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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 2: He would have his own personal bootlegger come with large

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Speaker 2: trunks of gin. Ward told the doorman of the building.

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Speaker 2: Anytime this guy comes by with his trunk, just let

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Speaker 2: him in.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor

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Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the

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Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,

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Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken

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Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down

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Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,

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Speaker 1: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true

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Speaker 1: crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both

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Speaker 1: good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the

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Speaker 1: unpublished details behind their stories. Our story this week is

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Speaker 1: set in the nineteen twenties in Westchester County, New York.

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Speaker 1: It's a jazz age mystery. A young ex sailor is

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Speaker 1: found dead on a desolate road. A suspect from a

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Speaker 1: wealthy family admits to the murder, but he claims that

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Speaker 1: he was trying to protect a dangerous secret. Author James

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Speaker 1: Pulchin's book Shadowmen unravels a mystery more than a century old. Well,

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Speaker 1: let's go ahead and get into this case. You know,

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Speaker 1: you open the book with a discovery. Why open it

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Speaker 1: with such a I feel like grand opening when people

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Speaker 1: love to sprinkle breadcrumbs everywhere and then really reveal the victim.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought a lot about how to tell this story.

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Speaker 2: That to me is that is fascinating. I'm always reading

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Speaker 2: these crime books to think about how do you tell

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Speaker 2: the story? Where there are many ways to start this

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Speaker 2: story right, And this book opens with the discovery of

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Speaker 2: a body on the side of the road in Westchester

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Speaker 2: County in May of nineteen twenty two, And I thought

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Speaker 2: that was really I wanted to take the reader from

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Speaker 2: how readers at the time would have encountered this crime, right,

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Speaker 2: And so they would have encountered this discovery of a

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Speaker 2: body in a small newspaper article, which then would have

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Speaker 2: evolved over the weeks and months after. And so I

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Speaker 2: thought that was a good place to start. How would

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Speaker 2: people at the time have encountered this crime and tell

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Speaker 2: the story in that way? And so, yeah, it's this

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Speaker 2: discovery of a body that has no identifying papers on

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Speaker 2: it has no idea. The people who found it don't

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Speaker 2: know who this person is. And that's where we start.

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Speaker 1: Was it immediately obvious that this is a homicide or

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Speaker 1: why would it be small just because there was almost

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Speaker 1: no information about it.

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Speaker 2: Yes, the way that the eyewitnesses talk about finding the body,

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Speaker 2: it was laid out fairly staged, right, one of the

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Speaker 2: eyewitnesses said it. It was laid out as if an

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Speaker 2: undertaker had put it there, right, very very formal, formal

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Speaker 2: there on the side of the road. And so it

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Speaker 2: was curious to everybody who discovered it how a body

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Speaker 2: could just be laid out that way, right, So there

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Speaker 2: was a mystery around this whole case. Initial reports of

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Speaker 2: it in the newspaper had all kinds of speculation. This is,

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Speaker 2: of course, prohibition time, and most of speculation went to bootlegging,

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Speaker 2: some kind of crime related to bootlegging. The bootleggers would

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Speaker 2: would often use these back roads. This body was found

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Speaker 2: on King Street in Westchester County, which is just near

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Speaker 2: Kensico Reservoir, which has lots of back roads, little alleyways,

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Speaker 2: and it was a great way to transport bootlegd alcohol

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Speaker 2: from Canada down into New York City without getting noticed, right,

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Speaker 2: And so that was a lot of the speculation early

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Speaker 2: on about what happened here until they did find some

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Speaker 2: identifying feature.

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Speaker 1: So let me talk about that real quick. Prohibition had

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Speaker 1: only been really in play since nineteen twenty maybe nineteen

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Speaker 1: nineteen is really you know, they were trying to gear

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Speaker 1: it up by nineteen twenty two in New York. Was

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Speaker 1: their organized crime already forming around bootlegging? Or was it

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Speaker 1: literally the backyard stills where people were blowing themselves up

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Speaker 1: that I wrote about, or would this have been some

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Speaker 1: kind of a mob hit? Is that what people were thinking?

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Speaker 2: I think both were going on, right. I think that

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Speaker 2: there was a early efforts for mob profit off of

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Speaker 2: bootlegd alcohol, but I think it was in its early stages, right,

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Speaker 2: and so it was a little more chaotic at these

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Speaker 2: early years. In the reports about this murder, early reports

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Speaker 2: about this murder's no mention of a gang or of

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Speaker 2: a mob style kind of bootlegging operation, right. I think

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Speaker 2: that's a later twenties evolution. As such. This was more

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Speaker 2: of a maybe it was a bootleg truck that was

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Speaker 2: coming and that this person had been either hit by

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Speaker 2: that truck. There was even speculation that he might have

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Speaker 2: been working for the government trying to nab a bootleg

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Speaker 2: truck and then was shot in that encounter. Right, But

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Speaker 2: there wasn't a sense of like organized crime around this

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Speaker 2: around this case in nineteen twenty two.

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Speaker 1: Who was handling the investigation into this this is pre

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Speaker 1: FBI and probably that it would be local police, right,

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Speaker 1: would it be Westchester police?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Exactly. So the sheriff, George Warner at the time,

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Speaker 2: took the lead on investigating this. There was also eight

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Speaker 2: police who were called onto the scene because this road

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Speaker 2: was both a state road and it was in the county,

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Speaker 2: so it had a couple of different investigating groups for it.

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Speaker 2: Initially the corner, a man named Edward Fitzgerald was on site.

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Speaker 2: He came to investigate the body. But interesting, I love

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Speaker 2: Fitzgerald in many ways because at the time people don't

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Speaker 2: remember this, but at the time, to be the corner

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Speaker 2: in Westchester County, and this was the case in many

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Speaker 2: districts around the country, you didn't need to be a doctor.

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Speaker 1: Still sometimes don't need to be a doctor, even current corners.

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Speaker 2: It'scted office, right, And so Edward Fitzgerald was not a doctor,

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Speaker 2: and here he was thrust into this very complicated case

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Speaker 2: early on. The body that was found was shot once

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Speaker 2: in the chest, but it was an odd sort of

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Speaker 2: condition because he was wearing a suit and his suit

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Speaker 2: jacket did not show any bullet hole, or his vest

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Speaker 2: didn't show any bullet hole, only through the shirt, right,

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Speaker 2: And so there was all these questions about what exactly

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Speaker 2: happened here. How could it be shot on the side

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Speaker 2: of the road but not shot through his suit jacket,

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Speaker 2: only shot through the shirt and so forth. So Fitzgerald

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Speaker 2: was there to investigate. But as I said, he was

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Speaker 2: not a doctor. He later became known as the Last

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Speaker 2: Corner of Westchester County because after his appointment, the laws

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Speaker 2: changed in the county and it became you needed to

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Speaker 2: have a medical degree to be what was then newly

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Speaker 2: termed medical examiner, right, And so Fitzgerald has the dubious

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Speaker 2: distinction of being the Last Corner of Westchester County, but

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Speaker 2: he was one of the first to be on site

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Speaker 2: to investigate.

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Speaker 1: I was just talking to my co host Paul Holes

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Speaker 1: on our other podcast about a case from eighteen ninety

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Speaker 1: nine where we had a coroner who didn't have a

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Speaker 1: medical degree, but they brought in in eighteen ninety nine.

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Speaker 1: They brought in to really experienced pathologists to examine this

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Speaker 1: young woman's body. Did Fitzgerald have access to somebody? I'm

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Speaker 1: surely the state police, right.

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Speaker 2: Yes, right, so that's my sense for this case. They

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Speaker 2: did bring in two doctors who examined the body. What

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Speaker 2: they did was actually from the crime site. They took

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Speaker 2: the body to undertaker's facility look at parlor, Yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 2: to the undertaker's parlor, and that's where it was examined

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Speaker 2: by these two doctors, right, who determined the cause of

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Speaker 2: death and different markings. Because this was the big question,

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Speaker 2: what are the distinctive markings on the body. And one

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Speaker 2: of the distinctive elements of this body was that he

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Speaker 2: had US issued military issued underwear. Okay, at the time,

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Speaker 2: you think, well that's curious, but it did lead them

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Speaker 2: to take his fingerprints and send the fingerprints down to

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Speaker 2: wash In, DC to the Naval Intelligence. We had just

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Speaker 2: come out of World War One. The US Army was

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Speaker 2: the largest database for fingerprints at that time because they

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Speaker 2: fingerprint everybody who was enlisted, and from those fingerprints and

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Speaker 2: photographed they were able to identify who the body was.

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Speaker 2: And it was of nineteen year old Clarence Peters, who

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Speaker 2: had spent about three months as a naval intern when

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Speaker 2: he was about seventeen years old. And so they had

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Speaker 2: a record of him, They had his fingerprints, and they

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Speaker 2: had information about him and an address of his family.

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Speaker 2: And so that's how they were able to identify him

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Speaker 2: and then contact his family.

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Speaker 1: Now, when does Hearst media the machine which is alive

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Speaker 1: and well in the twenties, When does Hurst media think

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Speaker 1: this is interesting enough? Are we at that point yet

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Speaker 1: or are we still talking about we now identified that

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Speaker 1: body that we told you about a couple of days

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Speaker 1: ago on the road in Westchester.

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Speaker 2: That's a really good question. When does a bd get

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Speaker 2: interested in a crime? Right that? That was a question

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Speaker 2: for me with the first book. When does a victim

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Speaker 2: become something that's newsworthy? Right? So, even after being identified

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Speaker 2: and so, Clarence Peters was from a small town in

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Speaker 2: Massachusetts called Haverll, just on the border with New Hampshire.

