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 4: This is buried bones.
Speaker 3: Hey, Kate, how's it going today?
Speaker 1: It's going well, Paul, how's it going with you?
Speaker 3: I'm doing pretty good. The weather's changing.
Speaker 1: I know springtime?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Do you camp? And I asked this because haven't you
Speaker 1: and I both had reservations a little bit about camping,
Speaker 1: because of how many stories we've both been involved with
Speaker 1: involving people being murdered at camp side. I know they're
Speaker 1: going to be camp enthusiast who tell me to stop
Speaker 1: saying stuff like that, But that's the facts. That's what
Speaker 1: happens sometimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I've consulted on a fair number of
Speaker 2: cases that involve people who are out camping, you know,
Speaker 2: and of course a lot of bodies are recovered out
Speaker 2: discovered by campers, you know, as they're out and about
Speaker 2: doing their theme because it's in remote areas.
Speaker 3: But you know, I wasn't a.
Speaker 2: Big fan of camping, and then as I got into
Speaker 2: the off roading and watching some of these YouTube videos
Speaker 2: of these guys that will go on like you know,
Speaker 2: week long trips and they're just out in the most
Speaker 2: amazing places. They're isolated, gorgeous, you know, just nature and
Speaker 2: sitting around a campfire. You know, each one of them
Speaker 2: takes turns, you know, cooking up a meal and you know,
Speaker 2: having a drink here and there and swapping stories.
Speaker 3: And it was just like, yeah, that's really cool.
Speaker 2: So I spent, oh, I guess, the last year really
Speaker 2: building up my jeep for overlanding as well as acquiring
Speaker 2: camping equipment. And I got out twice last year, but
Speaker 2: I was doing so much travel, I wasn't able to
Speaker 2: do a lot of it. But I'm hoping, you know,
Speaker 2: now that the weather's changing, I'm hoping to you know,
Speaker 2: find a good group out here in Colorado and get
Speaker 2: out there and do some of this dispersed camping in
Speaker 2: addition to the off roading aspects.
Speaker 1: Well, not to be negative here, but are you going
Speaker 1: to bring a weapon with you? Because I would absolutely
Speaker 1: weapon after everything.
Speaker 3: Let's just say that I'll be well protected.
Speaker 1: Okay, very good? And is Cora like camping? And does
Speaker 1: your wife like camping?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: And no, this is this is just me myself and
Speaker 2: I Okay, all right.
Speaker 1: I did not grow up camping. I mean I grew
Speaker 1: up kind of on a farm. So I felt like
Speaker 1: I was sort of camping just because we were out
Speaker 1: in a rural area a lot, and we would stay
Speaker 1: out very late, and so I was sort of what
Speaker 1: do they call it now, like a sleep under you know,
Speaker 1: like when your kid goes out until one in the
Speaker 1: morning and you go pick them up and they don't
Speaker 1: want to spend the night, but they want to stay
Speaker 1: up really late with their friends. Yeah, so I would
Speaker 1: sort of sleep under camp. We would just stay out
Speaker 1: by the river pitch black as late as possible, but
Speaker 1: we'd always sleep inside. So that's kind of my kind
Speaker 1: of camping. Okay, but I'm I'm definitely willing to you know,
Speaker 1: explore it a little bit more. But I do have
Speaker 1: to say I always feel nervous if I can't have
Speaker 1: a security system on an Airbnb or anywhere I am,
Speaker 1: or a door person or something just you know, because
Speaker 1: of the nature of the business that we're in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, with kind of the modern gadgets that
Speaker 2: are out there, you know, you can somewhat set up
Speaker 2: a perimeter, you know, around your campsite using you know,
Speaker 2: motion detecting lights and alarms and stuff like that in
Speaker 2: order to get at least you know, an alert that
Speaker 2: something is happening out if you're in your in your
Speaker 2: tent or like of course, the off road rigs often
Speaker 2: have you know, we have tools, we have recovery gear,
Speaker 2: you know, the cookwar stuff, and so there's a lot
Speaker 2: of expense that goes into these supplies and they can
Speaker 2: be targets when you're out hiking or if I take
Speaker 2: my mountain bike out there, and so having some level
Speaker 2: of security is something that I most certainly will have,
Speaker 2: and so that that's something you may be unaware of,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: My biggest fear.
Speaker 2: Is is the the big creatures, particularly if I'm going
Speaker 2: to be in an area with like a grizzly you know,
Speaker 2: because you hear about some some of these campers being attacked,
Speaker 2: because you know, in a lot of it is just
Speaker 2: knowing what to do with your food and your food
Speaker 2: waste and keeping it away from you know, where you
Speaker 2: are sleeping, you know, where you know your vehicles are.
Speaker 2: There's strategies to try to minimize encountering that wildlife, but
Speaker 2: every now and then, maybe some things there's just something
Speaker 2: you can't avoid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get it. I don't know if any amount
Speaker 1: of security is going to talk me into sleeping in
Speaker 1: a tent, even with the burliest of men in other
Speaker 1: tents around me, it still leaves me with a vulnerable feeling.
Speaker 1: But that's okay. You know, I'm also someone who has
Speaker 1: a dead bolt on the cottage here in my own backyard.
Speaker 1: You should well, my stepfather said, you know, you don't
Speaker 1: want to come home one day and find somebody living
Speaker 1: in your cottage. And I said, why would they do that?
Speaker 1: And he said, because it's a house and it's unlocked.
Speaker 1: And I thought, okay, yeah, a point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that is a very real possibility.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, we're talking a little bit about security today.
