Speaker 1: Lex talionis, or the law of retaliation, is perhaps better
Speaker 1: known by the more familiar maxim of taking an eye
Speaker 1: for an eye. Although codes of law had been established
Speaker 1: many years previously, the formal enacting of reciprocal justice is
Speaker 1: thought to have originated in Babylonian times, with an ancient
Speaker 1: code proposed by Babylonian king Hammurabi carved onto a basalt
Speaker 1: pillar sometime around the middle of the eighteenth century BC.
Speaker 1: Hammarabi's code consists of two hundred and eighty two laws,
Speaker 1: outlining a variety of crimes, from simple theft to the
Speaker 1: refusal of accepting corn as a payment for a drink,
Speaker 1: alongside the various punishments criminals could expect to receive for
Speaker 1: perpetrating them. It is here, over a thousand years before
Speaker 1: the creation of the Torah later adapted as the Old Testament,
Speaker 1: that we first find such retributive ideas as if a
Speaker 1: man has destroyed the eye of a man, they shall
Speaker 1: destroy his eye. Or if a man should knock out
Speaker 1: the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall too be
Speaker 1: knocked out. The code listed twenty five crimes that were
Speaker 1: considered capital offenses, meaning those that were punishable by death. However,
Speaker 1: it isn't until the sixteenth century BC that we see
Speaker 1: the first evidence of capital punishment actually being carried out,
Speaker 1: with the enforced suicide of an Egyptian nobleman accused of
Speaker 1: the heinous crime of practicing magic. Although invariably skewed in
Speaker 1: favor of the wealthier classes, it could be said that
Speaker 1: such penal laws were vital for the management of increasingly
Speaker 1: complex society, for better or worse. In the years since
Speaker 1: those first punishments were meted out, capital punishment has been
Speaker 1: employed at some point by almost every nation and culture
Speaker 1: that has come into existence today, although the methods of
Speaker 1: execution might be considered more broadly humane, fifty seven countries
Speaker 1: continue to enforce a death penalty. For all those countries
Speaker 1: that have abolished it. There is one simple reason why
Speaker 1: that stands out above all others. A two thousand and
Speaker 1: fourteen study released in the Proceedings of the National Academy
Speaker 1: of Sciences concluded that over four percent of people sentenced
Speaker 1: to die in the United States of America have been
Speaker 1: convicted for crimes they did not commit, a figure that,
Speaker 1: if correct, would suggest that as many as one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty of the three thousand prisoners currently on death
Speaker 1: row have been wrongfully convicted, and of the one thousand,
Speaker 1: four hundred and sixty seven prisoners that have been executed
Speaker 1: since nineteen seventy six, as many as sixty of those
Speaker 1: people might well have been innocent of their supposed crimes.
Speaker 1: On hearing these statistics, there will be some in favor
Speaker 1: of the death penalty who might consider this little more
Speaker 1: than an unfortunate consequence of an essential system. Others, however,
Speaker 1: might think twice, given how often support for capital punishment
Speaker 1: stems largely from that old maxim of an eye for
Speaker 1: an eye. After all, as some might say, just because
Speaker 1: those innocent people are now dead, it doesn't mean they
Speaker 1: won't still be seeking retribution. This is unexplained, and I'm
Speaker 1: Richard McClean smith. Early Saturday morning, October thirty first, nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty one, on the outskirts of the panhandled city of Amarillo, Texas,
Speaker 1: rain and sleet batter the chapel windows of the Saint
Speaker 1: Francis Convent, whereinside forty nuns are gathered for morning mass.
Speaker 1: As the ceremony comes to a close, Sister Bernice notices
Speaker 1: with alarm that Sister Tadea is not in attendance. A
Speaker 1: colleague sent to check on her whereabouts, returns moments later,
Speaker 1: ashen faced and gasping for air. Come quickly, she says.