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Speaker 2: It was industrial town. It was known for shoemaking. In fact,

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Speaker 2: the local chamber of commerce called the town Slipper City

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Speaker 2: because it was known for its shoemaking.

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Speaker 1: There were things to be known for I think Slipper.

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Speaker 2: City, absolutely right, and that's the world he grew up in.

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Speaker 2: It was from a large family. They were dirt poor family.

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Speaker 2: His father, Elbridge Peters, had a lot of health issues

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Speaker 2: and so couldn't really work full time. And Peters, Clarence Peters,

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Speaker 2: was the oldest son, and so there was an expectation

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Speaker 2: here that he was meant to bring money in for

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Speaker 2: the That didn't really attract the press until a few

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Speaker 2: days after his identity was made known in the press

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Speaker 2: that someone came forward to confess that he had shot Peters.

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Speaker 1: Let me ask you a couple of medical things before

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Speaker 1: we get into all of that, because I know that

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Speaker 1: that's really the hook in your book, because you know

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Speaker 1: the rest of the story gets pretty wild, much bigger

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Speaker 1: than somebody on a desolate road in Westchester? Was there blood?

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Speaker 1: Were they curious about how much blood there would be

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Speaker 1: on the road? Did it seem apparent? I guess I'm

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Speaker 1: asking whether or not he was killed there. We know

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Speaker 1: he was wearing a jacket, so obviously he had his

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Speaker 1: jacket off and then he was redressed, I assume. But

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Speaker 1: I mean, does this look like the crime scene where

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Speaker 1: he was lying.

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Speaker 2: So even at the crime scene, there were different theories.

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Speaker 2: So the state troopers had one theory that he was

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Speaker 2: murdered somewhere else and dumped there on the side of

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Speaker 2: the road. Others I believe Fitzgerald had a theory that

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Speaker 2: he was shot there on site, given the way that

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Speaker 2: the impressions impressions of his shoes in the sand and

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Speaker 2: the gravel on the side of the road looked. There

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Speaker 2: had been a farmer not far from the crime scene,

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Speaker 2: as well as a couple of farm hands who were

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Speaker 2: sleeping about two three hundred feet from the crime scene

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Speaker 2: up a hill from the road, and they were also

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Speaker 2: there at the crime scene. They didn't report hearing any shots, right,

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Speaker 2: and so there were a lot of conflicting kinds of

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Speaker 2: evidence at the crime scene because of the way he

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Speaker 2: was shot. The bullet didn't exit the body right, and

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Speaker 2: so he was bleeding internally more than at the crime

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Speaker 2: scene itself. But we also have to remember that forensics

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Speaker 2: at that time were very limited in how they would

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Speaker 2: pursue this, so there wasn't a lot of tools at

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Speaker 2: their disposal.

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Speaker 1: Did anyone have a sense before we have the person

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Speaker 1: come forward, did anybody have a sense for just what

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Speaker 1: kind of a crime was this. Now they know this

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Speaker 1: is a nineteen year old sailor, you know, from kind

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Speaker 1: of a poor working area. Did anybody have any idea?

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Speaker 1: And what was he doing out there? And was there

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Speaker 1: a theory before we have the confession?

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Speaker 2: Right, So his parents, Inez and Elbridge Peters, they were baffled.

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Speaker 2: So when the local paper asked them, you know, well,

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Speaker 2: how did your son end up in New York State

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Speaker 2: and how did he you know, what was he doing?

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Speaker 2: To their understanding, he was enlisting in the Marines. He

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Speaker 2: had gone south to South Carolina to the Marine training

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Speaker 2: base at Parris Island, and that's the last they had

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Speaker 2: heard of him from letters that he sent. So they

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Speaker 2: had no clue how he would have ended up in

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Speaker 2: a empty road along the Kensico Reservoir in New York.

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Speaker 2: It was a mystery to them.

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Speaker 1: No defensive wounds, it didn't look like he had been

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Speaker 1: in a fight, nothing else. Just this one shot.

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Speaker 2: Right, just this one shot. There was no other bruising

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Speaker 2: that they found in their examination. He had a dollar

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Speaker 2: and thirty two cents on him, along with some other

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Speaker 2: details they pulled out of his pockets, such as a

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Speaker 2: broken comb and a pack of cigarettes and those kinds

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Speaker 2: of things. Because he had so little money, the press

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Speaker 2: started to call him the penniless sailor. So really no clues.

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Speaker 2: There was one element, one thing they pulled out of

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Speaker 2: his pocket, which was they called a lady's handkerchief because

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Speaker 2: it had pansies embroidered on it. And I found that

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Speaker 2: to be an interesting detail because it never really comes

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Speaker 2: up again in the investigation, but it is a curious detail,

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Speaker 2: like why he had this particular kind of handkerchief on him?

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Speaker 1: What did his parents say he was like, why was

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Speaker 1: he only in for three months? And you know, was

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Speaker 1: he a good kid? Or is there anything besides being baffled?

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Speaker 1: Is there anything that they thought, Well, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: he was a ladies man or something. I don't know.

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Speaker 2: So no, of course the parents were baffled because he

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Speaker 2: was you know, they they talked of him as a

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Speaker 2: as a decent kid. Yes, he had his problems, and

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Speaker 2: that's something that then would start coming out more in

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Speaker 2: the press. He stole things. He stole a bike, He

255
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Speaker 2: stole a car from Boston and drove it up to Hibyrell.

256
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Speaker 2: He he stole checks from people's mailboxes, right, He spent

257
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Speaker 2: time in reform school in Massachusetts. He was not an angel,

258
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Speaker 2: He was not a choir boy in any way. But

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Speaker 2: his parents and they did, you know, admit that he

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Speaker 2: had these this past, but they did recognize that he

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Speaker 2: didn't own a gun. He committed petty crimes. He wasn't

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Speaker 2: a violent person. But also what I found interesting about

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Speaker 2: his background from from the research, he was also someone

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Speaker 2: you know, looking for different kind of life, I think

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Speaker 2: than what Heroal could offer him. He did spend some

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Speaker 2: time working in one of the shoe factories, but not

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Speaker 2: very long. It seems clear that that was not interesting

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Speaker 2: to him. He didn't want to do that work. So

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Speaker 2: he went to enlist in the navy, right but he

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Speaker 2: only was there for about a month and he stole something,

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Speaker 2: and once they found that, he was discharged dishonorable, discharged

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Speaker 2: from the navy, you know, and when he you know,

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Speaker 2: came out back to Harol from there looking for work again.

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Speaker 2: He worked many temporary jobs. He moved furniture for a time,

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Speaker 2: he worked on a farm for a time. All those

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Speaker 2: people who employed him thought he was was a bit strange.

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Speaker 2: He didn't really do the work that they asked him

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Speaker 2: to do. In some ways. You know, I think he

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Speaker 2: was a dreamer. He wanted to get away from that

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Speaker 2: town into something bigger and petty. Crime was a real

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Speaker 2: for him, it seemed. But of course, because he was

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Speaker 2: discharged from the Navy, by the time he went down

283
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Speaker 2: to the Marines, they found out that he'd been discharged

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Speaker 2: from another branch of the military, and that disqualified him

285
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Speaker 2: from being in any branch of the military once you

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Speaker 2: get discharged.

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Speaker 1: We talk about in true crime a lot of times

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Speaker 1: of the imperfect victim, which is so annoying because there's

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Speaker 1: just no such thing as the perfect victim. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the idealized virginal woman or you know, the choir boy.

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Speaker 1: How do you take that person and make people want

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Speaker 1: to get to the end of the story. If you've

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Speaker 1: got a kid, you know he has probably potential somewhere,

294
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Speaker 1: but he hasn't been exactly stellar. Did you feel like

295
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Speaker 1: you really had to find some really good attributes about

296
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Speaker 1: him for people to kind of say, Okay, I can

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Speaker 1: roll with this story because I want to know what

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Speaker 1: ends up happening. You know, if anything, at the end

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Speaker 1: of the book, that's.

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Speaker 2: Interesting because there are so few folks in this book

301
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Speaker 2: that I feel are good people.

302
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Speaker 1: Now I've written about those books and those books too.

303
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Speaker 2: And it's tough, you know, I you know, how do

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Speaker 2: you pitch it? I mean, for me, Peters is kind

305
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Speaker 2: of a he's a kid, he's he's I can definitely

306
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Speaker 2: identify with his desire to find a better life. Here.

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Speaker 2: It is the post World War One. The country's kind

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Speaker 2: of in an ascendancy of wealth, of entertainment, of newness.

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Speaker 2: And I can see this kid from an industrial town,

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Speaker 2: and the shoe factor industry is also suffering and shrinking

311
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Speaker 2: because of this broader national economic expansion, right, and so

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Speaker 2: shoes are being made elsewhere around the country, or even

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Speaker 2: being made outside the country increasingly, And so I can

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Speaker 2: see this Peters the way I wrote it about him

315
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Speaker 2: as someone who really was searching for something, and crime

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Speaker 2: was the petty crimes that he was committing was a

317
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Speaker 2: way to find an exit. Yeah, And I think he

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Speaker 2: knew very well that going down to Paris Island to

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Speaker 2: enlist in the Marines that he wasn't going to they

320
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Speaker 2: were going to kick him out. But I thought, I

321
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Speaker 2: think that he thought that the train travel paid for

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Speaker 2: going down to South Carolina. Hey, that will be fun

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Speaker 2: and then I'll see what happens after. So there's it's

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Speaker 2: a mixed and I'm sure you and others have felt

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Speaker 2: this way when you're writing about these folks, Like there's

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Speaker 2: a mixture of why did you do that, Clarence, but

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Speaker 2: also I can understand what you were after.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, So we have body on the road and

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Speaker 1: one press clipping, and then a couple of days later

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Speaker 1: we've identified this young man, he's from Massachusetts. And then

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Speaker 1: is it a few days after how long is it

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Speaker 1: after the after Clarence's body is discovered, that we now

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Speaker 1: have inexplicably a confession, the easiest shut and open and

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Speaker 1: shut case for the sheriff and the state police.