Speaker 1: In our episode, we are going to be in nineteen twenties,
Speaker 1: North Dakota. We're back to the farm. Love it, love it,
Speaker 1: love a good farm story. But you know what comes
Speaker 1: with that we talk about that. What comes with that
Speaker 1: is there is sometimes a lack of security, with the
Speaker 1: exception of the gazillion guns that are around probably, but
Speaker 1: you know, you're isolated and they're vulnerable, and so you know,
Speaker 1: we have a family that is under attack. So Paul,
Speaker 1: just before we get into the story, you know, we
Speaker 1: always like to give listeners and viewers a little bit
Speaker 1: of a warning. We are talking about the murders of
Speaker 1: children here as well as parents. So I just want
Speaker 1: everybody to be aware that there are some kids who
Speaker 1: end up being the victims of murder in our story.
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and set the scene. So nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: North Dakota. So we are kind of at the beginning
Speaker 1: of prohibition, but we're in sort of, you know, a
Speaker 1: very religious area of the country. We're on a farm.
Speaker 1: So the farm is led by a man named Jacob Wolf.
Speaker 1: He is the patriarch. He's forty one years old. He's
Speaker 1: married to a woman named Biata and she is thirty
Speaker 1: five years old. So they have a bunch of kids.
Speaker 1: They have six daughters. I don't know if this is
Speaker 1: a situation where Jacob really wanted a son and they
Speaker 1: just kept going. But they're close together. The oldest is
Speaker 1: twelve and the youngest is eight months old. And there's
Speaker 1: a thirteen year old farm hand named Jacob and his
Speaker 1: last name is Hoper and he's related to missus Wolfe's
Speaker 1: side of the family. So this is April twenty fourth,
Speaker 1: it's a Saturday, and this is a tiny community called
Speaker 1: Turtle Lake, which is about sixty miles north of Bismarck.
Speaker 1: I've never been to North Dakota. I've heard it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: Have you been to North Dakota?
Speaker 3: I have not actually never been.
Speaker 1: Okay, So we're in Turtle Lake and the scene set
Speaker 1: here is that there is a couple named John and
Speaker 1: Jesse Kraft. They are driving south toward Turtle Lake. You know,
Speaker 1: it's in the morning, Saturday morning, and on their way
Speaker 1: toward this area, they passed by the Wolf's family farm.
Speaker 1: So they're friends, their neighbors of these people. They think
Speaker 1: there's something odd happening. This is historical context. This is
Speaker 1: what's interesting, okay, And the reason they think something's wrong
Speaker 1: is John says he had done the same route the
Speaker 1: day before. It was a rainy day and a rainy night.
Speaker 1: So the day that he passed by, there was laundry
Speaker 1: hanging out on the lines that I presume missus Wolfe
Speaker 1: had put out. Then it started raining sometime after John
Speaker 1: had passed, and he thought she was going to go
Speaker 1: and collect the laundry, as anybody would. Nobody wants dry
Speaker 1: laundry out getting rained on. When he passes by the
Speaker 1: family farm the next day with his wife, the laundry
Speaker 1: is still hanging there, and it had been soaked all
Speaker 1: day rain the day before, all night rain. So isn't
Speaker 1: that interesting? I mean, that was what was alarming to
Speaker 1: him was he thought, there's no way this is right.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's a kin today that somebody
Speaker 1: having their windows on their car rolled down or I
Speaker 1: don't know what that would be, but that was a
Speaker 1: red flag for him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, that's interesting. I mean he's very observant,
Speaker 2: you know, So he's noticing it in one direction, and
Speaker 2: then the next day he noticed it's still up and
Speaker 2: he's putting two and two together. So obviously this is
Speaker 2: the era that you know we're talking about is that.
Speaker 3: You know, for somebody like me, I wouldn't think.
Speaker 2: About that, but they're living that that life, and they're
Speaker 2: recognizing that's not right. It's almost like today, if you
Speaker 2: see a window screen off of a front window of
Speaker 2: a house, you know most of us would go, that
Speaker 2: doesn't look right.
Speaker 1: I think I probably told you this story before. I
Speaker 1: interviewed a forensic psychologist who did a lot of interviewing
Speaker 1: of a f suspects, victims and all of that, and
Speaker 1: you know, I was asking her a story. I was
Speaker 1: talking to her about a tenfold story where you know,
Speaker 1: there's a man who murders his family and he had
Speaker 1: been in the eighteen hundreds and he had been just
Speaker 1: spouting off really negative things about the Catholics. They're gonna
Speaker 1: kill everybody, all this stuff, which sounded to her to be,
Speaker 1: you know, like schizophrenia or something, some sort of a mania.
Speaker 1: So when I went to a historian with the Catholic
Speaker 1: Church and I described what this man was saying, he said,
Speaker 1: everybody said that about the Catholics in the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: That's not crazy, that's social context. That's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: So then when I talked to her again, the forensic psychologist.
