Speaker 1: Diversion audio.
Speaker 2: A note this episode contains mature content and quite graphic
Speaker 2: descriptions of violence that may be disturbing for some listeners.
Speaker 2: I mean it, y'all this episode especially, please take care
Speaker 2: and listening. Dolores Lynch lived in a two story, pink brick,
Speaker 2: fourteen bedroom and four and a half bath country house
Speaker 2: outside of Louisville, Kentucky. It was on four and a
Speaker 2: half acres. She had lived there with her husband until
Speaker 2: his death eight months ago. Now she lived there by herself,
Speaker 2: except for when her Janie visited.
Speaker 1: Every weekend up from university.
Speaker 2: Janie was thirty nine, but she and her mother were close,
Speaker 2: too close, some of her friends thought, and Janie's boyfriends
Speaker 2: definitely thought so. None of them were good enough for Janie,
Speaker 2: just like none of Dolores's son's girlfriends.
Speaker 1: Were good enough for Tom.
Speaker 2: Dolores's friends knew that the Lynches could afford help around
Speaker 2: the house, but Delores mowed her own four acre lawn,
Speaker 2: and when her longtime housekeeper and friend went up on
Speaker 2: her rates, Delores let her go. She was the type
Speaker 2: of person to clean behind the housekeeper anyway, Even though
Speaker 2: she was rich, Delores didn't act like it. She had
Speaker 2: grown up in the Great Depression, and it showed through
Speaker 2: her frugality. She mashed old bars of soap together, and
Speaker 2: she bought all her clothes secondhand.
Speaker 1: But she wasn't humble.
Speaker 2: Dolores was vocally conservative and very judgmental. People liked her
Speaker 2: adult children, Sweet Jane and all American Tom, and Delores
Speaker 2: thought no one was good enough.
Speaker 1: For either of them.
Speaker 2: Although she mothered some kids in her neighborhood, she made
Speaker 2: enemies of others. She threatened to shoot a neighbor's dog
Speaker 2: if it pooped on her lawn. Again, when it did,
Speaker 2: she shot the dog, not fatally, but still she shot
Speaker 2: her neighbor's dog. She also popped out of her front
Speaker 2: hedges when a horseback rider happened to pass in front,
Speaker 2: taking photos as if he was trespassing, which she wasn't.
Speaker 2: Delores was also quite paranoid. Her security alarms were always set,
Speaker 2: and when she left the house she took the phone
Speaker 2: off the hook so no one could call to.
Speaker 1: See if she was home.
Speaker 2: In short, Dolores was the type to ask to see
Speaker 2: the manager, and she was very resentful of her.
Speaker 1: Husband when he was alive.
Speaker 2: It's probably part of what drove him to the alcoholism
Speaker 2: that eventually ended his life. Dolores very seldom missed church.
Speaker 2: On this day, July twenty second, nineteen eighty four, she
Speaker 2: left the pew with her friend Marjorie, chit chatted with
Speaker 2: her frenemies on the way to the car, and then
Speaker 2: said she had to leave because Janie would be coming
Speaker 2: home with their Sunday doughnuts soon. Her friend Susan called
Speaker 2: that evening, and the next morning. She even called Tuesday
Speaker 2: morning without reaching her. Susan didn't need anything in particular,
Speaker 2: but she thought it odd when the phone rang and rang.
Speaker 2: After work, Susan decided she would just drop by and
Speaker 2: make sure Dolores was all right. She brought her dog
Speaker 2: just to visit, but when Susan pulled in to the
Speaker 2: long driveway, she saw all three family cars in the driveway,
Speaker 2: and then when she topped the hill, she saw Dolores's
Speaker 2: body lying at the garage door. Later, one of Janey's
Speaker 2: ex boyfriends would tell police.
Speaker 1: Dolores was a pain in the ass.
Speaker 2: She was the kind of person you'd invite to leave,
Speaker 2: then take an aspirin and sit down to rest for
Speaker 2: an hour or two. But you know, shooting her in
Speaker 2: the head is a bit extreme. Welcome to the greatest
Speaker 2: true crime stories ever told. I'm Mary Kay mcbraer. Today's
Speaker 2: episode we're calling Family Betrayal the Susie Newsome Lynch Story.