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Speaker 2: That's what they thought. Yes, about three days later, a

336
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Speaker 2: man called Walter Ward comes to the Westchester County office

337
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Speaker 2: of the DA and the sheriff. They're in the same

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Speaker 2: complex in the courthouse, the old Westchester courthouse that's been

339
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Speaker 2: demolished now, and he comes with his lawyers for lawyers

340
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Speaker 2: with him with a statement, a three hundred and thirty

341
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Speaker 2: one word statement that's less of a confession and more

342
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Speaker 2: of a description of what happened on the road, And

343
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Speaker 2: Walter Ward claimed that Clarence Peters, along with two other men,

344
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Speaker 2: one called Charlie Ross and one called Jack, had been

345
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Speaker 2: blackmailing him for months and they had extorted one thousands

346
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Speaker 2: of dollars from him, and he went to confer front

347
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Speaker 2: them to put an end to this, because they had

348
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Speaker 2: recently were asking for about seventy thousand dollars of cash

349
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Speaker 2: from him in nineteen twenty two cash right, so hundreds

350
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Speaker 2: of thousands of dollars today. So he was driving there

351
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Speaker 2: in his car with Peters next to him. He picked

352
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Speaker 2: up Peters somewhere and then drove. Peters told him where

353
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Speaker 2: to go on King Road to meet these other blackmailers.

354
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Speaker 2: At some point, Peters was getting out of the car

355
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Speaker 2: holding his pistol directed to Ward. Ward grabbed his own

356
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Speaker 2: pistol shot Peters in the chest, at which point the

357
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Speaker 2: other two blackmailers, who had pulled up in front of

358
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Speaker 2: Ward's car on the side of the road, got out

359
00:21:44,840 --> 00:21:47,840
Speaker 2: and started firing. And so there was this, he described,

360
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Speaker 2: his volley of bullets between his car and their car.

361
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Speaker 2: Ward got out, got behind his car, continued to fire

362
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Speaker 2: at them. They ultimately jumped back in their car, drove off,

363
00:22:00,840 --> 00:22:03,639
Speaker 2: and Wore got back into his car and drove home.

364
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Speaker 2: He lived in New Rochelle, about thirty minute drive from

365
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Speaker 2: where this crime scene was. So that was his confession

366
00:22:11,280 --> 00:22:14,280
Speaker 2: that he was being blackmailed, that he felt threatened, that

367
00:22:14,320 --> 00:22:17,679
Speaker 2: he felt his family was being threatened, and this was

368
00:22:17,720 --> 00:22:21,159
Speaker 2: an act of self defense when Peters had asked him

369
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Speaker 2: to come out of the car, that he felt was threatening,

370
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Speaker 2: and so this was all in self defense, and that

371
00:22:26,920 --> 00:22:29,960
Speaker 2: he and his lawyers were actively pursuing those other two

372
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Speaker 2: blackmailers to try to track them down.

373
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Speaker 1: This is the spot where Clarence Peter's body was found.

374
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Speaker 1: He's saying, all that happen, yes, okay, So then now,

375
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Speaker 1: of course, we have so many inconsistencies. I don't know

376
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Speaker 1: what you want to start with. I'm sure there's a

377
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Speaker 1: lack of bullets. I mean, there's a lack of tire tracks.

378
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Speaker 1: There's the you know, was he wearing a shirt and

379
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Speaker 1: you guys put his jacket on for some reason, or

380
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Speaker 1: there's all of that.

381
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Speaker 2: Right, It is such a fantastical story, and as I

382
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Speaker 2: write in the book, it's almost as if he pulled

383
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Speaker 2: it from one of the Saturday afternoon silent films, you know,

384
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Speaker 2: the swashbuckler kind of hero kind of films. It just

385
00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:12,920
Speaker 2: seems so fantastical to everyone except the sheriff and the dah.

386
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Speaker 1: More bad people. I see. I was hoping Sheriff Warren

387
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Speaker 1: was going to be one of the good ones, but

388
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Speaker 1: I guess not Sheriff Warner.

389
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Speaker 2: I think he had come up through Westchester County Republican Party,

390
00:23:25,480 --> 00:23:29,880
Speaker 2: which at the time was really the machine of the county,

391
00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:32,680
Speaker 2: and he was a good member of that party, and

392
00:23:33,080 --> 00:23:39,280
Speaker 2: he had worked in other government roles, parks commissioner, working

393
00:23:39,320 --> 00:23:43,239
Speaker 2: with sort of children's aid societies, and that there was

394
00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:46,000
Speaker 2: rumors that he never wanted to be sheriff, but that

395
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Speaker 2: the party bosses had put him up to be sheriff,

396
00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:54,399
Speaker 2: and so he did. He went and he was elected sheriff. Again,

397
00:23:54,760 --> 00:23:57,919
Speaker 2: not someone who comes out of police, not someone who

398
00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:01,400
Speaker 2: has much experience in policing, who was then made sheriff.

399
00:24:01,760 --> 00:24:06,320
Speaker 2: So again, these weird alignments of all these individuals who

400
00:24:06,320 --> 00:24:10,240
Speaker 2: were in government and authority, right, who were more aligned

401
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:13,840
Speaker 2: with party allegiance than they were to say finding the

402
00:24:13,880 --> 00:24:17,720
Speaker 2: truth or the justice here, right. And so Warner really

403
00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:23,360
Speaker 2: just bought this story and the DA Frederick Weeks also

404
00:24:23,840 --> 00:24:26,639
Speaker 2: bought this story. This is what happened. We have a body,

405
00:24:26,720 --> 00:24:30,800
Speaker 2: we have someone confessing. Okay, So there's another context here,

406
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 2: which is Walter Ward was the son of a very

407
00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:39,040
Speaker 2: wealthy family. The press called him the Seon of the

408
00:24:39,119 --> 00:24:43,320
Speaker 2: House of Ward. And the Wards had made their millions

409
00:24:43,760 --> 00:24:48,199
Speaker 2: by industrializing bread. So they had bread factories across the

410
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:50,119
Speaker 2: northeast and into the Midwest.

411
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Speaker 1: There had not been bread factories before.

412
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Speaker 2: Not until late nineteenth century.

413
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Speaker 1: Oh interesting, Yeah, I mean, you know, I just wrote

414
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:01,879
Speaker 1: a book that's set in eight teen thirty two, and

415
00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:05,560
Speaker 1: that's when really the mills started popping up. A lot

416
00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:08,640
Speaker 1: of that was fabric and stuff like that. Hadn't thought

417
00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:11,440
Speaker 1: about bread, Okay, So it took a while to figure

418
00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:14,159
Speaker 1: out bread. There's so many components to it. Again, what

419
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:19,480
Speaker 1: tell me about the Wards and where they fit into

420
00:25:20,200 --> 00:25:25,080
Speaker 1: society and New York. Is this wealthy but considered kind

421
00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:28,879
Speaker 1: of blue collar, sort of new money. This isn't Rockefeller

422
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:31,520
Speaker 1: Vanderbilt stuff, right, No.

423
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:35,399
Speaker 2: They're not of the old school, but they do definitely

424
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:41,879
Speaker 2: fit into kind of a new wealth, a new money Carnegies, Rockefellers,

425
00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:47,160
Speaker 2: those kinds of folks who made their fortune in industry. Right.

426
00:25:47,560 --> 00:25:51,679
Speaker 2: And so when the Wards moved to New York. They

427
00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:54,880
Speaker 2: left Pittsburgh. They had started the company there, it had

428
00:25:54,920 --> 00:25:57,960
Speaker 2: been successful, and then they knew that New York was

429
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:00,240
Speaker 2: the place to expand. And they came to New York

430
00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:05,159
Speaker 2: early twentieth century and they and they fit in very well.

431
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:08,800
Speaker 2: They bought a large apartment on the Upper West Side

432
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:11,840
Speaker 2: for a while, and then they had built a house

433
00:26:12,080 --> 00:26:16,560
Speaker 2: up in the Bronx along the Hudson River. Walter Ward

434
00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:21,720
Speaker 2: married a woman called Beryl, who was a socialite, a

435
00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:26,160
Speaker 2: Brooklyn socialite back in the day, from also a wealthy family.

436
00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:31,040
Speaker 2: Her father made her his wealth from lumber. Walter and

437
00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:34,119
Speaker 2: Barrel settled in New Rochelle in a very kind of

438
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:40,280
Speaker 2: exclusive community called Sutton Manor and had two kids. So

439
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:44,240
Speaker 2: they were quite of the moment in terms of the

440
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:49,320
Speaker 2: kind of new wealth that New York was making at

441
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:52,879
Speaker 2: that point between the nineteen hundreds and the nineteen twenties.

442
00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:57,520
Speaker 1: Okay, now that we understand Walter and Clarence, and we

443
00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:03,119
Speaker 1: know that Walter's details are completely inconsistent with the crime scene.

444
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 1: What the investigators are saying, even though the sheriff is

445
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:09,679
Speaker 1: the DA are both sort of signing on to what

446
00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:14,680
Speaker 1: he's saying. What happens next when you know, we really

447
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:17,000
Speaker 1: kind of kick in with your book. You've got Ward

448
00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:20,359
Speaker 1: who's saying these things, and I'm assuming facing the death

449
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:23,480
Speaker 1: penalty or no, he's saying it self defense. I didn't

450
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:26,280
Speaker 1: even know if they had self defense in nineteen twenty two.