Speaker 1: Sister Bernice and the convent nurse race up the stairs
Speaker 1: to the narrow single bed room at the far end
Speaker 1: of the hall, passing a small crowd gathered outside. Lying
Speaker 1: completely still on the floor is seventy six year old
Speaker 1: sister to Daya bends naked under a sheet. The nurse
Speaker 1: rushes to the woman's side, but is unable to find
Speaker 1: a pulse. The shake of her head is followed by
Speaker 1: gasps and muffled sobs from outside the room. It is
Speaker 1: only then that Bernice notices the drops of blood on
Speaker 1: today's pillow and on the sheet draped over her body. Uncharacteristically,
Speaker 1: a dirty white T shirt has been left on the floor.
Speaker 1: Turning back to the body, the nurse examines some bruising
Speaker 1: and scratches around the neck. It was common during a
Speaker 1: heart attack to struggle for breath, she says, suspecting she
Speaker 1: may have clawed at her own neck and fallen out
Speaker 1: of bed in the panic. Deciding not to remove the
Speaker 1: sheet to protect their colleague's modesty, the devastated nuns wrap
Speaker 1: another around the body and lift it carefully on to
Speaker 1: the bed. After wiping some blood from Today's face, Bernice
Speaker 1: collects herself and makes the call to the convent physician.
Speaker 1: Doctor Winst is fast asleep when the phone rings, but
Speaker 1: soon snaps into action. Satisfy vied with Sister Bernice's assessment,
Speaker 1: he instructs workers from the local funeral home to collect
Speaker 1: the body and deliver it to the mortician. As some
Speaker 1: of the nuns gather to pray for their dear departed colleague,
Speaker 1: others return to her room to straighten things out, knowing
Speaker 1: only too well how embarrassed Sister Todaya would have been
Speaker 1: for her room to be found in such a state.
Speaker 1: Having tidied a few things away, finally they stripped the
Speaker 1: blood streaked sheets from the bed and deliver them to
Speaker 1: the laundry room. An hour or so later, a soft
Speaker 1: knocking sound coming from the far end of the large
Speaker 1: community hall downstairs draws one of the sisters to an
Speaker 1: unlatched window beating gently against its frame. Hearing the crack
Speaker 1: of glass under foot, she realizes one of the panes
Speaker 1: has recently been smashed inwards. Sister Bernice is informed immediately
Speaker 1: and in turn calls the police. When two officers arrived
Speaker 1: shortly after nine thirty a m. They discovered that the
Speaker 1: screen outside the window has been slashed. A long piece
Speaker 1: of wood that had likely been used to break the
Speaker 1: glass appears also to have been dumped on the ground
Speaker 1: below it. At the funeral home, having taken receipt of
Speaker 1: the body, the morticians are surprised to find a number
Speaker 1: of puncture wounds running up the side of Sister to
Speaker 1: Day's body from her thigh to her neck, which also
Speaker 1: has a significant amount of bruising. It's odd, they think,
Speaker 1: how the bruises look almost like finger marks, but since
Speaker 1: due to a mix up of information, doctor Wincett had
Speaker 1: stated that the unfortunate nun had fallen down the stairs,
Speaker 1: they thought nothing more of it as they continue preparing
Speaker 1: the body for the embalming. Back at the convert the
Speaker 1: sisters have gathered to determine if anything has been stolen
Speaker 1: for suspected break in, but find nothing of note to
Speaker 1: speak of. Perhaps the burglar had been spooped and run away,
Speaker 1: suggests the police as they prepare to head back to
Speaker 1: the station. There was one thing, thought sister Bernice What's that,
Speaker 1: asks one of the officers. We found our colleague sister
Speaker 1: todaya dead in her room this morning, but we think
Speaker 1: it was a heart attack, she says. The look on
Speaker 1: the officer's faces says it all. A short time later,
Speaker 1: an irate L. B. Bartlett, Potter County Justice of the Peace,
Speaker 1: furious that doctor Wincett had not consulted him before sending
Speaker 1: to day of Bens's body to the funeral home, orders
Speaker 1: the embalming process stopped and the body to be held
Speaker 1: pending a formal inquest. By the time the police arrive, however,
Speaker 1: the cadaver has already been washed and the arterial embalming pleted.
Speaker 1: Back outside the convent, Homicide Captain Jimmy Davis of the
Speaker 1: Amarillo Police Department arrives to oversee a search of the premises.