Speaker 2: It's the story of Susie Newsom Lynch and it has
Speaker 2: everything you'd expect from a Southern Gothic tale. Aristocratic families,
Speaker 2: old South, racism, paranoia, a feud, and of course murder.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you all about it after this quick break.
Speaker 2: Normally I try to empathize with pretty much all our characters,
Speaker 2: especially the protagonists, but listeners, I need y'all to know
Speaker 2: I can't stand any of these people. I'm clearly from
Speaker 2: the South, and there's nothing more annoying about the South
Speaker 2: than old money. Because the thing is there might really
Speaker 2: ain't that old, because the South ain't really that old.
Speaker 2: There's a kind of new money that's only a couple
Speaker 2: generations old, too, like the kind that makes people not
Speaker 2: know how to act with actual old money. There's the
Speaker 2: dignity of the noblesse of Liege. It's the reason why
Speaker 2: Lord Grantham on Downton Abbey isn't an asshole to his servants.
Speaker 2: He's got nothing to prove he's rich and his family
Speaker 2: probably has been rich since before Hadrian's Wall. But new money,
Speaker 2: this type, it's.
Speaker 1: The most annoying.
Speaker 2: People wave it around like it's an indication of their goodness,
Speaker 2: but without doing anything good with it.
Speaker 1: Let me give you an example.
Speaker 2: In my hometown, there was a private school. Generally, when
Speaker 2: you think about private schools, you'd think that the education
Speaker 2: would be better, the teachers would have masters and doctorates,
Speaker 2: and the curriculum would be so tight that everyone graduates
Speaker 2: and everyone gets into top tier colleges.
Speaker 1: But not this school.
Speaker 2: This school was actually inside a megachurch. There were no
Speaker 2: honors or ap offerings, and grades were inflated. Actually, there
Speaker 2: were no entrance exams or qualifications. You literally just bought
Speaker 2: your way in into a lesser education. But among elitists,
Speaker 2: I cannot abide this shit, and I really couldn't abide
Speaker 2: the attitude that those kids thought they were better than
Speaker 2: we lowly public school kids who graduated high school with
Speaker 2: a year of college credits just because their parents had
Speaker 2: money and they thought it was important to show that
Speaker 2: they had money in that weird flex which made the
Speaker 2: kids mostly insufferable. I mean, like you didn't earn that money.
Speaker 2: Your daddy did put him on the phone. Also, no
Speaker 2: one cares about your money, at least I don't. Maybe
Speaker 2: other people with money care about whether you have money,
Speaker 2: but the rest of us are busy. Granted, not all
Speaker 2: the kids were evil or rotten, of course, and a
Speaker 2: few of them went there instead of going to the
Speaker 2: reform school. They got expelled to, which was an interesting dynamic,
Speaker 2: But that was the general attitude, and anyone who came
Speaker 2: out of there without their nose and the air was
Speaker 2: kind of an anomaly. So that's the class of people
Speaker 2: we're dealing with in this story.
Speaker 1: And again, to be.
Speaker 2: Fair, being well off does not necessarily make someone evil
Speaker 2: or bad or wrong. It's the holier inou attitude because
Speaker 2: of the money, not because of any sincere altruism that
Speaker 2: makes these folks so gross to me. I don't like
Speaker 2: any of them, not the victims, not the predators. But
Speaker 2: I'm still going to try to be fair because they
Speaker 2: do deserve that. I mentioned in the cold Open that
Speaker 2: Dolores was resentful of her husband, Chuck, and that was
Speaker 2: a gross understatement.
Speaker 1: She hated him.
Speaker 2: Chuck had been a big deal at ge and because
Speaker 2: he loved his work so much and it was a
Speaker 2: good job. He had to relocate several times across the states.
