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
Speaker 1: compelling true crimes.
Speaker 2: And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
Speaker 2: 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 3: Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1: This is buried bones.
Speaker 3: Hey, Kate, how are you?
Speaker 1: I'm great, Paul, how are you?
Speaker 3: I am doing good? What's going on?
Speaker 1: Have you done very much ancestry stuff? And I don't
Speaker 1: mean Golden State killer genealogy stuff. I mean you Paul Holes.
Speaker 1: Have you traced any ancestors using ancestry at all?
Speaker 3: No? I definitely have.
Speaker 1: Okay, did you find anything interesting?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: You know it's as you go back in time, the
Speaker 2: family spreads out, if that makes any sense. My dad's
Speaker 2: side of the family. You know, the Hole's surname. When
Speaker 2: you go back several centuries. We actually came from England
Speaker 2: and it wasn't holes, it was whole as in singular,
Speaker 2: which was interesting to me because I worked with a
Speaker 2: da by the name of Bob Hole and we always
Speaker 2: just kind of chuckled because you never run across people
Speaker 2: with the whole surname or whole surname, and good chance
Speaker 2: Bob and I are probably related. Unfortunately he passed away
Speaker 2: quite a few years ago now, but you know, going
Speaker 2: back on my dad's mom's side, that's a very Germanic lineage.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Also finding you know, a town in Germany where at
Speaker 2: least the Wolf side of the family originated out of,
Speaker 2: you know, so things like that. It's pretty cool to
Speaker 2: get that kind of information about your your ancestors.
Speaker 1: Have you ever uploaded your DNA or are you against that?
Speaker 2: When I was trying to figure out how to do
Speaker 2: the genealogy with a Golden State killer case, my parents
Speaker 2: had actually tested themselves at Ancestry, and you can't upload
Speaker 2: a profile from some other place into Ancestry. You have
Speaker 2: to send your DNA to Ancestry to have it go
Speaker 2: into Ancestry, but they allow you to download those profiles,
Speaker 2: so I downloaded both my parents' profiles and put it
Speaker 2: into a website called jedmatch, And jed match is the
Speaker 2: one that you can upload profiles if you've been tested
Speaker 2: at twenty three and meters or ancestry, et cetera. And
Speaker 2: so I did that and of course got the you know,
Speaker 2: the various distant relatives that share a percentage of their
Speaker 2: DNA with my parents. And then ultimately I put my
Speaker 2: DNA up there because I want to be able to
Speaker 2: help cases, you know, And so I opted in so
Speaker 2: law enforcement can use my DNA in case, you know,
Speaker 2: somebody that's related to me is responsible for a crime.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm relieved you're not a hypocrite. First of all,
Speaker 1: jet Match is the one that law enforcement are able
Speaker 1: to use directly, Right do they have to get like
Speaker 1: subpoenas or anything like that.
Speaker 2: So you have two websites that law enforcement can use,
Speaker 2: and that is jetmatch and Jetmatch. The users have to
Speaker 2: explicitly opt in to allow law enforcement to search their profiles.
Speaker 2: If they don't opt in, they can still utilize jet
Speaker 2: Match for genealogy purposes, and their profiles are not searchable
Speaker 2: for law enforcement. The other database law enforcement uses is
Speaker 2: Family tree DNA, and that's something that is now being
Speaker 2: managed by my employer author. The other websites like ancestry
Speaker 2: and twenty three and meters do not permit law enforcement
Speaker 2: to search their databases.
Speaker 1: Got it, Well, this was all a big lead up
Speaker 1: to a funny story. I think it's funny, at least
Speaker 1: from the listener's last viewer. Her name's Ellen, and she
Speaker 1: seems lovely. She emailed me very early, or I received
Speaker 1: it very early, a couple of weeks ago, and it
Speaker 1: was like a I searched ancestry. I'm trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what happened to my I think it was her
Speaker 1: great great grandfather. He came from Sweden, went to New
Speaker 1: Orleans and then sort of vanished. And the family rumor,
Speaker 1: and we know all about family rumors here, the family
Speaker 1: rumor was that he was murdered and then tossed off
Speaker 1: a doc in New Orleans. So I said, okay, let
Speaker 1: me dig around because a lot of people, you know,
Speaker 1: they'll look on ancestry and they'll do the general search.
Speaker 1: But I subscribe to newspapers dot Com. Huge shout out
Speaker 1: to newspapers dot com. Love him, love him, love him.
Speaker 1: I've been using it. For I think probably about ten years.
Speaker 1: So I just hopped on and this guy's first name
Speaker 1: is Axel, and then there was a middle name and
Speaker 1: then a last name that were way too complicated for
Speaker 1: me to even pronounce here. So I looked nothing, nothing
Speaker 1: from this guy with the first and named Axel middle
Speaker 1: last name in newspapers dot com, which was really unusual
Speaker 1: for me. I usually can dig up something. And then
Speaker 1: she said, this is when he was born, and you
Speaker 1: know all of this and this is where. So what
Speaker 1: she knew from ancestry was where he was born in Sweden,
Speaker 1: the year and the approximate birthday, and that was basically it.
Speaker 1: She couldn't find immigration papers or anything like that. So
Speaker 1: from my time writing American Sherlock, I was going crazy
Speaker 1: trying to figure out why my forensic scientist Oscar Heinrich
Speaker 1: couldn't stand his father. He was so mad at his father,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't figure out what was happening. And about
Speaker 1: two weeks before my deadline to send American Sherlock to
Speaker 1: my editor, I was futson around at three in the
Speaker 1: morning like I do sometimes, and I misspelled his father's
Speaker 1: name in newspapers dot com and up pops all this information.
Speaker 1: His father took his own life because of the family finances.
Speaker 1: And that's why I mean all of this, just because
Speaker 1: they spelled his last name wrong. So I misspelled this
Speaker 1: guy Axel's middle name, and up pops a treasure trove
Speaker 1: of information. Most importantly, the first thing I saw was
Speaker 1: a prison photo of this guy. Oh really, I know,
Speaker 1: you said. You think that he came to America in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen or maybe before. He was in prison in
Speaker 1: Sweden in nineteen fourteen. I don't know why, but it
Speaker 1: was a you know, very menacing photo. When I sent
Speaker 1: it to her, and because of the last it was
Speaker 1: literally one letter. It was the letter R that I changed.
Speaker 1: She was able to trace everything. And she said, I
Speaker 1: don't think he was tossed off a dog. I think
Speaker 1: he died at sea because he served in the I
Speaker 1: think she said the Navy, maybe, so all of it.
