Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
Speaker 1: last twenty five years writing about true crime.
Speaker 2: And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
Speaker 2: worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 1: Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
Speaker 1: compelling true crimes.
Speaker 2: And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
Speaker 2: new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 1: Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
Speaker 1: cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 2: Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1: This is Buried Bones.
Speaker 2: Bay, Kate. How are you doing?
Speaker 1: I'm doing great, Paul. I wonder if there's anything different
Speaker 1: about me that you're noticing.
Speaker 2: Well, your hair is different, very good.
Speaker 1: What's different about it? Do you think?
Speaker 2: Well, you're you've got it brushed back.
Speaker 1: Okay, hold on, I'll make it clear.
Speaker 2: Is it shorter? Is it curly?
Speaker 1: Curly? Yes? I am a girl with curls, and I
Speaker 1: straighten my hair on special occasions. I et bery bones
Speaker 1: and some book events. But I am definitely naturally curly,
Speaker 1: like one of my kids is. So I would like
Speaker 1: to say, Officially, I wanted to try something new, different look,
Speaker 1: just see, you know, spice things up. Unofficially, I didn't
Speaker 1: feel like straightening my hair.
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is you just just natural Kate today, right?
Speaker 1: I mean, well, I mean I did some stuff, but
Speaker 1: normally I have a you know, I mean I've got
Speaker 1: my glasses on. Normally, I'm mean I have a ponytail going.
Speaker 1: So this is a little different. So we'll have to see.
Speaker 1: I don't want to take a pole or anything, but
Speaker 1: I might go back and forth unless unless there's like
Speaker 1: a mass objection trend that happens, which I don't think
Speaker 1: it will.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you look great, thank you.
Speaker 1: And I also want my kid to know the one
Speaker 1: who has a real gosh, he has gorgeous long, curly hair.
Speaker 1: I want heard it know that. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: always when I go fancy, sometimes the curls are the
Speaker 1: way to go, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 1: Is this the same haircut you've always had high school everything?
Speaker 1: And don't joke about your thinning hair thing? Hair is fine.
Speaker 1: I know men are sensitive, but I mean, have you
Speaker 1: ever changed up your look very much?
Speaker 2: No? You know, it's definitely different than when I was
Speaker 2: in high school, you know, back in the eighties, kind
Speaker 2: of the feathered back hair style for you know, the
Speaker 2: guys was in and so I had a part of
Speaker 2: down the middle and feathered back. And I also had
Speaker 2: a mustache in high school throughout high school, which when
Speaker 2: I look back at my yearbook photos, I was like,
Speaker 2: what the hell were you thinking, Paul, But you know,
Speaker 2: it is what it is. Basically, when I went to
Speaker 2: the Police Academy in nineteen ninety four, you know, I
Speaker 2: was working in law enforcement, and though I could have
Speaker 2: worn my hair differently pretty much, it was always just short.
Speaker 2: You talk about the thinning hair, you know. At one
Speaker 2: point when I noticed I was my hair was thinning,
Speaker 2: I decided, you know, I'll just do the shave at
Speaker 2: bro and I did a really close buzz cut. And
Speaker 2: I remember coming home and my wife and my oldest
Speaker 2: daughter they both looked at me. They saw my haircut,
Speaker 2: and in essence they both started to dry heave because
Speaker 2: I looked horrible. I'm not one of those guys that
Speaker 2: can be bald and look good. Unfortunately they started to heave. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but right now, my hair is probably the longest it's
Speaker 2: been in a quarter century. To be frank. Really, I'm
Speaker 2: growing it out a little little bit, and that way
Speaker 2: I can next time I get it cut, you know,
Speaker 2: I'll give the you know, the the barber some options.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'll change my look up, maybe I'll shave it
Speaker 2: off you. I'll stay tuned.
Speaker 1: You should talk to your wife and your daughter before
Speaker 1: you do anything. Clearly demoid any trauma. Alexis our producers
Speaker 1: tiny med eval, and she thinks we both need to
Speaker 1: give her our high school photos for social media.
Speaker 2: Like a senior yearbook photo or the feather back where
Speaker 2: you're talking.
Speaker 1: Yes, the Miami vice, I think is probably what it is.
Speaker 2: I've got my eyearbooks right up right across the room
Speaker 2: from me. I can you know, scan something and get
Speaker 2: it to Alexis if that's what she's asking for. And
Speaker 2: I don't have a problem with that.
Speaker 1: We pretty much always do what Alexis asks us to do,
Speaker 1: so I think we're going to have to do that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, listen, I was.
Speaker 1: I was not always at my best in high school either,
Speaker 1: and I can't remember. I have a bunch of my friends.
Speaker 1: I have a group of seven girlfriends who are my
Speaker 1: best friends. From a couple of them, Tina and Angie
Speaker 1: starting from middle school, so for a gazillion years, and
Speaker 1: we always look at high school yearbook stuff and make
Speaker 1: fun of ourselves. So I'm not always at my best
Speaker 1: in high school. But the whole point is that in
Speaker 1: high school I wore my hair down. I never wore
Speaker 1: it as a ponytail. And I don't know when I started,
Speaker 1: probably the mom thing when I was just like, I'm
Speaker 1: either going to tear my hair out or I have
Speaker 1: to put in a ponytail.
Speaker 2: So keep it easy right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we'll see how this goes. I mean, don't
Speaker 1: be surprised if I go back to my normal straightened hair,
Speaker 1: because I do wear it curly so often. But you know,
Speaker 1: I like to change stuff up and you know all that.
Speaker 1: So there you go.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll stay on top of you.
Speaker 1: How's that? That's the I think the key ingredient to
Speaker 1: any relationship is you're always kind of throwing curveballs at
Speaker 1: your person, you know, kind of like, well what do
Speaker 1: you think about this? So there we go.
Speaker 2: Keep it exciting, right.
Speaker 1: Well, I think we'll say right now talking about keeping
Speaker 1: and exciting, that's where we're going. This is the furthest
Speaker 1: back we've been I would have to say in quite
Speaker 1: a while, we're in Civil War era when we talk
Speaker 1: about this story, which as it unfolds, real history geeks
Speaker 1: might recognize, you know, where we're going with this, So
Speaker 1: we will see what you think.
Speaker 2: That sounds good.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's set the scene. Get ready for a history lesson,
Speaker 1: mister Paul Holes. I'm game, and we are actually going
Speaker 1: to be in your state. We're going to Colorado. Oh
Speaker 1: so it's actually not even Colorado the state yet, it's
Speaker 1: Colorado Territory. Do you know much about Colorado history, just
Speaker 1: as far as establishing borders and all of that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. Who was there before?
Speaker 2: No, you know, I don't think I know anything. I
Speaker 2: actually know Texas better because I had to. I did
Speaker 2: seventh grade in Texas, and at least at the time
Speaker 2: I went to school seventh grade, you had to have
Speaker 2: go through Texas history.