Speaker 2: They were originally from Pennsylvania, but they lived all over,
Speaker 2: from New York to New Jersey, Washington, d c. To Maryland,
Speaker 2: Chicago to Louisville. That's when he retired and Delores swore
Speaker 2: she would never move again. She took every chance she
Speaker 2: could to belittle her husband in front of her friends,
Speaker 2: even cooking for him horrible combinations like green beans and
Speaker 2: scrambled eggs. She often said I wish he'd die. When
Speaker 2: her friend said, surely you don't mean that, Dolores doubled down.
Speaker 2: Her maid, Helen said he never walked out the door,
Speaker 2: that she didn't wish him dead. None of their friends
Speaker 2: understood why they never divorced. One friend said he seemed
Speaker 2: like a moral guy. I think he considered this was
Speaker 2: his payback for the suffering he inflicted on Dolores. It
Speaker 2: seems like Chuck felt he was atoning from making her
Speaker 2: move so many times, a sort of she was miserable before,
Speaker 2: so I'll be miserable now mentality. He started drinking to cope,
Speaker 2: and then she called him a worthless drunk Chuck said
Speaker 2: she's a good woman personally, I don't see it. She
Speaker 2: may have been a moral person, but even the people
Speaker 2: who knew her best said she was irritated by everything.
Speaker 2: But by the time Chuck died, Dolores begrudgingly called the
Speaker 2: police when she couldn't find his pulse as he lay
Speaker 2: on the floor in front of the TV. She was
Speaker 2: an empty nester, it is, until Janie moved back east.
Speaker 2: Janie had already earned two degrees, and she'd been studying
Speaker 2: dental work in Santa Monica, California for a while before
Speaker 2: deciding to return to Kentucky. Janie was sweet and really pretty,
Speaker 2: and she had no problems finding boyfriends, but her boyfriends
Speaker 2: did have trouble appeasing her mother, and Dolores was overbearing.
Speaker 2: Janie took it all in stride, but I have to
Speaker 2: think it affected her somehow, since even though she'd been
Speaker 2: engaged several times, she always begged off when it came
Speaker 2: down to the real commitment. Such was the case with
Speaker 2: her boyfriend Phil. They were very much in love at
Speaker 2: the University of Louisville School of Dentistry, despite that she
Speaker 2: was fourteen years older than he. Phil actually had thought
Speaker 2: she was joking when she told him her age, but
Speaker 2: she wasn't. After Phil had asked her to meet his parents,
Speaker 2: Janie got spooped, at least I think she did. That's
Speaker 2: why she didn't go on the trip to meet them. Instead.
Speaker 2: Dolores's son, Tom, Jane's brother, was supposed to visit the
Speaker 2: family in Kentucky in just a few days, and Janie
Speaker 2: would be home for that. Tom Lynch had moved to
Speaker 2: Albuquerque with his first wife in nineteen seventy. She was
Speaker 2: two years older than he was when he proposed. After
Speaker 2: he graduated, Tom was twenty two when they made the move,
Speaker 2: and he started his dental practice in New Mexico. Since then,
Speaker 2: his practice had been steadily growing, and he didn't mind
Speaker 2: that in New Mexico no one cared about his pedigree.
Speaker 2: Tom was actually in New Mexico just leaving work when
Speaker 2: he learned the news. Officer Steve Nobles was the one
Speaker 2: who responded to Susan's police call. He didn't notice anything
Speaker 2: amiss at the Lynch house until he got out of
Speaker 2: the car. That's when the smell hit him and he
Speaker 2: saw the body laid out by the garage. Steve realized
Speaker 2: he was exposed, and he took cover until his backup
Speaker 2: arrived just a few minutes later. His first thought while
Speaker 2: he waited was that the daughter might have killed her
Speaker 2: mother and could still be in the house. Officer Steve
Speaker 2: Swinney knew the Lynches, though, and he was familiar with
Speaker 2: the house too. He'd investigated Chuck's death a few months earlier.
Speaker 2: Now they both approached the body of his wife. She
Speaker 2: lay on her left side. Jerry Bledsoe says in his book,
Speaker 2: the top of her head and the left side of
Speaker 2: her face were gone. The hot sun had blackened the
Speaker 2: remains of her head, which squirmed with maggots and was
Speaker 2: swarmed by flies and ants, the most grotesque sight those
Speaker 2: police officers had ever seen, but they had to move on.