Speaker 1: She said, that's why you have to know that what's
Speaker 1: crazy in one country. What you would think is, you know,
Speaker 1: when they're saying stuff, you're going, well, that person has
Speaker 1: to be insane, is not insane?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and I think that's one of the
Speaker 2: things that I've learned because, you know, working the older cases,
Speaker 2: part of developing an understanding of the cases is understanding
Speaker 2: the area where the crime occurred at the time the
Speaker 2: crime occurred, you know, forty years prior than today. But
Speaker 2: you know, the types of cases that you're talking about,
Speaker 2: we've had such dramatic changes in our society. You know,
Speaker 2: that's early on. You do such a good job of
Speaker 2: at least you know, when you say set the scene,
Speaker 2: it's not just okay, this is where we're at. Well,
Speaker 2: this is what's going on in history, this is this
Speaker 2: you know world, And it helps me kind of start
Speaker 2: assessing as you start getting into details of the case. Okay,
Speaker 2: this is how they're thinking back in the day, just
Speaker 2: like you did with the laundry on the clothesline.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, we have done stories about people
Speaker 1: drowning in cisterns and wells we don't see a lot
Speaker 1: of those these days, so you see that as a
Speaker 1: murder weapon much more common. We've done a lot of
Speaker 1: acts murder stories. Everybody had an axe because that's what
Speaker 1: the wood was the fuel source for a lot of
Speaker 1: these communities. So it's interesting to see how crime sort
Speaker 1: of moves in sync with wherever we are. You know,
Speaker 1: we know that an axe is available in everybody's household
Speaker 1: in the eighteen hundred, So if somebody wants to go
Speaker 1: and kill someone and wants to use a weapon there,
Speaker 1: Sure there are kitchen knives, but you probably know where
Speaker 1: to get an axe. So I don't know. I just
Speaker 1: I always want to point out things like that, Like, okay,
Speaker 1: so that's what made John very alarmed. Was this laundry
Speaker 1: hanging outside that was getting soaked that no country woman
Speaker 1: would have thought would be a good idea. So let
Speaker 1: me tell you a little bit about the wolves. Jacob
Speaker 1: is a very successful farmer. Like I said, he's forty one,
Speaker 1: well liked in the community. No red flags with Jacob.
Speaker 1: He's known for taking immaculate care of his farm and
Speaker 1: he uses sort of the latest machinery. He is someone
Speaker 1: who seems to be a loving father and a loving husband.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we talk about these farmers who are jerks. They're
Speaker 1: abusive there, you know, and that does not seem like Jacob.
Speaker 1: There doesn't seem to be a lot of negative with
Speaker 1: Jacob so far. But we'll see. John Craft, the neighbor,
Speaker 1: pulls up to the wolf's farmhouse and looks around the
Speaker 1: outside of the house. He hears pigs rooting around in
Speaker 1: the barn, and he goes to check it out. And
Speaker 1: when he gets to the barn, this is when this
Speaker 1: story really starts to unravel. He sees three bodies, partially
Speaker 1: uncovered by dirt and hay. The distribution of the bodies
Speaker 1: is interesting. So there is Jacob the dad, and he
Speaker 1: is dead. Two of his daughters, the nine year old
Speaker 1: who is Maria, and the seven year old Edna, are
Speaker 1: with him. Of course, John is very, very alarmed. So
Speaker 1: if I were John, I would have then hopped in
Speaker 1: my car and took off. He does not do that,
Speaker 1: and I guess Jesse stays in the car his wife.
Speaker 1: He decides to despite I'm sure, feeling very He goes
Speaker 1: to the house and in the kitchen. When he walks in,
Speaker 1: the table is set for a meal, but the chairs
Speaker 1: are disturbed, and there's blood on the floor, and he
Speaker 1: walks over. There's a trap door that goes to the
Speaker 1: cellar that is in the kitchen, and this was very common, right,
Speaker 1: I mean you could kind of like bring things easily
Speaker 1: in and out of a trap door through the kitchen,
Speaker 1: could store all your produce and everything. I will also
Speaker 1: remind you that I have done many stories about people
Speaker 1: being murdered and then shoved down a very similar trap
Speaker 1: door into the basement area. So I'm sure he's aware
Speaker 1: of there being some kind of a danger here.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there's blood on the floor in the kitchen, yep,
Speaker 2: chairs are disturbed, as if maybe there was a struggle
Speaker 2: in the kitchen.
Speaker 3: But no body's in the kitchen, no, okay.
Speaker 1: He walks over to the trap door that goes to
Speaker 1: the cellar and when he looks down, so it's open.
Speaker 1: He looks down and there are five more bodies. He
Speaker 1: does not seem to go down to the cellar just yet.
Speaker 1: He looks through the rest of the house. He goes
Speaker 1: to a bedroom and there's a crib. And remember they
Speaker 1: had an eight month old. She is there. Her name
Speaker 1: is Emma. She's alive, she is freezing. She is soaked.
Speaker 1: I think they had the windows open, and of course
Speaker 1: it's been this cold rain, April rain, so she is
Speaker 1: soaked and she is soiled, and she is very weak,
Speaker 1: but she's alive. Police will later say they believe that
Speaker 1: she had been on her own for two days with
Speaker 1: no food, no nothing. So we've got five bodies. They
Speaker 1: are a family of eight plus a farm hand. So
Speaker 1: now the Crafts are terrified. Now they leave, They're done
Speaker 1: exploring because I think they think everybody's accounted for. So
Speaker 1: the only survivor is in eight month old and we
Speaker 1: don't know why. Jesse Kraft, the wife, takes Emma. John
Speaker 1: takes them both to the house and he drives to
Speaker 1: the town of Turtle Lake where there's a phone. Because
Speaker 1: it's nineteen twenty, especially kind of in this area, would
Speaker 1: have been very surprising for anybody to have a phone
Speaker 1: residentially unless they had a lot of money at this point.
Speaker 1: So he goes, he finds a phone, and he calls
Speaker 1: the sheriff's office in Washburn, North Dakota, which is about
Speaker 1: twenty two miles away. And this is a good reminder
Speaker 1: of the time period because there is, like I said,
Speaker 1: almost no phones around, and then the closest law enforcement
Speaker 1: is more than twenty miles away, so things are moving
Speaker 1: in slow motion. These people are all dead. It probably
Speaker 1: looked clear to John that they were all dead, and
Speaker 1: they had been for a long time. But I mean,
Speaker 1: lord knows how long it took from him discovering the
Speaker 1: bodies for then law enforcement to come from Washburn to
Speaker 1: be able to report to this. And that just seems like,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, nowadays, hopefully you have police responding
Speaker 1: within minutes in some cases, and this.