Speaker 1: And what a history. Okay, let's start with we're going
Speaker 1: to Colorado and we are in March of eighteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: smack in the middle of the Civil War. The Civil
Speaker 1: War doesn't have anything to do with it, but you know,
Speaker 1: you have to think about how much the country's expanding
Speaker 1: at this point. You know, there's the wars happening. There
Speaker 1: are people divided in not only states and cities and
Speaker 1: families really over you know who they should side with.
Speaker 1: So in Colorado Territory, officially its union, but very very
Speaker 1: very divided. And I think part of that has to
Speaker 1: do with the history. So I tried to really streamline this.
Speaker 1: Ali did a great job, one of our researchers. Ali
Speaker 1: did a great job giving me a ton of history,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to streamline it because I just thought
Speaker 1: you were just going to jump off a bridge or
Speaker 1: something like three pages of history, which I adore. So, Okay,
Speaker 1: we are in now Colorado Territory. We're in the southernmost portion,
Speaker 1: which is called the San Louis Valley. Are you familiar
Speaker 1: with that area at all? I don't know Colorado very
Speaker 1: well as far as geography goes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm fairly sure that probably on my way out
Speaker 2: to Telluride, I went down south and then went west
Speaker 2: to get out to Telluride, and San Luis Valley sounds familiar.
Speaker 2: It's either that or I had consulted with Wichita, Texas
Speaker 2: authorities and had driven back from Wichita Falls and came
Speaker 2: up through New Mexico and then the southern part of
Speaker 2: southeast part of Colorado, and so maybe that's also where
Speaker 2: what I'm thinking of.
Speaker 1: My experience with Colorado honestly is pretty much confined to Denver,
Speaker 1: a little bit of skiing, and then I went to
Speaker 1: Colorado City, I think is where I went to. So
Speaker 1: the people who live in the Colorado Territory, this area
Speaker 1: used to be Mexican citizens because it was with Mexico
Speaker 1: twenty years earlier than it became New Mexico. So when
Speaker 1: the property ownership happened with Mexico, you have all of
Speaker 1: these people who have different plots of land. That's the ownership.
Speaker 1: These plots of land go back for generations. When the
Speaker 1: area becomes New Mexico, then you know there's no deeds
Speaker 1: or paperwork really to back it up, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to matter because culturally New Mexico was really aligned
Speaker 1: with the people of Mexico, so there were no problems.
Speaker 1: You see where I'm heading here, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: discontent when we have a new population come in. So
Speaker 1: before this new population comes in, the residents mostly live
Speaker 1: in what's called plazas. These are small adobe villages that
Speaker 1: house a couple of different families. When this part of
Speaker 1: the area, the southern part of the area of what
Speaker 1: is now Colorado becomes a part of the territory, so
Speaker 1: you know, New Mexico gives it up, or it's taken
Speaker 1: from New Mexico and it's made into this new boundary.
Speaker 1: This happens in eighteen sixty. So there had been a
Speaker 1: gold rush, which I probably you know, I always think
Speaker 1: about the California gold Rush, but this is a Colorado
Speaker 1: gold rush. Do you know much about that?
Speaker 2: Well, I wouldn't say I know a lot about the
Speaker 2: history of the gold rush. But one of the areas
Speaker 2: that I go with my jeep because I live on
Speaker 2: the side of Cheyenne Mountain and within ten minutes I
Speaker 2: can be on the back side of that mountain. And
Speaker 2: there is a road, old stage road that snakes its
Speaker 2: way through the mountains out to Cripple Creek, which is
Speaker 2: where there's this huge mine. And this road used to
Speaker 2: be railroad, and I believe it was for the you know,
Speaker 2: the metals that were being mined out of that mine,
Speaker 2: and some of that I believe was gold, or at
Speaker 2: least there was, you know, one of the one of
Speaker 2: the roads out there is a gold camp road, so
Speaker 2: I'm sure gold was being mined out just on the
Speaker 2: other side of the mountain from where I live.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I, like I said, did not know that
Speaker 1: there was a big gold rush in Colorado. There was.
Speaker 1: There are an awful lot of white set flooding the area.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to have problems in that part of
Speaker 1: the territory. You have people who were Mexican residents who
Speaker 1: are now residents of Colorado, and you have white settlers
Speaker 1: coming and taking away land. And so there's one of
Speaker 1: the conflicts. And you know, the other thing is then
Speaker 1: they're saying, these people who were in this territory, they
Speaker 1: have not moved, it's the boundary that's moved. When they
Speaker 1: were in New Mexico, everybody left them alone. When they
Speaker 1: became a part of the Colorado territory, it was much
Speaker 1: more inclined culturally towards the white settlers. And so this
Speaker 1: is where they're not getting any protection, and this is
Speaker 1: where we're having some issues. And all of this is,
Speaker 1: you know, part of this story. So are you following me?
Speaker 2: I'm following you. Yeah, you know, I'm I'm just you know,
Speaker 2: I'm starting to key in on you know, motives for crime.
Speaker 1: Now what is this? This is for me, I would
Speaker 1: call this historical context, right, but as an investigator, it's
Speaker 1: not victimology. What would this be called? Where you need
Speaker 1: to know is this a high crime area or there
Speaker 1: was a riot here, you know, two years ago and
Speaker 1: it might be pertinent. What is there a phrase for that?
Speaker 2: Well, there is a discipline that's environmental criminology, and this
Speaker 2: is how the environment and possibly even the social economic
Speaker 2: aspects within that environment influence criminality. And so now when
Speaker 2: you start talking about Colorado Territory, you're having different people
Speaker 2: coming in and you know, the occupants that have been
Speaker 2: there had a certain lifestyle, and now that lifestyle is
Speaker 2: being influenced and there's going to be conflict that is developing.
Speaker 2: And some of that conflict is developing over the environment
Speaker 2: and what's within the environment, what's within the geography in
Speaker 2: the area. Now, this is on with what you're talking about,
Speaker 2: it's on a much bigger scale. Typically, when I'm going
Speaker 2: into a town or a city and I'm looking at
Speaker 2: a case, I'm wanting to know about, Okay, what is
Speaker 2: this neighborhood like, especially if it was forty years ago
Speaker 2: on a cold case. What was it like then? And
Speaker 2: so that's where I'm starting to take a look at
Speaker 2: what the environment was in which the crime occurred.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we know the environment. It's tension filled, and
Speaker 1: there are an awful lot of former Mexican citizens who
Speaker 1: are saying our land is being taken by white settlers
Speaker 1: and they're not getting kind of any backup from anybody
Speaker 1: who's in leadership with the Colorado Territory. So here's where
Speaker 1: we begin. We'll talk about several things, and you're going
Speaker 1: to ask details, and I probably am not going to
Speaker 1: have the details, but you know, we'll see kind of
Speaker 1: how this unfolds. Just be very understanding if I can't
Speaker 1: answer some of your questions. And no, we're definitely going
Speaker 1: in a particular direction. Okay, Okay, could I be any
Speaker 1: more cryptic? Do you want me to be more cryptic
Speaker 1: than that's pretty cryptic, Kate.
Speaker 2: I'm so used to it now, Kate, I just roll
Speaker 2: with the punches.