Speaker 1: Stepping out of his car into the cold, gray and wet,
Speaker 1: he takes a moment to assess the surroundings. Already he
Speaker 1: has a bad feeling about this one. The convent, located
Speaker 1: on the quiet northeastern fringes of the city, is positioned
Speaker 1: fifty yards away from the end of northeast eighteenth Avenue
Speaker 1: and surrounded by trees. Inside Davis and his team mount
Speaker 1: a thorough search of the premises, beginning with Today's room,
Speaker 1: where they find a bent butter knife under the bed
Speaker 1: and recover a number of finger prints. Blood spatters are
Speaker 1: found on the inside of the building's back fire exit,
Speaker 1: leading Davis to suspect that if to day I had
Speaker 1: been murdered, the perpetrator most likely escaped that way. The
Speaker 1: dirty t shirt and blood stained sheets are collected from
Speaker 1: the laundry, and later a stake knife is found in
Speaker 1: the convent driveway. Facing the terrible prospect that their colleague
Speaker 1: may have been murdered, a few of the nuns recalls
Speaker 1: strange incidences from the night before. One received a phone
Speaker 1: call some time around two thirty a m. From a
Speaker 1: man calling himself Father Jose, who spoke with the Spanish
Speaker 1: accent and begged her to help with his sexual problems.
Speaker 1: Another recalled hearing a muffled scream coming from the direction
Speaker 1: of Todaya's room sometime around four thirty a m. Later
Speaker 1: that afternoon, pathologist doctor Ralph Erdmann performs a formal autopsy,
Speaker 1: confirming everyone's worst fears. To day a Ben's had sustained
Speaker 1: multiple blunt force trauma about the face, chest, and arms,
Speaker 1: and had been stabbed numerous times cross her body. A
Speaker 1: crushed larynx is clear indication of death by strangulation, but
Speaker 1: there is something else. Sister Todaya had also been raped,
Speaker 1: with her hymen being torn in the process. Erdman conducts
Speaker 1: a vaginal wash and successfully retrieves samples of sperm and
Speaker 1: prostrate secretions before concluding that her death occurred around four
Speaker 1: am that morning. He makes the call to Captain Davis
Speaker 1: to deliver the horrific news. For Davis, it is a
Speaker 1: particularly galling turn of events. Not only was there a
Speaker 1: rapist and killer on the loose, but if his hunch
Speaker 1: is correct, this isn't the first time he had struck.
Speaker 1: Are you always taking care of your family? Do you
Speaker 1: often take care of others and not yourself? Now it's
Speaker 1: time to take care of yourself, to make time for you.
Speaker 1: You deserve it. Teledoc gives you access to a licensed
Speaker 1: therapist to help you get back to feeling your best
Speaker 1: to feeling like yourself again. With teledoc, you can speak
Speaker 1: to a licensed therapist by phone or video. Therapy appointments
Speaker 1: are available seven days a week from seven am to
Speaker 1: nine pm local time. If you feel overwhelmed. Sometimes maybe
Speaker 1: you feel stressed or anxious, depressed or lonely, or you
Speaker 1: might be struggling with a personal or family issue. Teledoc
Speaker 1: can help. Teledoc is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches,
Speaker 1: so they make it easy to change counselors if needed.
Speaker 1: For free teledoc therapy is available through most insurance or employers.
Speaker 1: Download the app or visit teledoc dot com forward slash
Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast today to get started. That's teladoc dot com
Speaker 1: slash Unexplained podcast. In July, barely two miles from the convent,
Speaker 1: seventy seven year old Nannie Bryson had been due to
Speaker 1: meet some friends from her church group to go grocery shopping,
Speaker 1: but had failed to show up. When a friend from
Speaker 1: the group went to Nannie's house to check up on her,
Speaker 1: she found three days worth of newspapers accumulated on the
Speaker 1: front porch and a back door unlocked and a jar. Inside,
Speaker 1: she found Nannie's dead body sprawled out on her bedroom floor.