Speaker 2: Is very different now, you know, And I'm even thinking
Speaker 2: within that sheriff's office. It's not like back in the
Speaker 2: nineteen twenties they had a dispatch center. Yes, so you're
Speaker 2: reliant upon probably an employee of the sheriff's office actually
Speaker 2: being in the office and answering the phone, and then
Speaker 2: they somehow have to communicate, you know, to the officers
Speaker 2: the information, and now the officers have to respond. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't know if the sheriff's office had you know,
Speaker 2: beats spread across the county or not, or are they
Speaker 2: all just centralized up there in Washburn and now they're
Speaker 2: having to drive all the way from Washburn down to
Speaker 2: the Turtle Lake area.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I think we do have
Speaker 1: quite a few officers responding, so there must have been,
Speaker 1: you know, other places, but last twenty two miles is
Speaker 1: the closest that tells you how isolated Turtle Lake was.
Speaker 1: So we have a sheriff and I'm gonna say his
Speaker 1: name once because this is one of those names. It's Scandinavian,
Speaker 1: so it's Ula Steath and Rude. So he is actually
Speaker 1: with the state's attorney for the county and they have
Speaker 1: been traveling together to Bismarck, you know, on a case.
Speaker 1: So when the sheriff gets the message, the state's attorneys
Speaker 1: goes with him and they go to Turtle Lake. And
Speaker 1: when the sheriff gets to the farmhouse, we know what happens. Boy,
Speaker 1: I mean, I could say it's the media, but it's not.
Speaker 1: The neighbors are everywhere. They're swarming this place, so it's
Speaker 1: contamination city, you could tell, all over the place, and
Speaker 1: they're there to help. But John says, it's okay. The
Speaker 1: bodies are exactly where they were when I found them.
Speaker 1: Nobody's touched the bodies, but people are trying to be helpful,
Speaker 1: which doesn't surprise me. But you know therein was the
Speaker 1: issue that we have is there's no coordinating off this
Speaker 1: crime scene. I don't actually think that that ever does happen,
Speaker 1: So you know already you have a little bit of
Speaker 1: a danger of course, that things are going to get
Speaker 1: ruined and not be able to use in court if
Speaker 1: they can even track down who did this.
Speaker 2: You know, my initial thoughts are because it's common to
Speaker 2: have to deal with a level of crime scene contamination
Speaker 2: just because of you know, family friends discovering let's say
Speaker 2: the deceased in a residence, possibly moving the body or
Speaker 2: checking bidles, first responders, officers, paramedics coming. You know, paramedics
Speaker 2: can make a suicide look like a homicide just because
Speaker 2: of their life saving measures. So it's normal to have
Speaker 2: to When I first would arrive at a crime scene,
Speaker 2: I'm asking, so what all has happened since the crime
Speaker 2: scene was discovered, so I can take into account those activities.
Speaker 2: But at a certain point, like in this case, where
Speaker 2: you have multiple neighbors wandering around, you know, from my perspective,
Speaker 2: it's really going to be the trampling of critical evidence
Speaker 2: that could be interpreted to help understand what happened. As
Speaker 2: well as in this day and age, evidence that potentially
Speaker 2: could be used to solve the case that you know,
Speaker 2: they've just completely obliterated, But it doesn't negate the possibility
Speaker 2: of getting still good information, you know, from from the
Speaker 2: crime scene.
Speaker 1: And you're talking about two different crime scenes, I'm assuming
Speaker 1: because we've got the kitchen the seller, you know, together,
Speaker 1: and then we've got the barn. So somehow these three people,
Speaker 1: these two little girls and their dad were in the
Speaker 1: barn and then the rest of the family is in
Speaker 1: the kitchen. So there's so much opportunity for condamnation.
Speaker 2: Right, I wouldn't necessarily call it two different crime scenes,
Speaker 2: you know, because I would I would be establishing a
Speaker 2: crime scene perimeter that would encompass that entire you know,
Speaker 2: at least residential aspects and the outlying grounds around where
Speaker 2: these two you know, the barn and the family house
Speaker 2: is at. But yes, within that perimeter you have where
Speaker 2: the bodies are, but we don't know what's transpired yet,
Speaker 2: you know, so you could have evidence anywhere within that perimeter,
Speaker 2: so it really is one big crime scene.
Speaker 1: Well, the sheriff immediately starts interviewing neighbors, figuring out when
Speaker 1: was the last time they saw the wolves. That's where
Speaker 1: they come up with the idea that Emma had been
Speaker 1: by herself crying for two days. That was the last
Speaker 1: time two days earlier, when I'm presuming Missus Wolf put
Speaker 1: up that laundry. There was you know, the day when
Speaker 1: it was raining, and then the next day when they
Speaker 1: were discovered. So you know, she's alive and she's being
Speaker 1: taken care of by Missus Kraft. But the sheriff and
Speaker 1: the coroner put together a corner's jury, and we know
Speaker 1: these are generally lay people who come in. Their job
Speaker 1: is to try to establish cause of death. Right, Is
Speaker 1: that kind of the simplified way of explaining it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, the coroner's jury or grand jury. This
Speaker 2: is where now the corners puts on the findings and
Speaker 2: lays out not only cause of death, but are looking
Speaker 2: to the jurors to determined manner of death. You know,
Speaker 2: are you dealing with you know, homicide, accidental, natural, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Well, the corner's jury, you know, comes together and they're
Speaker 1: gathering information, they're being updated. Let me tell you a
Speaker 1: little bit about what the sheriff thinks, and then we
Speaker 1: need to talk about how they died, and what the
Speaker 1: sheriff thinks the sequencing is This sheriff immediately wonders if
Speaker 1: this is a murder suicide, which was not going to
Speaker 1: be unheard of in this time period certainly. I mean,
Speaker 1: I have read so many accounts of murder suicides, a
Speaker 1: husband's killing families or you know, killing their wives in
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties especially and then closer to the thirties,
Speaker 1: as we're approaching the Great Depression, in the middle of
Speaker 1: the Great Depression. So I understand that way of thinking.
