Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
Speaker 1: last twenty five years writing about true crime.
Speaker 2: And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
Speaker 2: worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 1: Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling.
Speaker 2: True crimes, and I weigh in using modern forensic techniques
Speaker 2: to bring new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 1: Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
Speaker 1: cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 2: Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1: This is Buried Bones.
Speaker 2: Hey Paul, Hey Kate, how are you.
Speaker 1: I'm doing well. You were busy. That's what the crowd
Speaker 1: is saying, is you're busy. I don't know who the
Speaker 1: crowd is. That's what they say.
Speaker 2: Oh you know, I've I have just been buried, you know,
Speaker 2: of course recording the two podcasts, and you know, I'm
Speaker 2: actually doing a lot of training for law enforcement, and
Speaker 2: I have you know, the author and casework. But I'm
Speaker 2: also doing an audible project, which is an active investigation.
Speaker 2: And a few weeks ago, I just returned back from
Speaker 2: the Bay Area and have some new information about the case.
Speaker 2: And actually it's multiple cases, multiple homicides. It's one of
Speaker 2: my old cases and it's a lot. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: trying to get this thing wrapped up so you know,
Speaker 2: we'll be ready for the listeners at some point when
Speaker 2: Audible decides to release it. But you know, actual casework
Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily line up with production schedules.
Speaker 1: I know, I've noticed. I know that you have been
Speaker 1: doing just a ton of stuff, which is always great.
Speaker 1: It's an embarrassment of riches. So I'm always and especially
Speaker 1: because you've got your foot at everything, and the active
Speaker 1: investigations is what helps us the most. Being totally selfish, Paul,
Speaker 1: that's what I care about, is what actually helps the
Speaker 1: listeners in me.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I appreciate that thought. You know, of course,
Speaker 2: I'm doing what I used to do before I retired
Speaker 2: in similar capacity, not identical, because I'm no longer a
Speaker 2: peace officer. I don't have access to stuff, and I
Speaker 2: have to rely on law enforcement agencies and give them
Speaker 2: guidance and hope that they follow through. But trying to
Speaker 2: do that in addition to doing sort of the true
Speaker 2: crime aspect. Yeah, you know it is. It's turned into
Speaker 2: somewhat of a struggle just to figure out how to
Speaker 2: allot my time. But so far, you know, I seem
Speaker 2: to be staying afloat and hopefully things will turn out
Speaker 2: good in the long run.
Speaker 1: Is this more relaxing your schedule now than when you
Speaker 1: were working working with the Sheriff's department or wherever you were?
Speaker 2: You know, it's well, it's it's very different, you know.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, the casework was always a passion
Speaker 2: and it can be stressful. But when I was active,
Speaker 2: I had other responsibilities. You know, I was, you know,
Speaker 2: at with Sheriff's office. I was a division commander with
Speaker 2: the DA's office. I was a chief and oversaw you know,
Speaker 2: investigative units and other things, and you know, had a
Speaker 2: lot of administrative duties. So trying to juggle casework and
Speaker 2: the administrative duties and reporting to a boss is a struggle. Now,
Speaker 2: you know, author might have a boss there, of course,
Speaker 2: but you know, nowadays it's with what I'm doing, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of independence, and I do enjoy the independence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can imagine that too. I mean, I'm juggling
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. I've got the book that came
Speaker 1: out a couple of months ago. And then of course
Speaker 1: those kids, Yeah, I've got those two. I've got those
Speaker 1: two Carls stinking kids who had a sleepover in my cottage.
Speaker 1: And I said, this is not what the game plan was.
Speaker 1: The game plan was that I come out here and
Speaker 1: I'm on my own and they loved it. They had
Speaker 1: a great time. I think it was kind of spooky
Speaker 1: for him. And it didn't help that I came out
Speaker 1: at midnight and was knocking on the.
Speaker 2: Walls wearing some ghoul mask.
Speaker 1: Isn't that what good parents do? I thought, that's what.
Speaker 2: Is to keep them on their toes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do that. So you know this, we're going
Speaker 1: to transition to a case that I think feels familiar,
Speaker 1: which is unfortunate because we do spend an awful lot
Speaker 1: of time talking about women who are found, you know,
Speaker 1: by themselves dead, they've been potentially attacked, and it's a mystery.
Speaker 1: I just feel like we've just said this over and
Speaker 1: over and over again. And the more we talk about
Speaker 1: things like this, you know, being alone in the dark,
Speaker 1: and you know, women feeling like they're being stalked, all
Speaker 1: of that for me just makes it more and more
Speaker 1: clear how how vulnerable women are, you know, and these
Speaker 1: stories and we just keep going backwards in time and
Speaker 1: it's the same old story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and it's just it's such a sad state,
Speaker 2: you know. It's it's very different, like I can go out,
Speaker 2: let's say, if I want to do a jog, I
Speaker 2: can go out jogging at night, and the chances of
Speaker 2: me becoming a victim are much lower than if a
Speaker 2: woman were to go out at the same time, you know,
Speaker 2: And that's I don't know what the answer is to that,
Speaker 2: you know. You know, my entire career has been really
Speaker 2: focused on going after the men that victimize women. And
Speaker 2: I don't know, you know, how do we get this
Speaker 2: where women can feel safe? And it sounds like you're
Speaker 2: probably going to be telling me a story from I
Speaker 2: don't know how long ago. You know, this is just
Speaker 2: something that's been going on probably forever. Oh yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's you know, it's just it's just sad.
Speaker 1: You know. This is another I think difficult story. It's
Speaker 1: set in eighteen ninety two, so we are going very
Speaker 1: far back. Okay, So let's go ahead and set the
Speaker 1: scene Wilmington, Delaware. I love Delaware. Love it, love it,
Speaker 1: love it great state. I know this is like the
Speaker 1: obligatory question I always ask, you haven't been to Delaware before?
Speaker 1: Have you been to Wilmington before?
Speaker 2: I have not been to Delaware nor Wilmington, or I
Speaker 2: guess if I say, if I haven't been to Delaware,
Speaker 2: then of course I haven't been to Wilmington. So no,
Speaker 2: don't know it. You know that the kind of the
Speaker 2: northeast part of the country is the area that I
Speaker 2: really have the least amount of experience with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, luckily for us, you have a lot of
Speaker 1: experience with crime. So so don't worry about Delaware. Delaware
Speaker 1: does not play a big role in this. Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: going to set the scene. You know, sometimes I build
Speaker 1: up to who's the victim and you know who's the killer,
Speaker 1: And in this case, we're going to just start with
Speaker 1: what investigators find. So eighteen ninety two, it's October twentieth,
Speaker 1: around noon, and a man stumbles onto a horrific scene
Speaker 1: as he's crossed a field and he's using this field
Speaker 1: as a shortcut, and it's the body of a teenage girl.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of different bits of info, so I
Speaker 1: might have to skip around on the document a little bit,
Speaker 1: depending on what you want to hear about. But let
Speaker 1: me tell you what he sees first. So she is seventeen.
Speaker 1: We know later she is lying on her back with
Speaker 1: her head turned to one side, and she is fully
Speaker 1: clothed except for her hat, which is about ten feet
Speaker 1: from her body, so we would presume knocked off. And
Speaker 1: it seems pretty obvious even to this man who finds her,
Speaker 1: that she's been the victim of something very violent. She's
Speaker 1: in a pool of blood, and her eyes are battered
Speaker 1: and bruised in her throat, her throat is so deeply
Speaker 1: severed that she's almost decapitated. And there is a razor,
Speaker 1: which I'm assuming is a straight razor like you would
Speaker 1: use in a barber shop, and there is a razor
Speaker 1: on the ground beside her body. We have talked about
Speaker 1: the amount of force, or the least amount of force
Speaker 1: she needs to almost decapitate. Somebody, Can a woman do this?
Speaker 1: You know it silly things like that. So can you
Speaker 1: tell me where you want to start? This is what
Speaker 1: we know so far.