Speaker 1: This is to happen, but it might not happen, but
Speaker 1: we'll see. I'll let you know in thirty minutes that's
Speaker 1: gonna happen. That would drive me crazy. Okay. So this
Speaker 1: is March eighteenth eighteen sixty three, and there's a guy
Speaker 1: named Franklin William Bruce, and he has a house that
Speaker 1: is near Canyon City and he owns a saw mill. Okay,
Speaker 1: it sounds like Canyon City in the eighteen sixties, of course,
Speaker 1: like much of the territory would have been farmland, and
Speaker 1: now we have these sawmills. So Franklin is leaving Canyon
Speaker 1: City to go to the sawmill that he owns, which
Speaker 1: is about twelve miles away. So he gets on a
Speaker 1: horse drawn wagon. We're in that era. So Franklin had
Speaker 1: moved to Colorado from Wisconsin about three years earlier, when
Speaker 1: a lot of other people came for the Gold Rush.
Speaker 1: He was a prospector and now he's pivoted to farming
Speaker 1: and selling lumber from his sawmill. He's in his fifties
Speaker 1: and he has a wife named Ruth and four children.
Speaker 1: And there are a couple of kids who old enough
Speaker 1: to work in the sawmill. I will say, boy, that
Speaker 1: could be almost any age if they could hold a
Speaker 1: piece of wood, that would have been a kid who
Speaker 1: could work in a saw mill. So child labor laws
Speaker 1: and everything else, we don't have a great idea of
Speaker 1: the range of the ages of these kids, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't come too much into play. Okay, Franklin's log cabin
Speaker 1: is twelve miles away. He gets on the horse and
Speaker 1: wagon and goes. Sometime later that day, the horses come
Speaker 1: back to the house pulling an empty wagon. I know
Speaker 1: that this is a kind of a question, sort of
Speaker 1: out of left field. But how do they know? I mean,
Speaker 1: how do they know not to stay? Are they looking
Speaker 1: for food? What is happening? Twelve miles that's a long way.
Speaker 2: Well, I think some of our listeners probably have expertise
Speaker 2: with horses. This is I think it's always amazing, you know,
Speaker 2: these types of stories like family dog goes missing and
Speaker 2: then you know they move and you know, years later
Speaker 2: the dog all of a sudden shows up at the
Speaker 2: new locate. How do these animals do that? You know?
Speaker 2: So I just yeah, I think, you know, it's interesting
Speaker 2: with the horses, obviously, it's like, well, we'res Franklin, Bruce,
Speaker 2: you know what happened? Why? You know, why aren't these
Speaker 2: horses tied up at the sawmill? Sounds like something bad
Speaker 2: happened to Franklin and route to the saw mill. But again,
Speaker 2: the horse is coming back. That's that's fascinating. I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't I can't explain it. It's just it's really cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is, but alarming to Franklin's family, of course.
Speaker 1: So the newspapers of the time say that his youngest
Speaker 1: son decided to go up I'm assuming, on the horse
Speaker 1: and cart to go figure out what happened to his dad.
Speaker 1: He's referred to in the eighteen sixties early nineteen hundreds
Speaker 1: in these articles as a young boy, which to me
Speaker 1: could be pretty young, because they probably would not have
Speaker 1: set a twelve year old and or a thirteen year
Speaker 1: old working on a farm in a saw mill as
Speaker 1: a young boy. That would have been a young man.
Speaker 1: So he could have been an eight year old. I
Speaker 1: don't know why he went. I don't know where the
Speaker 1: older kids were, but he went, and he came back
Speaker 1: and said, Dad looks dead. So he had been shot
Speaker 1: through the heart. He was carrying a handgun. I don't
Speaker 1: know what kind, but it's still in its holster. There's
Speaker 1: conflicting accounts about whether he was found inside the sawmill
Speaker 1: or if he had been outside the sawmill near where
Speaker 1: his horse had been grazing. What certain is that he
Speaker 1: had been shot once. There is an account in several
Speaker 1: of the newspapers that a cross had been carved into
Speaker 1: his chest. Oh, I don't know if that falls into
Speaker 1: a ritualistic or what that means just yet.
Speaker 2: Do we know anything more about the cross? Is this
Speaker 2: like a Christian cross? Is this, you know, something different
Speaker 2: than what I'm envisioning. Do you have any details on that?
Speaker 1: I think it is your standard cross, Just.
Speaker 2: A cross, okay, yep. Which obviously there might be religious
Speaker 2: connotations related to the cross that the offender is conveying.
Speaker 2: There also potentially could just be you know how crosses,
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about Arlington National Cemetery, you know how crosses
Speaker 2: are used to basically mark the location of the deceased.
Speaker 2: And was that just you know where the offender is
Speaker 2: coming up? And is just you know, in essence, I've
Speaker 2: killed this guy and here he is, so right now,
Speaker 2: I couldn't really draw any conclusions as to what the
Speaker 2: offender is thinking about the significance of the cross. However,
Speaker 2: the offender is sending a message. Franklin Bruce is dead.
Speaker 2: He's not doing this to send a message to Franklin Bruce.
Speaker 2: He's sending a message to somebody who's going to either
Speaker 2: find the body or to some other entities, you know,
Speaker 2: group of people you know, in which now it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, what's going on with Franklin, Bruce, you know this? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Is he being specifically targeted or is this more of
Speaker 2: he just happened to be a victim of opportunity. He
Speaker 2: and the offender or offenders killed him, And it's like,
Speaker 2: you send anybody else down this direction, you're going to
Speaker 2: you know, suffer the same fate or something to that effect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I had wondered if it was to benefit
Speaker 1: Franklin somehow. I don't know what that would mean, putting
Speaker 1: a cross on him that makes him.
Speaker 2: Go to heaven like maybe like a like yeah, a
Speaker 2: spiritual thing.
Speaker 1: Just something. I mean that seems not very kind. But
Speaker 1: I mean, of course they couldn't really tell or I
Speaker 1: don't have notes that say whether this happened before or
Speaker 1: after he was shot. I imagine after, of course, But.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't argue against that thought. You know, this is
Speaker 2: where the offender may be killing Franklin in this world
Speaker 2: in order to deal with whatever's going on in this
Speaker 2: world aspect, but is conscious of Franklin's spirit and wants
Speaker 2: to ensure that the spirit is moving on in whatever
Speaker 2: the religious philosophy. The offender had.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I want to I know
Speaker 1: this is going to be disconcerting, but we have to
Speaker 1: move on from this story because this will be a
Speaker 1: series of things and so this is not something where
Speaker 1: we need to examine Franklin's inner circle. I promise, so
Speaker 1: this will be We've got to go next to another
Speaker 1: group of people. Is that okay? Or does that make
Speaker 1: you fairly uncomfortable?
Speaker 2: Again, I'll just roll with it, Kate.
Speaker 1: Sorry, that's what I wish everybody said that to me. Okay, Kate,
Speaker 1: we'll do what you say. But let's just we'll roll
Speaker 1: with it the next night. So March nineteenth, eighteen sixty three.