Speaker 1: Everybody died of gunshots. Everybody had been shot except the
Speaker 1: three year old Martha. She had been hit with the
Speaker 1: blunt end of a hatchet. So Martha was not with dad.
Speaker 1: She was one of the people who was down in
Speaker 1: the cellar, and everybody else had been shot. And I
Speaker 1: can kind of give you more details about that, but
Speaker 1: I can say that Jacob Hoefer is the fifth body.
Speaker 1: That's the farm hand, and then there's the mom and
Speaker 1: three girls. So there's the three girls in the basement
Speaker 1: with the mom in the farm hand, and then the
Speaker 1: two girls in the barn with the dad. And then
Speaker 1: the survivor is the sixth daughter, the baby Okay, so
Speaker 1: what do you think so far? I mean, that's a
Speaker 1: lot of people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, right now, I really don't have enough
Speaker 2: to be able to even.
Speaker 3: Start thinking about what occurred. You know, you've got.
Speaker 2: Of the eight homicide victims, seven are shot.
Speaker 3: Right now.
Speaker 2: I don't know is it just one gun that was
Speaker 2: used or if we have multiple guns being used.
Speaker 3: You have a three year old girl that's.
Speaker 2: Being bludgeoned, and the bodies are distributed. You know, there's
Speaker 2: two clusters. You have the father and two girls out
Speaker 2: in the barn, and then you have the mother, the
Speaker 2: farm hand, and three girls down in the basement. Because
Speaker 2: we have these two separate clusters of victims, does that
Speaker 2: indicate that these victims were let's say the father and
Speaker 2: the two girls were out in the barn doing their
Speaker 2: normal farming aspects, whatever that would have been out in
Speaker 2: the barn at whatever particular time of day that this
Speaker 2: the homicide occurred.
Speaker 3: And then everybody else is inside the house. Is everybody
Speaker 3: rounded up? You know?
Speaker 2: And it sounds like there was some disturbance in the kitchen,
Speaker 2: and is maybe the mother or the farm hand Jacob,
Speaker 2: who's the oldest and is the male of this cluster,
Speaker 2: you know, is their resistance by these two larger victims,
Speaker 2: you know, and the offender or offenders had to now
Speaker 2: you know, inflict some sort of control mechanism causing bleeding
Speaker 2: in the kitchen before they're forced downstairs. Right now, I'm
Speaker 2: assuming they're killed downstairs, but that is just an assumption
Speaker 2: until I get more information. But it seems likely at
Speaker 2: this point in time that the distribution of the bodies
Speaker 2: possibly is an indication of the time of day in
Speaker 2: which the homicide occurred, just because these people were doing
Speaker 2: their normal, you know, routine, and that's when the offender
Speaker 2: or the offenders attacked.
Speaker 1: Well, I have two choices for you to go.
Speaker 3: And the multiple choice it is it's which.
Speaker 1: Door do you want? Do you want to hear about
Speaker 1: the weapon and the fatal shots with all of these people,
Speaker 1: or do you want to see a photo of the kitchen?
Speaker 1: And I think an okay shot of the trap door
Speaker 1: that shows some of the blood, a real photo.
Speaker 3: You know, I love photos. Let me see the photo.
Speaker 1: Okay, here we go. God, I thought you were gonna
Speaker 1: I thought you usually liked to go right to the autopsies,
Speaker 1: but see you should. This is where I get surprised.
Speaker 1: You surprise me. Okay, now I've already kind of blown
Speaker 1: it up, but if you want me to blow it
Speaker 1: up more, I can.
Speaker 2: Can you see it so, you know, one of the
Speaker 2: things that that's kind of jumping out at me. And
Speaker 2: I see where the trap door is, which is, you know,
Speaker 2: towards the back of this photo, and it appears that
Speaker 2: there's a doorway of some sort beyond where the trap
Speaker 2: door is located. The two chairs that likely have been
Speaker 2: pulled away from the table, most likely during crime scene processing.
Speaker 2: That there appears to be a saw, the handle of
Speaker 2: a saw on one of the chairs, and my suspicion
Speaker 2: is is that that that may be something that individuals
Speaker 2: involved in investigating the case used in order to be
Speaker 2: able to gain greater access downstairs. They possibly saw through
Speaker 2: some wood aspect of the door itself. But of note
Speaker 2: in the foreground on the floor, now that I can
Speaker 2: zoom in on the on the staining on the floor,
Speaker 2: you know, of course, because it's black and white, I
Speaker 2: can't say, you know, if this is like red staining
Speaker 2: consistent with blood, but it has all the appearances of
Speaker 2: being stains that are are on this floor. And one
Speaker 2: of the stains is a long linear smear. Something is
Speaker 2: being drug, most likely a body is being drug along
Speaker 2: this floor towards the trap door. You know, like there's
Speaker 2: a minor, you know, small pool of blood and it
Speaker 2: might be like an area rug that's right on the floor,
Speaker 2: right next to the kitchen table.
Speaker 1: It's like burlap almost to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I would say it's it's it's a
Speaker 2: fabric of some sort and there appears to be a
Speaker 2: pool on it. There's some nondescript white clumps, which all
Speaker 2: I can say is my speculation, considering that we have
Speaker 2: a bludgeoning victim, the three year old girl, that those
Speaker 2: white clumps could be brain matter, unfortunately, but I can't
Speaker 2: say that for sure in this photo, but there's a
Speaker 2: fair number of what appeared to be large drops drip patterns,
Speaker 2: as well as maybe some contact transfers of some sort
Speaker 2: of bloody objects, you know, touching the top of this.