Speaker 1: She had also been brutally raped and murdered, strangled to
Speaker 1: death with a telephone cord. The following week, three blocks away,
Speaker 1: a twelve year old girl had woken in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night to find a man standing over her
Speaker 1: at the foot of her bed. Mercifully, the man fled
Speaker 1: when the child screamed for help. Later, footprints were found
Speaker 1: at the young girl's house that were the same found
Speaker 1: at the Brison property. As it happens, there are potentially
Speaker 1: four more unsolved crimes of a similar nature, including the
Speaker 1: beating and rape of a ninety two year old woman
Speaker 1: that had occurred as far back as May, and there
Speaker 1: was more to come. The same afternoon. Doctor Erdman is
Speaker 1: carrying out sister today as autopsy Captain Davis receives word
Speaker 1: that another elderly Amarilla resident, aged seventy seven, has been
Speaker 1: found in her home beaten into a coma. The timing
Speaker 1: couldn't have been worse for the city's beleagued police department,
Speaker 1: who were under heavy public scrutiny after failing to close
Speaker 1: a slew of capital murder investigations that had resulted in
Speaker 1: embarrassing acquittals and a number of costly retrials. Newly appointed
Speaker 1: Police Chief Jerry Neil and the recently elected District Attorney
Speaker 1: Danny Hill are determined not to fail this time, with Hill,
Speaker 1: being particularly eager to solve the case with all the
Speaker 1: fire and brimstone of a Bible belt. Minister Hill had
Speaker 1: run for election on a promise of tougher reprimands for
Speaker 1: criminals and a promise to seek the death penalty more
Speaker 1: often and more swiftly. There would be no better opportunity
Speaker 1: to prove his worth. As children and their families gear
Speaker 1: up to celebrate Halloween that cold October night in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty one, things take a devastating and ominous turn when
Speaker 1: Captain Davis informs the press that Sister to Day, a
Speaker 1: bends of the Saint Francis Convent, has been found raped
Speaker 1: and murdered. Both Davis and Hill draw comparisons with the
Speaker 1: Bryson murder, with Hill not unreasonably stating he had strong
Speaker 1: feelings that the same person had been involved in both cases.
Speaker 1: The public are, of course deeply shocked by the news,
Speaker 1: but that a virginal nun had been the victim triggers
Speaker 1: a particularly acute trauma for the deeply religious, predominantly Christian population.
Speaker 1: It is a crime of unimaginable depravity, worthy of the
Speaker 1: Devil himself. A task force is immediately set up to
Speaker 1: tackle the investigation, combining members of the Potter County Sheriff's Office,
Speaker 1: led by Lieutenant Jimmy Boydston, with the Amarillo Police Department
Speaker 1: being led by Lieutenant Gerald Jacobs, both departments contributing their
Speaker 1: best and finest in pursuit of the rapist and murderer
Speaker 1: on the loose in their city. On Monday morning, Amarillo
Speaker 1: Police officers begin a door to door sweep of the
Speaker 1: neighborhood surrounding the convent, asking for any information that might
Speaker 1: be pertinent to the investigation. Less than half a kilometer away,
Speaker 1: the body of the gentle sister to day A Benz
Speaker 1: is being laid to rest. The much loved nun, who
Speaker 1: had dedicated her life to helping others, had moved to
Speaker 1: the US from Switzerland in thirty three. More than two
Speaker 1: hundred people arrived to pay their respects at the service
Speaker 1: led by Bishop Leroy Matheson of the Amarillo Diocese. Later
Speaker 1: that evening, shortly before midnight, having spoken to most of
Speaker 1: the residents, on Northeast eighteenth Avenue, two officers in a
Speaker 1: squad car heading back to the station notice a man
Speaker 1: standing in a front lawn beating at a bush with
Speaker 1: a stick. At the sight of the car. The man
Speaker 1: rushes inside the house, a modest bungalow located three blocks
Speaker 1: down from the Saint Francis Convent. The officers made a
Speaker 1: note of the address number four thousand and ran a
Speaker 1: check on the property, finding it listed in the name
Speaker 1: of Charlotte Cameron. The officers added to their report and
Speaker 1: clock off for the night. All in all, the leads
Speaker 1: reveal very little other than a number of conflicting reports