Speaker 1: This is near Colorado City, Colorado. There are a couple
Speaker 1: of men who are building a new sawmill and there's
Speaker 1: a you know, there's a little cabin nearby that they're
Speaker 1: sleeping in, you know, so that they can get the
Speaker 1: saw mill done. They notice that the cabin is dark,
Speaker 1: so this is just a temporary home for them until
Speaker 1: they're done. The reason they're alarmed that it's dark is
Speaker 1: because one of the having mates, one of the workers,
Speaker 1: who's a guy named Henry Harkins, is supposed to be
Speaker 1: making them dinner. And every night when it's gotten dark
Speaker 1: and two of the men are still working on the sawmill,
Speaker 1: they could see through the cracks of the logs the lamplight,
Speaker 1: and so this night there's no lights through the cracks
Speaker 1: of the logs. So I guess they're facing a non window.
Speaker 1: They might have a window at all in here, but
Speaker 1: isn't it I thought that was really interesting. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've talked about laundry hanging up, you know, as a
Speaker 1: sign that this woman would never have done this because
Speaker 1: it rained last night, all of these signals of alarm,
Speaker 1: and these guys were alarmed because the light was out
Speaker 1: when Henry was supposed to be cooking dinner for everyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so now they must go explore this, right, what's
Speaker 2: you know, where's Henry? What's up with Henry? Because they're hungry,
Speaker 2: they want their food.
Speaker 1: Right, they're hungry and irritated. Maybe he fell asleep. As
Speaker 1: they approached the darkened cabin, they realized that Henry has
Speaker 1: been attacked. It's not sir, whether he's inside or outside
Speaker 1: the cabin. But what we do know is that he's
Speaker 1: been shot in the forehead. The men think with a revolver,
Speaker 1: but I don't know whether they retrieved a bullet or not.
Speaker 1: And then they said that he was also attacked with
Speaker 1: an axe. So there's a pertinent piece of information. And
Speaker 1: then there's what the men say Henry's body was in
Speaker 1: a state of the pertinent part of information is that
Speaker 1: this is a group of men who came with Franklin
Speaker 1: and his family to be prospectors. So they knew each other,
Speaker 1: but they're quite a bit of part. They live kind
Speaker 1: of in the same little region, but they are miles
Speaker 1: and miles and miles apart where they might not ever
Speaker 1: see each other.
Speaker 2: Right, No, I had to look up where Colorado City
Speaker 2: is because here in Colorado Springs there's old Colorado City.
Speaker 2: And it was like, is this you know in the Springs,
Speaker 2: But I believe where you're talking about this is. It
Speaker 2: looks like it's about thirty thirty miles south of Pueblo,
Speaker 2: which is about again about thirty miles south of Colorado Springs.
Speaker 2: And then I can see it's really south of Canyon
Speaker 2: City by about a good thirty miles maybe, Yeah, So
Speaker 2: I could you know back in the day. That would
Speaker 2: be a pretty significant distance to have to cover for
Speaker 2: these groups that know each other to see each.
Speaker 1: Other, right, right, And I mean there's horseback and carts
Speaker 1: and everything. But you're right, okay. Let me tell you
Speaker 1: about Henry and what happens. I told you that he
Speaker 1: had been shot through the forehead, so Franklin had been
Speaker 1: shot through the heart. There is a large gash in
Speaker 1: Henry's head from an axe, they presume from his This
Speaker 1: is graphic, y'all. I mean, if you know you're squeamish
Speaker 1: at all. It's a gash that goes from his forehead
Speaker 1: to his mouth. There are two wounds on his chest.
Speaker 1: They are each four inches long and about three inches apart.
Speaker 1: On the left side of his chest. It looks like
Speaker 1: he's been hit on the sides of his head with
Speaker 1: the blunt side of an axe. And the men find
Speaker 1: two pieces of skull in some of Henry's brain on
Speaker 1: top of his head, and the cabin has been ransacked.
Speaker 1: I don't see where Franklin had been robbed, but this
Speaker 1: is major damage. I don't know how close these guys
Speaker 1: are close enough to see light peeking through you know, logs,
Speaker 1: so I don't know how this happened without these men
Speaker 1: knowing it.
Speaker 2: My initial questions, which you probably can't answer, was there
Speaker 2: any evidence of distance that the firearm was from this?
Speaker 2: This is this something that the offenders up close, you know,
Speaker 2: and then so we would see firearms discharge evidence on
Speaker 2: Henry's forehead? Or was this from a distance? And in essence,
Speaker 2: you know, the offender was able to incapacitate and likely
Speaker 2: kill Henry. But then did he used the axe on
Speaker 2: Henry afterwards? Or was there a physical altercation prior to
Speaker 2: the shooting in which an axe was used, and then
Speaker 2: in essence Henry was finished off with a gunshot.
Speaker 1: I don't know the answer to that. I'm so confused
Speaker 1: about how that could happen. A gun shot acts It
Speaker 1: sounds like probably Henry was maybe he was fighting back,
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure versus Franklin, who it sounds like
Speaker 1: just took one. It was one shot through his heart
Speaker 1: and that was it. These men are close enough to
Speaker 1: be able to see a light coming through the cabin,
Speaker 1: and then I was thinking, how is that possible? Maybe
Speaker 1: these guys are involved, but with saws and everything else
Speaker 1: that they're doing, maybe a gunshot was something that was
Speaker 1: covered up. I don't know, But I don't know if
Speaker 1: he was axed first and then shot or the other
Speaker 1: way around. And I didn't read anything about is it stippling?
Speaker 1: Is that what it would be? Any kind of burns
Speaker 1: or anything like if it was close contact.
Speaker 2: Right, you know, the stippling of the gunpowder from the discharge,
Speaker 2: you know, and that we are talking in the eighteen sixties,
Speaker 2: so probably a black powder weapon. I don't think they
Speaker 2: had the smokeless power, you know, single shot type of
Speaker 2: handgun is what I'm envisioning my perspective in terms of
Speaker 2: asking some of these questions. Am I dealing with everything
Speaker 2: happening to Henry within the cabin or do I have
Speaker 2: an offender shooting Henry and the offender's actually outside the cabin.
Speaker 2: We know the use of the axe on Henry is
Speaker 2: occurring when the two are the offender and the victim
Speaker 2: are close together. Are there any symbols carved into Henry?
Speaker 1: Not that I know of, but the way that they
Speaker 1: are describing those marks, and I can read them to you, again,
Speaker 1: it might have been across and they just misread them.
Speaker 1: They said that they're two wounds on his chest. They
Speaker 1: are four inches long and about three inches apart on
Speaker 1: the left side of his in the left side of
Speaker 1: his chest. But I don't see whether what direction they're
Speaker 1: in or if they could have been across. I think
Speaker 1: if it was a clear cross, it would have shown
Speaker 1: up in the newspaper articles. I don't know, but something
Speaker 1: is and somebody's carving stuff in these these people chests.
Speaker 2: Or these two These sound like possibly two blows from
Speaker 2: maybe the sharp edge of the acts that are four
Speaker 2: inches apart. They're not crossing over like a cross. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, And this is this just part of an offender,
Speaker 2: you know, during maybe combat with the victim, or is
Speaker 2: this you know, after the victim has been shot he's
Speaker 2: down and now either it's the same, you know, the
Speaker 2: shooter is the one who's picking up an axe and
Speaker 2: deciding to use an axe for whatever reason. You know.
