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 compelling.
Speaker 2: True crimes, and I weigh in using modern forensic techniques
Speaker 2: to bring 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. Hey Kate, Hey Paul, you ready
Speaker 1: to go on Bob Crane.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I want to hear it.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised you didn't text me in the middle of
Speaker 1: the week and say, okay, tell me a little bit more.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a big one when somebody is not
Speaker 1: who you expect them to be, and now there's these
Speaker 1: suspects and people around in sort of a sleazy world
Speaker 1: in a way, so it's interesting.
Speaker 2: Well, I think yeah. That was one of the takeaways
Speaker 2: from the first episode, is the victimology. Because all I
Speaker 2: knew about Bob Crane is the actor, and now you
Speaker 2: start to see, well, everybody has their thing, and it
Speaker 2: looks like he's got this whether he's making poorn, but
Speaker 2: he's doing something that seems a little shady and I'm
Speaker 2: interested to see how that world develops. Is that the
Speaker 2: reason he ends up dead? Is it because of these
Speaker 2: affairs that he's having, these you know, sexual flings that
Speaker 2: he's having, and you got jealous men that are coming
Speaker 2: after him, you know, So there's a lot of stuff
Speaker 2: going on with him.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, let me do a quick recap and you know,
Speaker 1: catch everybody up. So we're in nineteen seventy eight Scottsdale
Speaker 1: Hotter in Hell and it's June and Bob Crane is there.
Speaker 1: We don't know for how long, but it sounds like
Speaker 1: just for a few weeks, maybe a month, staying in
Speaker 1: a little apartment doing a dinner show, and he has
Speaker 1: a co star coming over. She discovers his body. The
Speaker 1: police then discover a large amount of photos of naked
Speaker 1: women on polaroids, as well as a lot of video.
Speaker 1: He's got video equipment everywhere. He's been hit twice in
Speaker 1: the head and he has a cord ripped from a
Speaker 1: VCR around his neck, and you know, this is a
Speaker 1: very bloody scene. There's no signs at forced entry. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the last episode we talked about well,
Speaker 1: I mean a gun pointed at you would not indicate
Speaker 1: forced entry either, So we can't really rely on that.
Speaker 1: But there are jealous boyfriends, and there's a wife who
Speaker 1: thought that she was going to be reconciling and now
Speaker 1: she finds out that it doesn't sound like he's gotten
Speaker 1: out of this sex addiction is what he claims it
Speaker 1: is at this point. So the police are investigating a
Speaker 1: good friend of his named John Carpenter, electronics salesman. We're
Speaker 1: assuming most of the electronics in this apartment and probably
Speaker 1: what he had in LA are sold to him or
Speaker 1: given to him by John Carpenter. So one of the
Speaker 1: big questions will be for us, what does John Carpenter
Speaker 1: get out of all of this? The mystery will deepen
Speaker 1: once we find out a little bit more about their relationship.
Speaker 1: Did I get everything right or do you have any
Speaker 1: other questions or anything I haven't covered?
Speaker 2: No, I think that you know from the investigative side,
Speaker 2: that pretty much sums it up. One of the questions
Speaker 2: that I have is what was the autopsy finding? You know,
Speaker 2: in terms of you said there was two blows. I
Speaker 2: mean I could see the two lacerations. Was there signs
Speaker 2: of strangulation?
Speaker 1: Okay, there's a deputy medical examiner, a guy named Thomas Jarvis,
Speaker 1: this is from John Hook's book, who performed the autopsy.
Speaker 1: So he was almost fifty years old when he died.
Speaker 1: Type of death is listed as violent, no kidding, the
Speaker 1: manner by blunt instrument and chord. Here are the abnormal findings,
Speaker 1: abundant dry blood on face, hair, and upper chest. The
Speaker 1: autopsy report also noted a flaky, white dry material on
Speaker 1: the pubic hair, right lower abdomen, and right anterior thigh,
Speaker 1: which they said was likely semen, but they never tested it.
Speaker 1: Police later theorized the killer may have masturbated over Crane's
Speaker 1: dead body after the killing, which John Hook says is
Speaker 1: a final fuck you quote unquote, But it was a
Speaker 1: theory and they never tested the semen and never came
Speaker 1: to a conclusion about what it was. And that's all
Speaker 1: the information I have about what they found. Okay, what
Speaker 1: do you think about that? The way they described it,
Speaker 1: does that seem likely? If this is a man Is
Speaker 1: it a fuck you masturbating over somebody? Is that what
Speaker 1: that is? I always thought it was sort of a sexual.