Speaker 1: describe a Latino looking man being spotted near the grounds
Speaker 1: of the convent the night before Sister Todaya's murder. But
Speaker 1: when the examination of the nun's sheets and nightgown revealed
Speaker 1: strands of jet black hair similar to hares found at
Speaker 1: the scene of Narnie Bryson's murder, it is all the
Speaker 1: evidence District Attorney Hill needs. Within days, under DA Hill's instructions,
Speaker 1: the investigative team turned their attention to a number of
Speaker 1: Cuban refugees, the majority of which were skilled and professional
Speaker 1: workers who had recently settled in the area. The refugees
Speaker 1: were received as part of a politically motivated placement program
Speaker 1: assisting Cubans fleeing President Fidel Castro's anti capitalist regime. Hill's
Speaker 1: efforts are scuppered, however, when Catholic Family Services, who had
Speaker 1: helped the refugees settle, refused to hand over background data
Speaker 1: for their clients. But then the police believe they have
Speaker 1: caught a break. Twenty eight year old Fernando Flores, a
Speaker 1: Cuban refugee who had recently arrived in the city from Miami,
Speaker 1: was picked up on the night of Tuesday, third of
Speaker 1: November in connection with a burglary and the attempted rape
Speaker 1: of a twenty one year old resident of North Amarillo
Speaker 1: that had taken place on Halloween night. Although Flores's prince
Speaker 1: failed to match with any found in Sister to Day's bedroom,
Speaker 1: a raid of his apartment results in the discovery of
Speaker 1: a number of fibers on Flores's clothes that appear to
Speaker 1: be from sister Benz's blue night dress and bedsheets. A
Speaker 1: series of witnesses who claimed to have seen a man
Speaker 1: lurking around the Saint Francis Convent late on the Friday
Speaker 1: night identify Flores as the man they had seen. News
Speaker 1: of the refugee's arrest does much to calm the rising
Speaker 1: fear in the community, with many praising the fast and
Speaker 1: efficient efforts of the city's new District Attorney. Two days later,
Speaker 1: the force wait expectantly as identification technician Sergeant Gregg Saltice
Speaker 1: flies to Washington, d C. Carrying two boxes of evidence
Speaker 1: to be tested by the FBI. Inside are a vast
Speaker 1: collection of samples of Florre's and sister Benz's clothes, the
Speaker 1: white shirt found at the scene, as well as the
Speaker 1: nun's bloody sheets, and the black hairs found in her
Speaker 1: room and on her body. By the afternoon, the bureau
Speaker 1: returns their findings Flores is not a match. In desperation,
Speaker 1: the police turned to the seventy seven year old Amarilla
Speaker 1: resident who had seemingly been beaten into a coma the
Speaker 1: afternoon after sister to Daya's murder. Having emerged from her
Speaker 1: coma unable to remember anything about the attack, the woman
Speaker 1: is brought in to District Attorney Hill's office to meet
Speaker 1: with a hypnotherapist. After the session, in conjunction with a
Speaker 1: series of tests carried out on ever from her home,
Speaker 1: the police are forced to concede that the woman was
Speaker 1: not attacked after all, but rather had fallen accidentally down
Speaker 1: her stairs. The investigation team are back to square one,
Speaker 1: and the pressure is beginning to mount. The community grows
Speaker 1: increasingly restless, fearful that the perpetrator is still at large,
Speaker 1: and frustrated once again by the possibility of yet another
Speaker 1: bungled investigation. The offer of a ten thousand dollar reward
Speaker 1: for any information leading to the arrest and indictment of
Speaker 1: a suspect does little to move the case along. Over
Speaker 1: a week after the murder, on the early evening of Monday,
Speaker 1: November the ninth, at four thousand Northeast eighteenth Avenue, where
Speaker 1: police had witnessed a man apparently acting suspiciously outside, a
Speaker 1: family has gathered together to watch Monday night football. Mother
Speaker 1: of four Charlotte Cameron is casually knitting on her sofa
Speaker 1: alongside her two daughters and her seventeen year old son,
Speaker 1: Johnny Garrett, who is sitting at her feet. When there
Speaker 1: is an unexpected knock at the door, Charlotte opens it
Speaker 1: to find a whole squad of police brandishing a warrant
Speaker 1: to search a property and for the arrest of her son.