Speaker 2: But it's interesting, you know that does two weapons being
Speaker 2: used suggest that two offenders were possibly present.
Speaker 1: Let me show you something that I think you'll think
Speaker 1: is interesting. I didn't think I was going to mention this.
Speaker 1: The men who responded to Franklin, the first victim, the
Speaker 1: men said that they thought there was a it was
Speaker 1: a certain kind of gun that had been used. I
Speaker 1: just thought it's a revolver and it doesn't really particularly
Speaker 1: come into play. But now that you're talking about single shot,
Speaker 1: let me show you what they thought it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So this see how it says this warning black
Speaker 2: powder firearms cannot be shipped, et cetera, et cetera. So
Speaker 2: this sounds like, you know how modern guns have ammunition
Speaker 2: in which there's a cartridge case that has the gunpowder
Speaker 2: in it and a primer that the firing pin strikes,
Speaker 2: and then of course the round, the bullet is seated
Speaker 2: in this cartridge case. So that's where you have a
Speaker 2: single round of ammunition, and so it's all contained together,
Speaker 2: whereas with black powder rifles, black powder revolvers what you're
Speaker 2: now seeing and I am no expert on this at all,
Speaker 2: but because we didn't deal with black powder guns and
Speaker 2: modern crime, but the little bit of exposure I've had
Speaker 2: with it, what I'm envisioning is is that the shooter
Speaker 2: has to load each chamber in the revolver with the
Speaker 2: black powder, with the round, you know, and kind of
Speaker 2: tamp it down. So it's a very slow process to
Speaker 2: reload a gun like this. But this as opposed to
Speaker 2: a single shot handgun the revolver. Once he's taken the
Speaker 2: time to put this black powder ammunition into the revolver,
Speaker 2: he could shoot however many shots this revolver would hold,
Speaker 2: you know, typically modern revolvers are usually six, but they
Speaker 2: can vary. So once he's loaded it, he's now got
Speaker 2: the capability to be able to shoot multiple times with
Speaker 2: that old black powder revolver.
Speaker 1: When we were talking about single shot, I was reminded
Speaker 1: of a show that I used to watch all the time.
Speaker 1: I'm slightly obsessed with Sleepy Hollow. I worked at a
Speaker 1: university in Sleepy Hollow in New York, in North Terrytown,
Speaker 1: and I would take the train up there and everything,
Speaker 1: and it was part of Fordham University and I taught there,
Speaker 1: and so I'm a huge Washington Irving fan. And this
Speaker 1: TV show came out about Pikabod Crane, you know, the
Speaker 1: star of Sleepy Hollow, and he is sort of comes
Speaker 1: back to life, and he's very handsome and he's interacting
Speaker 1: with the modern police and it's very confusing. He has
Speaker 1: kind of a woman who is working with him trying
Speaker 1: to solve cases, but he feels like it's the seventeen hundreds,
Speaker 1: and so there's a scene when they're sort of fighting
Speaker 1: the headless horseman and she runs ahead and she says,
Speaker 1: unload your gun, and he goes okay, and there's one
Speaker 1: shot and she said, I thought you unloaded your gun,
Speaker 1: and she said I did. So I always think about that,
Speaker 1: you know, when when I do think about, like how
Speaker 1: many bullets do we have to work with here? So anyway,
Speaker 1: that was the longest side to say that. I still
Speaker 1: wonder why they thought it was the specific one Colt
Speaker 1: Navy revolver. But I mean, maybe it was a bullet
Speaker 1: or something. I don't know. But the people who responded
Speaker 1: to Franklin's body said, this is what it looks like
Speaker 1: to us.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you're saying that in Franklin's case, they think
Speaker 2: it was this forty four black powder revolver.
Speaker 1: They just called it the cult Navy revolver. And that's
Speaker 1: what I looked up. And then all of these popped up,
Speaker 1: and they look exactly the same if.
Speaker 2: It was a handgun like this, and these handguns were
Speaker 2: not tremendously accurate. In fact, I think this is possibly
Speaker 2: it's not a rifled barrel, you know, the rifling in
Speaker 2: the barrel puts a twist on the projectile that gives
Speaker 2: its stability. I'm guessing this is not a rifled barrel
Speaker 2: based on this era, and again I am no expert.
Speaker 2: But now, in essence, you've got a round coming out
Speaker 2: of this very inaccurate weapon and striking Franklin in the heart.
Speaker 2: So I'm surmising that the shooter was reasonably close to
Speaker 2: Franklin versus Franklin is driving the horses and he's on
Speaker 2: the stagecoach and he gets sniped from a distance from
Speaker 2: a rifle. So it almost sounds like Franklin and the
Speaker 2: shooter probably were in relatively close proximity before Franklin was shot.
Speaker 2: That's my guess based off of this type of weapon.
Speaker 1: And I wondered about the damage that was done to
Speaker 1: his forehead gashes. I mean, this sounds like a total
Speaker 1: mess of a scene. So right, Pablo, they still would
Speaker 1: have seen the black on him on his forehead, but
Speaker 1: still it's such a mess, you.
Speaker 2: Know, Yes, so with Henry, if he's being hit with
Speaker 2: the blunt end of an axe, you know, this is
Speaker 2: a very devastating weapon. It's in essence, you know, that's
Speaker 2: like being hit in the head with a sledgehammer, and
Speaker 2: so the skull is going to be compromised. And yes,
Speaker 2: you know you talked about the description of blood and
Speaker 2: brain matter being present outside of his skull. Absolutely, Now
Speaker 2: that could also be a result of the gunshot. So
Speaker 2: it just depends on what they're seeing and what the
Speaker 2: sequence of Henry's injuries were.
Speaker 1: Okay, well let's move forward. So now we're talking about tracking,
Speaker 1: and I know very little about but what happens is
Speaker 1: there's US sheriff. So I always like to figure out
Speaker 1: who law enforcement is. What are we calling them? The
Speaker 1: local sheriff and the deputy are tracking Henry's attackers. It
Speaker 1: sounds like using the horse tracks and they follow this trail.
Speaker 1: This doesn't even seem possible, Paul, from Colorado City to
Speaker 1: the Ute Pass, which is about ninety miles to the north,
Speaker 1: and then Canyon City, where the first murder took place,
Speaker 1: is kind of is in between these points. So ninety miles.
Speaker 1: How do you how would they I know you probably
Speaker 1: don't know this, but how do you how would you
Speaker 1: even differentiate which horse prints or which horse hoofs we're
Speaker 1: going with here?
Speaker 2: I don't I'm not a tracker.
Speaker 1: So now we have to call another expert. So we
Speaker 1: need something, yes, okay for listeners and watches, we need
Speaker 1: a gun expert, and we need a tracker.