Speaker 2: Component, So that does happen? You know, you have these
Speaker 2: offenders that will masturbate after they've they've killed their victims.
Speaker 2: You know, Is it a form of denigration to the victim? Potentially,
Speaker 2: you know, but it's a it's a sexual act. It
Speaker 2: sounds like they didn't collect these items, these stings. You know,
Speaker 2: it's like, oh good god, we're talking about all the
Speaker 2: you know, these these photos of nude women and and
Speaker 2: and videos of women having sex his bedsheets. That's a
Speaker 2: huge source of information. There's all sorts of DNA from
Speaker 2: these various sexual encounters, and most certainly there could be
Speaker 2: evidence from the offender and stains on that sheet for
Speaker 2: maybe a prior occasion, if there had been a relationship
Speaker 2: between the offender. Right now, I'm assuming the offender is male.
Speaker 2: I don't know if Crane is having sex with men,
Speaker 2: but I wouldn't end up saying no, that's an impossible
Speaker 2: because all the subjects of his photos and videos, as
Speaker 2: far as what you've told me, are women, you know,
Speaker 2: but you know, is crying somebody that is you know,
Speaker 2: crossing into homosexual acts. That opens up a whole other
Speaker 2: suspect pool. And it's like, who has he had sex with?
Speaker 2: And you can answer that by swabbing his body, by
Speaker 2: collecting his bed sheets. You know, that is so huge.
Speaker 2: There's limited number of reasons why people are killed in
Speaker 2: terms of primary motives, and one of the primary ones
Speaker 2: is it's who they're having sex with, whether it be
Speaker 2: a man or a woman. So you need to collect
Speaker 2: that evidence up front.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, let's talk about John Carpenter and his relationship
Speaker 1: with Bob Crane. And yes, we know they didn't collect
Speaker 1: anything another failing. They did some good things and some
Speaker 1: bad things here. I mean, I'm glad he had her
Speaker 1: answer the phone that one time, even though I know
Speaker 1: it contaminated even more of the crime scene. It was
Speaker 1: interesting that he called twice, you know, and what his
Speaker 1: reactions are in all of that. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: forensically they're failing. Scott Stale police are not doing a
Speaker 1: great job right now.
Speaker 2: There's a struggle going on there. Yeah, things could have
Speaker 2: been done better.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about the police interview. They are looking
Speaker 1: at Bob Crane's inner circle, as any police would, and
Speaker 1: they start talking to a lot of people. They're getting
Speaker 1: conflicting reports because they really are focusing on John Carpenter,
Speaker 1: for better or for worse. There were reports that they
Speaker 1: got along great, these two guys, and there are reports
Speaker 1: that they had been on the outs, and a few
Speaker 1: days before Bob's death they were in a heated argument.
Speaker 1: We don't know about what. And Bob Crane Junior, who
Speaker 1: was close with his dad, gives police this quote, and
Speaker 1: I promise this is all going somewhere more than just
Speaker 1: they probably irritated each other every once in a while.
Speaker 1: There was an indication just in a passing conversation with
Speaker 1: my father that John Carpenter coming into town was getting
Speaker 1: to be a little bit of a pain in the ass.
Speaker 1: My dad expressed that he just didn't need Carpenter kind
Speaker 1: of hanging around him anymore. So let me explain what
Speaker 1: the relationship was like. John had cultivated this transactional relationship
Speaker 1: between Bob and himself. So for Bob, John has this
Speaker 1: access to equipment that I'm sure Bob is clueless about.
Speaker 1: So he gets all of this great equipment for something
Speaker 1: that he's obviously preoccupied with. And that's a big part
Speaker 1: of Bob's life, and John gets the proximity to Bob,
Speaker 1: so he gets Hollywood fun, he gets women and sex.
Speaker 1: And the men have even taped themselves. I'm assuming they've
Speaker 1: found these tapes in threesomes, so there is some kind
Speaker 1: of intimacy. I mean, the range of two men and
Speaker 1: a woman in a threesome could go, you know, many
Speaker 1: different directions, but there's certainly an intimacy and a comfort
Speaker 1: level there with the two men.