Speaker 2: A third officer arrived. As they rounded the back of
Speaker 2: the house, the officers saw a bullet hole in the
Speaker 2: gutter drain at the end of the house. When they
Speaker 2: slid open the unlocked storm door, two tiny, hungry dogs
Speaker 2: yapped at them. They saw two drops of blood by
Speaker 2: the counter, next to the telephone. The house was big,
Speaker 2: but mismatched in decorps, and the officers crept down the hallway,
Speaker 2: pushing open doors until they came to Janie's room. Her
Speaker 2: purse and jewelry box had been dumped onto the bed.
Speaker 2: Jannie lay face down in the sun room. She was barefoot,
Speaker 2: and she had curlers in her hair. Them had been
Speaker 2: driven into her skull by the second bullet. The first
Speaker 2: was lodged in her right shoulder blade. The police continued
Speaker 2: to secure the house, then they called in the mobile
Speaker 2: evidence lab. They knew this would be a difficult case
Speaker 2: to solve. It was two white women in a wealthy neighborhood,
Speaker 2: days after the murder, and the trail had gone cold.
Speaker 2: The state Police Department had to be called in. This
Speaker 2: one was no match for Oldham County. It was just
Speaker 2: an hour after the murders made the news in Louisville
Speaker 2: when a volunteer minister at the Albuquerque Police Department came
Speaker 2: to notify Tom Lynch. Tom was rushing to meet his wife, Kathy,
Speaker 2: and his sons from his first marriage at the movies.
Speaker 2: The chaplain said he had bad news. His mother and
Speaker 2: sister had been killed. Tom assumed it was a car,
Speaker 2: the chaplain said otherwise. Still in shock, Tom drove to
Speaker 2: the movie theater to round up his family. His wife
Speaker 2: was shocked. His eight year old Jim asked, well, Daddy,
Speaker 2: who shot him? Oh? Tom didn't know what would make
Speaker 2: a child ask that, but he was right, and they
Speaker 2: didn't know who had killed them. Just one day before
Speaker 2: he was scheduled to go see his mother in Louisville,
Speaker 2: Tom touched down at the airport. The police met him
Speaker 2: at the airport and they drove him to the station.
Speaker 2: Tom looked devastated, but they still had to question him.
Speaker 2: Detective Dan Davidson offered his condolences and then asked basic questions.
Speaker 2: When was the last time they talked? Had she expressed
Speaker 2: any fears? And after they got the preliminary questions out
Speaker 2: of the way, the policeman said, doctor, to be quite
Speaker 2: candid with you, I don't know if you realize this,
Speaker 2: and Tom replied, I think I know what you're gonna say.
Speaker 2: I'm the sole heir. I think you'd be negligent if
Speaker 2: you didn't look at that possibility too. Tom agreed to
Speaker 2: take a polygraph test. This is elimination, a detective said.
Speaker 2: The detectives asked him about his financial condition. Tom said
Speaker 2: that he'd been practicing for eight years and he made
Speaker 2: about one hundred and twenty thousand a year. He had
Speaker 2: some bills, a nice house, two cars, an ira, and
Speaker 2: a little money in the bank. And then he added
Speaker 2: that he paid five hundred dollars a month in child support.
Speaker 2: After the polygraph, the detectives turned to one another and agreed.
Speaker 2: Even though the polygraph proved inconclusive, Tom was tense and upset.
Speaker 2: They didn't think that Tom Lynch did it, So who did?
Speaker 2: We'll take a closer look after the break. Tom Lynch
Speaker 2: met his first wife when he was in college at
Speaker 2: wake Forest University in Winston Salem, North Carolina. When he
Speaker 2: was a freshman. He was a basketball player, and they
Speaker 2: struck up a conversation at the library. Susie Newsom had
Speaker 2: transferred to this private school in her hometown of Winston
Speaker 2: Salem from another small, expensive private girls' school, Queen's College.