Speaker 2: So there is you know, if I'm right, and that's
Speaker 2: that's brain matter that's on the floor there. Than the
Speaker 2: three year old was hit with the hatchet upstairs and
Speaker 2: then you know, taken downstairs. It appears that the trap
Speaker 2: door has been removed, and I don't know if that
Speaker 2: door was hinged in any capacity.
Speaker 3: Or if it just literally lifted up.
Speaker 2: But there is what appears to be a large dark
Speaker 2: stain on the side that is facing the camera, you know,
Speaker 2: and if that's if that's a blood stain, that would
Speaker 2: be consistent with a blood pool, which would indicate that
Speaker 2: somebody laid on that location after bleeding for a period
Speaker 2: of time.
Speaker 3: But it's disrupted.
Speaker 2: It's right at the edge, and I can't see where
Speaker 2: it matches up.
Speaker 3: If there's any.
Speaker 2: Stained area on the floor that would indicate that maybe
Speaker 2: a bleeding victim was laying motionless for a period of time.
Speaker 2: But yeah, there's definitely some bleeding that's occurring up here,
Speaker 2: possibly indicative of either somebody was killed or severely incapacitated
Speaker 2: before being taken downstairs.
Speaker 3: And it's interesting, you.
Speaker 2: Know, you got five bodies inside the residence, and all
Speaker 2: five bodies are taken downstairs. So the offender took the
Speaker 2: time in essence to hide the bodies. That may be
Speaker 2: merely just to delay the discovery, even though the blood
Speaker 2: staining would be alarming by anybody walking into this location.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he didn't put the door back on the
Speaker 1: trap door because John Kraft said, when he walked in,
Speaker 1: you know, he went over right over to the trap
Speaker 1: door because it was open.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and that's that's significant.
Speaker 2: And you know, I don't know if this basement has
Speaker 2: another exit where he doesn't have to come back up
Speaker 2: into the residence, or you know, he's you know, taking
Speaker 2: the bodies downstairs. Maybe something disturbs him. And I'm just
Speaker 2: using the heat pronoun and singular just as a matter
Speaker 2: of convenience. But if the offender is taking the time
Speaker 2: to hide the bodies downstairs, it is inconsistent to leave
Speaker 2: the trap door up like that, for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I thought he just maybe dumped them, like
Speaker 1: from the he killed all these people and then pushed
Speaker 1: their bodies, dragged them and pushed them down into it,
Speaker 1: rather than placing them down. But what do you think
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 2: I'd have to see the distribution of the bodies. But
Speaker 2: if that's what he's doing, it's still effort, right, It's
Speaker 2: still time. You've got five bodies that he's purposely putting
Speaker 2: down into this this hole in the floor in essence,
Speaker 2: So why do the effort to do that and not
Speaker 2: make further effort to cover up that may be where
Speaker 2: you know, he he henks up something outside, there's a
Speaker 2: noise outside, and he's going, got no shit, I got
Speaker 2: to get out of here. Or his internal clock is
Speaker 2: thinking this is taking too long, and he just he bails.
Speaker 3: You know. So the photo itself is pretty high quality.
Speaker 2: This is something I'd be able to throw into photoshop,
Speaker 2: enhance it and probably be able to you know, get
Speaker 2: more information out of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it always surprises me, hows the photos can be,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean American Sherlock. My book took place
Speaker 1: between nineteen twenty and nineteen thirty three, and Oscar Heinrich
Speaker 1: loved photography and he loved crime scene photography and it
Speaker 1: just saved my bacon. Man, there's no better writing than
Speaker 1: to be able to do it off of photographs. You
Speaker 1: have all that description, and he had so much detail,
Speaker 1: and he knew how to blow it up and present
Speaker 1: it to you know, he would take pieces of sand
Speaker 1: and blow them up so they almost look like boulders
Speaker 1: and print them out and or you know, develop them
Speaker 1: and take them to jury so that they could understand geology.
Speaker 1: So photography is more advancing we think in this time period.
Speaker 2: Now, for sure, it always is, you know, and they
Speaker 2: were using very large format cameras and those you know,
Speaker 2: the larger the format, you know, basically the higher the resolution.
Speaker 2: You know, when you're dealing with this film based film
Speaker 2: is amazing. You know, my entire crime scene career, all
Speaker 2: I did was shoot film, whether it be thirty five
Speaker 2: millimeter or I was doing you know, four x.
Speaker 3: Five sheet film.
Speaker 2: And you know, digital cameras even today, with the high
Speaker 2: resolutions that you see, the high number of megapixels, they
Speaker 2: can't touch what film can do because you're talking about
Speaker 2: capturing light at the molecular level in film.
Speaker 1: Well, I have one crappy photo for you, but I
Speaker 1: don't think you're not going to need it to be good.
Speaker 1: So look at the next one in that document that
Speaker 1: I sent you, and it's the house. It's super isolated.
Speaker 1: It just looks like dirt everywhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know this is a photo.
Speaker 2: It says it's outside of the Wolf House on the
Speaker 2: day of the funeral, and there's a lot of people
Speaker 2: wearing black, you know, kind of congregating in the foreground.
Speaker 3: And the house itself.
Speaker 2: It appears, at least the main part of the house
Speaker 2: appears to be two storied. A main floor and then
Speaker 2: maybe an attic that has a window in it, you know,
Speaker 2: with the pitched roof kind of I've been inside old
Speaker 2: houses like this.
Speaker 3: You can go up into the.