Speaker 2: So it sounds like per Crane's son that Bob Crane
Speaker 2: was starting to say John Carpenter was more of a
Speaker 2: hanger on and not as desired at this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the relationship, and he and his wife were
Speaker 1: getting back together if we believe the wife, you know,
Speaker 1: he's in therapy, although I don't know if those tapes
Speaker 1: say that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, and so now this this becomes interesting from
Speaker 2: potentially a motive, you know, was John Carpenter starting to
Speaker 2: sense that Bob Crane the celebrity, was pulling away from
Speaker 2: him and that his lifestyle was going to be changing.
Speaker 2: You no longer have access to the women, to the
Speaker 2: Hollywood you know, lifestyle, whatever that was with Bob Crane.
Speaker 2: Did Crane tell him, you know, hey, stop coming around,
Speaker 2: you know, and now you could have somebody being very
Speaker 2: upset as a result of it's basically a breakup, you know.
Speaker 2: And so Carpenter most certainly is an interesting suspect, you know.
Speaker 2: And I'd say he's a suspect for sure, I just
Speaker 2: right now. You know. My fear is is that maybe
Speaker 2: law enforcement so focused in on him that they didn't
Speaker 2: pursue other leads as rigorously as they possibly should have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it sounds like it. Let me give
Speaker 1: you a little tiny bit more insight. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is such a gross quote, but the Phoenix New Times
Speaker 1: back in nineteen seventy eight said women were drawn to
Speaker 1: the still popular crane like fish to a worm, and
Speaker 1: Carpenter didn't seem to mind dallying with the leftovers. Gross
Speaker 1: And so, you know, the theory for the police, which
Speaker 1: they thought was the strongest of any of these suspects
Speaker 1: and any other theory they had, was that John was motivated,
Speaker 1: just like you said, to kill Bob because Bob was
Speaker 1: stepping back from their friendship. Bob apparently had been saying
Speaker 1: he was going to try to get back together with
Speaker 1: his wife. John says none of that is true. He said,
Speaker 1: I came to Arizona on June twenty fifth, and all
Speaker 1: of this happened on the twenty ninth, so it sounds
Speaker 1: like he had been there for three or four days.
Speaker 1: And he says, look, I was there to do some
Speaker 1: business and to hang out with Bob. They said, what
Speaker 1: did you guys do together? He said, we tried to
Speaker 1: pick up women. So much for therapy and getting back
Speaker 1: together with your wife. So this is a funny line
Speaker 1: from Marin. And then I want to hear from you.
Speaker 1: She said that they tried to pick up women and
Speaker 1: then Bob was successful. John was not. And the last
Speaker 1: night that John was in town, he brought a woman
Speaker 1: back to the hotel and put the moves on her,
Speaker 1: and at three am, the woman asked to be taken home,
Speaker 1: so he dropped her off. And he's unaccounted for from
Speaker 1: three am until eight am when he checks out the
Speaker 1: hotel and he goes to the airport. So there's this
Speaker 1: five hour window, according to John, where he could have
Speaker 1: absolutely carried out.
Speaker 2: This murder for sure. This also goes to where we
Speaker 2: know John Carpenter changed the time that he said that
Speaker 2: he left Bob Crane from one am to two forty
Speaker 2: five am, and I mentioned what sounds like he's concerned
Speaker 2: about witness possibly seeing him later than what he stated
Speaker 2: he was there. And now there's this woman and I
Speaker 2: don't know if she has ever identified, but his from
Speaker 2: his perspective, he's seeing an homicide investigation unfold and he's going, oh,
Speaker 2: they are tracking people down, and they're going to find
Speaker 2: out about this woman. And she's going to say I
Speaker 2: was with him several hours past the time that he
Speaker 2: said that he had actually left Bob Crane. One of
Speaker 2: the thoughts that I have though, is if John Carpenter
Speaker 2: is truly enjoying the lifestyle with Bob Crane and Bob
Speaker 2: Crane is starting to pull away, well, killing Bob Crane
Speaker 2: basically completely ends that lifestyle, you know, so there is
Speaker 2: there's an argument to be made that Carpenter would be
Speaker 2: more motivated to have Crane alive than dead if he
Speaker 2: wants to have any potential future relationship with Crane and
Speaker 2: all the various advantages that gives Carpenter in his life.
Speaker 2: You know, that's you could most certainly see where in
Speaker 2: a fit of rage, you have a homicide occur because
Speaker 2: of this. Let's say a breakup between Bob Crane and
Speaker 2: John Carpenter, and possibly if a tripod was used as
Speaker 2: a bludgeoning device. This doesn't sound like it's pre planned homicide.
Speaker 2: He's not coming in with a weapon. He's utilizing something
Speaker 2: that is found within the apartment. The electrical cord is
Speaker 2: something that is coming off of a VCR. And I
Speaker 2: think it's significant that. I mean, I've seen offenders pull
Speaker 2: electrical cords out of various devices and use them as
Speaker 2: binding and or ligature material, but it's significant that he's
Speaker 2: choosing an electronic device. The offender's choosing an electronic device
Speaker 2: versus maybe drapery cord or something like that. So would
Speaker 2: that kind of suggest you know, Carpenter is familiar with
Speaker 2: these electronicquipment. He knew that possibly this VCR has a
Speaker 2: power cord and that would be very easy to be
Speaker 2: able to yank out of it, just the way it's
Speaker 2: attached internally. However, the victimology also just keeps the door
Speaker 2: open to the possibility that you have the jealous male
Speaker 2: coming in and taking Bob Crane out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that, like I said, they are
Speaker 1: really really focused on John Carpenter and just the squishiness
Speaker 1: of his timeline in general, I think is what gets them.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about evidence. That's what you and I
Speaker 1: care about. Also, police need to find the rental car
Speaker 1: that John Carpenter had used. He had been there four
Speaker 1: or five days, he said, I rented a car. So
Speaker 1: a few days after Bob is found dead, they finally
Speaker 1: locate this car and it's having mechanical issues and was
Speaker 1: being sent to a repair shop, which I think probably
Speaker 1: would have been a nightmare. Of course, having other people
Speaker 1: in the car, because it's a rental car would have
Speaker 1: been bad too. But the police find it, they toe it,
Speaker 1: and they start looking at some things. So in a minute,
Speaker 1: I'll have you look at the car. Well, actually, go
Speaker 1: ahead and look at the car. Now, it's not a Cadillac,
Speaker 1: but it's a Chrysler Cordoba. I don't know if that
Speaker 1: looks like a Cadillac, So look on your bump crane photos. Also, Paul,
Speaker 1: there's a doc I don't I guess I skipped over it.
Speaker 1: There's a little diagram in there from the police. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you're going to think that's helpful or not.
Speaker 2: To be frank, this this crime scene sketch is quite artistic.
Speaker 2: This is unusual.
Speaker 1: Looks like a like a pro create drawing to me,
Speaker 1: like a really high level drawing.
Speaker 2: Well, this is you know, this is where Obviously the
Speaker 2: person who did this sketch for Scottsdale PD is a
Speaker 2: talented sketcher. But like if I were the mentor of
Speaker 2: this person, I'd be slapping him on the back of
Speaker 2: his head saying, you're taking too long because you're putting
Speaker 2: in detail that is not needed. He's got the you know,
Speaker 2: wrinkles in the sheet and shape to the pillow, and
Speaker 2: it's like, no, you know, this is we need to
Speaker 2: get moving on this, you know, collecting evidence. We can't
Speaker 2: be sitting here trying to make a pretty sketch. So
Speaker 2: this tells me there's a level of inexperience. As good
Speaker 2: as this sketch appears visually, it's like, no, it's too much,
Speaker 2: it's overkilled. We have photographs to fill in those details. Okay,
Speaker 2: So I'm looking at a photograph. It's indicating that this
Speaker 2: is John Carpenter's Chrysler Cordoba. So this was a rental
Speaker 2: car and this is you know, your typical boat of
Speaker 2: a car from the nineteen seventies. Yeah, yeah, it's you know,
Speaker 2: you got the massive trunk, you probably got a massive
Speaker 2: front bench seat. It appears to be a Tudor car.
Speaker 2: This photograph to show in the car from the rear,
Speaker 2: you know, so I'm seeing the tail lights. You know,
Speaker 2: it's a massive car. And I know we have this
Speaker 2: witness that sees what was described as a white Cadillac.
Speaker 2: White Cadillac look like this back in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 2: you know, so this is where Okay, this car, this Cordoba,
Speaker 2: is probably something that would easily be confused for a
Speaker 2: Cadillac from this this era. So I think you mentioned
Speaker 2: it when you're talking about the white Cadillac in the
Speaker 2: first episode that yeah, you could probably you know, throw
Speaker 2: a rock and hit one because they would be so popular.