Speaker 2: She hadn't liked it much there because the girls were frivolous.
Speaker 2: They were almost all wealthy, but they weren't what she
Speaker 2: thought of as good families. She thought you didn't have
Speaker 2: to be wealthy to be good. She felt there was
Speaker 2: such a thing as listen to this shit genteel poverty?
Speaker 2: Is that not the most condescending thing you've ever heard. Anyway,
Speaker 2: Susie was drawn to Tom because he looked wholesome and
Speaker 2: he was medically ambitious. She had always liked doctors, but
Speaker 2: she hated hippies, war protesters, and civil rights activists. This
Speaker 2: was nineteen sixty eight and she was in college, and
Speaker 2: she strongly supported the war in Vietnam. She was also
Speaker 2: a sorority sweetheart, which is a title that still makes
Speaker 2: no damn sense to me. So when she met Dolores,
Speaker 2: it didn't go great. It didn't go well at all.
Speaker 2: They immediately disliked each other. Delores didn't like when someone
Speaker 2: looked down on her origins. Susie was a privileged kid,
Speaker 2: and she absolutely looked down on Dolores for her hard
Speaker 2: scrabble upbringing. Tom didn't know of any actual conflict during
Speaker 2: the meeting, but afterward, Susie told her family that Dolores
Speaker 2: was quote overbearing and domineering, and Dolores told her friend
Speaker 2: that Susie was quote snooty and pretentious.
Speaker 1: And both of them were right.
Speaker 2: It's not that uncommon for there to be drama between
Speaker 2: mother and daughter in law. Delores and Susie were both
Speaker 2: bull headed about bossing Tom around. They didn't want to
Speaker 2: get along. They both wanted to win. Obviously, Susie won,
Speaker 2: daughters in law always do. At least she won Tom.
Speaker 2: They got married in nineteen seventy, right after Tom's graduation.
Speaker 2: Even though Dolores did everything she could to try to
Speaker 2: dissuade him. She said she had a gut feeling that
Speaker 2: made her dislike Susie, even after she had tried to
Speaker 2: get close to her. I don't know what trying to
Speaker 2: get close to her looked like, but it didn't work.
Speaker 2: They moved to the University of Kentucky and Lexington to
Speaker 2: complete dental school. Dolores tried to be friendly, but her
Speaker 2: friendly looked like surprise.
Speaker 1: Visits and doting on Tom.
Speaker 2: And I can't blame Susie for being annoyed that there
Speaker 2: is absolutely no reason why anyone should drop by your
Speaker 2: house unannounced. Ever, it is the most rude thing you
Speaker 2: can do, vipecially when telephones exist and there are small
Speaker 2: napping children involved, and soon there were. Susie had John
Speaker 2: Wesley in nineteen seventy four and then James Thomas in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six, and then they moved to New Mexico
Speaker 2: for Tom to open his own dental practice.
Speaker 1: Susie didn't like New Mexico.
Speaker 2: More specifically, she didn't like that people there didn't already
Speaker 2: know who she was, and they didn't respect her out
Speaker 2: of habit At Christmas of nineteen seventy eight, Susie brought
Speaker 2: the boys home to Winston Salem on her own. Tom
Speaker 2: stayed behind with no explanation. While she was home, Susie
Speaker 2: often complained about Dolores, but it wasn't just the normal
Speaker 2: pest type complaints of her dropping in or being overbearing.
Speaker 2: Susie said quote she's mean and evil. When she returned,
Speaker 2: Susie said that it might be better for everyone if
Speaker 2: she took the boys back home for good. Susie was
Speaker 2: unhappy in Albuquerque and apparently unhappy in her marriage as well.
Speaker 2: Tom resisted for a while he didn't want to lose
Speaker 2: his sons. Susie favored Jim the younger boy big time.
Speaker 2: She thought Jim was more like her. Really, he just
Speaker 2: looked more like her. He was laid back and relaxed
Speaker 2: like Tom. So John, the child who acted more like Susie,
Speaker 2: sad and withdrawn, was the one who was punished more naturally.