Speaker 2: Well, but I think, you know, I've followed, you know,
Speaker 2: shoe impressions, you know, which the let's say an offender
Speaker 2: running away from a scene and he steps in a
Speaker 2: garden bed, and so now I shoe impressions, and then
Speaker 2: he's running over grass, and then you see him cross
Speaker 2: over an area where there's dirt and you see the
Speaker 2: same tread pattern. You know, So I've done that type
Speaker 2: of thing. That's just typical CSI style, you know tracking,
Speaker 2: if you will, to track this distance with something that
Speaker 2: is so nondescript as horse shoes, it almost tells me
Speaker 2: that whatever path that they're following is not a well
Speaker 2: traveled path, and they're probably taking a look at the
Speaker 2: what they're interpreting as being the fresh impressions that they
Speaker 2: can see, and then so they're connecting the dots because
Speaker 2: I can guarantee over ninety miles, there's probably long lengths
Speaker 2: of this trail in which they don't have anything that
Speaker 2: they can see, and they just kind of keep on
Speaker 2: the same direction that the previous you know, track showed
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden they're picking up the track again.
Speaker 2: You know. So that's my guess. It's just that how
Speaker 2: accurate is it? Could they have been misled?
Speaker 1: Well, let's continue on. Now we are about thirteen days
Speaker 1: after Franklin, twelve days after Henry. This is March thirty first,
Speaker 1: and now we're in an area called Wilkerson Pass. This
Speaker 1: is between Colorado City and another gold camp which is
Speaker 1: about fifty miles away. And this is a man working
Speaker 1: at a way station. This is a rest stop, kind
Speaker 1: of like a truck or rest stop in a way Okay,
Speaker 1: so people stop for rest and they get supplies. There
Speaker 1: is a guy named John Adelman who runs away station.
Speaker 1: And this is again these places are in the middle
Speaker 1: of nowhere, literally in the middle of nowhere in Wilkerson Pass.
Speaker 1: And there's a mail carrier who stops at this way station.
Speaker 1: When he arrives to Adelman's way station, the mail carrier
Speaker 1: finds the house to be disordered, is what he says.
Speaker 1: Quickly he rides away. It looks like it's been trashed.
Speaker 1: He doesn't find anything. He just sees that maybe they've
Speaker 1: been robbed. He finds the sheriff in the deputy who
Speaker 1: have been tracking Henry and Franklin's attackers. They're connecting these
Speaker 1: because it doesn't sound like these kind of attacks are common.
Speaker 1: And it's at two sawmills, Franklin sawmill and Henry with
Speaker 1: the cabin. So you've got the sheriff in the deputy
Speaker 1: covering god knows how many miles, at least ninety. And
Speaker 1: this mail carrier, gosh, what a hard job. That must
Speaker 1: have been a cold territory being a mail carrier. This
Speaker 1: mail carrier tracks them down and he says, this way
Speaker 1: station is normally very orderly. I don't know where John is.
Speaker 1: It's been trashed. Can you come and help. They get
Speaker 1: to Adalmans and they find his body on the property,
Speaker 1: not inside the way station. So some reports say that
Speaker 1: he had been shot through the head. Others say that
Speaker 1: he was shot twice through the heart. And we don't
Speaker 1: know about the type of gun, and we don't have
Speaker 1: a clear connection to the other two men. So to summarize,
Speaker 1: we've got three victims, all men connected to you know,
Speaker 1: this part of the territory, not tremendously far apart, and
Speaker 1: two victims know each other mostly just in passing. That
Speaker 1: kind of came in at the same time. It looks
Speaker 1: like there's been a robbery in this one too, So
Speaker 1: these are happening close. I mean, this is the eighteenth
Speaker 1: of March, the nineteenth of March, and then the thirty
Speaker 1: first of March. And before you ask, I do not
Speaker 1: see that he has been hit with an axe, John,
Speaker 1: and I do not see that there has been anything
Speaker 1: carved in his chest.
Speaker 2: You know, even though you know Franklin and Henry had
Speaker 2: some sort of connection to each other, whereas Adalman, there's
Speaker 2: no known connection to the two previous victims. So I'm
Speaker 2: wondering at this point of the you know, Henry and
Speaker 2: Franklin becoming victims even though they knew each other, that
Speaker 2: that really relationship was just coincidental. They're not being targeted
Speaker 2: because they knew each other, So if I'm right about that,
Speaker 2: So now you have with Henry and John Adelman, you
Speaker 2: now have this what sounds like the tossing of the
Speaker 2: inside of the places where you know they had control over.
Speaker 2: Henry's killed inside this cabin, whereas Adelman's body is outside,
Speaker 2: but the offender took the time to go inside and
Speaker 2: toss the place. Part of the assessment is as, why
Speaker 2: are they looking for something? You know, what are they
Speaker 2: looking for? Are they looking for something that has you know,
Speaker 2: monetary value? Are they looking for land deeds? You know?
Speaker 2: So that's if I'm assessing this crime scene, I want
Speaker 2: to know, Okay, is there something about the locations within
Speaker 2: these structures that the offender seems to be focused in
Speaker 2: on and what would normally be kept at these locations?
Speaker 2: Is there overlap between these two crime scenes? J indicates
Speaker 2: these offenders are going around looking for something specific or
Speaker 2: they just I mean sometimes you know, I've processed many
Speaker 2: burglaries early on in my career, and you just have
Speaker 2: you know, some of these guys are very focused on
Speaker 2: what they're going after and targets certain areas within a house.
Speaker 2: Other guys will just start throwing things everywhere, just hoping
Speaker 2: to run across something, you know. So that's what I'm
Speaker 2: trying to discern here. Am I dealing with just you know,
Speaker 2: somebody who's looking for something random, not knowing what's in
Speaker 2: the structure or is this a targeted type of ransacking
Speaker 2: within these structures? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I don't have an impression that this was anything
Speaker 1: but just tossing and trying to grab anything of value.
Speaker 1: I do know that this part of Colorado, the Colorado territory,
Speaker 1: is remote, all of it, but there are sembilances of cities, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, we talked about the plazas where all of
Speaker 1: these Adobe houses are set up and everything, But where
Speaker 1: the killer is hitting are these remote spots and spots
Speaker 1: that are not particularly well traveled. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: this is a way station, but John might not have
Speaker 1: seen people for days and days and days, depending on
Speaker 1: how many people are going through this area. So you've
Speaker 1: got Franklin who is by himself. You've got John at
Speaker 1: the way station, who is by himself. But then you
Speaker 1: have Henry, who has two or three people not far
Speaker 1: from him at all there. And so I wonder what
Speaker 1: the motive is. If it's just simply killing people, that
Speaker 1: just seems risky to me, because these are the people
Speaker 1: at the middle murder, Henry's murder. These were all relatively
Speaker 1: young men who could have overpowered whomever ends up being
Speaker 1: the one who did this.