Speaker 2: Okay, So obviously the woman is out in a field,
Speaker 2: you know, and I want to know a little bit
Speaker 2: more about you know, what kind of access out to
Speaker 2: this field, what kind of field it is? You know,
Speaker 2: she off of a trail or did somebody you know,
Speaker 2: push their way through, you know, some sort of crop.
Speaker 2: You know. The razor, you know, that sounds like something
Speaker 2: that she would not carry herself, So that sounds like
Speaker 2: something that the offender would have brought to the scene.
Speaker 2: And razors, of course, are when they're maintained, the straight
Speaker 2: razors are very very sharp, and so I've previously discussed
Speaker 2: because it's it's always brought up. You know, you have
Speaker 2: a throat cut, it's near decapitation. This must show that
Speaker 2: there's just extreme violence and rage by the offender on
Speaker 2: the victim. And the reality is that homicidal throat slashings
Speaker 2: with a sharp edged weapon through the front of the neck,
Speaker 2: the soft tissues, the trachia, it almost always looks like
Speaker 2: its near decapitation. That's not surprising that she has such
Speaker 2: a deep cut to her throat if the razor was
Speaker 2: in fact used to cut it. You mentioned that she's
Speaker 2: laying in a pool of blood, and of course i'd
Speaker 2: want to see the distribution of this pool of blood.
Speaker 2: It is consistent with her throat being cut while she's
Speaker 2: laying down, and it just she bleeds out like that.
Speaker 2: So she was overpowered ahead of time? Or has she
Speaker 2: been moved after she starts bleeding? Does she have other
Speaker 2: bleeding injuries? Does she have defensive injuries? The battered and
Speaker 2: bruised eyes, if they are in fact indicative that she
Speaker 2: was receiving blows to the face, probably ahead of her
Speaker 2: throat being cut, This indicates that the offender used forced
Speaker 2: to overpower her and she may have resisted. So there's
Speaker 2: you know, there's some information here that gives me a
Speaker 2: sense as to what's going on, But of course the
Speaker 2: devil's in the details.
Speaker 1: I don't get a sense that there's blood anywhere else.
Speaker 1: It seems like it's concentrated under her head or under
Speaker 1: her throat. Okay, with this straight razor, sometimes I think,
Speaker 1: is this a crime of opportunity where somebody is walking by,
Speaker 1: he sees this young girl walking through this field and
Speaker 1: he says, this is my opportunity. That seems unlikely, right,
Speaker 1: because he's carrying a razor. It's not like he's carrying
Speaker 1: a little gun as a personal protection. I mean, this
Speaker 1: seems like something that's supposed to be threatening you.
Speaker 2: Know, maybe you know, but I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 2: it doesn't seem like, you know, these straight razors would
Speaker 2: be something that men would normally just randomly carry. I
Speaker 2: think determining if it's a random crime or not really
Speaker 2: relies more on the victimology. You know, what is her life,
Speaker 2: life patterns? Why is she would she normally be passing
Speaker 2: through this field? You know, different details like that. The
Speaker 2: presence of the razor may indicate that the offender had
Speaker 2: violence on his mind when he left wherever he left.
Speaker 2: Or maybe he's a he's a barber and this is
Speaker 2: his tool of trade and he always has one tucked away.
Speaker 1: That would be a coincidence, I get, But you could
Speaker 1: be right. I guess we'll find out. Yeah, well, we
Speaker 1: do have some suspects, and we'll see what they do
Speaker 1: for a living, and maybe your barber theory will come through. Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll make things a lot easier.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: If I were a barber, I'm not sure I would
Speaker 1: use a straight trade razor, but that would point right
Speaker 1: to me. Okay, so let me tell you what. I'm
Speaker 1: going to jump around a little bit. So this is
Speaker 1: what we hear the corner says when they end up
Speaker 1: doing an autopsy. So he says that Katie, her name
Speaker 1: is Katie Dugan, that Katie had both of her carotid
Speaker 1: arteries severed, and then this says as well as her
Speaker 1: internal and external jugular and that now this is you know,
Speaker 1: an assumption here. The depth of the slash to her
Speaker 1: neck suggests that the perpetrator was very strong. We just
Speaker 1: sort of talked about that, and what do you think
Speaker 1: about that?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, the fact that both carotids, the crowdits
Speaker 2: lay underneath the jugulars. So of course, just by the
Speaker 2: fact that both crotids are cut indicates that it's a
Speaker 2: very deep incision, which is not surprising oftentimes with cut
Speaker 2: throats if the cut is more geared towards one side
Speaker 2: or the other, and this sometimes could indicate which hand
Speaker 2: the offender is holding the weapon in at the time
Speaker 2: he cuts the throat. But you'll see, you know, the
Speaker 2: left jugular and the left carotid cut, while the other
Speaker 2: ones are intact on the other side of the neck.
Speaker 2: With both crodits being cut and both external internal jugulars
Speaker 2: being cut, this tells me that this throat cut was
Speaker 2: deep and cut. I wouldn't sayly straight across, but cut
Speaker 2: through the neck on both sides of the neck. And
Speaker 2: this is where I would not be surprised if it's
Speaker 2: low enough down on the neck that it possibly went
Speaker 2: through the trachia. And I've actually seen that as well,
Speaker 2: where I'm looking down the trachia of somebody who has
Speaker 2: had their throat cut. This is basically sudden death for Katy.
Speaker 2: You know, in essence, you know she's as soon as
Speaker 2: her karates are cut, her brain is no longer receiving
Speaker 2: a blood supply, and in essence, within ten seconds she's
Speaker 2: unconscious and there's nothing that could be done to save her.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad that this happened quickly because it sounds horrific.
Speaker 1: So I know that this is a gruesome question, and
Speaker 1: those are the kinds of questions I ask on this show.
Speaker 1: Do you, as the offender need to be behind Katie
Speaker 1: to make this kind of cut or can you be
Speaker 1: standing in front of her? I don't think I've ever
Speaker 1: asked this question before about throats being slashed.
Speaker 2: It's either okay in terms of the relative position of
Speaker 2: the offender to the victim at the time that the
Speaker 2: throat is cut, you know, there can be some indicators. However,
Speaker 2: there's so many variables that I don't think you can
Speaker 2: make a definitive statement as to their relative positions just
Speaker 2: based off of how the throat was cut.
Speaker 1: Okay, so now let me tell you a little bit
Speaker 1: about Katie, because we do need to have some victimology here.
Speaker 1: I think that we do have a corner's in quest,
Speaker 1: but I think it's more an in quest where they
Speaker 1: know it's murder, but they want to discuss more of
Speaker 1: the circumstances. Because the last detail that the corner gave
Speaker 1: us is that she was the seventeen year old girl
Speaker 1: four months pregnant. And I'm going to say it one
Speaker 1: more time. I say this in book talks, I say
Speaker 1: it all the time. The National Institute of Health says
Speaker 1: that homicide is the leading cause of death for women
Speaker 1: who are pregnant and in the postpartum period. In America,
Speaker 1: leading cause of death is homicide. It is when women
Speaker 1: are most vulnerable. So four months pregnant, and I will say,
Speaker 1: she is not married, and she lives with her parents.
Speaker 1: Recently she moved back in with her parents, So eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety two, this would have been quite scandalous. So what
Speaker 1: do we think so far? Obviously this adds another dimension
Speaker 1: to Katie's life.
Speaker 2: Well, immediately, you know, my mind goes to, Okay, who
Speaker 2: is the biological father? What is that relationship? Is there
Speaker 2: any jeopardy that he might be under if it is
Speaker 2: found out that he is impregnated the seventeen year old
Speaker 2: teenage girl. Then the other side is is she in
Speaker 2: a relationship with a man who she's got pregnant by
Speaker 2: and there's a jealous ex lover stalker, you know, somebody
Speaker 2: that is really upset that she's in this other relationship.