Speaker 2: He acted out this unfairness in tantrums and destroying his things.
Speaker 2: But by the following spring of nineteen seventy nine, Jim
Speaker 2: displayed behavioral concerns too. He put objects in his eyes,
Speaker 2: and then one day Tom came home from work and
Speaker 2: John was holding his arm in a weird way. As
Speaker 2: soon as he took off the boy's shirt, he could
Speaker 2: see the arm was broken. John said he fell off
Speaker 2: the bed at his babysitter's home, but that was a lie.
Speaker 2: The babysitter's husband worked nights and he slept all day.
Speaker 2: They never played on the bed there, and both boys
Speaker 2: had bedwetting problems, which is another sign of abuse, so
Speaker 2: the sitter had palettes fixed for them on the floor
Speaker 2: just in case. The babysitter said she saw injuries on
Speaker 2: the boys all the time, like bruises and bloody noses.
Speaker 2: One day, Jim showed up with red eyes, which not
Speaker 2: unusual for him, and then she saw that Jim had
Speaker 2: a big, mushy lump on the side of his head.
Speaker 2: He didn't get to the doctor until Tom came home
Speaker 2: from work and Tom saw the three year old's eyes
Speaker 2: were starting to blacken. The doctors suspected something wasn't right,
Speaker 2: especially after they diagnosed Jim with a mild concussion. The
Speaker 2: nurses strongly suggested it might not have been an accident.
Speaker 2: Both parents were pretty offended at the implied accusation, but
Speaker 2: especially Susie. Nothing came of it. There were no further
Speaker 2: investigations by child services. Susie and Tom separated soon after,
Speaker 2: and while it was not hard for Tom to say
Speaker 2: goodbye to Susie at this point, it was hard for
Speaker 2: him to say goodbye to his two little boys. Susie
Speaker 2: took them with her back to Winston Salem. In the divorce,
Speaker 2: Tom got two weeks summer vacation. That wasn't enough. He
Speaker 2: wanted more visitation, but Susie denied him that. I just
Speaker 2: want to note he's not suing her for custody, not
Speaker 2: even partial custody. Tom just wanted more visitation, like four
Speaker 2: weeks instead of two, and not even necessarily all at
Speaker 2: the same time. It wasn't a lot to ask, but
Speaker 2: Susie wouldn't have it. Instead, she tried to keep the
Speaker 2: boys away from Tom completely. She took them with her
Speaker 2: to Taiwan for a year while she was studying Chinese.
Speaker 2: At one point, Tom didn't see John and Jim for
Speaker 2: two years. Not only is that some evil shit, but
Speaker 2: it's completely unnecessary and the reason why Susie was keeping
Speaker 2: the kids from him is even more disturbing. She thought
Speaker 2: Tom was a drug dealer with a mafia connection. To recap,
Speaker 2: Tom was a dentist. That's it. It might be just
Speaker 2: my personal opinion, but it seems to me like there
Speaker 2: might have been some jealousy at play. Tom had married
Speaker 2: his dental hygienist, Kathy after he and Susie divorced, and
Speaker 2: I say it might have been jealousy because John and
Speaker 2: Jim really liked Kathy. When a child psychologist asked them
Speaker 2: about it, they said they felt even more comfortable with
Speaker 2: Kathy than their own dad, although they felt good around
Speaker 2: him too. Remember, it was Kathy who had taken the
Speaker 2: boys to the movies when Tom got the news that
Speaker 2: his family had been murdered, So the boys happened to
Speaker 2: be on that two week visitation with Tom when his
Speaker 2: family died. He actually asked Susie to extend their visitation
Speaker 2: just by a few days, but of course she declined
Speaker 2: she was going camping. Tom thought that was weird. Susie
Speaker 2: going camping, but he had other concerns.
Speaker 1: He was back in.
Speaker 2: Louisville for the arrangements when he received a bouquet of
Speaker 2: flowers from his former in laws, Susie's parents. Tom felt
Speaker 2: like that opened a line of communication. So after a
Speaker 2: few interactions, Tom asked Bob, that's his former father in law,
Speaker 2: if he would be willing to testify in the custody hearing.