451
00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 2: Right, he would be facing the death penalty if they

452
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:34,320
Speaker 2: were to convict him of murder. So this statement he

453
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:41,399
Speaker 2: presented in self defense was carefully choreographed by his attorneys,

454
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:43,800
Speaker 2: and there's no evidence that Ward even had a hand

455
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 2: in writing it. So it was very crafted by his attorneys.

456
00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:51,160
Speaker 2: He had a very expensive team of lawyers Wall Street

457
00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:55,600
Speaker 2: lawyers at his side to do this, and so because

458
00:27:55,640 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 2: of the family status, the sheriff, Warner and Weeks kind

459
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:04,400
Speaker 2: of just agreed to it. They charged him with manslaughter,

460
00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:09,240
Speaker 2: I believe, first, and they secured bail for him ten

461
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:13,439
Speaker 2: thousand dollars, which was unheard of at the time to

462
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:18,399
Speaker 2: give bail to someone who's confessed to murder. But Ward

463
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:20,560
Speaker 2: pays it. And there's a great scene in the book,

464
00:28:20,600 --> 00:28:23,680
Speaker 2: and great scene that the newspapers report on where Walter

465
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:27,439
Speaker 2: pulls out ten thousand dollars bills from his pocket and

466
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:30,520
Speaker 2: pays his bail and walks out of the courthouse. So

467
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:36,480
Speaker 2: again that the acute disparities here of wealth are just

468
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:41,640
Speaker 2: so evident in this story. And then the press starts

469
00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:46,240
Speaker 2: asking questions, and that's when things start to unravel for

470
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 2: Ward and for the sheriff. You know, The New York

471
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 2: Times sends reporters to the crime scene. They interview the farmer,

472
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:58,600
Speaker 2: they interview others, they talk to the State troopers. The

473
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:03,480
Speaker 2: State troopers don't believe Ward's story. Wow, they're very dubious

474
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:04,640
Speaker 2: of this, and they're.

475
00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:06,920
Speaker 1: Willing to talk to a New York Times reporter about

476
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 1: this on the record.

477
00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:14,120
Speaker 2: They spoke to the Times reporter. So once Ward came

478
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 2: forward and said this is what happened, Sheriff Warner goes

479
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 2: to the State troopers barracks and he takes all the

480
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:24,840
Speaker 2: evidence that they had gathered from the crime scene. And

481
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,840
Speaker 2: Warner tells the State troopers, we're going to have this

482
00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 2: case fixed up in a few days, so you all

483
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 2: don't need to worry yourselves about this. We got this,

484
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 2: and he takes all the evidence with them. He takes

485
00:29:38,560 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 2: the one bullet casing they find at the crime scene.

486
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 2: There's just one bullet casing, not a volley of bullets,

487
00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:48,520
Speaker 2: but one bullet casing. He takes it all, takes it

488
00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:52,480
Speaker 2: back to Westchester to his office, and sort of pushes

489
00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:56,600
Speaker 2: out the state troopers. Right, So whatever doubts or questions

490
00:29:56,600 --> 00:30:01,400
Speaker 2: they had didn't matter anymore because the DA and Warner

491
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:04,720
Speaker 2: we're going to be handling this. But the newspapers started

492
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 2: to explore more and more in finding all these discrepancies

493
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:12,040
Speaker 2: between what boards said and the crime scene itself. Right,

494
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:15,360
Speaker 2: this couldn't possibly have happened this way. The most important

495
00:30:15,360 --> 00:30:19,040
Speaker 2: discrepancy is how does how do you shoot Peters from

496
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:22,560
Speaker 2: your car? And he kind of falls back and lays

497
00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 2: out perfectly on the side of the road, as if

498
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:28,680
Speaker 2: an undertaker had put him there. You know, there's so

499
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 2: many obvious discrepancies that the press couldn't avoid asking questions

500
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:34,400
Speaker 2: about it.

501
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:36,960
Speaker 1: So when did the press get a hold of this

502
00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:41,000
Speaker 1: When we find out that Clarence is a pennyless sailor,

503
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 1: or when Walter Ward gets involved in the big Ward family.

504
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:47,760
Speaker 1: Because you know, I'm sure you concluded this too in

505
00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:50,800
Speaker 1: your book. Where I think the press really starts to

506
00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 1: pay attention and dig in is when it's the quote

507
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:57,280
Speaker 1: unquote unexpected victim, the person who's not supposed to be there,

508
00:30:57,360 --> 00:31:01,640
Speaker 1: but also quote unquote unexpected kill. You know, the data

509
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:04,120
Speaker 1: five who lives next door, who cuts your yard when

510
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:06,800
Speaker 1: you're sick, turns out to be a serial killer. Then

511
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:09,400
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the press is making up, you know,

512
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:11,840
Speaker 1: names and stuff for it. So is the is that

513
00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 1: the case here?

514
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:18,840
Speaker 2: Certainly, once Ward came forward, this wealthy family whose entire

515
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:26,800
Speaker 2: public and business image was purity and cleanliness. It's bread

516
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:31,560
Speaker 2: was pure, comes forward to confess to a murder, and

517
00:31:32,240 --> 00:31:37,440
Speaker 2: to confess to some secret that's so horrible that murder

518
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:40,520
Speaker 2: was better than revealing it. I can come forward and

519
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:42,240
Speaker 2: say I killed this man, but I'm not going to

520
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 2: tell you why. I'm not going to tell you what

521
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:47,959
Speaker 2: that secret was. Right. Once that happened, then the press

522
00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 2: was all over it. Then the press was really interested

523
00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:53,160
Speaker 2: in it because, as you said, right, it seemed like

524
00:31:53,200 --> 00:31:56,560
Speaker 2: an open and shut case. But what Ward's statement did

525
00:31:56,720 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 2: was open up this whole other can, which was what

526
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:04,200
Speaker 2: was the blackmail? What caused you to do it? You say,

527
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:06,960
Speaker 2: it's self defense, but how do we know it was

528
00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 2: self defense? Right? So that's where the press latched on.

529
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:16,160
Speaker 2: That's where hearst News American. That's where these newspapers really

530
00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 2: latched on to say, what's behind this murder, what's behind

531
00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:20,040
Speaker 2: this blackmail?

532
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:23,440
Speaker 1: Well, what is his family saying? They don't want any

533
00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:27,560
Speaker 1: of this to happen? Are they speculating about what this

534
00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:30,080
Speaker 1: secret is? Because I'm sure they just think this is

535
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:33,640
Speaker 1: insane that he confessed to something that it doesn't sound

536
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 1: like he was a part of.

537
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 2: So that is the other sort of fascinating element here.

538
00:32:40,280 --> 00:32:44,240
Speaker 2: Early on, the family really just clams up. George Ward,

539
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:47,720
Speaker 2: the head of Ward Baking, he leaves, he leaves town,

540
00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:51,680
Speaker 2: he leaves the state, and for various excuses. Right, oh,

541
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 2: I have a conference here. Oh I'm visiting my plants

542
00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 2: in Massadon in Pennsylvania. I'm visiting my plants in Ohio.

543
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:04,560
Speaker 2: George Ward stayed out of the state for the entire

544
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 2: time this was being investigated, for over sixteen months. He

545
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:12,840
Speaker 2: just traveled about and never came back to New York State.

546
00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 2: From all that we know, Beryl Walter Ward's wife was

547
00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:23,240
Speaker 2: at first very chatty with the press, and she was young,

548
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:26,640
Speaker 2: and she was you know again, she comes from a

549
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:29,920
Speaker 2: wealthy family. She was a socialite. She was very attractive.

550
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:33,240
Speaker 2: She's used to being in the press, in the society pages,

551
00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 2: and so when newspaper reporters came around, she thought, oh,

552
00:33:36,440 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 2: let me just talk to them, and she would say

553
00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:41,200
Speaker 2: things like, oh, well, I know everything about it, and

554
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:43,840
Speaker 2: if if I could just speak, I'm sure everyone would

555
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:50,840
Speaker 2: would be happy with the outcome. And quickly wards attorneys said, okay, no, no, no,

556
00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:54,720
Speaker 2: you can't talk anymore. Let's let's get Beryl away from

557
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:57,880
Speaker 2: the reporters and keep her in the house in New Roshell.

558
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:03,680
Speaker 2: So the the entire family kind of organize themselves around

559
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 2: ward to protect this secret as well. So there was

560
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:11,560
Speaker 2: really no one in the family who would speak out

561
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:16,520
Speaker 2: or speak forward other than to the statement that he gave.

562
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:19,960
Speaker 1: Do we find out conclusively what the secret was?

563
00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:24,920
Speaker 2: The mystery of the blackmail has many theories, and I

564
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:29,920
Speaker 2: tried to unpack all those theories through this book. To

565
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 2: this day, we don't know what is the right theory.

566
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:35,279
Speaker 2: I think one of them is the right theory that

567
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:37,080
Speaker 2: I lay out in the book, but we don't know

568
00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:40,120
Speaker 2: which one is the right theory. As soon as the

569
00:34:40,160 --> 00:34:44,279
Speaker 2: press got hold of this of the discrepancies here, it

570
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:46,840
Speaker 2: put a lot of pressure on the DA to start

571
00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:51,880
Speaker 2: really investigating, and so at the time his office didn't

572
00:34:51,880 --> 00:34:54,000
Speaker 2: have the manpower, even the Sheriff's office didn't have the

573
00:34:54,040 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 2: manpower to do this kind of investigation, which was not

574
00:34:57,280 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 2: only in Westchester but also went into New York City,

575
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:05,399
Speaker 2: went into the Bronx where Walter Ward office was. That's

576
00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:08,320
Speaker 2: where one of the major bread factories were in the Bronx.

577
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:11,759
Speaker 2: They had won in Brooklyn, so they had to hire detectives.

578
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 2: They hired an army of private detectives, mostly from Pinkerton's,

579
00:35:16,960 --> 00:35:20,880
Speaker 2: which you know, they're they're famous. Most of the research

580
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:23,960
Speaker 2: I was able to get to were all these detective

581
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:27,600
Speaker 2: reports from the Pinkertons and from another agency that they hired,

582
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:32,319
Speaker 2: a smaller agency located in Times Square, you know, And

583
00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:35,440
Speaker 2: there was just they were following every lead they came to,

584
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:41,400
Speaker 2: right And there was just a maze of leads and possibilities,

585
00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 2: some from disgruntled workers of the Wards, some from random

586
00:35:46,719 --> 00:35:50,200
Speaker 2: a bus boy in a restaurant in Midtown who claimed

587
00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:52,600
Speaker 2: a woman came in to ask him if he would

588
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 2: want to murder Walter Ward. It was just a real

589
00:35:57,719 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 2: net of information and leads that they were pursuing, most

590
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:05,560
Speaker 2: of which led nowhere, but there were sort of a

591
00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:08,880
Speaker 2: number of theories that would eventually develop.

592
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 1: Why would Walter confess to something that theoretically would never

593
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:17,680
Speaker 1: be connected to him? Why would he think that this

594
00:36:17,719 --> 00:36:22,000
Speaker 1: would be anything that he needed to be afraid of exactly?

595
00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:23,640
Speaker 2: That was a big question that I had as I

596
00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:27,920
Speaker 2: was researching initially, like why would you come forward? And

597
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:32,680
Speaker 2: what I thought, what I determined was he definitely did

598
00:36:32,680 --> 00:36:36,760
Speaker 2: not think about the underwear. He didn't think that Peters

599
00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:41,080
Speaker 2: was going to be identified, okay, And so once that happened,

600
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:45,680
Speaker 2: something in him or some fear in him, said, I

601
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:50,520
Speaker 2: will be linked to this. And so what that statement,

602
00:36:50,560 --> 00:36:53,000
Speaker 2: that three hundred and thirty one word statement did was

603
00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:57,160
Speaker 2: put him and his lawyers ahead of this story. Because

604
00:36:57,160 --> 00:37:00,000
Speaker 2: what happened was that statement. What then became the only

605
00:37:00,719 --> 00:37:04,799
Speaker 2: thing to disprove because they they made an effort to

606
00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:09,360
Speaker 2: find the other two blackmailers, Charlie Ross and Jack, a

607
00:37:09,520 --> 00:37:12,960
Speaker 2: very weak effort to find them, and they never do

608
00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:17,160
Speaker 2: find Charlie Ross and spoiler, they never do find Charlie

609
00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:17,759
Speaker 2: Ross and Jack.

610
00:37:18,080 --> 00:37:20,200
Speaker 1: Or were they real people? Could they even prove they

611
00:37:20,239 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 1: were real?

612
00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 2: That's the question. Were they even real people? Were they

613
00:37:23,120 --> 00:37:26,919
Speaker 2: even there, you know, you know, as one detective told

614
00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:30,839
Speaker 2: a newspaper reporter, the Lower east Side is filled with

615
00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:34,960
Speaker 2: Charlie Ross's and Jack's. You know, these were names that

616
00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:38,279
Speaker 2: petty criminals would just take on, the sort of indescript

617
00:37:38,560 --> 00:37:41,480
Speaker 2: names that were easy to hide in the game of

618
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:45,399
Speaker 2: grifting and so forth. So, because there was no witness,

619
00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:49,720
Speaker 2: we only had this statement. Ward knew that by putting

620
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:52,840
Speaker 2: the statement out, and his attorneys knew by putting the

621
00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:56,480
Speaker 2: statement out, they would have the narrative, they would have

622
00:37:56,520 --> 00:37:59,680
Speaker 2: the story, and then the prosecutors and everyone else would

623
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:02,840
Speaker 2: have to disprove that story. That became the problem.

624
00:38:03,520 --> 00:38:09,720
Speaker 1: So what do you think their involvement was? Clarence and Walter?

625
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:13,680
Speaker 1: They actually knew each other. He was actually scared that

626
00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:16,560
Speaker 1: Clarence was threatening him with something. I mean, was there

627
00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:18,600
Speaker 1: any kind of a relationship that could be proven?

628
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:24,560
Speaker 2: There were stories from some of the newspaper investigations in

629
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:28,320
Speaker 2: New York City. There were stories that Peters had traveled

630
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:32,279
Speaker 2: to New York City and knew Walter Ward from his

631
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:36,000
Speaker 2: encounters in New York City. One in particular, and again

632
00:38:36,040 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 2: this is coming from the Hearst publication. So grain of salt, Yes,

633
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:46,480
Speaker 2: always wanting the challenge with researching this kind of case

634
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:50,200
Speaker 2: as you're looking at the newspaper reports and you're going, Okay,

635
00:38:50,239 --> 00:38:55,080
Speaker 2: what's factual here? What is really a newspaper? Yeah, drumming

636
00:38:55,160 --> 00:39:00,360
Speaker 2: up sales, right, So I'm always having to guard against Okay,

637
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:03,160
Speaker 2: what what could be accurate here? But one story that

638
00:39:03,200 --> 00:39:09,920
Speaker 2: they did post was about this ex sailor who knew

639
00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:12,719
Speaker 2: Clarence Peters and used to hang out with him in

640
00:39:12,760 --> 00:39:16,840
Speaker 2: New York City, and Peters introduced him to a wealthy

641
00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:21,800
Speaker 2: man who lived in New Rochelle. And apparently the story

642
00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:26,239
Speaker 2: was that Ward had offered this guy money if he

643
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:29,440
Speaker 2: could work for him, right, And so there was a

644
00:39:29,640 --> 00:39:35,399
Speaker 2: thread here that Ward was somehow involved in using young

645
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:41,840
Speaker 2: men to blackmail other men, sexual blackmail of men in

646
00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:45,560
Speaker 2: the city, right, or that Ward might be somehow involved

647
00:39:45,640 --> 00:39:49,719
Speaker 2: in blackmailing not only men but women as well. So

648
00:39:50,520 --> 00:39:54,920
Speaker 2: there there is that kind of possible connection. Clarence Peters

649
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:57,120
Speaker 2: family says he never did that. He never went to

650
00:39:57,200 --> 00:39:59,440
Speaker 2: New York. He never did he was you know, he yes,

651
00:39:59,600 --> 00:40:02,120
Speaker 2: he stole bike, but no, he never he never did that.

652
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:05,279
Speaker 2: We would know, And I doubt that because I think

653
00:40:06,320 --> 00:40:09,640
Speaker 2: Clarence Peters was an ambitious and adventurous person, and I

654
00:40:09,640 --> 00:40:12,560
Speaker 2: think he wouldn't have told his parents. If he gathered

655
00:40:12,640 --> 00:40:15,880
Speaker 2: some cash together and spent a week or weekend in

656
00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:19,520
Speaker 2: New York, he probably wouldn't have told them. So there

657
00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:25,240
Speaker 2: are possibilities that Walter and Clarence knew each other before

658
00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:29,839
Speaker 2: that encounter. My sense is, so when you were discharged

659
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:33,600
Speaker 2: from the marine base in Paris, Island and you were

660
00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:37,280
Speaker 2: going north, which is where Peters was going, they only

661
00:40:37,320 --> 00:40:41,439
Speaker 2: got you a government issue ticket to Philadelphia. From there,

662
00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:44,360
Speaker 2: you're on your own. Not sure why. I never got

663
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:46,319
Speaker 2: a sense of like, why did the military just drop

664
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:46,880
Speaker 2: in Philly.

665
00:40:47,840 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 1: I wonder if it had like the most transportation options

666
00:40:50,719 --> 00:40:53,920
Speaker 1: going every which way possible or boat easy. I don't know,

667
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:57,760
Speaker 1: who knows true. Probably not out of convenience. I'm assuming

668
00:40:57,800 --> 00:41:00,000
Speaker 1: not going, oh, this would be great for you guys.

669
00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:01,760
Speaker 1: Must be some sort of group discount.

670
00:41:01,760 --> 00:41:05,640
Speaker 2: I don't know, right, no, exactly. So what a lot

671
00:41:05,719 --> 00:41:08,040
Speaker 2: of guys would do who are going to New York

672
00:41:08,120 --> 00:41:10,960
Speaker 2: or New England, they would just hitch hike their way

673
00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:15,920
Speaker 2: back home. And I think that's probably what happened to Clarence.

674
00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:20,760
Speaker 2: He got dropped off in Philadelphia. And he either knew

675
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:24,360
Speaker 2: he could get to New York or because he knew

676
00:41:24,600 --> 00:41:28,000
Speaker 2: he knew Walter Ward there, or he was pursuing Walter

677
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:32,680
Speaker 2: Ward there, or a more random possibility is that he

678
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:36,520
Speaker 2: was hitchhiking his way to New York and walter Ward

679
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:37,160
Speaker 2: picked him up.

680
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:40,440
Speaker 1: Are either of these men known to be gay in

681
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:41,280
Speaker 1: this time period?

682
00:41:41,640 --> 00:41:45,120
Speaker 2: Yes, and no. One of the first threads the private

683
00:41:45,160 --> 00:41:52,400
Speaker 2: detectives researched around Walter Ward was his sexuality, which I

684
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:57,279
Speaker 2: found was interesting. So they were asking his neighbors in

685
00:41:57,400 --> 00:42:02,040
Speaker 2: Sutton Manner do you think Walter Ward is a degenerate?

686
00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:06,359
Speaker 2: At one point they ask one of his colleagues in

687
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:09,640
Speaker 2: New Rochelle they say, do you think he's a cocksucker?

688
00:42:09,800 --> 00:42:12,240
Speaker 1: I didn't even know they had that phrase in nineteen

689
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:12,759
Speaker 1: twenty two.

690
00:42:13,160 --> 00:42:15,080
Speaker 2: There it is, It's in a Pinkerton report.

691
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:17,920
Speaker 1: And what do you think? What was the flag? Is

692
00:42:17,960 --> 00:42:21,600
Speaker 1: it like some affect stereotype thing or what do you think?

693
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:25,200
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. I mean I think that because of this,

694
00:42:25,640 --> 00:42:29,080
Speaker 2: because this relationship between this nineteen year old sailor and

695
00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:33,839
Speaker 2: this thirty one year old, wealthy, married business guy, I

696
00:42:33,840 --> 00:42:39,040
Speaker 2: think that class difference that was strange to the investigators,

697
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:43,719
Speaker 2: and what world would they have circulated to know each other? Right,

698
00:42:43,800 --> 00:42:48,160
Speaker 2: And so they imagine that that connection was somehow a

699
00:42:48,520 --> 00:42:50,960
Speaker 2: sexual or commercial of some sort.

700
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:53,120
Speaker 1: I would think it's some sort of criminal. I don't know.

701
00:42:53,120 --> 00:42:55,239
Speaker 1: If I would go there, I would think there's a

702
00:42:55,239 --> 00:42:58,279
Speaker 1: criminal enterprise happening, or he's a drug runner or something

703
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:00,640
Speaker 1: rum runner or anything like that. Sure I would have

704
00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:03,000
Speaker 1: gone there. What was it like to be gay in

705
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:05,120
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty two illegal?

706
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:08,600
Speaker 2: It was a felony. You could be sentenced to prison

707
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:14,799
Speaker 2: for years if you were caught. So, yes, it was.

708
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:19,160
Speaker 2: It was definitely something that if that was the secret

709
00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:23,280
Speaker 2: of the blackmail, that definitely would be something you wanted

710
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:26,640
Speaker 2: to keep quiet. It would have been better to say, yes,

711
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:29,280
Speaker 2: I am a gambler and I lost millions of dollars

712
00:43:29,760 --> 00:43:34,080
Speaker 2: and my family's in ruin. That was better than to say, yes,

713
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:35,319
Speaker 2: I have sex with men.

714
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:38,520
Speaker 1: When I talked to Paul Hols, you know, the forensic

715
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:40,919
Speaker 1: investigator on my other show about this kind of thing,

716
00:43:41,400 --> 00:43:44,480
Speaker 1: he'll say that he's encountered, and we have in history

717
00:43:45,040 --> 00:43:49,160
Speaker 1: encountered men who will They will cop to a murder,

718
00:43:49,640 --> 00:43:53,719
Speaker 1: but not to the sexual assault that police know they did.

719
00:43:53,960 --> 00:43:56,719
Speaker 1: In conjunction with the murder. And I always say why

720
00:43:56,800 --> 00:43:59,879
Speaker 1: is that? And he said, because it's not as socially acceptable.

721
00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:03,640
Speaker 1: So we've seen this before, that there are people who

722
00:44:03,680 --> 00:44:07,920
Speaker 1: have such a terrible secret to hide that it's less

723
00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:11,799
Speaker 1: about the morals of murder and more about just I mean,

724
00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:15,000
Speaker 1: dooming your family. And so it sounds like the family

725
00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:18,600
Speaker 1: if this is what happened, then the family would have known.

726
00:44:18,760 --> 00:44:20,880
Speaker 1: Surely the Ward family, right.

727
00:44:21,239 --> 00:44:24,240
Speaker 2: They might have. Right, they might have known of it.

728
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:26,480
Speaker 1: Because the dad took off. I mean, what kind of

729
00:44:26,480 --> 00:44:30,000
Speaker 1: reaction is that to leave and to abandon your son.

730
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:35,560
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, clearly his father knew something about this case

731
00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:39,759
Speaker 2: such that he could not be subpoenaed to testify. As

732
00:44:39,800 --> 00:44:43,400
Speaker 2: this rolled along and the grand jurys were convened in

733
00:44:43,440 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 2: that the father stayed far from any subpoena around that

734
00:44:47,280 --> 00:44:51,160
Speaker 2: and never actually did testify about what he might have known.

735
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:53,799
Speaker 2: I don't know how much the family knew, but they

736
00:44:53,880 --> 00:44:58,239
Speaker 2: might have known. Ward was a playboy. He was very

737
00:44:58,360 --> 00:45:03,880
Speaker 2: much of the era, right, And I think he worked

738
00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:07,040
Speaker 2: for his father's company, he worked for Ward Bakery, But

739
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:10,000
Speaker 2: really I think it was a figurehead kind of position.

740
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:12,960
Speaker 2: I don't think he had a lot of responsibilities. He

741
00:45:13,080 --> 00:45:16,920
Speaker 2: was not given a vice president position. His brother Ralph

742
00:45:17,040 --> 00:45:19,640
Speaker 2: was given a vice president position. He was a much

743
00:45:19,680 --> 00:45:24,080
Speaker 2: more stable and diligent son. Ward was a playboy. He

744
00:45:24,200 --> 00:45:25,600
Speaker 2: liked to gamble, he liked to drink.

745
00:45:25,680 --> 00:45:28,120
Speaker 1: Can you describe him as Gatsby? Basically?

746
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:32,480
Speaker 2: Yes, Yes. He could walk out of a Gatsby party

747
00:45:32,520 --> 00:45:36,279
Speaker 2: without a problem. For a brief time in nineteen twenty one,

748
00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:39,400
Speaker 2: he claimed to be a bachelor and he rented an

749
00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:42,880
Speaker 2: apartment on the Upper West Side. When his wife and

750
00:45:42,920 --> 00:45:47,839
Speaker 2: his children went on holiday for two months and he

751
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:50,439
Speaker 2: had parties and he had women, and he had drink,

752
00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:54,000
Speaker 2: he would have his own personal bootlegger come with large

753
00:45:54,080 --> 00:45:59,360
Speaker 2: trunks of gin and bring them into the apartment. Ward

754
00:45:59,719 --> 00:46:04,240
Speaker 2: told the dorman of the building, anytime this guy comes

755
00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:06,000
Speaker 2: by with his trunk, just let him in.

756
00:46:06,320 --> 00:46:10,440
Speaker 1: But no evidence from all of these parties that a

757
00:46:10,480 --> 00:46:13,600
Speaker 1: young man stayed behind when everybody else left.

758
00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:18,680
Speaker 2: No evidence of that. And there's extensive detective interviews with

759
00:46:18,800 --> 00:46:25,480
Speaker 2: the African American staff of this apartment building, really fascinating interviews.

760
00:46:25,520 --> 00:46:27,719
Speaker 2: And what I love about writing about crime is how

761
00:46:27,760 --> 00:46:30,839
Speaker 2: you get these windows into people's lives that would never

762
00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:34,600
Speaker 2: be in the historical record any other way except from

763
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:38,160
Speaker 2: these detective notes, right, and what they saw, what they witnessed,

764
00:46:38,200 --> 00:46:41,000
Speaker 2: and also who they were. But there was no evidence

765
00:46:41,239 --> 00:46:45,239
Speaker 2: at that point. The detectives did go to Boston, and

766
00:46:45,280 --> 00:46:50,200
Speaker 2: they were suspecting that when Peters was in the navy

767
00:46:50,320 --> 00:46:54,160
Speaker 2: there stationed that that's where he might have met Ord,

768
00:46:54,560 --> 00:46:58,880
Speaker 2: because Ward would go up to Boston apparently and frequent

769
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:02,400
Speaker 2: these all male parties that were held in these hotels.

770
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:06,480
Speaker 2: So the detectives interview the owner of the hotel, and

771
00:47:06,560 --> 00:47:09,680
Speaker 2: of course the owner of the hotel said, oh, no, no, no,

772
00:47:09,760 --> 00:47:11,640
Speaker 2: we don't have those kind of parties here. We don't

773
00:47:11,640 --> 00:47:14,600
Speaker 2: do that. No, no, no, that's not possible. But of course,

774
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:19,319
Speaker 2: who would admit to having an all male party in

775
00:47:19,360 --> 00:47:22,000
Speaker 2: your hotel when you're trying to attract you know, wealthy

776
00:47:22,120 --> 00:47:27,160
Speaker 2: elite clients. I mean, that's crazy. So there's all these

777
00:47:27,239 --> 00:47:32,440
Speaker 2: whiffs of possibilities. There's a young man, a neighbor of

778
00:47:32,520 --> 00:47:35,880
Speaker 2: Wards in Sutton Manner, about seventeen years old, who talked

779
00:47:35,880 --> 00:47:41,319
Speaker 2: to detectives and he told the detectives that he and

780
00:47:41,360 --> 00:47:45,680
Speaker 2: his friends knew that Walter Ward was a pervert, that

781
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:50,200
Speaker 2: he liked boys and I put a lot of credence

782
00:47:50,280 --> 00:47:54,000
Speaker 2: in that interview because there's no reason why that neighbor

783
00:47:54,080 --> 00:47:58,200
Speaker 2: needed to come forward and tell the detectives that. And

784
00:47:58,239 --> 00:48:01,120
Speaker 2: in fact, he was told by his family not to

785
00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:04,239
Speaker 2: talk to the detectives, like, don't talk to them, but

786
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:08,400
Speaker 2: he did anyways. So there's all these little hints and

787
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:13,160
Speaker 2: whiffs of possibility here that I feel like is undeniable.

788
00:48:13,680 --> 00:48:17,400
Speaker 2: There is this other individual that comes forward later in

789
00:48:17,440 --> 00:48:22,839
Speaker 2: the investigation who claims that he and Ward quote knew

790
00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:26,680
Speaker 2: all the faggots in New York City, right, And New

791
00:48:26,760 --> 00:48:29,719
Speaker 2: York Times publishes that on the front page of their newspaper.

792
00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:33,120
Speaker 2: But they have to at a clarifying phrase what a

793
00:48:33,200 --> 00:48:37,759
Speaker 2: faggot means because it was a very new term. I

794
00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:41,600
Speaker 2: think it's a very colloquial term that most people wouldn't know.

795
00:48:42,160 --> 00:48:45,960
Speaker 2: So there's again all these little hints that the relationship

796
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:49,920
Speaker 2: between Peters and Ward might have that sexual undertone.

797
00:48:50,360 --> 00:48:53,320
Speaker 1: Well, tell me the rest of the story. He goes

798
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 1: for manslaughter, is that right?

799
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:58,760
Speaker 2: So eventually, yes, you know, he pays that ten thousand

800
00:48:58,800 --> 00:49:01,600
Speaker 2: dollars bail, and then the press comes out and this says,

801
00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:05,759
Speaker 2: that's crazy. There's so many discrepancies, Judge, you just let

802
00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:07,920
Speaker 2: this guy go, and so there's a lot of pressure

803
00:49:08,200 --> 00:49:12,400
Speaker 2: on the DA. They rearrest him, they charge him with

804
00:49:12,920 --> 00:49:18,320
Speaker 2: manslaughter and a fifty thousand dollars bail, but it lingers

805
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:21,879
Speaker 2: for months through the summer of nineteen twenty two, all

806
00:49:21,920 --> 00:49:24,680
Speaker 2: the way through the fall of nineteen twenty two. It

807
00:49:24,840 --> 00:49:28,640
Speaker 2: just lingers, and the DA never brings the case forward

808
00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:33,040
Speaker 2: to trial. In the meantime, Ward spends a long time

809
00:49:33,080 --> 00:49:35,720
Speaker 2: in the Westchester County Jail and what's called the luxury

810
00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:39,080
Speaker 2: room for their wealthy clients. That's more like a hotel

811
00:49:39,160 --> 00:49:42,120
Speaker 2: room with a nice bed and a sofa, and he

812
00:49:42,280 --> 00:49:45,719
Speaker 2: orders all of his meals out from local restaurants, and this,

813
00:49:45,760 --> 00:49:48,799
Speaker 2: of course fans the flames. Right. So by the end

814
00:49:48,840 --> 00:49:51,960
Speaker 2: of nineteen twenty two, there's no movement in the case

815
00:49:52,480 --> 00:49:56,279
Speaker 2: because the DA can't find any legitimate evidence to disprove

816
00:49:56,640 --> 00:49:57,800
Speaker 2: Walter ward statement.

817
00:49:58,120 --> 00:49:59,760
Speaker 1: He's up the crime scene.

818
00:50:00,560 --> 00:50:04,799
Speaker 2: Except the crime scene right, which again still I guess

819
00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:06,200
Speaker 2: he felt it wasn't enough.

820
00:50:06,320 --> 00:50:09,640
Speaker 1: They don't have a weapon or anything like that exactly.

821
00:50:09,760 --> 00:50:12,440
Speaker 2: So in the fall of nineteen twenty two, it's an

822
00:50:12,440 --> 00:50:16,160
Speaker 2: election year. The governor, who is a Republican is voted

823
00:50:16,200 --> 00:50:21,600
Speaker 2: out of office and Al Smith, Populist is voted in

824
00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:25,040
Speaker 2: for a second term from he was governor earlier and

825
00:50:25,080 --> 00:50:28,399
Speaker 2: then lost and came back and took another term. Al

826
00:50:28,480 --> 00:50:32,840
Speaker 2: Smith born on the Lower east Side, working class immigrant family.

827
00:50:33,560 --> 00:50:37,760
Speaker 2: He becomes this sort of voice that the Peters family

828
00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:41,560
Speaker 2: is hoping will take this case on the state level

829
00:50:41,760 --> 00:50:45,240
Speaker 2: and really investigate it. Because the question was the DA's

830
00:50:45,280 --> 00:50:49,919
Speaker 2: office in Westchester's two immersed in the Republican Party, they

831
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:53,879
Speaker 2: were not interested in making really any progress on this.

832
00:50:54,400 --> 00:50:58,280
Speaker 2: It became an election issue. One of the reasons why

833
00:50:58,800 --> 00:51:01,440
Speaker 2: the Democrats won big in New York State in that

834
00:51:01,520 --> 00:51:05,800
Speaker 2: election is because this case was seen as evidence of

835
00:51:05,880 --> 00:51:09,839
Speaker 2: Republican corruption, that they were trying to cover up this

836
00:51:10,280 --> 00:51:14,640
Speaker 2: murder and trying to accommodate a wealthy a wealthy family.

837
00:51:14,719 --> 00:51:18,719
Speaker 2: So that really changed once there was a new DA

838
00:51:18,760 --> 00:51:23,080
Speaker 2: because Frederick Weeks decided not to run again for DA,

839
00:51:23,320 --> 00:51:25,720
Speaker 2: there was a new DA in place, and he dropped

840
00:51:25,719 --> 00:51:29,200
Speaker 2: the case and the judge dismissed the case in January

841
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:34,120
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty three, and Walter Ward walked free. So that,

842
00:51:34,280 --> 00:51:36,800
Speaker 2: of course didn't sit well with a lot of people.

843
00:51:37,520 --> 00:51:41,319
Speaker 2: Most notably the New York Daily News editor, who had

844
00:51:41,360 --> 00:51:44,840
Speaker 2: been pretty vocal on this case from the start. But

845
00:51:45,000 --> 00:51:49,680
Speaker 2: once it was dismissed, that's when the editor, Joseph Patterson

846
00:51:50,040 --> 00:51:53,040
Speaker 2: really took on the case and made it a cause

847
00:51:53,160 --> 00:51:57,839
Speaker 2: for his newspaper to bring Walter Ward to justice and

848
00:51:57,880 --> 00:52:03,040
Speaker 2: to find some justice for the Peters family. And he

849
00:52:03,160 --> 00:52:07,480
Speaker 2: knew that Al Smith in the Governor's office, could you

850
00:52:07,840 --> 00:52:11,320
Speaker 2: make that happen? Right? He knew that al Smith was

851
00:52:11,440 --> 00:52:15,320
Speaker 2: very sympathetic to this case and sympathetic to Ana's Peters.

852
00:52:15,600 --> 00:52:19,120
Speaker 2: And so as Peters, with her lawyer, travels to Albany,

853
00:52:19,920 --> 00:52:23,120
Speaker 2: her neighbors put together a few dollars for her to

854
00:52:23,160 --> 00:52:25,520
Speaker 2: take a train to Albany and go meet with the

855
00:52:25,520 --> 00:52:30,040
Speaker 2: governor and plead her case. You need to open this

856
00:52:30,160 --> 00:52:33,440
Speaker 2: case on the state level and get me justice. And

857
00:52:33,480 --> 00:52:36,560
Speaker 2: that ultimately does happen. The governor does ultimately open it up,

858
00:52:36,840 --> 00:52:41,200
Speaker 2: and there is in the state Attorney General, the first

859
00:52:41,719 --> 00:52:44,560
Speaker 2: Jewish man to hold that office in New York State,

860
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:48,239
Speaker 2: who was elected in nineteen twenty two, moves forward with

861
00:52:48,280 --> 00:52:50,280
Speaker 2: a case against Walter Ward.

862
00:52:50,760 --> 00:52:53,480
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, well, can you tell us if there was

863
00:52:53,640 --> 00:52:56,040
Speaker 1: justice served or sort of justice or not at all.

864
00:52:56,440 --> 00:52:59,399
Speaker 2: Yes and no. This is what's the fascinating. So there

865
00:52:59,440 --> 00:53:02,080
Speaker 2: is a jury trial, and a little side note. The

866
00:53:02,120 --> 00:53:06,160
Speaker 2: jury trial here is fascinating because the biggest crowd of

867
00:53:06,200 --> 00:53:10,160
Speaker 2: people who came to this trial were women. The newspapers

868
00:53:10,200 --> 00:53:11,920
Speaker 2: called them murder fans.

869
00:53:11,960 --> 00:53:12,560
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.

870
00:53:12,600 --> 00:53:16,840
Speaker 2: They would stand outside the courthouse and really jockey for

871
00:53:16,920 --> 00:53:19,520
Speaker 2: the best seats in the courtroom. It was a kind

872
00:53:19,520 --> 00:53:22,080
Speaker 2: of a small courtroom. They would bring their knitting, they

873
00:53:22,120 --> 00:53:24,400
Speaker 2: would bring their lunch so they didn't lose their seat.

874
00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:28,719
Speaker 2: At one point they were angered because they didn't think

875
00:53:28,840 --> 00:53:32,040
Speaker 2: the bailiffs were giving them the best seats, and so

876
00:53:32,080 --> 00:53:36,359
Speaker 2: they started to shout, we want our rights, we want

877
00:53:36,360 --> 00:53:40,600
Speaker 2: our rights to have the best seats in the courtroom.

878
00:53:41,080 --> 00:53:44,080
Speaker 2: Many of these women, I think were just really enamored

879
00:53:44,320 --> 00:53:49,920
Speaker 2: with Ward and Burrell. So they bring the case to trial.

880
00:53:50,680 --> 00:53:55,239
Speaker 2: Ward offers nothing, no defense other than his three hundred

881
00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:58,719
Speaker 2: and thirty one word statement. The state offers up a

882
00:53:58,840 --> 00:54:03,600
Speaker 2: number of witnesses to point to the discrepancies at the

883
00:54:03,600 --> 00:54:07,200
Speaker 2: crime scene. But there's no new evidence and there's nothing

884
00:54:07,280 --> 00:54:11,920
Speaker 2: really powerful to discount Wards statement, and so the jury

885
00:54:11,960 --> 00:54:14,160
Speaker 2: finds him not guilty.

886
00:54:14,600 --> 00:54:16,719
Speaker 1: How does everything turn out for him. Do they just

887
00:54:16,920 --> 00:54:20,160
Speaker 1: live to a ripe, happy old age and they've got

888
00:54:20,160 --> 00:54:22,839
Speaker 1: these kids and all of that is monky.

889
00:54:22,480 --> 00:54:25,279
Speaker 2: Dory, you would think. But the one thing that is

890
00:54:25,320 --> 00:54:30,200
Speaker 2: really fascinating so key towards defense was that he jumped

891
00:54:30,200 --> 00:54:32,680
Speaker 2: back in his car and he drove back home, got

892
00:54:32,680 --> 00:54:35,320
Speaker 2: home around four am in the morning, and that's where

893
00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:38,720
Speaker 2: Beryl was waiting for him, right and Barrel always stated, yes,

894
00:54:39,040 --> 00:54:41,480
Speaker 2: I was there when he came home. About a year

895
00:54:41,600 --> 00:54:45,800
Speaker 2: or so after his acquittal, Ward goes missing. His cars

896
00:54:45,840 --> 00:54:50,000
Speaker 2: found in Philadelphia again, Philadelphia for some reason, and there's

897
00:54:50,040 --> 00:54:53,000
Speaker 2: a big man hunt wears Walter Ward for about six months.

898
00:54:53,239 --> 00:54:56,800
Speaker 2: We don't know where he is. He turns up in Havana, Cuba,

899
00:54:57,120 --> 00:55:01,840
Speaker 2: where his father had already stepped down as president of

900
00:55:01,880 --> 00:55:05,440
Speaker 2: the company of the bakery and opened a kind of

901
00:55:05,440 --> 00:55:09,680
Speaker 2: a farm of some sort down in Cuba. So Ward

902
00:55:09,719 --> 00:55:13,880
Speaker 2: basically fled with his father down to Cuba and lived

903
00:55:13,960 --> 00:55:16,680
Speaker 2: the rest of his life there. Beryl, on the other hand,

904
00:55:17,160 --> 00:55:20,239
Speaker 2: left alone with two kids. She was like, Okay, that's it.

905
00:55:20,280 --> 00:55:23,520
Speaker 2: I'm going to Reno and I'm getting a divorce. So

906
00:55:23,560 --> 00:55:25,640
Speaker 2: she gets a divorce and about a week later she

907
00:55:25,719 --> 00:55:30,520
Speaker 2: marries a Wall Street investor whoa okay, Beryl fascinating, right.

908
00:55:30,760 --> 00:55:34,360
Speaker 2: So she comes back from Reno and the last interview

909
00:55:34,400 --> 00:55:38,440
Speaker 2: she gives is with the local newspaper, and she says,

910
00:55:38,760 --> 00:55:42,640
Speaker 2: I wish no ill will on Walter Ward. I want

911
00:55:42,760 --> 00:55:45,960
Speaker 2: nothing to do with him anymore, though, and then she said,

912
00:55:46,080 --> 00:55:48,680
Speaker 2: I just want to clarify one thing. I was never

913
00:55:48,760 --> 00:55:50,400
Speaker 2: there when he came home.

914
00:55:50,719 --> 00:55:53,560
Speaker 1: Here goes, you're alibi, and it's too like he's already

915
00:55:53,600 --> 00:55:54,439
Speaker 1: in Cuba.

916
00:55:54,200 --> 00:55:58,400
Speaker 2: Right wow. And so I do tell in the epilogue

917
00:55:58,440 --> 00:56:02,080
Speaker 2: that different characters here what happened to them in the end.

918
00:56:02,400 --> 00:56:05,400
Speaker 2: But definitely, you know, the twist and turns of the

919
00:56:05,480 --> 00:56:09,200
Speaker 2: story seemed unending for me. Yeah, in researching and writing

920
00:56:09,239 --> 00:56:12,000
Speaker 2: it and just trying to piece together all the parts

921
00:56:12,080 --> 00:56:15,840
Speaker 2: of this of this saga really as it as it unfolded.

922
00:56:16,320 --> 00:56:18,960
Speaker 1: Well, just to wrap this up, Arthur Conan Doyle, the

923
00:56:19,360 --> 00:56:22,319
Speaker 1: author of Sherlock Holmes you know, said that this was

924
00:56:22,520 --> 00:56:26,080
Speaker 1: such a great mystery and that he would start digging

925
00:56:26,160 --> 00:56:30,080
Speaker 1: into the Ward family because it's so you know, fascinating,

926
00:56:30,080 --> 00:56:32,320
Speaker 1: all of the different layers and the way people react

927
00:56:32,360 --> 00:56:36,240
Speaker 1: and everything. And this book really, even though it sounds

928
00:56:36,239 --> 00:56:38,280
Speaker 1: like there are a lot of unanswered questions. I feel

929
00:56:38,280 --> 00:56:40,440
Speaker 1: like there's so much kind of evidence around that you

930
00:56:40,480 --> 00:56:43,840
Speaker 1: can kind of piece together logically, logical people, not the

931
00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:47,080
Speaker 1: sheriff and not the DA but logical people can put

932
00:56:47,080 --> 00:56:49,560
Speaker 1: together a lot of the pieces. And you know, in

933
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:51,719
Speaker 1: a way, you don't have all of your answers, But

934
00:56:52,760 --> 00:56:55,799
Speaker 1: you know, did you feel like by the end you

935
00:56:55,840 --> 00:56:58,919
Speaker 1: were ready to leave this book? Because I'm pretty sure

936
00:56:58,960 --> 00:57:02,280
Speaker 1: you could probably look at newspapers, dot com or wherever

937
00:57:02,320 --> 00:57:04,560
Speaker 1: you were and all the archives forever and ever to

938
00:57:04,600 --> 00:57:07,479
Speaker 1: try to solve this case that's literally one hundred years old.

939
00:57:07,800 --> 00:57:10,200
Speaker 1: Were you able to stop and say, I got to

940
00:57:10,200 --> 00:57:11,320
Speaker 1: be down with Walter Ward.

941
00:57:11,640 --> 00:57:15,360
Speaker 2: Yes, there is a never ending story kind of quality

942
00:57:15,440 --> 00:57:18,680
Speaker 2: here wherein I think that I'm going to come across

943
00:57:18,720 --> 00:57:22,640
Speaker 2: some information that has been buried somewhere, or someone's going

944
00:57:22,680 --> 00:57:25,400
Speaker 2: to come out and say, oh wait, I have this

945
00:57:25,520 --> 00:57:30,080
Speaker 2: letter here somewhere right. And there definitely was a point

946
00:57:30,120 --> 00:57:34,200
Speaker 2: where I wanted to wrap this up in a way

947
00:57:34,320 --> 00:57:39,520
Speaker 2: that gave readers all of the known evidence. As you said, logically,

948
00:57:39,680 --> 00:57:42,200
Speaker 2: sort of present all the known evidence, and I want

949
00:57:42,200 --> 00:57:45,400
Speaker 2: it readers to kind of piece it themselves. Really, I mean,

950
00:57:45,440 --> 00:57:47,680
Speaker 2: I do offer some insights at the end, but I

951
00:57:47,720 --> 00:57:50,440
Speaker 2: want it readers to also see these different theories and

952
00:57:50,480 --> 00:57:52,920
Speaker 2: see what makes sense to them, because there is a

953
00:57:52,920 --> 00:57:56,960
Speaker 2: lot of evidence here, but nothing that conclusively draws to

954
00:57:57,080 --> 00:57:59,760
Speaker 2: what really happened on that road in Westchester.

955
00:58:11,720 --> 00:58:14,600
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the

956
00:58:14,640 --> 00:58:17,680
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Sinners, All Bow, The

957
00:58:17,720 --> 00:58:20,920
Speaker 1: Ghost Club, All That Is Wicked, and American Sherlock and

958
00:58:21,000 --> 00:58:24,240
Speaker 1: Don't Forget. There are twelve seasons of my historical true

959
00:58:24,240 --> 00:58:28,760
Speaker 1: crime podcast, tenfold More Wicked right here in this podcast feed,

960
00:58:29,040 --> 00:58:31,760
Speaker 1: scroll back and give them a listen if you haven't already.

961
00:58:32,160 --> 00:58:35,680
Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer

962
00:58:35,760 --> 00:58:40,160
Speaker 1: is Alexis a Morosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.

963
00:58:40,520 --> 00:58:44,120
Speaker 1: This episode was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is

964
00:58:44,160 --> 00:58:49,160
Speaker 1: our composer, artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark,

965
00:58:49,320 --> 00:58:53,360
Speaker 1: Karen Kilgariff and Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram

966
00:58:53,400 --> 00:58:56,960
Speaker 1: and Facebook at tenfold More Wicked and on Twitter at

967
00:58:57,000 --> 00:58:59,600
Speaker 1: tenfold More. And if you know of a historical crime

968
00:58:59,600 --> 00:59:01,760
Speaker 1: that could give you some attention from the crew at

969
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Speaker 1: tenfold More Wicked. Email us at info at tenfoldmore Wicked

970
00:59:06,200 --> 00:59:09,280
Speaker 1: dot com. We'll also take your suggestions for true crime

971
00:59:09,360 --> 00:59:10,920
Speaker 1: authors for Wicked Words