you know, the
Speaker 2: family went on. They have a bus company that still operates.
Speaker 2: It doesn't seem like the family is, you know, that
Speaker 2: involved with it, but we aren't sure. I feel like
Speaker 2: I don't know a lot sometimes about our criminals in
Speaker 2: their background and like their criminal history and sort of
Speaker 2: how it all builds, and particularly about how violent these
Speaker 2: kidnappings can be, because I feel like we've had bungling kidnappings,
Speaker 2: but this was really that end up somehow with people dead.
Speaker 2: But this was really calculated and scary, and this was
Speaker 2: somebody who needed to be stopped and killed, you know,
Speaker 2: five people.
Speaker 1: So a really sad story for.
Speaker 2: A seventeen year old girl who I'm assuming had just
Speaker 2: all the potential in the world, and you know, just
Speaker 2: devastating for her family.
Speaker 1: To bring that kind of case to you, I think.
Speaker 3: Is important unfortunately, whether it be kidnappings like in Leslie's case,
Speaker 3: or sexual assaults or homicides, you know, you have victims
Speaker 3: who you know, they go to bed at night think
Speaker 3: and they're going to wake up the next morning and
Speaker 3: life will be the same, and within a matter of
Speaker 3: hours their lives are either completely changed or taken away
Speaker 3: from them, somebody like this Nielsen guy. He was on
Speaker 3: kind of this escalation of criminality from I don't know
Speaker 3: how far back, you know, whether he did anything in
Speaker 3: the military, but definitely after he got out of the military.
Speaker 3: He's committing the burglaries, you know, he's doing the robbery homicides,
Speaker 3: and then he's doing an abduction homicide of a girl.
Speaker 3: He just escalated over time, and though the primary motive
Speaker 3: is financial, got to ask the question about why the escalation.
Speaker 3: You know, what is truly his inner motivation? You know,
Speaker 3: is he just angry at the world and is just
Speaker 3: getting more and more pissed off and escalates the violence
Speaker 3: as he goes on. Once Leyton's tied Leslie's abduction to
Speaker 3: these post office homicides, it's like, Okay, you know, this
Speaker 3: is a bad, bad guy. He is a threat to
Speaker 3: public safety. And you know, fortunately law enforcement found him
Speaker 3: before he committed another crime. Unfortunately they didn't find Leslie
Speaker 3: before she was killed.
Speaker 1: Okay, I don't think I can talk about this story anymore.
Speaker 3: It's a tough one.
Speaker 1: It is a tough one, you know, it is.
Speaker 2: Well, Paul, thank you for going through the story with
Speaker 2: me and talking about all the forensics. It's nice to
Speaker 2: have a reminder there was a time when we did
Speaker 2: have good forensics that we could talk about on this
Speaker 2: show and not just sort of like wishing the real
Speaker 2: killer will walk through the door, or you know, like
Speaker 2: looking at tea leaves to try to figure out who
Speaker 2: the killer was.
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 2: We are in the seventies able to pick up on
Speaker 2: some things. Yeah, and thankfully the police finally got it
Speaker 2: together there at the end.
Speaker 1: But I will see you next week. For my hope,
Speaker 1: is a drastically different story that we can talk about.
Speaker 3: Okay, as always, I look forward to it.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll see you next week. Thanks. This has been
Speaker 1: an exactly right production.
Speaker 3: For our sources and show notes go to Exactlyrightmedia dot
Speaker 3: com slash Buried Bones sources.
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Alexis Emirosi.
Speaker 3: Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1: Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 3: Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1: Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 3: Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hart Stark and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 2: You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Speaker 2: Buried Bones.
Speaker 3: Pod Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a
Speaker 3: Gilded Age story of murder and the race to decode
Speaker 3: the criminal mind, is available now, and
Speaker 2: Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, my life solving America's cold cases,
Speaker 2: is also available now