Speaker 2: You saying that there's no information to indicate that the
Speaker 2: ransacking that's being done has any targeted item that the
Speaker 2: offender is looking for, And so if the offender is
Speaker 2: just going into these struck and is taking whatever he
Speaker 2: or they run across for financial value. You know, that
Speaker 2: suggests to me that this is possibly somebody that does
Speaker 2: not have let's say, a lot of monetary means, you know,
Speaker 2: and is having to subsist off of whatever he finds
Speaker 2: during the ransacking the homicides. You know, I think right
Speaker 2: now it's kind of hard to say. You know, the
Speaker 2: cross being put into Franklin, you know, if that was
Speaker 2: to send a message to others, then that would seem
Speaker 2: to think that there's a mission that this offender is on.
Speaker 2: But if, like your thought, if this was just the
Speaker 2: offender for religious purposes, you know, carving the cross into
Speaker 2: to Franklin's body, you know, then now in essence, you
Speaker 2: may be dealing with somebody who is just marauding around
Speaker 2: the countryside, you know, trying to find things of monetary
Speaker 2: value to be able to continue to subsist as willing
Speaker 2: to kill. Right now, I can't say that there's anything
Speaker 2: that suggests there's like a predatory aspect, but it could be.
Speaker 2: You know that that's where if if we have more victims,
Speaker 2: and maybe it becomes more apparent that you are dealing
Speaker 2: with a fender that is purposely going out to trying
Speaker 2: to find victims because he wants to kill. He gets
Speaker 2: some sort of satisfaction. It may be, you know, retaliation
Speaker 2: against raw perceived wrongs that these people do. You know,
Speaker 2: and if you have somebody that's been displaced because of
Speaker 2: the white settlers, now you can see where there could
Speaker 2: be what I would consider an anger retaliation type of offender,
Speaker 2: where he's now angry based on his lifestyle being impacted.
Speaker 2: And even though these aren't the people that who necessarily
Speaker 2: displaced him from a in person type of aspect, they're
Speaker 2: representative of somebody of a group, you know, the white
Speaker 2: settlers that are impacting his life. And now he's you know,
Speaker 2: he's taken it out on these to white settlers.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, unfortunately we do have more victims to talk about.
Speaker 2: I had a feeling it was going that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The sheriff and the deputy who find John's body
Speaker 1: ride back down south to Canyon City to report this
Speaker 1: additional murder. So now they're up to three. But it
Speaker 1: looks like the killer or killers went north because there
Speaker 1: are more bodies, so this is near fair play. We
Speaker 1: were twenty five miles from Colorado City. So this is
Speaker 1: far north. This is a lot. I mean, we're not
Speaker 1: talking about geographic profiling at this point. They're going at
Speaker 1: least ninety miles, maybe hundreds of miles on horseback likely.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, just you know, taking a car to go
Speaker 2: from Colorado Springs up to Breckenridge along roughly this route,
Speaker 2: probably where fair Play is located at, that's going to
Speaker 2: be about a two hour drive, you know, and it's
Speaker 2: i mean it's freeway speeds, but it's you know, these
Speaker 2: are windy roads and stuff through the you know, sometimes
Speaker 2: it's mountainous, sometimes it's open plains. So on horseback, you know,
Speaker 2: this is a pretty significant distance to go, let's say,
Speaker 2: from the Canyon City area all the way up to
Speaker 2: fair Play.
Speaker 1: What does that tell you about the offender or offenders
Speaker 1: they're obviously comfortable on horseback and going long distances.
Speaker 2: Well, I would say, you know, like like my experience,
Speaker 2: of course, is dealing with offenders that are utilizing modern
Speaker 2: transportation to move around. And you know, some of this
Speaker 2: is due to the offenders' work, let's say truckers. Other times, offenders,
Speaker 2: possibly Golden State killer DiAngelo, purposely moved around just to
Speaker 2: commit crimes. And try to prevent law enforcement from linking
Speaker 2: crimes together. So you know, there may be an aspect
Speaker 2: to either one of those scenarios with this offender who
Speaker 2: who's purposely traveling around. Maybe it's work related, maybe it
Speaker 2: is purposely just trying to move around and kind of
Speaker 2: stay hidden from sight, if you will, by moving to
Speaker 2: such you know, disparate locations to commit crimes. Right now,
Speaker 2: I'll just say it seems like there's no question that
Speaker 2: the offender is comfortable moving around, as you mentioned, it's
Speaker 2: just why is he moving around? And right now there's
Speaker 2: there's not enough information to try to discern that. And
Speaker 2: from a geographic profile standpoint, I think what I would
Speaker 2: be looking at is these paths that the offender is
Speaker 2: having to take to go from one location to another.
Speaker 2: Are they what we would consider primary arterial you know, roads,
Speaker 2: if you will. And is the offender just following a
Speaker 2: known path and is offending along a certain route as
Speaker 2: he's proceeding north or is are there anchor points for
Speaker 2: the offender? Does he have a connection to these locations
Speaker 2: maybe for work, maybe because he's lived there, or he's
Speaker 2: got family there, and while he's visiting that particular location,
Speaker 2: he's deciding to go out and offend because he needs
Speaker 2: more money.
Speaker 1: Well, let's find out. We are now on the road
Speaker 1: to Denver. We are well, as I said, fair Play, Colorado,
Speaker 1: about fifty miles north of where all this other stuff
Speaker 1: had been happening. And this is a campground. So people
Speaker 1: find two bodies, both men. One is a twenty three
Speaker 1: year old named Jacob Binkley. The other is a twenty
Speaker 1: nine year old named Abram Shoop. Shoop becomes important because
Speaker 1: his brother is a prominent lieutenant and he will ultimately
Speaker 1: go on to be the first governor of the state
Speaker 1: of Idaho and one of its first senators. And so
Speaker 1: this happened with the Bloody Benders, which we've never talked
Speaker 1: about that story. I've interviewed a lot of people about,
Speaker 1: you know, which was a family I think in Kansas
Speaker 1: who murdered a lot of people as they would come
Speaker 1: by and try to stay at their inn. They were
Speaker 1: getting away with it until there is a person who
Speaker 1: they murder who is related to a very prominent person,
Speaker 1: and that all hell breaks loose when that happens. So
Speaker 1: you've got these two men. So you've got Jacob and Abram.
Speaker 1: The bodies are found by an innkeeper who saw their
Speaker 1: oxen grazing unaccompanied and recognize them because the men had
Speaker 1: stayed with him the previous trips and so you know,
Speaker 1: they had been regulars at this inn. The weather had
Speaker 1: been nice the previous night, so it looks like instead
Speaker 1: of staying at the end, these guys decided to go
Speaker 1: ahead and camp, and they are both found at their campground,
Speaker 1: which is right by a river. Jacob had been shot
Speaker 1: once through the back, with the bullet becoming lodged at
Speaker 1: the front of the chest and is found lying face
Speaker 1: down on the river bank right at that campsite. They
Speaker 1: don't know what kind of gun is used. Doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like a shotgun? Does that sound like a revolver? Or
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess we don't get a rifle, do that?
Speaker 2: I guess right now, there's no information to indicate what
Speaker 2: type of weapon was used. Now, the bullet, the projectile,
Speaker 2: you know, penetrated through the victim's body from the back
Speaker 2: and lodged at the chest. Now, there is a phenomenon
Speaker 2: that happens where you can have a bullet, you know,
Speaker 2: because as bullets pass through bodies, they lose energy and
Speaker 2: sometimes you can have something as simple as a T shirt.