Speaker 2: Bob agreed to do it.
Speaker 1: Again.
Speaker 2: Tom was just asking for more visitation, not full custody,
Speaker 2: not even joint custody, just more visitation. It shouldn't have
Speaker 2: been all that surprising that Bob agreed to testify on
Speaker 2: Tom's behalf, but I imagine it felt pretty relieving to Tom. Besides,
Speaker 2: Bob had noticed the kids were acting weird. Tom had
Speaker 2: noticed it too. First was their appearance. They were so pale,
Speaker 2: they had deep circles under their eyes, and the plaque
Speaker 2: build up on their teeth was egregious, especially I'm guessing
Speaker 2: to Tom as a dentist.
Speaker 1: But John and Jim.
Speaker 2: Were also behaving weirdly. They talked mostly to each other,
Speaker 2: they didn't say much about their mother, and they seemed
Speaker 2: to check themselves when they.
Speaker 1: Were about to speak about her.
Speaker 2: Plus, over the course of the stay, each of them
Speaker 2: had accidentally called Tom Papa a handful of times. And
Speaker 2: if Bob had noticed the kids were acting weird, it
Speaker 2: was nothing compared to how weird Susie was acting. I'll
Speaker 2: tell you all about it after the break. When Susie
Speaker 2: and Tom had divorced in nineteen seventy nine, Susie moved
Speaker 2: back to Winston Salem, back in with her parents. She
Speaker 2: wasn't feeling right. Susie chose to go to doctor Fred Klinner.
Speaker 2: Fred was her uncle, and depending on whom you asked,
Speaker 2: he was either a man treating patients at the end
Speaker 2: of the line with cutting edge experimental vitamin treatments or
Speaker 2: a complete crackpot mad scientist. If you want to know
Speaker 2: my opinion on doctor Fred Klinner, well let me just
Speaker 2: describe his practice for you. Firstly, his practice was on
Speaker 2: the second floor above a drug store in an old
Speaker 2: building in downtown Reidsville, up a steep wooden staircase. Plaster
Speaker 2: crumbled from the rain stained walls. Doors led to separate
Speaker 2: segregated waiting rooms in the nineteen eighties. In the waiting rooms,
Speaker 2: the magazines were for gun aficionados, stuff like tracts from
Speaker 2: the White Citizens' Councils, Christian Crusades, pamphlets about how integration
Speaker 2: was a Communist plot, that FDR was a trader, and
Speaker 2: how women's rights were sacrilegious. He was a first generation
Speaker 2: American from Austria, and his whole family had been Nazi sympathizers,
Speaker 2: claiming to date that Adolph Hitler was misunderstood on.
Speaker 1: This side of the pond.
Speaker 2: He was also a Civil War buff who claimed the
Speaker 2: wrong side had won the war, and he spoke favorably
Speaker 2: of the KKK. I'm not sure I personally would have
Speaker 2: even made it up the staircase, let alone into the
Speaker 2: hallway to wonder which waiting room I was supposed to enter,
Speaker 2: since I'm not really black or white. But people with
Speaker 2: progressed neurological disorders, people who had already been told by
Speaker 2: multiple doctors that there was no hope for them, I
Speaker 2: can imagine that they would overlook a lot on the
Speaker 2: off chance of a miracle. It's actually really strange to
Speaker 2: me how much educated people can overlook. Not only did
Speaker 2: Susie go to Fred for treatment, but her family encouraged
Speaker 2: it because they were family listeners, do y'all overlook this
Speaker 2: kind of thing in favor of your family? I get
Speaker 2: that to a degree, you have to, like not cause
Speaker 2: a scene at Thanksgiving at a stupid political comment or whatever.
Speaker 2: And I understand that a certain amount of loyalty in
Speaker 2: like getting your roof replaced by your brother rather than
Speaker 2: a rando, but only if they're good at their job, right,
Speaker 2: or if it's very low stakes. But this didn't seem
Speaker 2: low stakes. Fred was a doctor, but he was not
Speaker 2: a neurologist. Actual neurological doctors almost always disagreed with Fred's diagnoses,
Speaker 2: so his success rate was flawed because basically, it's easy
Speaker 2: to cure someone of a disease they never had. So
Speaker 2: when he diagnosed Susie with multiple sclerosis, he treated her
Speaker 2: with vitamin C injections and she started to feel better.