Speaker 2: So those are going to be kind of two things
Speaker 2: immediately on my mind. However, right now we don't know
Speaker 2: if this is somebody that even knows her right, you know,
Speaker 2: But this is where the victimology starts to come into play.
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, given this time frame, eighteen ninety two,
Speaker 2: seventeen year old girl, unmarried who is four months pregnant,
Speaker 2: we know that this is something that society at that
Speaker 2: point in time is not going to be kind in
Speaker 2: thinking about. And this could cause jeopardy on whoever, you know,
Speaker 2: is who's responsible, especially you know, let's say it's you know,
Speaker 2: as an example, you know, a religious figure from the
Speaker 2: church she attends, you know, and so he may resort
Speaker 2: to violence in order to protect himself. And that right
Speaker 2: now is just sort of a you know, speculative type
Speaker 2: of scenario, but we know that based off of other
Speaker 2: cases that we've done, that that is a real scenario
Speaker 2: during this time, even today, you know, that would be
Speaker 2: something that would have to be considered. You know, the
Speaker 2: victimology ends up sometimes pointing within the victim's own social circles,
Speaker 2: and you evaluate who's within her social circles that would
Speaker 2: benefit from her death.
Speaker 1: Well, her parents say they had no idea that she
Speaker 1: was pregnant, which, if they're telling the truth, I believe
Speaker 1: she was four months pregnant. She could have at four
Speaker 1: months covered that up. Sure, So I'll tell you more
Speaker 1: about Katie. She had been a domestic worker, live in
Speaker 1: domestic worker. She moved back in with her parents. We
Speaker 1: don't know why just yet, but word of the murder
Speaker 1: and her pregnancy comes as a shock to the whole community.
Speaker 1: So here's an interesting thing. So the investigators initially, when
Speaker 1: they look at the scene, they think that whoever killed
Speaker 1: her put this razor right next to her. To make
Speaker 1: it look like she took her own life. Then of
Speaker 1: course they immediate, thankfully, they immediately dismissed that. And I
Speaker 1: know that we've talked about people have taken their own
Speaker 1: lives with razors before, which I just find horrific. But
Speaker 1: they immediately say, just based on the cuts, it just
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like something she could do to herself. But
Speaker 1: you have had, without being too graphic, you've had instances
Speaker 1: where people really have been able to get it do
Speaker 1: a really deep cut on themselves.
Speaker 2: Yes. No, I have a case where an adult male
Speaker 2: killed himself by cutting his throat. Now, within that case,
Speaker 2: there was other indicators that he did it to himself.
Speaker 2: There are hesitation marks. You know. Somebody who is getting
Speaker 2: ready to cut into themselves oftentimes has to build up
Speaker 2: the courage, and they do that by dragging the weapon over.
Speaker 2: Let's say they're going to cut the wrists. You often
Speaker 2: see several very superficial types of either linear abrasions like
Speaker 2: it's not even cutting the skin, but it's just superficially
Speaker 2: damaging the skin, or more superficial cuts before you get
Speaker 2: the deeper cut that actually is fatal. Same thing with
Speaker 2: this gentleman with his neck. You could actually see some
Speaker 2: of the hesitation marks. And he had also other knife
Speaker 2: play that he had done to himself as he was
Speaker 2: really mentally struggling. So they're you know, this is evaluating
Speaker 2: the totality of the circumstances. But yes, somebody like as
Speaker 2: an example with Katie, could she have cut her own
Speaker 2: throat with a razor and could it have been very deep? Absolutely?
Speaker 2: What argues against her doing this to herself, at least
Speaker 2: on the surface is the battered and bruised eyes. Now,
Speaker 2: could she have been doing something to herself that caused that. Possibly,
Speaker 2: But that's where it's really kind of digging into what
Speaker 2: is going on with her, what are her injuries and
Speaker 2: what is the totality of everything that's being assessed. Offenders
Speaker 2: often leave the murder weapon behind, So just the fact
Speaker 2: that the razor is, you know, sitting next to her
Speaker 2: does not indicate suicide. You know, this is something that's
Speaker 2: very common. Could be a gun, it could be a knife.
Speaker 2: We see that all the time, and it's truly homicide.
Speaker 1: Right, and you know, the offender is not thinking fingerprints
Speaker 1: because fingerprints were not a thing just yet in investigations. Right,
Speaker 1: let's get to the corner because I have a question,
Speaker 1: a technical question. I've never asked you this before. They
Speaker 1: hold no, no, no, you'll get this. Be fine. Don't panic,
Speaker 1: Paul Stump the dummy time. No, no panic. Okay. So
Speaker 1: the corner's inquest is held and witnesses are brought in
Speaker 1: one by one and they are not allowed to listen
Speaker 1: to each other's testimonies. Is that right?
Speaker 2: Well, that should be standard, okay. And so whether it
Speaker 2: be a corner's in quest or actually at trial, you know,
Speaker 2: you want the witnesses to get up there and testify
Speaker 2: to what they know and not be influenced by something
Speaker 2: that they've heard by other witnesses on the stand. So typically,
Speaker 2: like even I as whether I was a criminalist or
Speaker 2: working as a CSI, I was not allowed inside the courtroom,
Speaker 2: you know, while other witnesses are are going on the stand,
Speaker 2: and then I would I'd be sitting on the hall.
Speaker 2: Sometimes i'd be out in the hall for a week,
Speaker 2: you know, waiting to get on the stand, just the
Speaker 2: way things played out, and then I would go in
Speaker 2: and testify. I have no idea what the other witnesses
Speaker 2: have said. All I can do is talk about what
Speaker 2: I know. And what in the opinions that I can express.
Speaker 2: So it sounds like if they are barring these witnesses
Speaker 2: from coming in. Well that's good, you know, that's what
Speaker 2: I would expect as being the standard in order to
Speaker 2: get independence in the testimony from each of these witnesses.
Speaker 1: Okay, well good, I'm glad to hear that. From the beginning,
Speaker 1: they're doing things right. They're confirming this is definitely not
Speaker 1: a suicide, and they're you know, making sure nobody hears
Speaker 1: the testimony at this corner's in quest. So let's keep
Speaker 1: going and see if they continue to do a good
Speaker 1: job here. Okay. First one on the stand is James Dugan.
Speaker 1: So this is her father, and he says that he
Speaker 1: last saw his daughter the night before, so this would
Speaker 1: have been Wednesday of the nineteenth. She was found the
Speaker 1: next day, on the twentieth, in the field. It's I mean,
Speaker 1: no surprise. Her body was rigid, and you know, it
Speaker 1: probably was a cool night. It was in October in Delaware.
Speaker 1: So James as that as he was leaving he saw
Speaker 1: a man lingering near the house, so not inside the
Speaker 1: house or in front of the house. Near the house,
Speaker 1: he didn't recognize this guy.
Speaker 2: This was a.
Speaker 1: Stranger to him, and he didn't think very much of it.
Speaker 1: So about eight oh five, according to her sister, Katie
Speaker 1: went outside and then she vanished. That was it, and
Speaker 1: then they found her the next day. Katie had told
Speaker 1: her sister Lizzie that she'd be back in just a
Speaker 1: couple of minutes, but she didn't really say to Lizzie
Speaker 1: at least where she went. She didn't come back, and
Speaker 1: her family assume that she decided to stay at an
Speaker 1: aunt's house nearby. Again, this is where we go back
Speaker 1: to telephones and text messaging, and there's no landlines here
Speaker 1: even where you have to make assumptions, and there's such
Speaker 1: a delay because they didn't have instant communication back then.
Speaker 2: Sure, what I'm hearing Katie is telling her sister, I'm
Speaker 2: going outside. I'll be back in a few minutes. The
Speaker 2: fact that she's notifying her sister sounds like this was
Speaker 2: not a normal thing that she would be doing. So
Speaker 2: she's just saying, Hey, I've got to go do this.
Speaker 2: I don't know what's you know, if there's some type
Speaker 2: of task that she would need to go outside to
Speaker 2: do some sort of chore, But is there like a
Speaker 2: pre arranged meeting. That is what I'm starting to think about,
Speaker 2: especially with Dad seeing some strange man lingering around outside. Again,
Speaker 2: is you know how busy is this neighborhood? You know,
Speaker 2: are these like you know, today's California neighborhoods with a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of houses that are around, or are these
Speaker 2: very isolated houses where somebody shouldn't be near the house
Speaker 2: if they didn't have business at the house.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I get the impression that this is kind
Speaker 1: of just a suburban street neighbors. You know, there are
Speaker 1: other houses around, not isolated. But that's a good point.
Speaker 1: It does sound like she's just gonna hop outside. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's to have a conversation with this
Speaker 1: stranger for a few minutes. But the mystery deep So
Speaker 1: her mother, whose name Catherine Dugan, says that Katie had
Speaker 1: received a letter in the mail in the post a
Speaker 1: few hours before her death. She reads it, she stuffs
Speaker 1: it into her pocket, and she seems very cheerful. So Lizzie,
Speaker 1: Katie's sister, said that she kind of looked over her
Speaker 1: shoulder and she saw the name Jack written on the letter. Okay,
Speaker 1: of course we don't have a I don't have a
Speaker 1: copy of the letter, but the police do find the
Speaker 1: letter in her pocket and it says meet me on
Speaker 1: Wednesday night at the same place at the same time.
Speaker 1: So there you go, some kind of a rendezvous in
Speaker 1: some way, and she seems happy, and she's four months pregnant.
Speaker 2: I guess where you know where I'm going? And hearing
Speaker 2: about this is of course, Jack becomes very interesting in
Speaker 2: terms of her homicide. You know, Katie's cheerful, sounds like
Speaker 2: somebody that you know, this Jack is somebody that she
Speaker 2: actually likes, and it's not scared of. So Jack is
Speaker 2: somebody that needs to be investigated. And then the other
Speaker 2: possibility is is who did Jack tell that he was
Speaker 2: going to be meeting Katie? You know? Is that information
Speaker 2: has it been broadcast to where now somebody who wants
Speaker 2: to take advantage of Katie being isolated and now knows
Speaker 2: that Katie's going to be traveling to a certain location
Speaker 2: alone can intercept Katie before catching up to Jack. And
Speaker 2: I'm assuming Jack is well and he's not dead somewhere
Speaker 2: else in a different part of the Wilmington, Delaware area.
Speaker 1: Yes, you can trust me on that.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know you have not established trust over
Speaker 2: the course of our episodes.
Speaker 1: You think I'm an unreliable source of well, it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be fun if I were always reliable polholes. Okay, So
Speaker 1: here's here's the thing that is interesting to me. This
Speaker 1: is a very familiar story, and I know that I
Speaker 1: interviewed for you for my book listeners all abow. But
Speaker 1: this mirrors what happened to the main character in my book,
Speaker 1: Sarah Cornell. She's pregnant, and in Sarah's case, she had
Speaker 1: been making demands of the father of the baby. She
Speaker 1: left the house. She was really cheerful. There is a
Speaker 1: letter that says meet me at this location. It is unsigned.
Speaker 1: She goes, and the next day she is found dead
Speaker 1: hanging from a haystack pole. That's right, So I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's the case here. Sarah was cheerful when
Speaker 1: she left the house. This takes place in Fall River, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty two. She was cheerful because it sounded
Speaker 1: like from a letter that one of the women at
Speaker 1: the house had read that the father was saying, I'll
Speaker 1: take care of it. Don't worry about it, I'll take
Speaker 1: care of everything. Bring the letter with you that all
Speaker 1: the letters that I've written with you and will burn
Speaker 1: them and I will take care of t He'll support.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if it's cheerful because Katie likes
Speaker 1: this man, or if some kind of you know, agreement
Speaker 1: was made and this is just somebody who you know,
Speaker 1: she ended up having an affair with, or I don't
Speaker 1: know yet, but it felt very familiar when I was
Speaker 1: reading this.
Speaker 2: You know, taking the circumstances in Sarah's case into consideration,
Speaker 2: so reading into Katie's cheerfulness of receiving this letter from Jack.
Speaker 2: Either as I mentioned before, she likes Jack, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's like he's willing to meet with her after hours.
Speaker 2: She's excited about it. You know, this is a romance
Speaker 2: and she's concerned about whether or not it's going to continue,
Speaker 2: and it seems to be reaffirmed when she receives this letter.
Speaker 2: Or maybe it's like in Sarah's case, to where now,
Speaker 2: whatever problems we're going on in Katie's life, this letter
Speaker 2: is something that is going to alleviate some of those problems,
Speaker 2: and that's could be the reason for her to be cheerful.
Speaker 2: So you know, right now, maybe initially I read too
Speaker 2: much into the possibility. Okay, Jack is somebody that he's
Speaker 2: the father of the baby, and she wants to have
Speaker 2: a romantic relationship. That could be the case, or maybe
Speaker 2: there's something else going on that would cause Katie to be,
Speaker 2: you know, in this cheerful mood after receiving the letter.
Speaker 1: Well, let's continue, because now we have more witnesses who
Speaker 1: may or may not be reliable. We'll see. There is
Speaker 1: somebody named James Riley who they describe as a boy,
Speaker 1: which I have to think is you know, fourteen or under.
Speaker 1: He said he saw Katie with a man that night.
Speaker 1: The man had one arm around Katie and the other
Speaker 1: one in his coat pocket. I would not hope on
Speaker 1: the razor. I mean, that just seems odd. But who knows,
Speaker 1: I don't know. So that's one witness. Another witness, actually
Speaker 1: two more witnesses, so a guy named Edward mcwa and
Speaker 1: Thomas Connell say that they saw Katie with a man
Speaker 1: that night. Also, they don't know who this person is.
Speaker 1: This was not someone they were familiar with, but based
Speaker 1: on their description, they say that he is clean shaven
Speaker 1: and he has a light complexion. There is a man
Speaker 1: in Katie's life who fits that description, and I'll tell
Speaker 1: you about him in a second. But you know, according
Speaker 1: to the boy, James Riley, he said that he overheard
Speaker 1: Katie shout after they walked off in the distance, she
Speaker 1: said oh my several times, and when he got home
Speaker 1: he told his mother and sister about the encounter. And
Speaker 1: I don't think they did anything about it, so I
Speaker 1: don't have information of how distressful it was. But it
Speaker 1: didn't sound like a joyful oh my. And they were
Speaker 1: in the distance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's tough to read in in terms
Speaker 2: of what would cause Katie to yell out oh my.
Speaker 2: Is she receiving information from this man that artles her
Speaker 2: that she's not expecting, or is all of a sudden
Speaker 2: she's recognizing that this man is a threat to her.
Speaker 2: He's pulled the raiser out. You know, it's not just
Speaker 2: you know, sort of the stereotypical woman's scream in the night.
Speaker 2: You know, she may be going oh my, as she's
Speaker 2: being confronted with this person that she sounds like she
Speaker 2: potentially trusted is now turning on her, or maybe somebody
Speaker 2: else comes into the picture. As you know, Katie and
Speaker 2: this man are walking along, you know who knows at
Speaker 2: this point, going back, you know, with what Edward and
Speaker 2: Thomas are saying, clean shaven man, light complected.
Speaker 1: It's probably half a New England.
Speaker 2: True. So no, when Edward and Thomas are saying that
Speaker 2: they're seeing Katie with this man, he's clean shaven, light complected,
Speaker 2: and you said that there's one person in her life
Speaker 2: that matched that description. You know, maybe I'm kind of
Speaker 2: reading you a little bit. But now I go back
Speaker 2: to her work as a domestic worker, and you know,
Speaker 2: I go, well, who is she working for?
Speaker 1: Yes, and I like that very suspicious look. Okay, let
Speaker 1: me tell you about this guy. So investigators obviously looking
Speaker 1: at her social circle, they looked at the family. So
Speaker 1: this match is the description. This light complexion you know
Speaker 1: in clean shaven, which as I said, is probably half
Speaker 1: of New England, matches the description of a young man
Speaker 1: named Richard Riley. He was known to be friendly with Katie.
Speaker 1: It does not sound like they were dating, but they
Speaker 1: flirted a lot, Okay, and I don't know if this
Speaker 1: is the beginning of courting her. He says, I am
Speaker 1: clueless about this pregnancy. I think he was shocked, and
Speaker 1: investigators said he looked shocked. So he said, I hadn't
Speaker 1: seen her since two days before she was murdered. So
Speaker 1: if we assume maybe she was murdered Wednesday night, he
Speaker 1: said he saw her on Tuesday, that they had seen
Speaker 1: each other and they made plans for that Sunday and
Speaker 1: that was it. He said that he had not heard
Speaker 1: about the murder until several hours after the body was discovered,
Speaker 1: and he was at the ironically at the barber shop,
Speaker 1: and he found out about this. You know, I can
Speaker 1: tell you about Richard's alibi, but the investigators were alarmed
Speaker 1: enough about him that they had him testify for more
Speaker 1: than an hour at the coroner's jury. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: I know that's not a lot of information, But what
Speaker 1: do you think about what he said? He said, I
Speaker 1: saw her the day before. You know, we were friends.
Speaker 1: They were not known to be dating or sleeping together.
Speaker 2: Oh there's you know right now, it's wide open, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, he may be telling the truth. He could
Speaker 2: be absolutely lying. You know, this is pretty typical. If
Speaker 2: he's the one that's responsible for Kadie's death, of course
Speaker 2: he's going to try to put distance from him and
Speaker 2: Katie from the last time they were seen together and
Speaker 2: for him to be able to make that statement, he
Speaker 2: must have some confidence. If he's the actual killer, he
Speaker 2: must have some confidence that he was able to meet
Speaker 2: up with Katie. And there were no witnesses. But I
Speaker 2: need to know more, you know, like how old is
Speaker 2: Richard Riley? You know, what is the know? How did
Speaker 2: they know each other? That's kind of a kind of
Speaker 2: a curiosity, if you will.
Speaker 1: They just say young man Paul, if he were probably
Speaker 1: in his twenties, I think they would have mentioned it.
Speaker 1: So it must have been someone who maybe was a
Speaker 1: few years older than Katie. But regardless, I think her father.
Speaker 1: I got the impression that her father knew him or
Speaker 1: had seen him. So if we're going off of this
Speaker 1: theory that other witnesses say there's a man walking with her,
Speaker 1: he's got his arm around her, I think that James
Speaker 1: would have thought that the man who is sort of
Speaker 1: loitering in their area, I think he would have known
Speaker 1: that this is Richard Riley. I'm not one hundred percent
Speaker 1: sure though.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I'm going to assume that Richard Riley is
Speaker 2: somewhat within Katie's datable age range. Yes, yeah, that would
Speaker 2: be acceptable by society at the time. You know, of
Speaker 2: course him being at a barber shop. You know, there's
Speaker 2: a little bit of a concern about that, considering it
Speaker 2: sounds like she was killed with a straight raizor that
Speaker 2: would likely be found at a barbershop, you know. Digging
Speaker 2: into Richard Riley, you know, I'd want to know, you know,
Speaker 2: if he had impregnated Katie, you know, how does that
Speaker 2: impact him negatively? And would this be something as an example,
Speaker 2: maybe he has a search of social status. Does that
Speaker 2: social status get corrupted, if you will, by having this
Speaker 2: seventeen year old teenage girl being pregnant by him? Would
Speaker 2: his parents have concerned? Does his dad have a concern
Speaker 2: about this? And could dad be you know, interceding in
Speaker 2: his son's life and protecting you know, his son's future
Speaker 2: by taking out Katie. You know, there's there's different things
Speaker 2: that I'd be looking at in terms of Richard Riley,
Speaker 2: But right now he's just somebody in Katie's social circle
Speaker 2: and he's denying, and so we'll see where the clues go.
Speaker 1: I think one thing that investigators found intriguing was apparently
Speaker 1: what Richard wore to an event that I'm going to
Speaker 1: tell you about in a second. Was quickly laundered after
Speaker 1: Katie's murder, like that same day, most likely, he says,
Speaker 1: calm down, I dropped coconut cake on this. It's not
Speaker 1: the hardest evidence in the world.
Speaker 2: Oh, I thought you were flirting with me somehow. You're
Speaker 2: calling me coconut cake? What is going on?
Speaker 1: He ate coconut cake, Paul. Let's see, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've had a coconut cake. There's delicious.
Speaker 2: I do not like coconut you don't. No, no, I
Speaker 2: had a bad episode with coconut cake when I was young,
Speaker 2: to the point where I threw it up, and I
Speaker 2: won't eat coconut cake ever again.
Speaker 1: No, are you serious. You can't let childhood trauma come
Speaker 1: back like that, Paul. You have to try again. I think, Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: the police think this is the stupidest thing ever. But
Speaker 1: he said, what can I tell you? I was messy
Speaker 1: that night and I wanted to get that stuff off
Speaker 1: of me, so let me get to the alibi. Though,
Speaker 1: investigators kind of finally take their eyes off of Richard
Speaker 1: Riley because he had been very busy that night. Remember,
Speaker 1: Katie left with this mystery man. According to witnesses, a
Speaker 1: little after eight o'clock, and Richard was at some kind
Speaker 1: of like a fun fair at the Sacred Heart Church,
Speaker 1: which is a local church, until about ten forty five
Speaker 1: people saw him there. He was, you know, having a
Speaker 1: great time. He was very social, and he's got witnesses
Speaker 1: who say that. Then after he left the fair, he
Speaker 1: was home by about eleven o'clock. So and I didn't know.
Speaker 1: This is his family that is saying he's home. But
Speaker 1: the witnesses who said they saw a man with Katie
Speaker 1: that night with his arm around her, say when they
Speaker 1: see Richard, they say, this is not the same guy
Speaker 1: at all. So the pale faced, clean shaven man is
Speaker 1: still a mystery for us.
Speaker 2: Sure, And I guess one of the things I don't
Speaker 2: know is how far away is Katie's body from her house?
Speaker 2: How long would it roughly take to get to that location.
Speaker 1: It's walkable. The boy sees Katie and it's not far
Speaker 1: from her house at all. Well, she's with this man,
Speaker 1: and then he says they walk off in a distance,
Speaker 1: but it's close enough to him where he can hear
Speaker 1: the oh my screams. So I don't think this is
Speaker 1: very far from her house.
Speaker 2: Got it a few blocks maybe at most yeah, I think.
Speaker 1: So okay, all of this being said witnesses on the stand,
Speaker 1: her parents, her sister, this young man Richard Riley. The
Speaker 1: coroner's jury says, we don't have a conclusion and we
Speaker 1: can't hold him, and they weren't convinced anyway that Richard
Speaker 1: Riley was the one who did it. And there, thank goodness,
Speaker 1: even in eighteen ninety two, they said this is not
Speaker 1: enough evidence. The case goes cold. It is brought back
Speaker 1: to life about two years later, and Catherine, who is
Speaker 1: Katie's mother, is the one who instigates this sort of
Speaker 1: new investigation. We don't know why Catherine decided this was
Speaker 1: the time to go to the police. So this would
Speaker 1: have been eighteen ninety four, two years later, but she
Speaker 1: goes to the police and she said that the family
Speaker 1: feels like they know maybe who did this, and it's
Speaker 1: because she had remembered Katie talking about a man named
Speaker 1: Jack whose name was not really Jack. So this man's
Speaker 1: name was Albert Stout. He's forty. This is disgusting to
Speaker 1: me if this is true. She's seventeen, and he was
Speaker 1: a well known businessman. Katie called him Jack, but his
Speaker 1: name was Albert Stout. He was a freight agent for
Speaker 1: a company called the Charles Warner Company. We don't know
Speaker 1: why Catherine decided to go ahead and go to the
Speaker 1: police now, but the police are actually this has been
Speaker 1: an open investigation because this has been very alarming, of
Speaker 1: course to the people of Delaware, that the seventeen year
Speaker 1: old girl was murdered so viciously, So they have already
Speaker 1: started zeroing in on Albert as a suspect.
Speaker 2: Can you guess why now? First, I think I'm a
Speaker 2: little bit perplexed that it took more two years to
Speaker 2: come forward with this information. Yeah, that's that kind of
Speaker 2: henks me up a little bit, because it seems like
Speaker 2: pretty quick a mom would go, oh, yeah, there was
Speaker 2: a guy named Jack and Katie's life, you know, once
Speaker 2: she found out about the letter. So that's one thing.
Speaker 2: And then it sounds like Jack fits sort of the
Speaker 2: profile of somebody who would be hiring a younger kid
Speaker 2: in order to do work for him. So I'm assuming
Speaker 2: that Albert Stout, this Jack was the employer of Kate
Speaker 2: as a domestic worker.
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, so he has a wife and three kids.
Speaker 1: He hired her. She lived there until just a couple
Speaker 1: of months before she died, but she never told her
Speaker 1: parents why she left. And if I were to guess,
Speaker 1: if we think that Catherine is, you know, being on
Speaker 1: the up and up here, and she came by a
Speaker 1: couple of years later to the police, I would think
Speaker 1: that maybe she was in this time period in denial
Speaker 1: that an upstanding citizen who is forty years old would
Speaker 1: have done anything like this. That's just a guess that
Speaker 1: her employer would have done this. I think that maybe
Speaker 1: she and the family could have thought that this was
Speaker 1: a random act and maybe it never occurred to her.
Speaker 1: And I'll make a correction. I don't know if Katie
Speaker 1: actually said that Albert Stout was Jack to her family,
Speaker 1: but two people in her life other than her family,
Speaker 1: she said that she called him Jack. I'm assuming. I
Speaker 1: mean he was married, and she I assumed knew that
Speaker 1: this would be a bad thing to get out, especially
Speaker 1: if he's a well known businessman, so she gave him
Speaker 1: a moniker. So I can tell you more about that,
Speaker 1: or you can kind of give me your impression. So far,
Speaker 1: this is obviously a power dynamic that's terrible. A seventeen
Speaker 1: year old and a forty year old married man with
Speaker 1: three kids in the same house, you know, and she's pregnant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but this is I hate to use the word common,
Speaker 2: I know it is, you know, so I think you know,
Speaker 2: obviously this Albert Stout, you know, he's you know, businessman,
Speaker 2: He's probably got a reputation within the community, married with
Speaker 2: three kids. If he gets Katie pregnant, he has jeopardy
Speaker 2: on him, right, This is he is going to be
Speaker 2: perceived very badly. This could impact possibly the success he
Speaker 2: could have as a businessman, how he's viewed, If he's assuming,
Speaker 2: he's probably involved with some sort of religious group that
Speaker 2: may look poorly upon him for doing this. Yeah, of
Speaker 2: course his wife is going to have a problem, you know.
Speaker 2: And so you know, at least there's with with Albert.
Speaker 2: He has the negative impact on his future as a
Speaker 2: result of getting Katie pregnant. So there's motive. And I
Speaker 2: have always said we don't need to prove motive, but
Speaker 2: when there is possible motive, you have to pay attention
Speaker 2: to that from an investigative slant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if you compare Albert and his life
Speaker 1: to Richard Riley, who's a young man, Albert has so
Speaker 1: much more to lose. Yeah, let me tell you a
Speaker 1: little bit about what happens here. So the assumption is that,
Speaker 1: according to Katie's family, what they think happened, and what
Speaker 1: investigators are trying to piece together is that they had
Speaker 1: some kind of a relationship. It sounded consensual to me.
Speaker 1: Seventeen year old girl and forty year old man is
Speaker 1: not consensual, but there didn't seem to be acrimony between
Speaker 1: the two of them from the outside. She gets pregnant,
Speaker 1: and the word is that she got booted out of
Speaker 1: the house. I'm assuming Albert just didn't want, you know,
Speaker 1: to have to explain anything to his wife. I don't
Speaker 1: know if this has happened before with him or not.
Speaker 1: I bet yes. She never told her parents why she left,
Speaker 1: which is understandable now that we know these circumstances. Investigators
Speaker 1: say that they kept in touch and they might have
Speaker 1: continued this relationship after she was booted from the house.
Speaker 1: And they find four witnesses who say that they saw
Speaker 1: Katie with Albert on the night of the murder. And
Speaker 1: I don't know why they can definitively say this is
Speaker 1: Albert Stout and I don't know where they were two
Speaker 1: years ago. I mean, this was widely publicized and they
Speaker 1: didn't come forward. So I look at this a little
Speaker 1: bit with a John decigah, because from my book from
Speaker 1: the Centers all Bow, you know, the defense and the
Speaker 1: prosecutor out there with just operatives trying to find witnesses,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if I trust any of them,
Speaker 1: regardless they say, these witnesses said that they remember seeing
Speaker 1: Katie that night where she's with this man, crying and
Speaker 1: arguing with Albert, and they said that they looked like
Speaker 1: Albert and Katie were heading directly to that field where
Speaker 1: her body was discovered hours later. And then I have
Speaker 1: some more forensic evidence eighteen ninety two styles such as
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 2: Okay, so these four witnesses are they being interviewed during
Speaker 2: the original investigation or two years later?
Speaker 1: Two years later? That's what I mean. I don't know
Speaker 1: why where were you in eighteen ninety two?
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay? So yeah, you know, you brought up the
Speaker 2: concerns about the veracity of the accuracy of these types
Speaker 2: of witnesses that come forward. You know after two years,
Speaker 2: are they being influenced in one way or another? You know,
Speaker 2: it does give me a little bit of pause about
Speaker 2: how much, you know, how reliable these statements are from
Speaker 2: these four witnesses. It would be evaluating, you know, these
Speaker 2: four witnesses know each other. Is there some sort of
Speaker 2: common connection between these four witnesses, you know, could they
Speaker 2: have a you know, collaborated on a story or have
Speaker 2: been told by an individual this is what you saw
Speaker 2: that night. You know. However, in terms of sort of
Speaker 2: the dynamics of this case, Albert Stout kind of fits
Speaker 2: the profile of who Katie's killer is. So you know,
Speaker 2: there's to me, there's churn with Albert just because of
Speaker 2: the jeopardy he would have having impregnated Katie, sort of
Speaker 2: like you brought up Sarah's case earlier. Katie would be
Speaker 2: cheerful to hear from Albert's slash jack. Right. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: either because she still has some sort of you know,
Speaker 2: romance ideations, romantic ideations, or maybe there's she's thinking, okay,
Speaker 2: well I'm on my own, but he's going to financially
Speaker 2: support me as I have this baby or whatever else,
Speaker 2: you know, whatever the reason she's cheerful for. But he
Speaker 2: is kind of checking the boxes much more so than
Speaker 2: the young Richard Riley.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are a couple of things. Again, the parallels
Speaker 1: between this and my book are kind of incredible. There
Speaker 1: are there is a handwriting expert who analyzes the note
Speaker 1: found in Katie's pocket, the one that has meet me
Speaker 1: on Wednesday night at the same place in same time time,
Speaker 1: compares it with Albert Stouts writing and says that this
Speaker 1: is a total match. I had to hire my own
Speaker 1: handwriting expert now to look and it was so interesting
Speaker 1: to see the comparison between the suspect in my case
Speaker 1: and the letters. And this was an interesting point. So
Speaker 1: in my case, Sarah Cornell decided to copy one of
Speaker 1: the anonymous letters and send it to her sister word
Speaker 1: for word, and I sent it to this handwriting expert,
Speaker 1: and then I gave her the letter, the actual letter
Speaker 1: that was the anonymous letter, because Sarah kept that one,
Speaker 1: even though he told her to burn it. She was
Speaker 1: very smart. So she said, I don't know if I've
Speaker 1: ever had a case where I could look at the
Speaker 1: victim and look at the anonymous letter and it's the
Speaker 1: exact same wording. She copied it over and to be
Speaker 1: able to compare how she would have written it versus
Speaker 1: how it was actually written. And of course it excluded Sarah.