Speaker 1: It was one letter that changed all of this and
Speaker 1: sort of I think she was able to put together
Speaker 1: some pieces about this part of the family, and the
Speaker 1: family still talks about this, and this happened in you know,
Speaker 1: nineteen fifteen, nineteen sixteen. So when I say it's important,
Speaker 1: the work we do is important to people. Even though
Speaker 1: this is generations back, the family's still talking about it
Speaker 1: over Thanksgiving. They're talking about this guy. It has been
Speaker 1: dead for more than one hundred years. So please to
Speaker 1: the listeners. I don't do this for many people. I
Speaker 1: think I was just bored this morning when I did it,
Speaker 1: just like, okay, whatever, what the hell help is it?
Speaker 1: But it was so funny to just see this prison photo.
Speaker 1: She wasn't phased by that, but you know, I mean
Speaker 1: that little bit. And I know you probably know this
Speaker 1: from law enforcement too. Just you know, people when they're
Speaker 1: using a different name, and man, you can be really stymied.
Speaker 1: I was so frustrated. But then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I get all of this information with just one letter,
Speaker 1: which was crazy for me.
Speaker 2: Well, and I've experienced that myself when I was, you know,
Speaker 2: doing the genealogy and would rely on newspapers dot com
Speaker 2: in order to flesh out family trees. And what what
Speaker 2: I have found is, you know newspapers, you know, they
Speaker 2: scan those old papers and then they optical character recognition
Speaker 2: OCR and some letters or some fonts. It doesn't do
Speaker 2: a good job. So I have run into the same
Speaker 2: situation where now I'm trying different permutations of the spelling
Speaker 2: of the name, and then we'll have success. And I
Speaker 2: don't know if newspapers dot Com allows for wild card searching,
Speaker 2: where you can put like the asterisk in for it
Speaker 2: could be any letter at this location in the name.
Speaker 2: If they don't do that, that is actually very helpful
Speaker 2: because of this ocr problem that I've run across.
Speaker 1: Well, it was a huge deal to me with American Sherlock,
Speaker 1: because you know, it answered so many questions that were
Speaker 1: important to me in the book. But I think for Ellen,
Speaker 1: she was pleased to receive all less information. And I
Speaker 1: knew something was wrong because everybody, even in the eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: everybody showed up in the newspaper one way or the other.
Speaker 1: And I think I found his subsequent children or grandchildren
Speaker 1: or something because that exact kind of name with a
Speaker 1: different middle name was popping up. But anyway, I thought
Speaker 1: that was a funny story, just about searching for family members.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you thought that people complain about
Speaker 1: the inaccuracy of newspapers, now you should try doing what
Speaker 1: I do in reading eighteen hundreds newspapers. Man, I mean,
Speaker 1: just the wildest names.
Speaker 2: Every no for sure, you know, but it really just underscores,
Speaker 2: you know, how technology is giving access to data that
Speaker 2: before you'd have to go into a library and flip
Speaker 2: through paper copies of newspapers if they even had, you know,
Speaker 2: the addition that you needed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Mike Rafficha, I've done that many times too, and yeah,
Speaker 1: so this was this was quite an experience. It was
Speaker 1: another good reminder of just trying to stick with something,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of the perseverance. It wasn't my family,
Speaker 1: but it was fun to do.
Speaker 3: No, very cool.
Speaker 1: Well, talk about media, we are getting rend to step
Speaker 1: into a media circus here with the story that we're
Speaker 1: going to do. It's going to be a two parter
Speaker 1: because it's a pretty big story and it was a
Speaker 1: really big deal when it happened. Where we're heading is
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, almost mid nineteen twenties England, which sounds
Speaker 1: very romantic to me. It was not, I think at
Speaker 1: this time period, certainly World War One. This story I
Speaker 1: think really gets to the heart of relationships and trying
Speaker 1: to sort out what happened to our victim, because it's
Speaker 1: a big question mark for me right now.
Speaker 3: All right, So England, that's one of your favorite.
Speaker 1: Places it is, So get some tea and a crumpet
Speaker 1: if you've ever had you had a crumpet before. I
Speaker 1: love them, love them, No, I don't think, so I'll
Speaker 1: make you some some time. Okay, let's set the scene. Okay,
Speaker 1: Like I said, the case is in England and it's
Speaker 1: the early nineteen twenties, and we have two main players
Speaker 1: here and we have to sort out. This is a
Speaker 1: I feel like the smallest cast of characters we might
Speaker 1: have worked with here, but we'll see what you think.
Speaker 1: And then a very very very very famous pathologist that
Speaker 1: you'll recognize immediately because we've talked about them before. So
Speaker 1: this is an intriguing case. So one of our main
Speaker 1: people is named Norman Thorn, and in the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 1: very early nineteen twenties, he meets a young woman named
Speaker 1: Elsie Cameron and she's a typist. So Norman and Elsie
Speaker 1: and they meet at church. They are now falling in love.
Speaker 1: And Norman, just so we know about kind of ages
Speaker 1: and stuff, Norman's about twenty and Elsie is about two
Speaker 1: years older. So at this point, if you want to
Speaker 1: go ahead and open up your photos, you can see
Speaker 1: a photo of the two of them. I will say
Speaker 1: I am struck by. I feel like they both look
Speaker 1: a little older than twenty and twenty two.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I'm looking at I'm assuming this is this
Speaker 2: is a Norman and Elsie.
Speaker 3: Norman is seated, Elsie is standing.
Speaker 2: It's just like a typical family, you know, portrait with
Speaker 2: this couple.
Speaker 3: Norm's got a three.
Speaker 2: Piece suit on Elsie's you know, just got a dress.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I would not have expected that they were
Speaker 2: as young as they are by looking at their photos.
Speaker 3: They do look more mature.
Speaker 2: But you know, that's what it seems like if you
Speaker 2: ever look at like I look at my parents' yearbooks,
Speaker 2: and everybody in there, even though they're.
Speaker 3: High schoolers, look like they're in their thirties.
Speaker 1: What do you think that was? Like just a hard
Speaker 1: life or I.
Speaker 3: Don't know, it seems consistent too, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. You know when we do these stories from
Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds, and it's always when they're on a farm,
Speaker 1: boy they look rough, and I know it's sun exposure
Speaker 1: and just hard work and stuff. But I sort of
Speaker 1: picked up on that they both look a little older
Speaker 1: than what they are. But anyway, so we've got Norman
Speaker 1: and we've got Elsie and they meet at church they
Speaker 1: fall in love. So in nineteen twenty one, Norman is working.