Speaker 2: Attic and you have to kind of duck down, and
Speaker 2: the angle of the inside of the roof, you know,
Speaker 2: the ceiling is angled with the angle of the roof
Speaker 2: and then attached on the right hand side in the
Speaker 2: photograph appears to be a small It almost looks like
Speaker 2: an add on to this house single story. I don't
Speaker 2: know if that would just be a single room or
Speaker 2: if it's subdivided. It appears there might be a chimney
Speaker 2: to that, so maybe a living space, a living area.
Speaker 2: And then you know, right where these two structures join,
Speaker 2: there's an entry way of some sort. It looks like
Speaker 2: you walk in through a door. And this may be
Speaker 2: like a little little foyer, sort of like a wet
Speaker 2: room if you live in Colorado where I'm at, where
Speaker 2: you can take your winter clothes off without bringing you know,
Speaker 2: bringing all the you know, the snow and mud into
Speaker 2: the inside of the house. But the surrounding area, for sure,
Speaker 2: at least with what can be seen in this photograph,
Speaker 2: just looks, you know, flat and dirt.
Speaker 1: Flat and dirt. Now I have a theory about those
Speaker 1: two rooms that you're talking about, because when I saw
Speaker 1: this photo, this looked an awful lot like my grandparents
Speaker 1: who were in Missouri had a root cellar. It wasn't
Speaker 1: attached to their house, but the entryway looked very similar.
Speaker 1: Where you walk in and it's above ground. You open
Speaker 1: the door, and my grandmother, my granny was what I
Speaker 1: called her, would line the shelves with empty cans and
Speaker 1: empty glass bottles, but then you went underground and that's
Speaker 1: where everything was. So I wonder if this is the
Speaker 1: kitchen on the right hand side, okay, and the cellar
Speaker 1: and the cellar entry attached, because that would kind of
Speaker 1: make sense. I don't know if the kitchen would be
Speaker 1: in the main part of the house, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's hard to tell from any of these photos.
Speaker 2: It looks like there's a chimney on both the main
Speaker 2: house as well as this secondary structure, you know, and
Speaker 2: there was that what appeared to be that wood burning oven.
Speaker 2: So those chimneys would indicate where that oven is located at.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I wouldn't dispute your thought on that at all.
Speaker 2: It almost appears the main house. Those windows on the
Speaker 2: first floor, there's a lot of distance between the bottom
Speaker 2: of those windows and the ground, and so that might
Speaker 2: be indicative of beneath theirs, where there's a the basement,
Speaker 2: but I couldn't say that for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I was going to go back up and look,
Speaker 1: you can see windows in the kitchen area. It's just
Speaker 1: hard to tell with this. I mean, it's you know,
Speaker 1: we need many more photos. But the next photo is
Speaker 1: a cutie Patuti baby baby Emma, who I will tie
Speaker 1: in love looking at baby photos, even though to be honest,
Speaker 1: you know, I am not a baby person. I mean,
Speaker 1: I loved my own kids, but the older that my
Speaker 1: kids got and the more self sufficient there were, the
Speaker 1: more I seem to really appreciate them. But she's so
Speaker 1: cute and she recovers and she ends up having a
Speaker 1: very long, good life. But this is you know, this
Speaker 1: is her. This is a photo looks like she's got
Speaker 1: like a little rattle or something.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: So this next one is the last one I want
Speaker 1: you to look at. And I am showing you this
Speaker 1: image because number one, I think it is really interestingly
Speaker 1: composed and it's clear, and it's startling to me, So
Speaker 1: why don't you give me your impressions what you see here?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, this is a photo.
Speaker 2: It's showing eight caskets and then a large group of people,
Speaker 2: you know, dressed mostly in dark except for appears there's
Speaker 2: a few babies that are are.
Speaker 3: In white, and then a building in.
Speaker 2: The background to some sort you know, the caskets. What
Speaker 2: you know kind of strikes me first is the two
Speaker 2: caskets on either end are dark, and then the caskets
Speaker 2: in the middle are all light assuming white or very
Speaker 2: light colored. And then the two caskets towards the right,
Speaker 2: the two white caskets towards the right next to the
Speaker 2: large dark one are They're small. Obviously these are little children,
Speaker 2: you know, so it's interesting they had to take the
Speaker 2: time to display the caskets like this and then get
Speaker 2: this group to pose for a photograph, and then have
Speaker 2: a cameraman using film based photography to sit there and
Speaker 2: probably take multiple photos of this. I'm not sure it
Speaker 2: seems like an unusual photo to take, but you know,
Speaker 2: I think the number of caskets, the size of the caskets,
Speaker 2: it just indicates, you know, you know, this is a
Speaker 2: whole family basically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that this is a town of immigrants,
Speaker 1: both like German and Russian, and so this is I think,
Speaker 1: a very tight knit community. I don't know if I've
Speaker 1: ever shown you any of the death photos that I've used,
Speaker 1: the death ones, you know, where they take photographs of
Speaker 1: people after they've died in they're in their caskets. I'm
Speaker 1: actually surprised we didn't get any of those with this,
Speaker 1: but that was such a tradition. Yeah, I think this
Speaker 1: image is startling. I mean it shows the impact when
Speaker 1: you look at all of these caskets and you just think,
Speaker 1: of my god, somebody killed all of these people, right,
Speaker 1: it's very sad and to see the tiny caskets. But
Speaker 1: I've never actually seen male female designated caskets before. I
Speaker 1: think that's what you're saying. It's a little odd, but.
Speaker 2: Okay, you know, and I was even thinking, could that
Speaker 2: be uh, you know, Jacob and his wife, you know,
Speaker 2: the adults, the patriarch and matriarch at the family and
Speaker 2: the dark caskets and then their kids. And I'm assuming
Speaker 2: would the farm hand be in this? Would Jacob the
Speaker 2: farmhand be part of this?
Speaker 1: How many do we have we have eight people totaled,
Speaker 1: you have eight caskets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think he's also included. And he's he's
Speaker 2: a relative on the mother's side, if I remember you right,
Speaker 2: say so, Yeah, so he's he's he's included as part
Speaker 2: of the family.
Speaker 1: Well, let's get out of the photograph area here, let's
Speaker 1: get back to the story. So, you know, we don't
Speaker 1: often get photographs, so I'm always grateful when we have them.
Speaker 3: I am too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the sheriff wonders if this is somehow, some
Speaker 1: way murder suicide, and then we start getting information back
Speaker 1: from the corner. So this was a shotgun and here's
Speaker 1: who had which injuries. Jacob the dad, the forty one
Speaker 1: year old. He was shot once with a shotgun at
Speaker 1: close range from behind and to the side, and that
Speaker 1: he was shot in the head, so kind of behind
Speaker 1: and to the side. He had also been shot once
Speaker 1: from a distance in the back. So I can just
Speaker 1: tell you all of these, or you can comment on
Speaker 1: each one. So one kind of the back of the head,
Speaker 1: close range, one very far back but in the back.
Speaker 2: Right, So this is this is Jacob, you know. And
Speaker 2: of course when you start thinking about murder suicide, you know,
Speaker 2: the most likely perpetrator of that within a family is
Speaker 2: going to be the husband father. However, the location of
Speaker 2: his shots, once in the back and towards the back
Speaker 2: of his head, kind of to the back side of
Speaker 2: his head, those locations suggest that somebody else shot him,
Speaker 2: and so at this point in time, I don't believe
Speaker 2: it's possible to conclude that Jacob shot himself with a shotgun.
Speaker 2: And I'm assuming that the shotgun is a standard laying shotgun,
Speaker 2: not you know, some super sowd off variant. You know,
Speaker 2: that he would be able to potentially wield like a handgun,
Speaker 2: So that's interesting, you know, I think that's one thing
Speaker 2: I can conclude from that information is Jacob is a
Speaker 2: victim and he is not the killer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and oftentimes we do have the patriarch of the
Speaker 1: family as the killer, and it takes a while to
Speaker 1: sort that out. So injuries in the barn, Maria who's nine,
Speaker 1: has been shot in the back of the head at
Speaker 1: close range. This was an interesting detail. Her hair was
Speaker 1: singed so very close range.
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 1: Or does that matter? I mean, doesn't the shotgun singe
Speaker 1: everything in sight? Is that the point?
Speaker 2: You know, it's when you start talking about hair being singed.
Speaker 2: The shotgun is close enough to which the hot gases
Speaker 2: that come out of the end of the barrel. It's
Speaker 2: not just the rounds. Whatever type of ammunition was used,
Speaker 2: whether it be a bird shot, which is more like
Speaker 2: your bebes, right, you have a whole bunch of little bebes,
Speaker 2: or you have like what law enforcement uses, your double
Speaker 2: ott buck, which is like nine marble sized rounds that
Speaker 2: come out. And then sometimes we'll have a slug being used,
Speaker 2: which is this very if it's like a twelve gage,
Speaker 2: it's this very large single round, so that comes out.
Speaker 2: But then you also have the gases that occur during
Speaker 2: the combustion of the gunpowder. That's what forces you know,
Speaker 2: the rounds out. Also you have unburnt gunpowder, and that's
Speaker 2: what caused what you call stippling, how you see gunpowder.
Speaker 3: Embedded in the skin.
Speaker 2: And different guns at different distances will leave evidence of
Speaker 2: the distance that they were from their target based on
Speaker 2: whatever is present. A shotgun, of course, is going to
Speaker 2: you know, project its hot gases out further than a handgun,
Speaker 2: but not that much further, you know, So this is
Speaker 2: telling me that this is a fairly close range shot.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about within several feet again not knowing that
Speaker 2: you know, the gauge of the shotgun and the rounds.
Speaker 2: But shotguns are devastating weapons. So if you have a
Speaker 2: reasonably close shot to somebody's head with a shotgun, these
Speaker 2: heads are not in good shape, you know. So this
Speaker 2: is a very ugly scene in all likelihood.
Speaker 1: Okay, so now we know we've got Jacob who's been
Speaker 1: shot with the shotgun at close range from behind back
Speaker 1: of the head. And then we've got Maria and ednae
Speaker 1: year old and the seven year old who were apparently
Speaker 1: with him, shot in the back of the head at
Speaker 1: close range. And then you know, we have more people
Speaker 1: that we have to talk about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, so we got Jacob and the two
Speaker 2: girls who are executed out in the barn. Very curious
Speaker 2: to know, you know, what happened to the victims that
Speaker 2: are found inside the house down in the basement.
Speaker 1: I think this is such a big story that we're
Speaker 1: going to need to address that in the next episode.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you're going to make me wait a week then.
Speaker 1: On an autopsy. I don't know if I've ever done
Speaker 1: that before, able to tell you what happens next. But yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a really intense story and with so many victims,
Speaker 1: is one of the probably the largest number that we've had,
Speaker 1: so I just want to make sure we take our time,
Speaker 1: so I will talk to you about it more next week.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 4: This has been an exactly right Pa production.
Speaker 2: For our sources and show notes go to exactly Wrightmedia
Speaker 2: dot com slash Buried Bones sources.
Speaker 4: Our senior producer is Alexis Emosi.
Speaker 2: Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 4: Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 3: Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 4: Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2: Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark and Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 1: You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Speaker 1: Barry 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
Speaker 1: Now, and Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life solving
Speaker 1: America's Cold Cases is also available now