Speaker 1: So you know, I don't know about eighteen ninety two.
Speaker 1: I have a lot more confidence in my twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four handwriting expert. But you know, I mean it's kind
Speaker 1: of the same practice. What do you think about.
Speaker 2: That, you know, handwriting comparisons. You know, when there's sufficient
Speaker 2: exemplars present in order to say this is the known
Speaker 2: spectrum of handwriting characteristics from this one individual. And now
Speaker 2: you have that you know, broad set of exemplars and
Speaker 2: are comparing it to let's say a letter from Jack,
Speaker 2: then yes, you can start to see maybe some differences
Speaker 2: that you don't see in the exemplars. And there's a
Speaker 2: lot more that they can be taking a look at.
Speaker 2: And of course today forensically in terms of comparing the
Speaker 2: inks the paper, in dented writing, there's all sorts of
Speaker 2: things that document examiners can go after. So there is
Speaker 2: it's a comparative science, and we know that there's issues
Speaker 2: with comparative sciences, but most certainly you know, when there
Speaker 2: are significant differences, then yes they can form an opinion
Speaker 2: this document contains handwriting that is different than the known
Speaker 2: handwriting from the individual. Now I don't think that you
Speaker 2: can say that person did not write this. You know,
Speaker 2: I think that that's probably too strong of an opinion
Speaker 2: for this type of science, even though I do think
Speaker 2: that these experts do reach that type of conclusion. But
Speaker 2: it most certainly has some validity, you know, with this
Speaker 2: handwriting expert in eighteen ninety two. You know, I'm sure
Speaker 2: they're not. He's not writing it with a ballpoint pen.
Speaker 2: It's probably like a fountain pen, right, or pencil or sure? Okay,
Speaker 2: you know, so I don't you know, if it's like
Speaker 2: the fountain pen. I'm not entirely sure. Because they were
Speaker 2: so artistic with their writing back in the day. You
Speaker 2: know that there may be some to try to copy
Speaker 2: somebody's cursive writing using a fountain pen to look exactly
Speaker 2: like somebody else's handwriting, I bet would be extremely difficult.
Speaker 2: Having just looked at you, I mean, it's like calligraphy, right,
Speaker 2: It's just like wow, you know, there's an art to
Speaker 2: it that's unique to the person that's writing.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons why I hired the expert
Speaker 1: for my book is that the defense said Sarah Cornell
Speaker 1: was an expert at mimicking someone else's handwriting, So I
Speaker 1: wanted to disprove that because it couldn't be proven word
Speaker 1: disproven in eighteen thirty two. Sure, So the theory that
Speaker 1: prosecutors came up with is that Albert tried to pressure
Speaker 1: Katie to terminate the pregnancy, she said no, and then
Speaker 1: he killed her, you know, obviously to cover up his infidelity,
Speaker 1: which is a very similar thing that might have happened
Speaker 1: with Sarah Cornell's case. So with Sarah's case, there were
Speaker 1: bruises that that matron's who undressed her for her funeral,
Speaker 1: all over her body like she had been in a fight.
Speaker 1: That's not the case here. So it sounds like it
Speaker 1: could have been a if this is true, a verbal
Speaker 1: argument maybe and when then she offered a hard know
Speaker 1: on that, then that's when he reacted with the razor.
Speaker 2: That it's possible, you know, but however, you know, she
Speaker 2: does have the battered and bruised eyes. If you think
Speaker 2: about cutting somebody's you're let's say, overpowering this person, forcing
Speaker 2: them down on the ground, is it possible, as hand
Speaker 2: is around her neck, is there potentially some level of
Speaker 2: strangulation that's occurring. You could potentially start to see, you know,
Speaker 2: some these smaller blood vessels you know, starting to burst
Speaker 2: as a result of that act. And I'm sure this
Speaker 2: pathologist wasn't very sophisticated, so could there be some bruising
Speaker 2: from that or did this verbal argument escalate into a
Speaker 2: physical altercation where she's actually receiving blows to the face
Speaker 2: before her throat is cut. And that's where it's really
Speaker 2: doing a much deeper dive in terms of what these
Speaker 2: injuries to her eyes and the surrounding area are.
Speaker 1: They found a pack of envelopes in Albert's house that
Speaker 1: seemed to match the kind of envelope that Katie received
Speaker 1: for this rendezvous. I mean, you know, I guess they
Speaker 1: could do fiber analysis now, but it's a common envelope,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming, so I'm not sure that's going to be
Speaker 1: something that's relying. We do have an alibi, and I
Speaker 1: can't wait for you to comment on this. Albi again,
Speaker 1: very similar to the suspects alibi in my case with
Speaker 1: Sarah Cornell. So here's the alibi. This is two years ago,
Speaker 1: two years later. This is what he says. He says,
Speaker 1: on the night of the murder, he left his house
Speaker 1: at seven, he went to the office. He got there
Speaker 1: at seven twenty five. He does no real good answer
Speaker 1: about why he got there late and why he was
Speaker 1: working late. He boarded a horse car and hopped out
Speaker 1: a little while later at a very specific house, where
Speaker 1: he placed a bill under the door on behalf of
Speaker 1: his employer. He claims that he rang the doorbell. Nobody answered,
Speaker 1: so we don't know. There's no witnesses to say anything here.
Speaker 1: He said he'd forgotten to pick up some laundry. He
Speaker 1: walked a short distance to get it, and afterwards he
Speaker 1: hopped on a trolley car and arrived home around eight
Speaker 1: oh five, very specific, and then he said he was
Speaker 1: in the house after that, So a coincidence that he
Speaker 1: was at the house by eight oh five when she
Speaker 1: was last seen at AO five by her sister walking
Speaker 1: away with the man. This is incredibly detailed. So what
Speaker 1: do you think about that? No, he's lying, well, yeah.
Speaker 2: You know two years later, yeah, two years later. You know, basically,
Speaker 2: he's just Any good interviewer is just going to hammer
Speaker 2: him on this. Let's say he's innocent and he finds
Speaker 2: out that this teenage girl that he had had sex
Speaker 2: with and impregnated had been murdered. You know, most certainly
Speaker 2: that would be any event that would kind of stick
Speaker 2: in his memory banks after two years, but the night
Speaker 2: before or you know, the night of her before her
Speaker 2: body's found for him to remember down to the minute
Speaker 2: on what he is doing, and you know, the the
Speaker 2: number of things he was doing in this very brief
Speaker 2: period of time in which Katie is going to go
Speaker 2: out and meet with this Jack, which that's what she
Speaker 2: called him. You know that it's so obvious that he
Speaker 2: has come up with something to try to show that
Speaker 2: he just could not have physically been with Katie at
Speaker 2: the time she was killed. Yeah, and in essence, he's
Speaker 2: now this is like a just a beacon flashing to
Speaker 2: law enforcement, going, oh, he would have no reason to
Speaker 2: lie about this. If he's innocent, There's no way he
Speaker 2: would remember him. I mean, the proper response would be,
Speaker 2: are you kidding me? Two years later and you want
Speaker 2: me to kind of figure out what I did that night? Yep,
Speaker 2: There's just no way.