Speaker 2: Vitamin C will do that. It will give you more energy.
Speaker 2: Susie had more energy, and Fred claimed that the vitamin
Speaker 2: C was helping her multiple sclerosis. Listeners, I don't know
Speaker 2: a lot about MS, but I know it's a chronic
Speaker 2: condition that's hard to diagnose. A lot of tests happen
Speaker 2: before you can secure that diagnosis, like MRIs blood tests,
Speaker 2: even spinal taps. And while some symptoms of IT might
Speaker 2: be treated with vitamins, vitamin C is not a cure
Speaker 2: for that neurological disease. There is no cure for MS.
Speaker 2: Most doctors try to slow its progression. Much of the
Speaker 2: treatment addresses attacks. So when Fred pronounced Susie cured of
Speaker 2: a disease that only he confirmed even existed, I should
Speaker 2: tell you too that Fred's son, Fritz, worked at the clinic.
Speaker 2: Fritz is Susie's first cousin, and the whole family thinks
Speaker 2: he's weird. He prowls around at night, he's too enthralled
Speaker 2: with guns and in Susie didn't know him well when
Speaker 2: she was growing up, and she had barely seen him
Speaker 2: in years now, though they were both going through a divorce,
Speaker 2: he started pecking around Susie's parents' house a lot, spending
Speaker 2: time with her. Fritz was also not a doctor. The
Speaker 2: family thought he was in medical school, but he wasn't.
Speaker 1: He was a fraud.
Speaker 2: He just helped his dad out and lied to everyone
Speaker 2: about his medical studies. Fritz was actually pretty obsessed with
Speaker 2: his dad, like wanted to be him. He would sign
Speaker 2: Fred Klinner on forms that were addressed to him and stuff.
Speaker 1: It was a weird relationship.
Speaker 2: Susie's mom, Florence, also thought Fritz's relationship with Susie was weird.
Speaker 2: She thought they were getting too close, and Florence confronted
Speaker 2: Susie about having a romantic relationship with Fritz. Susie was irate,
Speaker 2: so upset that she left the house with the boys
Speaker 2: and rented an apartment for the three of them. After that,
Speaker 2: Susie's parents and siblings didn't see them all that much.
Speaker 2: They wanted to, but Susie kept them away. When the
Speaker 2: boys showed up to visit, their appearance was shocking. They
Speaker 2: had sallow skin and deep circles under their eyes. They
Speaker 2: showed up with bags and bags of vitamins and supplements,
Speaker 2: which Tom threw away. How could he know what was
Speaker 2: in those pills?
Speaker 1: Really?
Speaker 2: Dolores had been willing to testify at the custody hearing
Speaker 2: on Tom's behalf, and now his former father in law
Speaker 2: was ready to testify for Tom too. And as for
Speaker 2: Susie and the kids in her new apartment, well, she
Speaker 2: felt much safer there now that Fritz had moved in.
Speaker 1: Join me.
Speaker 2: Next week on the greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told
Speaker 2: For our second episode of three on Susie Newsom Lynch
Speaker 2: and the Southern Gothic tale of aristocratic families, Old South, racism, paranoia,
Speaker 2: a feud, and of course murder, I'd like to shout
Speaker 2: out a few key sources that made it possible for
Speaker 2: me to tell this week's story, especially Jerry Bledsoe's book
Speaker 2: Bitter Blood and the episode of Southern Fried Homicide about
Speaker 2: this case. The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told is
Speaker 2: a production of Diversion Audio. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer, and
Speaker 2: I hosted this episode. Also wrote this episode. Our show
Speaker 2: is produced by Emma Dumouth and edited by Antonio Enriquez.
Speaker 2: Theme music by Tyler Cash. Executive producer Scott Waxman