Speaker 1: He's either an engineer or kind of an electrician in
Speaker 1: training one or the other. But he's he has a
Speaker 1: good job, it sounds like. But he loses that job
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty one and no word on why, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound like anything controversial. He loses this job
Speaker 1: so he has to get back on his feet. So
Speaker 1: his parents want to help him out. He's close with
Speaker 1: his parents and they give him some land in an
Speaker 1: area called crowbro which is in East Sussex, and this
Speaker 1: is about a train ride away from London. He is
Speaker 1: not particularly close physically to Elsie. She's staying with her parents.
Speaker 1: She's also remember quite young, but they're able to see
Speaker 1: each other. So this guy who had gone from being
Speaker 1: an engineer or an electrician now starts his life over
Speaker 1: as a chicken farmer, which seems pretty different. Yes, So
Speaker 1: he is living in a tiny hut on the property.
Speaker 1: It is eighty five square feet. Oh wow, my cottage
Speaker 1: is I think about one seventy five square feet, so
Speaker 1: you know he's living in half the space of where
Speaker 1: I am right now, which is very small. I was
Speaker 1: going to ask you this. You know, I lived in
Speaker 1: a very small space when I lived in New York.
Speaker 1: I was in the Greenwich Village. I was, you know,
Speaker 1: literally right on where NYU is, and my bathroom was
Speaker 1: so small, was literally in a closet. My bathroom was
Speaker 1: so small that you could pee and brush your teeth
Speaker 1: at the same time because the sink was right there.
Speaker 1: That's probably Tami. And then our kitchen was also in
Speaker 1: a closet, and you could have your foot on the
Speaker 1: bathtub actually in the bathtub, all at the same time
Speaker 1: if you needed to. So have you lived in a
Speaker 1: small space before?
Speaker 3: You know, the.
Speaker 2: Smallest space was when I was living in It's actually
Speaker 2: a relatively upscale town called Wamut Creek in the East Bay.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I love Walnut Creek.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an amazing town. And I rented a small
Speaker 2: studio which it did have a small kitchen. It had
Speaker 2: just a single room that doubled as the bedroom and
Speaker 2: then a small bathroom. Now I couldn't pee and brush
Speaker 2: my teeth in this bathroom, nor would I want to
Speaker 2: try to do that.
Speaker 1: But I never tried. Paul I'm just saying that that's
Speaker 1: how small it was.
Speaker 2: So that's probably in terms of me individually, that's probably
Speaker 2: the smallest space that I've personally lived in.
Speaker 1: Norman's in a very small space, so eighty five square feet,
Speaker 1: and I've been calling it a cottage. I don't think
Speaker 1: it is. They're calling it the hut. He's not making
Speaker 1: very much money as a chicken farmer. It doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like he had that much experience to begin with, but
Speaker 1: he's making a go of it because I don't think
Speaker 1: he feels like he has much of a choice. Why
Speaker 1: don't I show you what the farm looks like. So
Speaker 1: if you scroll down past that photo of Norman and Elsie,
Speaker 1: you'll see the farm on the second page, and you'll
Speaker 1: see the hut. I think that's the hut. Tell me
Speaker 1: what you see?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, So this is a photo.
Speaker 2: It looks like it's taken from the perspective of a
Speaker 2: road and possibly just a dirt road, and then there's
Speaker 2: a gate that in essence is in between the road
Speaker 2: and where the structures are, and behind this gate appears
Speaker 2: to be just a drive area that goes back to
Speaker 2: where now I see, I mean, it looks like a
Speaker 2: log cabin, you know, from this photo, it's it's not
Speaker 2: more much more than that, Yeah, you know, surrounded by
Speaker 2: some land and some equipment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it looks and you see the chicken
Speaker 1: coops kind of around. It looks like there might be
Speaker 1: one attached to the cabin thing.
Speaker 3: What do you think I can see that? Yeah, I
Speaker 3: think that's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is pretty small. So, you know, this seems
Speaker 1: like a big difference, lifestyle difference for Norman. But like
Speaker 1: I said, he's making a go of it. He and
Speaker 1: Elsie are still together and actually a year after they
Speaker 1: sort of you know, separate, physically separate, they get engaged
Speaker 1: by nineteen twenty two. But it seems like this distance
Speaker 1: is sort of getting to Norman and he is starting
Speaker 1: to cool on the relationship by you know, shortly after
Speaker 1: when they get engaged. So I think Elsie is feeling
Speaker 1: like there's a growing disconnect between the two of them,
Speaker 1: and it sounds like Elsie was really in love with him,
Speaker 1: but Norman was keeping his distance alone a little bit
Speaker 1: to keep the relationship alive. Elsie takes the train to
Speaker 1: visit Norman much more often than he goes to visit her,
Speaker 1: so November of nineteen twenty four. I mean, remember that
Speaker 1: this has been a year and a half that she's
Speaker 1: been trying to keep this relationship going because she really
Speaker 1: loves him and they're both, you know, part of a church.
Speaker 1: It sounded like actually that they were both Sunday school
Speaker 1: teachers at one point, so having a relationship with him
Speaker 1: and getting married is really important to her. In November
Speaker 1: of nineteen twenty four, Elsie writes to Norman that she's pregnant.
Speaker 1: So the way this would have gone in quote unquote
Speaker 1: proper society in this time period is they would not
Speaker 1: have had sex. Then he asked her to marry him,
Speaker 1: and then quite possibly she said okay, because you're committing
Speaker 1: to me. So that's how I think we get around
Speaker 1: the whole idea that you know, she seemed devout, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe a devout Christian. But then then, of course, this
Speaker 1: is where we've talked about the Heartbahm lawsuits that come
Speaker 1: out when a man says, marry me, and then they
Speaker 1: have sex and then he's tired of her, and then
Speaker 1: he leaves and she's sort of quote unquote ruined. So
Speaker 1: she says that she's pregnant. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: how many times I can say this that the number
Speaker 1: one reason pregnant women die is murder and postpartum also,
Speaker 1: so you know already, even though I haven't told you
Speaker 1: who the victim is, we have somebody who is at risk.
Speaker 1: He's distanced himself from her, and now he believes she's pregnant.
Speaker 1: So what do you think so far?
Speaker 3: Well, do you know how far along she is in
Speaker 3: the pregnancy?
Speaker 1: She does not tell him, but it doesn't sound like
Speaker 1: her parents know. And I would assume that she, you know,
Speaker 1: noticed that she wasn't getting her period anymore, and that
Speaker 1: was the conclusion. I don't hear anything about a doctor,
Speaker 1: her going to a doctor, and you know, confirming it
Speaker 1: that way. So she's making some assumptions. It doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like very far along though.