Speaker 1: And it gets worse because he had another domestic worker
Speaker 1: working that night. She testified, and she said he got
Speaker 1: in at nine o'clock. She knows because the clock in
Speaker 1: the study struck nine, so she knew he came in
Speaker 1: at nine and Katie was seen with that man at
Speaker 1: eight oh five, which is plenty of time. And I'm
Speaker 1: assuming investigators looked and there would be plenty of time
Speaker 1: for all that. So here's a conclusion. There are about
Speaker 1: a dozen witnesses that testify, and you know, this to
Speaker 1: me seems like a compelling case. Now, what do you
Speaker 1: think the grand jury is going to say here? Based
Speaker 1: on your you know, account of the evidence. What do
Speaker 1: you think is there enough legally to at least have
Speaker 1: a trial for this guy or is there enough to
Speaker 1: convict him.
Speaker 2: Well per the expected standards of today. No, you know,
Speaker 2: because you take a look at what you've really have
Speaker 2: is you have the letter and you have it signed Jack.
Speaker 2: Katie goes out supposedly to meet with Jack. However, you
Speaker 2: can't necessarily. I think you have the handwriting analysis that
Speaker 2: says this handwriting is consistent with Alberts, but two years later,
Speaker 2: you have absolutely no physical evidence that they could go after.
Speaker 2: They can't. First they can't, you know, prove who's the
Speaker 2: father the child. Right today we could they can't prove
Speaker 2: Albert is present at the crime scene. You know that
Speaker 2: is there contact DNA present, things that we could potentially
Speaker 2: look at Where is there any of his clothing that
Speaker 2: you know, maybe he stepped in some of this this
Speaker 2: blood that was spilled. Is this razor got his you know,
Speaker 2: bloody fingerprints on it, or Layton Prince or his DNA
Speaker 2: on it. You know, they have none of that.
Speaker 1: Is there something under her nails that maybe they'd be
Speaker 1: able to pull a she fight back in any way
Speaker 1: like that? I mean, she's been punched. I don't know
Speaker 1: if she's just going to sit there and take that.
Speaker 1: Who knows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, so today, you know, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of things that we potentially would expect to at least pursue,
Speaker 2: and some of those things would show that, yes, Albert's
Speaker 2: presence at the crime scene is there. What they're working
Speaker 2: with is very indirect. It's really a weak circumstantial I
Speaker 2: just don't think that there's enough today in order to
Speaker 2: be able to convict or for a grand jury to indict.
Speaker 2: But back then, I think they probably put a lot
Speaker 2: of weight on the circumstances. And I'm not arguing that
Speaker 2: they're wrong. I'm just going, yeah, it's a relatively speaking,
Speaker 2: it's a weak case. It's sort of a Oh, investigatively,
Speaker 2: this looks like the guy that I need to pursue
Speaker 2: and I need to figure out, you know, can I
Speaker 2: build a case against them or can I eliminate him
Speaker 2: and do somebody else become a better suspect.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think I've ever heard you use
Speaker 1: that phrase. Well, no, not based on the expectations of today,
Speaker 1: which does put it in perspective. You know, this seems
Speaker 1: like an overwhelmingly good, circumstantial case for eighteen ninety two.
Speaker 1: I mean, rarely do you get witnesses, is handwriting is
Speaker 1: They've spent some money on this case, but ultimately the
Speaker 1: grand jury did not want to indict somebody who could
Speaker 1: have been innocent, and so they didn't indict him. Okay,
Speaker 1: so this is now officially a unsolved case. No arrest
Speaker 1: werever made, nothing ever happened. That's it.
Speaker 2: I guess I am surprised because I would have thought
Speaker 2: that back in eighteen ninety I guess this would have
Speaker 2: been eighteen ninety four, eighteen ninety five, when the grand
Speaker 2: jury was evaluating the case, that this would have been
Speaker 2: something that they would have indicted on. Now, back then,
Speaker 2: with the grand jury, all that is in essences is
Speaker 2: that they are saying, yes, we think that the state
Speaker 2: has sufficient evidence and now he would be going to trial.
Speaker 2: Is that kind of how things were back then? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Same, Okay, so he didn't even get to trial.
Speaker 2: Well, probably today this would be a relatively easy case
Speaker 2: to prove.
Speaker 1: Probably today he wouldn't have left behind the murder weapon,
Speaker 1: and he would have been looking out for CCTV, And
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it would have been a different situation.
Speaker 1: I think one thing I had thought about with Sarah
Speaker 1: Cornell's case is, yes, she was drawn out to this
Speaker 1: desolate farm. Yes, she's found hanging from a haystack poll
Speaker 1: and there's debate about whether or not she took her
Speaker 1: own life or if she was murdered, and if this
Speaker 1: is the man who did it. But you know my
Speaker 1: thought was, and I think I had asked you this
Speaker 1: for the book. Even if she is drawn out to
Speaker 1: this farm, there's an argument, I'm not going to terminate
Speaker 1: the pregnancy.
Speaker 2: Go to hell.
Speaker 1: He could have left and somebody else could have murdered her. Still,
Speaker 1: there wasn't enough evidence actually saying he did it. He
Speaker 1: put his hands on her and did it. It could
Speaker 1: have been a weird circumstance. And then you've convicted. I
Speaker 1: don't think that's the case with Albert, and I don't
Speaker 1: think it was the case with Sarah Cornell. But then you're,
Speaker 1: you know, trying a capital case with somebody who's potentially
Speaker 1: innocent stagers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and there is depending on circumstances, but
Speaker 2: that is always sort of a potential defense. Is there
Speaker 2: was that window after the suspect or defendant left where
Speaker 2: somebody else could have come in and committed the crime,
Speaker 2: you know, But that that's where now it's really you're
Speaker 2: taking a look at the totality of the circumstances, you know,
Speaker 2: And with with Albert, you know, it really looks like
Speaker 2: he is one responsible for getting Katie pregnant. You have
Speaker 2: multiple witnesses. The veracity of their statements after two years
Speaker 2: is a little suspect, But you have multiple witnesses that
Speaker 2: are saying Katie was with Albert that night of the homicide.
Speaker 2: You know, he's lying about his alibi, you know what
Speaker 2: he did that night, you know. So there's there is
Speaker 2: churm about Albert for sure, you know. And it's it's
Speaker 2: sort of like, yeah, I think he's the one responsible.
Speaker 2: It's just it's not a strong case relatively speaking. You
Speaker 2: know to what we would expect today that would be
Speaker 2: presented to a jury.
Speaker 1: This is why I don't like unsolved cases. I need
Speaker 1: a conclusion one way or the other. I know, and
Speaker 1: I know that's why you love unsolved cases. That's why
Speaker 1: we're good partners. I can't stand it, but I yeah,
Speaker 1: I know you find them intriguing and you want to
Speaker 1: solve them and I just want an answer and to
Speaker 1: be able to write about them. And it's hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, different perspectives.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, next week we will have a solved under
Speaker 1: three lines, three underline, solved case. I'll be happy to
Speaker 1: present that to you. But in the meantime, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be thinking about Katie Dugan and her parents and
Speaker 1: just me and I wish she had justice here seventeen
Speaker 1: life in front of her seventeen. Yeah, it's always very upsetting.
Speaker 1: But next week will be a very very different case,
Speaker 1: and I can't wait to present it to you.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, as always, I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: Okay, see you then?
Speaker 2: All right? Sounds good.
Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 2: For our sources and show notes go to Exactlyrightmedia dot com,
Speaker 2: slash Buried Bones sources.
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Alexis Mrosi.
Speaker 2: Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1: Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 2: Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1: Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2: Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hart Stark, and Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 1: You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Speaker 1: Buried Bones pod.
Speaker 2: Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
Speaker 2: Age story of murder and the race to decode the
Speaker 2: criminal mind, is available now.
Speaker 1: And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's
Speaker 1: Cold Cases is also available now.
Speaker 2: Listen to Baried Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts. Two