Speaker 1: Before she has even had time to process the situation,
Speaker 1: Charlotte can only look on with shock and desperation as
Speaker 1: her son, Johnny, is handcuffed and marched into a waiting
Speaker 1: squad car before being taken away. Later that evening, the
Speaker 1: Amarillo Police Department hold a press conference to announce the
Speaker 1: arrest of seventeen year old Garret in connection with sister
Speaker 1: to Day's rape and murder. As it turned out, Garrett's
Speaker 1: name had apparently come up after Detective Sergeant Walter Jager
Speaker 1: reviewed the initial leads that had been documented at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the case, recognizing Garret as the person who
Speaker 1: had been seen running into number four thousand Northeast eighteenth Avenue. Yaga,
Speaker 1: who had also been processing finger prints for a number
Speaker 1: of other burglaries at the time, ran Johnnie's against the
Speaker 1: prince found in sister to Day's bedroom. Incredibly, they found
Speaker 1: a positive match with at least two prints, one found
Speaker 1: on the headboard of the nun's bed and one on
Speaker 1: the butter knife discovered bent and discarded underneath it. As
Speaker 1: reporters start to disperse, Johnny's mother, Charlotte is seen in
Speaker 1: floods of tears shepherding her three other children into the
Speaker 1: Major Crimes Unit, desperately looking for more answers as to
Speaker 1: why her son had been arrested. What they tell her
Speaker 1: moments later but hadn't yet told the press stops her
Speaker 1: in her tracks. They know Johnnie did it, they say,
Speaker 1: because he had confessed it only hours before. After arriving
Speaker 1: at the police station, Johnny had been led into an
Speaker 1: interview room, where at five p m. Detectives Morris and
Speaker 1: Jimmy Boydston would later claim to have elicited a confession
Speaker 1: from him. In the apparent statement, Johnny is alleged to
Speaker 1: have confessed to breaking into the convent, loaded up on
Speaker 1: whiskey and acid, with the intention of stealing a number
Speaker 1: of stereos that he had been led to believe were inside.
Speaker 1: While looking around the convent, he was supposedly spotted by
Speaker 1: sister to Daa, and in an effort to silence her,
Speaker 1: had ended up choking her to death before deciding to
Speaker 1: sexually assault her corpse. The statement ended with Johnny apparently
Speaker 1: claiming to have left the convent the same way he
Speaker 1: came in, through the broken window, despite blood spatters being
Speaker 1: found by the convent's fire exit. There was only one problem,
Speaker 1: Johnny was refusing to sign the statement. Later that evening,
Speaker 1: when Charlotte is finally given a moment with her son
Speaker 1: as he looks his mother in the eyes and tells
Speaker 1: her he didn't do it, it is clear to her
Speaker 1: that something terrible is happening. Part two of Lex Talionis
Speaker 1: will be released on Tuesday, May first. If you enjoy
Speaker 1: listening to Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you
Speaker 1: can now go to Unexplained podcast dot com forward slash support.
Speaker 1: All donations, no matter how large or small, are massively appreciated.
Speaker 1: All elements of Unexplained are produced by me Richard McClain smith.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe and rate the show on it tunes. Feel
Speaker 1: free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas
Speaker 1: regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you
Speaker 1: have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.
Speaker 1: You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com
Speaker 1: or on Twitter at Unexplained Pod. Now, it's time to
Speaker 1: take care of yourself. To make time for you, teledoc
Speaker 1: gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you
Speaker 1: get back to feeling your best. Speak to a licensed
Speaker 1: therapist by phone or video anytime between seven am to
Speaker 1: nine pm local time, seven days a week. Teledoc therapy
Speaker 1: is available through most insurance or employers. Download the app,
Speaker 1: or visit telldoc dot com Forward slash Unexplained podcast Today
Speaker 1: to get started, that's t e l A d oc
Speaker 1: dot com slash Unexplained Podcast