Speaker 2: I guess, you know, some of the questions that I
Speaker 2: pop into my mind because I know this is going
Speaker 2: to end tragically for Elsie in all likelihood. You know,
Speaker 2: if she's indicating to Norman that she's pregnant, does he
Speaker 2: have concern that the child is not his? Which from
Speaker 2: a victimology standpoint, doesn't sound like Elsie would necessarily be
Speaker 2: having sex with some other man. You know, so that's
Speaker 2: probably a little bit unlikely. But does Norman feel that,
Speaker 2: you know, as he's growing more and more distance in
Speaker 2: the relationship, is Elsie using the pregnancy sort of to
Speaker 2: trap him?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: So if Elsie ultimately ends up murdered, then of course
Speaker 2: there's some concern about what Norman's motive may be based
Speaker 2: off of his stance in this relationship and how he's
Speaker 2: feeling about Elsie.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and you know, when you were saying if Norman's
Speaker 1: concerned about her sleeping with somebody else, I get the
Speaker 1: impression that he is ready to cut ties with Elsie.
Speaker 1: He probably would have been happy if she had been
Speaker 1: with somebody else. But I also don't know the egos
Speaker 1: of men in the nineteen twenties. But I think you're
Speaker 1: right kind of based on her in general. Like that
Speaker 1: photo that I showed you look almost like a church photo,
Speaker 1: like somebody took it posing outside of the church. I'm
Speaker 1: not seeing Elsie sleeping around, but you're right, who knows.
Speaker 1: So she is freaking out when she finds out she's pregnant.
Speaker 1: She says to Norman, I want to get married as
Speaker 1: soon as possible, which, of course makes sense because this
Speaker 1: would not be a good thing socially for her, and
Speaker 1: I'm assuming her parents would not approve of this, and
Speaker 1: she lives with them. But Norman is characteristically of Norman,
Speaker 1: very wishy washy with her, and he says that I've
Speaker 1: got some news for you. Instead of saying this face
Speaker 1: to face, he sends her a letter, which to me
Speaker 1: is like a low budget text. He sends her a
Speaker 1: letter that says, I know you say you're pregnant, but
Speaker 1: I'm seeing another woman and her name is Elizabeth Caldecott.
Speaker 1: He says, Elizabeth thinks I am to marry her, and
Speaker 1: I have a strong feeling for her. So now what's happening?
Speaker 1: What do you think?
Speaker 2: Well, now you see where Norman is probably feeling even more.
Speaker 2: I guess the term is trapped in terms of he's
Speaker 2: developed feelings for Elizabeth. He's probably excited about that relationship.
Speaker 2: And then Elsie pops up and is like, oh, I'm
Speaker 2: pregnant and he's seeing, you know, sort of the complication
Speaker 2: in his life.
Speaker 3: So now how does Norman respond?
Speaker 2: You know, he is, I guess in some ways, you know,
Speaker 2: even though it's an indirect method using the letter, but
Speaker 2: he's being upfront. But it's also possibly Norman's way of
Speaker 2: just trying to push Elsie away, you know, hoping that well,
Speaker 2: she'll just go away on herself, you know, by herself,
Speaker 2: and he can, you know, continue to pursue the relationship.
Speaker 1: With Elizabeth m And in some ways this made me
Speaker 1: think that Norman is as good a chance of being
Speaker 1: a victim as Elsie is, because this would have put her,
Speaker 1: that news would have put her in a pretty desperate situation.
Speaker 1: You know, not only has she had premarital sex with
Speaker 1: this man, who it sounds like is breaking all the engagement,
Speaker 1: but being pregnant, she could have terminated the pregnancy many times.
Speaker 1: That was dangerous and this is probably not something Elsie
Speaker 1: would have done. Anyway, She's living with her parents, and
Speaker 1: Norman is not near his parents. He is on his
Speaker 1: own island as a chicken farmer, and I think Elizabeth
Speaker 1: is close by. And you'll see why in a little bit.
Speaker 1: So he has a woman right here versus Elsie who
Speaker 1: lives a long train ride away, and now she's saying,
Speaker 1: I'm pregnant and at age somewhere between twenty and twenty two.
Speaker 1: Even though men in that time period, many of them
Speaker 1: did take responsibility. I mean, they understood this is you know,
Speaker 1: now I'm going to get married and this is kind
Speaker 1: of what society expects of me. Of course, an equal
Speaker 1: amount were deadbeat dads. So I don't know where Norman
Speaker 1: stands right now, but Elsie seems to be really getting
Speaker 1: upset over all of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, in some ways, I think I made
Speaker 2: an assumption that Elsie was going to be the victim.
Speaker 2: You know, right now, with the details that you've told
Speaker 2: in the story, you could see where Elsie would be
Speaker 2: jealous of Elizabeth, you know, and Elsie could strike out
Speaker 2: either at you know, Elizabeth, or could strike out at Norman. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I could see it going either direction. And then you
Speaker 2: got Elizabeth Elizabeth. You know, Norman's telling Elizabeth, hey, Elsie
Speaker 2: is pregnant, and Elizabeth is seeing that jeopardizing her relationship
Speaker 2: with Norman.
Speaker 3: So could Elizabeth go and take Elsie out? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So you know, right now we have classic triangle going on,
Speaker 2: lover's triangle, and you know, each point of the triangles
Speaker 2: are the individuals, and I can't tell you right now
Speaker 2: who ends up being the victim, So this will be interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and remember this is Elsie is not nine months pregnant.
Speaker 1: She is, you know, maybe a month or two pregnant.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming she came up with this conclusion again because
Speaker 1: she missed a period or two. So you know, she's
Speaker 1: perfectly capable of doing anything physical. And we know women
Speaker 1: can be just as murderous as men. So we'll see.
Speaker 1: We have an outside observer who I think is very interesting.
Speaker 1: I could do a whole episode on this woman. Her
Speaker 1: name was Helena Normanton and she was the very first
Speaker 1: female barrister in the United Kingdom. And a barrister, I mean, well,
Speaker 1: do you know the difference between like a lawyer and
Speaker 1: a barrister and any other category?
Speaker 3: Probably not to look at it, that would be a
Speaker 3: Wikipedia search for me.
Speaker 1: So a barrister my understanding, and certainly when I lived
Speaker 1: in London, I asked this question quite a lot too,
Speaker 1: because I was trying to make sure I understood. A
Speaker 1: barrister doesn't have as much contact with clients necessarily they
Speaker 1: are a trial attorney, litigator. So very very famous woman,
Speaker 1: so she picked up on cases that she wasn't involved
Speaker 1: when she didn't represent anybody in this case, but she
Speaker 1: was really interested in it because of Elsie. I think.
Speaker 1: Helena said that it appeared from everything that she was
Speaker 1: reading and studying that Elsie really seemed to be struggling
Speaker 1: with mental health issues. So this is what she said,
Speaker 1: and you can tell me what you think, because you know,
Speaker 1: we are considering Elsie to be an offender, not necessarily
Speaker 1: a victim. So Helena said between January and June of
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty three. So this is a year before she
Speaker 1: says she's getting pregnant, right, because that was November of
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty four, she said. The year before Elsie was
Speaker 1: under continuous medical treatment for I'm going to butcher this
Speaker 1: ner asthenia. Have you heard of that before?
Speaker 3: No, that's not ringing a bill at all.
Speaker 1: A condition characterized by chronic fatigue, weakness, and other symptoms.
Speaker 1: And this was a very nineteenth century term. So you know, irritability.
Speaker 1: If she were pregnant, I'd say, well, welcome to my world.
Speaker 1: I had a really hard pregnancy. But they said that
Speaker 1: she had this sort of this listlessness, irritability, depression, loss
Speaker 1: of energy, lack of self confidence, and failure in concentration.
Speaker 1: Does any of that line up to you about either
Speaker 1: as victimology, as Elsie as a victim or as a
Speaker 1: potential offender in this case, well, at least.
Speaker 2: With the symptoms that Elsie is being described as having.
Speaker 2: You know, it sounds like she's depressed. There's definitely nothing
Speaker 2: that's really alarming me at this point, like there's a
Speaker 2: psychosis going on. You know, she starting to trend towards
Speaker 2: maybe a form of schizophrenia. You know, at her age,
Speaker 2: you know, she's twenty two. You know, she could be
Speaker 2: on the front of maybe some developing mental health issue.
Speaker 2: But I'm not sure with those particular symptoms that it's
Speaker 2: really diagnostic as to something that would contribute to her
Speaker 2: striking out, you know, And this is it's kind of
Speaker 2: a it's almost the opposite, you know, but yeah, let's
Speaker 2: let's see how this develops.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is the time period this January to
Speaker 1: June is a time period of when you know, Norman
Speaker 1: is on the chicken farm. At this point, they're not together,
Speaker 1: and she's traveling back and forth to see him, and
Speaker 1: he's creating some distance. So if she had something already
Speaker 1: happening chemically, this would have made it worse. You know,
Speaker 1: she's invested in this guy. This is probably her first boyfriend,
Speaker 1: maybe her first relationship, and you know, now he's you know,
Speaker 1: putting his arm out to her. So she gets this news.
Speaker 1: So remember this is November of nineteen twenty four when
Speaker 1: she says, I'm pregnant and he writes back, and he says, well,
Speaker 1: this is you know, the issue. I'm with Elizabeth and
Speaker 1: I'm really interested in her. This is what Elsie says.
Speaker 1: This is her reply. She writes in a letter. This
Speaker 1: is quote. You have absolutely broken my heart. I never
Speaker 1: thought you were capable of such deception. Your duty is
Speaker 1: to marry me. I have first claim on you. I
Speaker 1: expect you to marry me as soon as possible. My
Speaker 1: baby must have a name and another thing. I love
Speaker 1: you in spite of all. That's a lot of demands,
Speaker 1: don't you think it.
Speaker 3: Is a lot of demands.
Speaker 2: But it's also I think from this timeframe, this is
Speaker 2: what would be expected, you know.
Speaker 3: And Enorma has got to.
Speaker 2: Know this, you know, he's out there in his hut
Speaker 2: and he's you know, got this relationship with Elizabeth. As
Speaker 2: soon as he finds out that Elsie is pregnant, he knows, Okay,
Speaker 2: there's a level of expectation of commitment to Elsie and
Speaker 2: his child. That's probably going to jeopardize the relationship with
Speaker 2: Elizabeth moving forward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I wonder. I'm assuming he's not telling
Speaker 1: Elizabeth any of this stuff. I think in at least
Speaker 1: some cases now the man might disclose this and say
Speaker 1: these days and say this is what's happening. We can't
Speaker 1: believe this woman. It's probably not my child, you know.
Speaker 1: But he, I'm assuming kept his mouth shut to Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: We don't end up hearing from Elizabeth regarding any of
Speaker 1: this stuff.
Speaker 3: So well, this is definitely an no shit moment for Norman.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, big time. And she's not here, you know,
Speaker 1: for him to gauge. So she sends this letter and
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound like he has time to respond, because
Speaker 1: then she sends another letter in early December of nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty four, and she says to him, talk about an
Speaker 1: no shit moment. I'm coming December sixth. We're going to
Speaker 1: hash this out in person. Again. He has no time
Speaker 1: to respond or any way to get a hold of her, really,
Speaker 1: and I'm assuming he does not have a phone, otherwise,
Speaker 1: you know, she would have been calling him. So this
Speaker 1: is all snail mail. She says, I'll be there December sixth.
Speaker 1: Here's the issue also with Norman. She actually comes a
Speaker 1: day early, so she packs up a suitcase which includes
Speaker 1: infant sized dresses, and sets out for the chicken farm
Speaker 1: to find him in his hut and to basically say,
Speaker 1: we are doing this. You have done this to me,
Speaker 1: and now you have a responsibility to fulfill.
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting that she writes that she'll be out
Speaker 2: there December sixth and comes a day early. You know,
Speaker 2: it was that a planned thing on her part, possibly
Speaker 2: to have that arrival be unexpected to better assess or
Speaker 2: even catch Norman doing things that she would be upset about.
Speaker 1: And I had wondered why number one she even gave
Speaker 1: him a warning, and number two if she was afraid
Speaker 1: that he was going to jet you know, and his
Speaker 1: hut will be empty when she shows up and she's
Speaker 1: trying to catch him. But I think that shows her
Speaker 1: level of desperation. I don't think she's told her parents
Speaker 1: that she's pregnant. They do know that she's going to
Speaker 1: visit him. This has been a common thing for the
Speaker 1: past year and a half or however long it was.
Speaker 1: So she says to her parents, I'm leaving, I'm going
Speaker 1: to go visit him. I don't think she's disclosed anything
Speaker 1: about Elizabeth to them. She certainly has not said I
Speaker 1: think he's calling off this, And so everybody's hiding stuff
Speaker 1: from different people, which doesn't surprise me now or in
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, but it makes this case a little
Speaker 1: bit more complicated coming up. So now, who are you
Speaker 1: thinking as far as offender victim knowing the situation here,
Speaker 1: because they're both in bad situations right.
Speaker 3: Now, you know, right now, I think it could go
Speaker 3: either way.
Speaker 2: But Elizabeth is definitely taking a more aggressive approach to
Speaker 2: the relationship.
Speaker 3: But she also has the bigger burden.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, she's pregnant, She has the future to
Speaker 2: think about, and Norman is in many ways trying to
Speaker 2: move away from Elsie, you know, So she's coming out
Speaker 2: right now. All that does is it puts Norman and
Speaker 2: Elsie and Elizabeth at least within the same geography, and
Speaker 2: so that's where I think it's going to be interesting
Speaker 2: to see what happens.
Speaker 1: So we don't know yet when she arrives how it went.
Speaker 1: And what we do know is that Elsie's parents expect
Speaker 1: that they are going to hear from her via a letter,
Speaker 1: snail mail letter, but two days past after she's supposed
Speaker 1: to be there and nothing back home. Yeah, they're in London,
Speaker 1: so they don't hear anything from her, and they said,
Speaker 1: this is incredibly unusual. They live together and of course
Speaker 1: they're very close, so they got this must have been awful, Paul.
Speaker 1: It's all telegraphs and snail mail.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of curious as to why they didn't go
Speaker 2: out to where Norman.
Speaker 3: Was that just to see or where's our daughter?
Speaker 1: I had wondered. I don't think propriety is the right word.
Speaker 1: But they didn't want to panic anybody, and I don't
Speaker 1: think they wanted to come to any conclusions. Maybe there
Speaker 1: was a delay in the mail. I don't know. But
Speaker 1: also I don't think they know about all of the
Speaker 1: problems between Elsie and Norman. They are very aware, of course,
Speaker 1: of oh the emotional turmoil that she's been going through.
Speaker 1: So they decide to send Norman a telegraph asking if
Speaker 1: Elsie is there. This is his response, and I don't
Speaker 1: quite understand part of it. He says not here open
Speaker 1: letters with a period at the end. Open letters, can't understand.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if she has sent him letters.
Speaker 1: He is saying, she sent me letters and I've opened them,
Speaker 1: but it's all garble. I don't know what he's saying there,
Speaker 1: but they seemed confused. Also, what do you think?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's very cryptic and Norman, you know, based off
Speaker 2: of his you know, mechanical or electrical engineering job. I
Speaker 2: mean he's, i'm assuming, fairly well educated and can articulate
Speaker 2: and write well. So why is he being so cryptic
Speaker 2: with that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I really don't have a guess right now.
Speaker 1: Okay, well let's go through the timeline just real quick.
Speaker 1: So Elsie was supposed to go on the sixth, according
Speaker 1: to her letters, she went on the fifth, So three
Speaker 1: days after she was last seen by her parents in
Speaker 1: London getting on this train to go to the chicken farm,
Speaker 1: they get two letters that show up and they're from
Speaker 1: Norman and they're addressed to Elsie. So she was supposed
Speaker 1: to be there on the sixth, She left on the fifth.
Speaker 1: They call him on the seventh, the eighth, these letters
Speaker 1: show up and he says in these letters to Elsie,
Speaker 1: where did you get to yesterday? You did not turn up?
Speaker 1: And they were written and sent after Elsie was slated
Speaker 1: to arrive at Norman's farm, which is concerned. Of course
Speaker 1: it's concerning. I mean, her parents are freaking out about this.
Speaker 3: All right. We still don't know.
Speaker 2: You haven't told me anything about where Elsie is at
Speaker 2: or what has happened to Elsie, you know. So it's
Speaker 2: it's entirely possible that she never even made it to
Speaker 2: Norman's place, right, But assuming that she did make it
Speaker 2: to Norman's place and he has caused Elsie some harm,
Speaker 2: these letters sound like he's staging. He is trying to
Speaker 2: make it look like she's left left, you know, the farm,
Speaker 2: and she was supposed to meet up with them, and
Speaker 2: she hasn't arrived, and now Norman is sending these letters.
Speaker 2: It's almost like you know, grabbing the victim's phone or
Speaker 2: and sending a text, you know, to make it seem
Speaker 2: like they're still alive. Yeah, you know, it's just it's
Speaker 2: a form of staging. But again, don't know what has
Speaker 2: happened to Elsie, so I'll just kind of tuck that away.
Speaker 1: I can't believe how many people have been caught with
Speaker 1: the texting thing because they call a parent the wrong name,
Speaker 1: or they misspelled I mean, I just think I don't
Speaker 1: want to give people hints, But why would you not
Speaker 1: go back and at least read the way all of
Speaker 1: these people were addressed, the way they spelled their names,
Speaker 1: like copy their style at least. But I feel like
Speaker 1: I've read about five or six different cases where the
Speaker 1: offender just sort of winged it, and it seems like
Speaker 1: a bad idea if you're trying to set up a murderer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and of course the people who are familiar with,
Speaker 2: let's say the victim, they're going that does not sound
Speaker 2: like our daughter or our son or whatever.
Speaker 1: So Elsie's parents, of course, are incredibly suspicious and very nervous.
Speaker 1: They report her missing to the police, but the police
Speaker 1: out there, not the London police, because they believe that
Speaker 1: she's out there. I believe the police don't act with
Speaker 1: very much urgency at all. I don't know why. I
Speaker 1: think it's because when they talk to Norman, he says
Speaker 1: she was crazy, she was mentally unstable. Talk to her parents.
Speaker 1: She's been having problems for a very long time. He
Speaker 1: has no idea what happened to her. She never showed
Speaker 1: up when she was supposed to, and the police seemed
Speaker 1: to generally accept this. So you know, what do you
Speaker 1: think about that? I know the police have to make
Speaker 1: judgment calls all the time. That's why I'm not a
Speaker 1: police officer. That would scare me. I mean, you are
Speaker 1: making judgment calls all the time that put people's lives
Speaker 1: at risks, save their lives, all of that, and they
Speaker 1: have decided in this case to believe this man who
Speaker 1: said my fiance was having a really hard time. She
Speaker 1: was supposed to show up. She never did. I don't
Speaker 1: know where she is. You can look at if you want,
Speaker 1: and they believed him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I think with the facts upfront that
Speaker 2: law enforcement would have been assessing you are dealing with
Speaker 2: an adult.
Speaker 3: With Elsie.