Speaker 2: When the bullet comes out and exits out of the body,
Speaker 2: the fabric of the T shirt is strong enough to
Speaker 2: just kind of contain the bullet and keep the bullet
Speaker 2: sort of at the exit wound. And this is what
Speaker 2: we called a shored exit. Now, with him being faced
Speaker 2: down on the river bank, you know, one of the
Speaker 2: questions that I have is was he shot upright and
Speaker 2: he collapsed or did the offender, after this guy is
Speaker 2: made to late lay prone, you came up and shot
Speaker 2: in the back and now you got the ground in
Speaker 2: essen's preventing the bullet from exiting out the chest. And
Speaker 2: it's also possible that the bullet just lost enough energy
Speaker 2: as it passed through the upper torso of this victim
Speaker 2: and never even had the energy to be able to
Speaker 2: exit out in the first place. And that would tend
Speaker 2: to suggest that that's a less powerful weapon. So it
Speaker 2: all depends right now, I can't draw any conclusions as
Speaker 2: to what kind of weapon was used.
Speaker 1: My guess would be that he was standing up and
Speaker 1: the only reason why is the way that the other
Speaker 1: murder plays out, which is Abram Shoop. He's found at
Speaker 1: the bottom of a gulch about four hundred yards away.
Speaker 1: He had been stabbed three times in the chest and
Speaker 1: his head had been mutilated. I don't know the specifics,
Speaker 1: not with the cross I'm pretty sure carved into it,
Speaker 1: but it had been mutilated. It appears that he ran
Speaker 1: before collapsing at the bottom of the gulch, and they
Speaker 1: had both been robbed. So I don't know if this
Speaker 1: was a everybody lay down and then they're shot, but
Speaker 1: Abram's the first one to not be shot. I think
Speaker 1: he was stabbed. What does this sound like and all,
Speaker 1: and definitely think about the number of offenders at this point.
Speaker 1: What does this all sound like to you so far?
Speaker 2: Well, obviously, with Abram being stabbed three times in the chest,
Speaker 2: you know, it's indicating that the offender is very close.
Speaker 2: I mean, you are dealing with face to face interactions
Speaker 2: between the offender and Abram. The fact that he's able
Speaker 2: to run before collapsing, which is something that you see
Speaker 2: with stabbings. You know, even if it's a fatal stab
Speaker 2: wound that's inflicted, it takes time for the you know,
Speaker 2: the the bleeding to cause the person to in essence
Speaker 2: lose consciousness, right, And so sometimes you do see stabbing victims.
Speaker 2: They receive fatal stab wounds, but then they're able to
Speaker 2: run a distance and then they collapse a distance further
Speaker 2: down that the head being mutilated. I'm just kind of wondering,
Speaker 2: you know, And this is where sequencing would come in.
Speaker 2: It's just is this just possibly in some ways the
Speaker 2: offender is trying to stab the victim, and now you
Speaker 2: have incisive injuries and stab wounds to Abram's head as
Speaker 2: he's warding off the knife attack. And then of course
Speaker 2: there's some stabs to the chest and Abram is able
Speaker 2: to get away before he collapses. So I'm not you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know what to make about the head mutilation.
Speaker 2: If it's if the offender is purposely coming up and
Speaker 2: trying to do something like that, then that sounds like
Speaker 2: there's a personal aspect to that, you know, between the
Speaker 2: offender and Abram. Again, you have the use of two
Speaker 2: different weapons. You have Jacob being shot and Abram being stabbed,
Speaker 2: and they were both robbed. How do you control two
Speaker 2: men with the gun? Absolutely, you know, give me, give
Speaker 2: me your money. And then you get into basically close
Speaker 2: quarters with Abram with a knife, and now you have Jacob,
Speaker 2: you know, running away, and you're able, you know, once
Speaker 2: you've you know, stabbed Abrahm. Now you pull out your
Speaker 2: gun and you shoot Jacob in the back. I mean
Speaker 2: that's a possibility. Or you control these two men with
Speaker 2: two offenders. Yeah, one's armed with a knife and one's
Speaker 2: armed with a gun.
Speaker 1: Okay, I forgot to tell you that these two murders
Speaker 1: happened fifty miles away from the other ones, about eight
Speaker 1: days after the last ones, after John at the way station.
Speaker 1: So these are happening to me so quickly, especially with
Speaker 1: the distances that you know the offender is traveling. So
Speaker 1: it's clear they've been able to get away with this.
Speaker 2: So far right, you know. And the interesting thing about
Speaker 2: this is obviously you have a series. It appears, you know,
Speaker 2: even though back in the day they don't have DNA
Speaker 2: to say it's the same person. But there's enough mo
Speaker 2: o characteristics that you say, yeah, you have somebody that's
Speaker 2: going around killing men and robbing them, you know, financially motivated.
Speaker 2: So you know, by definition, for some people you could
Speaker 2: say this is a serial killer. You know. Now, this
Speaker 2: is a very different type of psychology than the fantasy
Speaker 2: motivated killer. At this point in time based on what
Speaker 2: you've told me. Now, there may be aspects where this
Speaker 2: is an offender that really gets off on killing men,
Speaker 2: but it appears that he's doing this for financial purposes
Speaker 2: at this point in time, and I'm not convinced it's
Speaker 2: a single offender at this stage. So it's it's fascinating
Speaker 2: from that perspective, and so I'm really curious to see
Speaker 2: what other cases you know, are part of this series
Speaker 2: and ultimately who is the person responsible.
Speaker 1: Well, about three weeks later, we have another murder, but
Speaker 1: we have a survivor also, oh, we have a witness.
Speaker 1: We will talk about all of that next week. Because
Speaker 1: I did not know until about five minutes ago that
Speaker 1: this would need to be it's harder because I just
Speaker 1: told Alexis I didn't know you were going to like
Speaker 1: this case so much, and that's great. I would rather,
Speaker 1: you know, have to expand it. But we we have
Speaker 1: a lot lot more to talk about.
Speaker 2: Nope, you and right now, this is very akin to
Speaker 2: where you have a series of robberies, you know, maybe
Speaker 2: not necessarily resulting in homicide, but you do have one
Speaker 2: offender that's going around and robbing people for financial purposes,
Speaker 2: and so I would say it's it's very similar to
Speaker 2: a modern version of this type of crime.
Speaker 1: Well, we will talk about this type of crime next week.
Speaker 2: All right, I'm looking forward to it again.
Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 2: For our sources and show notes go to exactly Rightmedia
Speaker 2: dot com slash Buried Bones Sources.
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Alexis Amrosi.
Speaker 2: Research by Alison Trumble and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1: Our mixing engineer is Ben Toliday.
Speaker 2: Our theme saw is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1: Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2: Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 1: You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Speaker 1: Buried Bones pod.
Speaker 2: Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
Speaker 2: Age story of murder and the race to decode the
Speaker 2: criminal mind, is available now.
Speaker 1: And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's
Speaker 1: Cold Cases is also available now.
Speaker 2: Listen to Baried Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts.