WEBVTT - Bad Luck, Mary 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:05.199 You would sit there with a book or a newspaper 0:00:05.240 --> 0:00:09.600 and just half listen to the police radio, which is 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:13.960 a constant chatter in your ear. You're listening, but you're 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:18.000 not listening, but certain cueues will alert you. 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:23.799 It was October twelfth, nineteen sixty four. Lance Morrow was 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:27.240 listening to the Metro police scanner. He was fresh out 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:30.480 of Harvard working as a cub reporter for a DC newspaper. 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:33.879 He happened to be at police headquarters that day, just 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:37.319 filling in for a coworker. I know that feeling when 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:41.440 you're just sitting there waiting for something newsworthy to happen. 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:43.400 He didn't wait long. 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:47.160 So I'm sitting there just about getting on toward noon, 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:51.159 and I heard on the police radio cruiser twenty five, 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:57.600 Cruiser twenty six, cruiser twenty seven proceed to I believe 0:00:57.640 --> 0:00:59.840 it was the thirty eight hundred block of Canal. 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:04.480 The cruisers racing to the scene weren't just any police cars. 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:07.480 Well, the first thing I knew was that that was 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:13.080 three homicide cruisers being called for some reason, and that's 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:14.440 extremely unusual. 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:16.560 They were responding to a murder. 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:21.040 I'd never run into that. The second thing I knew 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:22.480 was that was in Georgetown. 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:25.840 Lance grew up in Georgetown. He knew the streets like 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:29.000 a local cab driver, and he knew the people just 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:29.480 as well. 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:33.640 And my parents knew Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon pretty well. 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:36.840 He was used to living in the background of history. 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:39.880 Rarely had he been caught in the crossfires of it. 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:44.959 But a murder in Georgetown at midday, now that was 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:45.480 unheard of. 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:51.040 It was just below Georgetown University by the river, and 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:53.400 as it turned out, it was on the canal. And 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:57.680 I jumped in a car. I got there an amazingly 0:01:58.160 --> 0:01:59.000 short time. 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:07.120 Lance parked his car on Canal Road. Just below it, 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:10.800 there was the canal itself, and running beside that canal 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:14.519 was a dirt road called a towpath. He spotted two 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:17.760 African American men fixing a stalled car on the road 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:20.240 in front of him. The guys were mechanics from the 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:24.560 local ESO station. They called the police and they told 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:27.120 Lance they heard the whole thing go down. 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:32.040 There was a guy shooting a woman across the canal 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:35.480 from where they stood. They heard shots and ran across 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:39.560 the road, looked across the canal, saw a guy struggling 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:43.680 with a woman. I talked to these guys. They were 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:46.240 still there, and I said, what happened? And they told 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:50.320 me that one of them pointed to something that looked 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.440 like a laundry bag almost or a bag of clothing, 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:57.120 and he said, that's her. That's her. And I said, 0:02:57.560 --> 0:02:59.960 who is it. He said, that's the one that was shot. 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:08.000 This is Murder on the Towpath. And I'm your host, 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:12.560 Soledad O'Brien. I've been a journalist for over three decades. 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:16.480 I've covered politics, I've reported on crime, justice and race 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:19.440 in America, and I'm really interested in the way they 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:22.960 can all intersect. That's one of the things that drew 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:25.960 me to this story. It weaves together all those things 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:30.760 around a single event, a murder, A murder that would 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:34.640 become emblematic of the nineteen sixties, a time of political 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:39.880 and cultural upheaval, A story that ruffled feathers even back then. 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:47.160 A legendary newspaperman, a CIA director, and even JFK himself 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:51.360 play a part. What's fascinating is that this tale has 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:56.280 never really gone away. Decades later, people argue about what happened. 0:03:56.840 --> 0:03:59.920 Relatives of the victim hesitate to speak about her publicly. 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:05.160 Relatives of the alleged killer do too. It's a story 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:09.640 so complex and mysterious that conspiracy theorists have come out 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:13.560 of the woodwork. Even to this day, people still ask 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:19.720 who killed this woman in broad daylight. Over the next 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:22.560 eight episodes, I'll introduce you to the two women at 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:25.919 the heart of the story. Mary Pinchot Meyer was a painter, 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:28.640 a pacifist, and a woman who grew up rich but 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:33.279 didn't like to follow rules. Dovey Johnson Rowntree became a 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.000 civil rights lawyer at a time when black people were 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:38.080 systematically stripped of their rights. 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:38.920 She was a. 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:42.400 Minister too, and determined to use the law to defend 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:46.000 all God's children. The lives of these two women ran 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:50.080 parallel to one another until one horrible day in nineteen 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:54.960 sixty four. Both were smart and confident, They had brilliant minds, 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:58.080 and in other worlds, I wonder if they might have 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:01.159 even met, but they had now her cross paths in 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:05.080 the district. Except after one of them was killed. At 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:10.120 that moment in nineteen sixty four, their lives suddenly intersected, 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:16.600 and now their legacies are forever intertwined. Let's start at 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:20.080 the moment that would bring them together the day one 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:36.679 of them was murdered. Her name was Mary Pincho Meyer, 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:41.719 and her final day started like any other. It was 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:45.320 two days before her forty fourth birthday, one of those 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:48.640 crisp days that actually makes you happy. Summer is over, 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:51.720 cool enough for a sweater, but still bright and sunny, 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:55.839 with a blue sky streaming above. Mary was painting. She 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:59.040 loved to paint. It was somewhere between a hobby and 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:03.080 a job for her. She had spent thirteen years married 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:06.719 to a cia man named cord Meyer, holding down the 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:10.360 fort while he traveled and spoke around the country. By 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:14.360 this time, Mary resented her then husband and what he represented. 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:18.080 After their divorce, their two sons went away to boarding school, 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.440 Mary suddenly had a lot of time alone and could 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:24.640 devote it to her craft. On most days, she'd hold 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:28.120 herself up in her studio and just paint and paint 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:31.720 and paint. Her studio was how you would imagine an 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:35.640 artist haven would be. It was a converted garage with 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:38.400 two skylights, littered with notebooks. 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:41.160 Artists have things called paint books. 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:46.719 The pages are quite It's a high quality paper thicker 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:51.680 and most of the pages had swatches of paint on it, 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:54.680 and then slight descriptions of how that color was achieved. 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:58.480 That's Ben Bradley. I remember him from when I was 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:02.359 a kid. He was a newspaper legend. You might remember 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:05.479 him too from Watergate. He was editor in chief of 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:08.840 the Washington Post when they broke the story. He also 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:13.800 happened to be Mary's sister's husband. Mary was exploring a 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:19.040 new artistic style. She was painting these concentric, colorful circles 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:22.640 on round canvases, known in the art world as Tondo's. 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:26.520 They gave you a window into Mary's art and the 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:30.080 way her mind worked. Her routine was the same. Every day. 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:33.840 Mary went into her studio, turned up the electric space heater, 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:37.400 poured coffee from her thermos, lit up a cigarette, and 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:41.320 then she would paint for hours on end until that 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:44.720 time of the day when concentration becomes difficult and the 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:49.280 mind grows hazy. Like clockwork. Around noon, Mary would go 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:51.880 for a walk on the towpath just when she was 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:56.800 losing focus. Mary savored walking on the towpath in the winter. 0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:00.600 She'd even ice skate along the ice that blanketed the canals. 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.600 Her daily walks gave her the time space to think, 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:08.680 get inspired, and that was what Mary was doing on 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:17.280 October twelfth, nineteen sixty four. Before heading out, Mary had 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:21.000 put on her gloves and pedal pushers. She layered herself 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:24.840 with a cable knit blue Angora sweater. The inside of 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:28.320 her gloves had a cleaner's mark that said Meyer that 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:32.280 would later help police identify the body. She slipped her 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:34.720 red tube of lipstick in her pocket and put on 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:40.760 her white paint splattered PF flyers. That day, she had 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:42.920 a chore to do, a fun one. 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:46.360 She had a cat that had laid some kittens. 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:49.959 That's Nina Burley. She wrote a biography of Mary, called 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:51.240 a very private woman. 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:54.720 She was just about to put a sign out to 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:59.280 say free kittens, and she headed out of her house 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.880 and walked down the cobblestone streets. She walked down the 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:11.199 street to the what they call the towpath alongside the canal. 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:17.240 Mary's converted studio looked like all the other garages on 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:21.040 the alleyway. Some of her closest friends and family lived nearby. 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:24.240 Mary's sister Tony lived in the townhouse on one end. 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:28.120 She was the sister married to Ben Bradley and before 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:30.800 they moved to the White House, the Kennedys lived nearby. 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:34.880 In fact, Mary and Jackie Kennedy would sometimes take their 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:39.319 walks on the towpath together. Mary was of that ilk 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:44.600 she could ask Jackie to walk with her. We know 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:48.240 she crossed m Street because that day a long black 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:52.720 car with official plates slowed and a rear window rolled down. 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:57.640 It was her friend, Polly Wisner. Polly's husband was the 0:09:57.640 --> 0:10:01.640 head of the CIA's covert operations for many years. He 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:06.080 worked with Mary's ex husband Cord at the CIA. Polly 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:09.400 had one of those mid Atlantic accents that old movie 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:14.160 stars like Catherine Hepburn had. She waved and said goodbye 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:18.920 Mary with one of those long a's. Polly was the 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:26.920 last friend to see Mary alive. From the moment Mary 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:30.840 was shot on the towpath, it would take just forty 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:35.800 five minutes for them to arrest a suspect. Forty five minutes. 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.680 I mean, this was a very fast moving situation. 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:42.959 That's Lance Morrow again, the cub reporter who had gotten 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:45.560 to the scene quickly. He had stopped to talk to 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:48.760 the car mechanics, then race down to the towpath. He 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:50.160 knew a secret way. 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:53.640 I knew that there was a tunnel underneath the canal, 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:56.440 and I knew it was there, so I ran to 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:58.960 that tunnel. It was about fifty yards from where I 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:04.920 was standing. You had to part fines to go into it. 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:07.760 But I ran through the tunnel, and all the time 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:11.560 I was fairly frightened because I thought that the killer 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:15.760 was still loose. So I ran through the tunnel, came 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:20.680 up into the sunlight through the vines that hung over 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:24.880 the entrance on the other side, came up onto the towpath, 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:29.679 and I ran to where the body was, and I 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:34.240 saw a woman lying crumpled up in the fetal position. 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:41.280 The woman had been shot twice, a bullet to the 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.240 brain and a bullet to the heart. This is not 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:48.800 what reporters like us expect to see the actual body 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:49.800 of the murder victim. 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:51.000 I saw no blood. 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:55.559 It was surreal, and so she. 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:58.760 Looked like she was asleep. She was dressed in an 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:06.679 angora and pedal pusher pats and what looked like ballet 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:10.440 slippers to me, but there's something like that slip on things. 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:13.400 She had an air of money about her, in the 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:17.280 sense that you could see that her hair was She 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:20.040 was a very good looking woman. I could see her profile, 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:25.880 although she was turned away from me sort of, but 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:29.440 I could see that her her haircut was expensive, if 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:30.280 that makes sense. 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:35.040 Lance could tell the victim was a woman of means 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:37.760 and beauty, but at that point no one knew who 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:42.400 she was. After seeing her on the ground, one officer said, 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:45.080 I've seen a lot of dead women, but none who 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.760 looked beautiful when dead. She even looked beautiful with a 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:52.000 bullet in her head. When I read that line, I 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:55.320 was kind of horrified. I mean, there's something twisted about 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:58.520 a woman being judged on her looks even in her death. 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:03.560 But the truth is Mary was striking. She was always 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:06.280 the prettiest woman in the room. She had that it 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:12.120 quality that drew people to her, especially men. Mary sported short, 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:16.880 blonde hair and had piercing blue eyes. She was thin, athletic, 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:20.880 had an air of grace kelly about her. Mary was 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:23.520 born into high society, but it was more than that. 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:29.440 She was inherently regal. Even though Lance had arrived quickly 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:33.680 to the crime scene, the police had already come and gone. 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:36.040 If they were going to catch the killer, they needed 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:38.880 to block off the exits to the towpath as soon 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:43.480 as possible. Time was running out. They left Mary out 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:47.080 in the open as they searched. That's how Lance, all 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:50.600 of twenty five years old, ended up having a moment 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:51.480 alone with her. 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:55.880 I mean, here's this woman. She looked very serene, her 0:13:55.880 --> 0:14:00.920 face was very serene, and it was a weird dreamlike 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:01.920 quality about it. 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:06.600 Lance is now almost eighty, but he has never forgotten 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:09.840 that day. Trust me. It's not every day a reporter 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:13.560 comes across a dead body. I've only ever seen them 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:24.080 at natural disasters, but a murder in a city park. Never. Washington, 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:28.440 d C. Has always been a very segregated city. Crimes 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:30.960 in the city only got the attention of the cops 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:34.080 in the media if you had the right address. If 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:36.840 you lived in a black neighborhood, chances were the police 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:40.119 weren't rushing to the crime scene. Same thing with journalists. 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:44.280 And from the address you knew perfectly well whether it 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:48.920 was black or white, and if it was white, it 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:53.280 was interesting and you would pursue it. If it was black, 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:57.680 unless there was some unusual circumstance about it. The phrase 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:01.520 from the city desk was cheap it out. Cheap it out, 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:06.440 which means give it three paragraphs on the inside. In 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:11.520 other words, the black life in Washington was not covered. 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:16.160 Sounds about right. I've spent a lot of time in DC, 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:20.600 and I can tell you Georgetown is a very swanky place. 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:24.960 The towpath is filled with joggers, couples holding hands. It's 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:27.400 one of the wealthiest zip codes in the country. The 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:30.760 Clintons have a house there, Nancy Pelosi has a condo, 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:35.160 and you might spot Jill Biden running. But it wasn't 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:39.720 always like this. Historically, Georgetown had always been a black neighborhood. 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:44.600 In the early twentieth century, white federal employees trickled into 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:48.960 the area, and by the fifties Washington's white elites moved in. 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:53.280 Less than ten percent of the area was black. Here's 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:55.080 Nina the biographer again. 0:15:56.160 --> 0:16:01.040 Mary Meyer and Ben Bradley and Jackie Kennedy were people 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:06.040 who had come in and gentrified this area in the fifties. 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:07.040 In the forties and. 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:11.960 Fifties, Mary's actual home was near her studio. It was 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:15.760 a little blue townhouse right in the center of Georgetown. 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:22.040 So it was, you know, this little community of people 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:26.800 who lived on the other side of this giant park, 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:30.720 Rock Creek Park, which separates off Georgetown from the rest 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:34.160 of Washington, d C. And so they lived in a 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:39.320 kind of bubble of you know, this is our community, 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:44.680 and they didn't lock their doors. They definitely felt safe there. 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:48.280 Once the white people moved in, the police and reporters 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:53.000 took the neighborhood more seriously, which doesn't surprise me. But 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:57.800 the towpath was still a paradoxical place. You'd find sleeping 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:01.080 drunks next to a beautiful view of the canal with 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:06.359 lily pads on it. After Mary waved goodbye to Polly, 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:10.560 she passed the entryway to Key Bridge, the large concrete 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:16.080 bridge connecting d Seed to Virginia. Her daily route was straightforward. 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:19.359 She walked west all the way to Fletcher's boat House, 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:23.080 a fishing spot since the nineteenth century. Then Mary would 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:27.960 turn around and make her way back east to her studio. Now, 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:32.199 the actual details after Mary enters the towpath are a 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:36.000 bit fuzzy. We don't know exactly how it all went down. 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:40.399 Sources disagree on the order of events, But here's what 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:44.399 we've gathered from court documents, eyewitness accounts, and a bunch 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:48.399 of books that have pieced together Mary's final moments. We 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:51.560 know she walked along the wooden footbridge to get down 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:55.000 to the towpath. Once she was on the path itself, 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:57.520 Mary should have been able to hear the cars humming 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:00.600 above her. The road was above the canal. If you 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.840 go there, you can hear the occasional traffic sounds or 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:07.359 see the car roofs floating above the gray stone wall. 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:14.639 Around twenty minutes or so into her walk, Mary was 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:19.160 attacked from behind. A man held back her arms, preventing 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:23.600 her from getting away. Mary squirmed desperately trying to break free. 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:27.680 She was strong, maybe she thought she could topple her assailant, 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:30.520 but the man was too much for her. She yelled, 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:34.560 somebody help me. She hoped someone anyone over the stone 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:38.400 wall on Canal Road could hear her. The mechanics heard her, 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:44.120 but it was too late. Then a gunshot. A mechanic 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.560 named Henry Wiggins slowly made his way to a stone 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:51.000 wall on Canal Road, which overlooked the towpath in the canal. 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:54.800 He didn't see the murder, but he heard all of it. 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:57.600 Lance Morrow said he didn't see any blood when he 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:00.760 arrived on the scene, but there's good reason think Henry 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:02.439 saw blood. Quite a lot of it. 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:07.080 She left blood on tree branches where she was trying 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:09.520 to pull herself up and escape. 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:13.359 That's Ron Rosenbaum who wrote about Mary in his book 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:15.000 The Secret Parts of Fortune. 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:20.480 And then eventually she got back up to the towpath 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:26.879 in full view of a guy named Henry Wiggins, who 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:31.280 had parked his car on the other side of the 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:36.760 Cno Canal near a gas station and was gazing out 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:45.159 at the towpath and actually saw the struggle in which 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:47.600 Mary was shot. 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:54.040 She was on her knees, clinging to a tree, literally 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:57.320 holding on for dear life. Mary tried to push the 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:01.240 killer away while protecting her head leaning on the tree. 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:04.359 The murderer was trying to drag her out of view. 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:09.119 Then Mary used every ounce of life she had left 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:12.479 in her She got up and ran toward the canal 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:16.679 and the wall where Henry was, but with a shot 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:20.000 to the head, she couldn't make it any further. She 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:24.600 fell to the ground. That's when the killer insured Mary's fate. 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:28.520 He shot her once more, this time in her back. 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:32.080 The bullet hit her shoulder blade and punctured her a 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:40.440 order her heart stopped. Henry Wiggins, the mechanic. 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:45.960 Hurt it all sadly, tragically, he uh witnessed a murder. 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:51.680 He heard the two shots by the time Henry got 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:54.280 to the stone wall, he peered over and saw a 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:58.040 black man standing over a woman's body. The man wore 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:01.800 a light tan jacket with a dark dark cap. Henry 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:07.160 and the killer locked eyes. Henry quickly hid behind the barrier. 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:10.159 He didn't want to be the next victim. When he 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.840 peered over the wall again, he saw the man putting 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:15.920 a dark object into the pocket of his zipped jacket. 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:20.320 Henry and the killer looked at each other again. The 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:25.119 killer wasn't afraid. He didn't rush to leave the scene. 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:30.080 That's pretty strange. Instead, he walked away slowly into the 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:34.760 dense screenery next to the Potomac. He was gone. Now 0:21:34.800 --> 0:21:37.840 it was up to the police to find the phantom killer. 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:47.640 Henry didn't waste any time. He immediately drove his car 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:50.919 back to the ESSO station and called the police. A 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:54.240 black man had killed a white woman in broad daylight 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:59.680 in Georgetown. Within four minutes, the manhunt began. Our reporter 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:02.600 Lance Morrow was at the crime scene by then. A 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:05.440 policeman gruffly told him to step aside. 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:07.760 Well, I'll tell you what, It's a good thing I 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:11.000 wasn't black, because they had a description of the killer, 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:15.400 and the killer was a young black man. But anyway, 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:17.800 the cops knew I was a reporter. I was standing 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:20.600 there with a notebook in my hand and so on, 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:23.160 so it was pretty clear who I was, and most 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:24.680 of them had seen me around. 0:22:25.560 --> 0:22:30.000 The police took over securing the crime scene. There's a 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:34.479 striking image that later made the rounds. It shows a 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:38.040 crowd of men around this dead woman. There are may 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:41.560 be eight of them standing there, and Mary is lying 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:43.159 lifeless on the ground. 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:47.720 Guys from the homicide squad, whom I knew, Guys wearing 0:22:47.760 --> 0:22:51.720 white raincoats and black you know, the cops, and then 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:59.080 a few uniform police the homicide squad guys standing over 0:22:59.200 --> 0:23:02.080 the body, or they was ignoring the body, but they 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:06.879 were talking among themselves. It's a rather odd effect to 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:10.960 have the body there and then these guys just standing 0:23:11.000 --> 0:23:17.080 around talking. It's an eerie eurie effect. 0:23:22.960 --> 0:23:25.919 The police sent a dragnet of cars to the area. 0:23:26.400 --> 0:23:29.760 There were very few marked exits to the towpath, and 0:23:29.880 --> 0:23:32.720 police were sent to cover each one of them. They 0:23:32.720 --> 0:23:35.679 figured if they could cover their bases quickly the killer 0:23:35.800 --> 0:23:38.280 would be trapped. That's part of the reason why it 0:23:38.320 --> 0:23:43.399 all happened. Within minutes. Time was running out. Anyone who's 0:23:43.520 --> 0:23:47.800 visited the towpath knows it's outside. Sure, yeah, but there 0:23:47.800 --> 0:23:50.399 are only so many places to get in and to 0:23:50.400 --> 0:23:53.800 get out. I've been there. If you're standing in the 0:23:53.840 --> 0:23:56.840 spot where Mary died, you either need to dive into 0:23:56.880 --> 0:24:00.800 the Potomac and swim away, climb a wall and cross 0:24:00.880 --> 0:24:05.200 canal road, hide in a tunnel, or use the few 0:24:05.240 --> 0:24:10.240 official exits. Mary's body lay near a small tunnel that 0:24:10.359 --> 0:24:15.400 carried water near the canal. It's called Foundry Branch Tunnel. Now, 0:24:15.440 --> 0:24:18.440 if you're looking at a map, this area is where 0:24:18.480 --> 0:24:22.800 the murder happened. There were only a few exits. According 0:24:22.800 --> 0:24:26.760 to the police, the murderer could not escape. Officer John 0:24:26.800 --> 0:24:29.600 Warner was on the ground that day searching for the killer. 0:24:30.200 --> 0:24:33.760 He spotted a culvert which eventually dropped fifty feet into 0:24:33.800 --> 0:24:37.600 the Potomac, and then he emerged into a clearing. He 0:24:37.640 --> 0:24:41.320 found a man standing in front of him. Here's lance again. 0:24:42.000 --> 0:24:46.960 Eventually they came out of the woods leading a rather 0:24:48.040 --> 0:24:53.880 short five five five six, a black man, a young 0:24:53.920 --> 0:24:56.560 black man. He was just my age, WHI just twenty 0:24:56.560 --> 0:24:59.040 five years old and he was wet. 0:25:00.720 --> 0:25:05.040 Raymond Crump Junior. The police asked Ray for his id. 0:25:06.040 --> 0:25:09.560 When he fetched it, water spilled from his wallet. He 0:25:09.680 --> 0:25:13.840 was a short, young, skinny man. Leaves and twigs clung 0:25:13.880 --> 0:25:19.160 to his body, and he was black. Officer Warner asked 0:25:19.240 --> 0:25:23.600 him the obvious question, why was he wet? Ray said 0:25:23.640 --> 0:25:25.960 he was fishing, but fell asleep at the bank of 0:25:26.000 --> 0:25:28.880 the river. He woke up after he had rolled into 0:25:28.920 --> 0:25:32.560 the water. Warner asked Ray to show him the exact 0:25:32.600 --> 0:25:35.760 spot where he was fishing. The two were walking together 0:25:35.800 --> 0:25:39.520 when they heard a shout. That's him. It was Henry 0:25:39.520 --> 0:25:42.440 Wiggins from above, pointing down at Ray. 0:25:42.480 --> 0:25:42.880 Crump. 0:25:43.359 --> 0:25:47.479 He was telling Officer Warner they found their man. Warner 0:25:47.520 --> 0:25:52.800 handcuffed Ray and brought him to his colleague, Officer Bernard Crook. Yeah, 0:25:52.800 --> 0:25:57.480 that's really his name. They passed Mary's body. You think 0:25:57.520 --> 0:26:01.640 I did that? Ray asked. Crook brought a soaking wet 0:26:01.760 --> 0:26:05.840 Ray to the station house for an interrogation. Things only 0:26:05.880 --> 0:26:09.040 got worse for Ray. One of Crook's men came to 0:26:09.080 --> 0:26:12.399 the station. He found a light jacket similar to the 0:26:12.400 --> 0:26:16.520 one Henry saw on Mary's Killer. Krook asked Ray to 0:26:16.560 --> 0:26:22.439 try it on. It fit perfectly. Then Ray's story began 0:26:22.640 --> 0:26:23.480 falling apart. 0:26:23.920 --> 0:26:26.119 They never found a fishing pole, he didn't have a 0:26:26.160 --> 0:26:30.160 fishing pole, and it turned out later that his fishing 0:26:30.160 --> 0:26:33.720 pole was at his home out in Anacostia, on the 0:26:33.760 --> 0:26:35.840 other side of the city from Georgetown. 0:26:36.600 --> 0:26:39.960