Speaker 2: She has freedom of movement, she doesn't have to show
Speaker 2: up at any particular location, and there's nothing about the
Speaker 2: circumstances that would suggest that she's endangered outside of her
Speaker 2: parents were expecting to be back home by a certain
Speaker 2: day and she doesn't arrive. And maybe the only thing
Speaker 2: that might be of concern are the letters from Norman
Speaker 2: where he's writing to Elsie saying where are you?
Speaker 3: Where were you?
Speaker 2: You know, So now you have both the parents of
Speaker 2: Norman saying this Elsie has disappeared. Yeah, but again, she's
Speaker 2: twenty two years old or older.
Speaker 3: At this point, she's in her mid twenties.
Speaker 2: You know, she could have just decided to go somewhere
Speaker 2: and cool down after finding out that Norman is having
Speaker 2: a relationship with this Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, pulled herself together to figure out what she was
Speaker 1: going to do. If she actually doesn't show up, then
Speaker 1: his letters make sense. He's saying, you were supposed to
Speaker 1: be here on the sixth. I don't know where you are,
Speaker 1: and the only place he can send them to is London,
Speaker 1: her parents' house. So let's continue on. The police know
Speaker 1: about this, and they still don't act. There are two
Speaker 1: gardeners who see an unfamiliar woman in Crowbro, which is
Speaker 1: apparently a small village or a small town. She is
Speaker 1: carrying a suitcase in the town, not on his farm,
Speaker 1: but in the town. She's carrying a suitcase that her
Speaker 1: parents say matches the description of Elsie's own suitcase. This
Speaker 1: is on December fifth, when she's supposed to be there.
Speaker 1: If this is Elsie, this puts her in the town,
Speaker 1: not at the farm yet, but in the town, So
Speaker 1: that gives us a little bit more information. Nobody killed
Speaker 1: her on the train.
Speaker 2: Apparently, Okay, because earlier you said that Elsie arrived a
Speaker 2: day earlier. Is that's why they know she was there
Speaker 2: on December fifth versus the sixth? Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Her parents knew that she was leaving on the fifth, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's true. Yeah, so they were the last ones to
Speaker 1: see her. So now we've got her in the town.
Speaker 1: And you know, you and I talk about this the
Speaker 1: timeline and where people are, and you often ask me,
Speaker 1: especially when we're dealing with trains and trolleys and you know,
Speaker 1: passenger cars and stuff like that, did people see them
Speaker 1: on the train? Where did we last see or did
Speaker 1: she step off the train? And did we have a
Speaker 1: witness that's our at the train station. So if we
Speaker 1: believe this, and this would have been I would think legitimate.
Speaker 1: If this is a small village or a small town,
Speaker 1: she probably would have stood out, especially if she's carrying
Speaker 1: a suitcase. If this is Elsie, she's in the town
Speaker 1: now where Norman is.
Speaker 3: I have no reason to doubt these witnesses.
Speaker 1: Police still don't act on this. Make me understand why
Speaker 1: they wouldn't act on this? Is it yet? Again? You know,
Speaker 1: maybe she showed up Norman wasn't home, changed her mind
Speaker 1: and you know, went off on walk about somewhere or what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there wasn't anything that these witnesses saw
Speaker 2: that's concerning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well she's in town with a suitcase.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so it doesn't change anything from law enforcements perspective.
Speaker 2: It's just said, Okay, well she arrived, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: and where is she? Well, she could have left the town.
Speaker 2: She could have found, you know, some other place.
Speaker 3: To hold up in.
Speaker 1: And I think reasonable doubt here will be sort of
Speaker 1: my mindset moving forward. We're looking for reasonable doubt in
Speaker 1: this case. So a few weeks later, her poor parents,
Speaker 1: they are not getting any information. Four weeks the police
Speaker 1: get a tip. It's from one of Norman's neighbors, you know,
Speaker 1: on one side or the other of the chicken farm.
Speaker 1: They say that they have seen a young woman with
Speaker 1: a suitcase walking onto his chicken farm on December fifth.
Speaker 1: Who knows why the neighbor took so long. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think it was anything nefarious. I
Speaker 1: think people don't want to get involved sometimes with this story.
Speaker 1: Maybe they hadn't heard about it yet.
Speaker 2: Who knows, Yeah, you know, but that's it's several weeks later.
Speaker 2: I mean, with a small town, you know, the rumor
Speaker 2: mill is going to be going rampant, you know, So
Speaker 2: is this just somebody who's decided and you know, they
Speaker 2: may just be trying to be helpful, but how accurate
Speaker 2: is this bit of information? Are they just inserting themselves
Speaker 2: into the investigation because we know those types of people exist,
Speaker 2: So it's kind of hard to really to truly assess
Speaker 2: the veracity of information just based off of the statements.
Speaker 2: It's like, Okay, where's the witness saying that they what
Speaker 2: was their visual perspective of this woman on the suitcase?
Speaker 2: You know, is this something that they're able to describe
Speaker 2: aspects about this woman, her dress, the details about the suitcase.
Speaker 2: That really kind of enhances the likelihood that these witnesses
Speaker 2: actually saw Elsie and is placing Elsie on Norman's property.
Speaker 1: And nobody's saying she's in distress or anything like that.
Speaker 1: So it seems very matter of fact. The police are
Speaker 1: finally alarmed. I think her parents are staying on top
Speaker 1: of them about this and saying this is unusual. He
Speaker 1: told us she never showed up. Now you have a
Speaker 1: witness who says, she's on this farm. They go to
Speaker 1: normal and they say, let's clear this all up. Let us
Speaker 1: search the farm, the chicken farm. He says. Okay. When
Speaker 1: they're looking, they find and they don't tell me if
Speaker 1: it's buried or not, but they find a tin with
Speaker 1: Elsie's jewelry and watch inside. Okay, and that's bad news.
Speaker 1: Her parents later confirmed that she was wearing these pieces
Speaker 1: of jewelry and this watch when she left London to
Speaker 1: go to the chicken farm. So that's bad news already.
Speaker 1: It's on the property.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this tin, is this something that Elsie took
Speaker 2: with her that she would naturally put her jewelry in,
Speaker 2: like when she's going to go to bed or is
Speaker 2: this Norman's tin? And you know, now, for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: Elsie has been relieved of her jewelry. And of course
Speaker 2: it'd be very interesting to know exactly where this tin
Speaker 2: was located at was it secreted away, because that would
Speaker 2: be a harbinger of really bad news.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know that. I think the ten is his,
Speaker 1: but I don't know where it was. But in a second,
Speaker 1: it's not going to matter. Sorry to tell you that
Speaker 1: they keep searching. They're most excited about an area on
Speaker 1: the potato patch that appears to have been freshly dug up,
Speaker 1: and they dig up Elsie's suitcase. So now we have
Speaker 1: confirmation the jewelry and the suitcase. Before you ask about
Speaker 1: the suitcase, look at the photos. Look at those two
Speaker 1: photos that I sent you. It just shows an overwhelming
Speaker 1: amount of material that they had to dig through. This
Speaker 1: is not a small farm.
Speaker 2: So the next photo after the photo from the road
Speaker 2: is I'm seeing a photo where there's three men. You know,
Speaker 2: they're dressed in very heavy looking trench coats.
Speaker 1: It looks foggy to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's foggy, and it's cool. It looks like it's
Speaker 2: probably very very cool temperatures. It looks like the land
Speaker 2: where these men are at. I can't quite tell in
Speaker 2: the photo if it's been dug up or overturned, but
Speaker 2: I'm assuming this is probably the maybe the potato patch area.
Speaker 2: There's also brushes and trees in the backdrop, you know,
Speaker 2: but this isn't you know, anytime you're doing a search outdoors,
Speaker 2: even if you have let's say a small yard surrounded
Speaker 2: by a fence, it's a lot of work unless there's
Speaker 2: something really obvious and of course the larger the property gets,
Speaker 2: you know, you hope for something like freshly turned over
Speaker 2: dirt or disturbances in the botanical material, so you go, Okay,
Speaker 2: there's a spot that I want to key in on.
Speaker 2: But because of these outdoor type scenes, this is why
Speaker 2: we've tried to utilize different technologies to focus our efforts,
Speaker 2: like ground penetrating radar or having the dogs get out
Speaker 2: there and have them alert on whatever they're trained to
Speaker 2: alert on, such as decomp dogs. Because it is I've
Speaker 2: been involved in multiple searches, most notably Phil Gurrito's property,
Speaker 2: who was the abductor of jaz Do Guard and he
Speaker 2: had two acres of basically a junk yard and we
Speaker 2: were trying to find evidence of other victims or evidence
Speaker 2: associated with the crimes against Jace and it took what
Speaker 2: I was out there for several weeks with multiple different agencies.
Speaker 1: Well, the first book that I wrote, which was about
Speaker 1: the London smog of nineteen fifty two and a serial killer,
Speaker 1: John Reginald Christy, to me illustrated that he had a
Speaker 1: very small backyard and he had a place in London.
Speaker 1: He buried two women there and it was totally junked out.
Speaker 1: He had garden and stuff, but there were tools everywhere.
Speaker 1: The weeds were really high, and the police were not
Speaker 1: searching for buried women. They were searching for a mother
Speaker 1: and her baby. And they went straight to kind of
Speaker 1: an outdoor lavatory, and so, you know, they did not
Speaker 1: know that there were women buried under the ground. They
Speaker 1: were looking specifically in this laboratory, which is where they
Speaker 1: found the mother and the child dead. What they did
Speaker 1: not see, which I think people thought at the time
Speaker 1: was just inexplicable, was Christie's dog had dug up a
Speaker 1: femur bone of one of the women a couple of
Speaker 1: years earlier. His fence was falling down. He strapped the
Speaker 1: femur bone to the fence to hold up the fence,
Speaker 1: and they walked right past it. And people criticized for him.
Speaker 1: You know, I call it Keystone cops sometimes, But then
Speaker 1: when you look at photos it is so trashed. I
Speaker 1: totally understand how they missed a bone, you know, that
Speaker 1: is holding up part of the fence. I mean, forget
Speaker 1: about the psychology behind Christy doing something like that to
Speaker 1: begin with, but I think people think it must be
Speaker 1: easy to do his search from a small backyard. But
Speaker 1: depending on the circumstances and what you're looking for, it
Speaker 1: can be a big challenge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's it's what your eyes can see. I
Speaker 2: have photos of whole bodies that are on the surface,
Speaker 2: and most people would never be able to pick the
Speaker 2: bodies because of the other debris, you know, the branches
Speaker 2: and the vegetation, you know. And in this case, like
Speaker 2: with Christy with this sphemur, I mean, how many people
Speaker 2: I've run across, like in law enforcement, that do not
Speaker 2: know human anatomy. You know, they may not even recognize
Speaker 2: that they're dealing with a bone, let alone, you know,
Speaker 2: a significant bone out of a person's leg.
Speaker 3: So it is it's always a challenge.
Speaker 2: And that's where again, you know, here law enforcement is
Speaker 2: they've got a suitcase, They've got a tin full of
Speaker 2: Elsie's jewelry.
Speaker 3: Now it's where is Elsie? Yep?
Speaker 1: So the suitcase is buried, nothing inside the ten has
Speaker 1: the jewelry in it. Not long after, in a totally
Speaker 1: different part of the farm, these cops, Boy, this was
Speaker 1: a lot of work. They discover a human Torso there's
Speaker 1: a lot of decomposition happening. Because remember this has been
Speaker 1: two or three weeks since she went missing. They waited
Speaker 1: a long time with the neighbor's tip and everything, and
Speaker 1: now did you giz up? They say to Norman, you've
Speaker 1: got a human torso buried. We believe it's Elsie. And
Speaker 1: he says, okay, I'll tell you where her other parts are,
Speaker 1: so he takes her to other spots on the property.
Speaker 1: They find her severed arms and legs, as well as
Speaker 1: her head. This is where Norman's story becomes very interesting.
Speaker 1: He readily admits that he dismembered her and buried her
Speaker 1: and covered all the stuff up, but he says, I'm
Speaker 1: not the one who did it. And now I'm going
Speaker 1: to have to leave you hanging for part two. This
Speaker 1: I told you, this chicken farm, this chicken farm, and
Speaker 1: this poor woman, this poor young woman, you know. And
Speaker 1: now we will in the second part talk a lot
Speaker 1: about medical stuff because now we have to determine exactly
Speaker 1: what happened to.
Speaker 2: Elsie, and depending on the state of her body, it
Speaker 2: can be very difficult.
Speaker 1: Yep, okay, I will see you next week.
Speaker 3: Sounds good.
Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production for.
Speaker 2: Our sources and show notes go to Exactlyrightmedia Dot com
Speaker 2: slash Buried Bones sources.
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Alexis Emirosi.
Speaker 2: 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 2: Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hart Stark and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 1: You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Speaker 1: Baried 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, and
Speaker 1: Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's Cold
Speaker 1: Cases is also available now