Speaker 2: So it's not I can't put a lot of weight
Speaker 2: that carpenter has a vehicle that I would say matches
Speaker 2: what that witness said about a white Cadillac. But it
Speaker 2: is important evidence in that. Okay, what is found inside here?
Speaker 2: Is there anything from the crime scene that could be
Speaker 2: you know, inside to this rental car. You know that
Speaker 2: today maybe with DNA we could tie back, you know,
Speaker 2: is there blood transfers or other aspects. Hopefully they did
Speaker 2: a thorough job processing this.
Speaker 1: So let me look and go back and forth, so
Speaker 1: don't skip ahead. But we do have photos kind of everything.
Speaker 1: Every time I say something, we've got a photo. So
Speaker 1: first up is going to be in the backseat of
Speaker 1: the passenger side of what's confirmed to be John Carpenter's
Speaker 1: rental car, technicians find a small dry blood smear on
Speaker 1: the switch that rolls the window up and down. John
Speaker 1: hook says they weren't drops of blood. These were more
Speaker 1: like streaks or smudges or smears. So that's what you
Speaker 1: see on page five of your doc.
Speaker 2: It's important that they're finding blood because you have a
Speaker 2: homicide victim that is bleeding. So is it possible the
Speaker 2: offender walked out from that homicide with blood on his person,
Speaker 2: on his clothing, on an object, let's say the murder
Speaker 2: weapon that is transferred inside the rental car? For sure. However,
Speaker 2: at this point it's a rental car. Who else has
Speaker 2: been inside this car and is bleeding until that blood
Speaker 2: is owned to be Bob Crane's blood with DNA, you know,
Speaker 2: for me, it's like, yeah, it's important, but you need
Speaker 2: to do DNA in order to interpret it as having
Speaker 2: any relevance to this crime.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's a couple of other things. So there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of other stains. I guess if you kind
Speaker 1: of go through, you'll see there are a few other stains.
Speaker 1: Blood on a power window switch, you know, blood stains
Speaker 1: on the passenger door. There is a tissue speck on
Speaker 1: the door panel, and then there is going to be
Speaker 1: one more little bit down there that they believe is
Speaker 1: brain matter that was found in the car.
Speaker 2: Wait a second, So okay, So this tissue spec on
Speaker 2: door panel believed to be from Bob Crane's skull lost
Speaker 2: or never collected.
Speaker 1: So they took a photo of it but never collected it.
Speaker 2: What the hell?
Speaker 1: Well, we've established, Paul that Scottsdale pet is overmatched.
Speaker 2: Here, So I mean, how can they even say anything
Speaker 2: about this? Let's see here, I do not know. So
Speaker 2: I'm zooming in and I see that. You know, there's
Speaker 2: a ruler that in you know inches American standard measurement ruler,
Speaker 2: and this red glob is about one sixteenth of an
Speaker 2: inch in diameter. It's got three dimensions to it. There's
Speaker 2: a closeup photo of this tissue spec on the next page.
Speaker 2: When it's initially photoed, you know the coloration, it's looking
Speaker 2: bright red, and then this close up photo it's looking brown.
Speaker 2: It's like this globular mass that to be frank. Just
Speaker 2: from its physical appearance, I couldn't draw any conclusion as
Speaker 2: to what it is. I have processed, you know, thousands
Speaker 2: of items for blood for tissue over the course of
Speaker 2: my career. I've seen them at a crime scenes, seen
Speaker 2: it on items of evidence within the lab, and this
Speaker 2: mass could be anything. I literally cannot conclude what it is.
Speaker 2: And I will tell you I've seen stains on physical
Speaker 2: evidence that I was like, that's blood, and then I
Speaker 2: test it and it's not blood. And I've seen stuff,
Speaker 2: let's say, inside a car. I can think of one
Speaker 2: thing where I've got this reddish brown it looked like
Speaker 2: dried blood and tested it and it was not blood.
Speaker 2: And so that's where you know I have developed a
Speaker 2: level of cautiousness. I can look. I know what a
Speaker 2: crime scene looks like. I know what blood looks like,
Speaker 2: fresh looks like when it's coagulating as it's outside the body.
Speaker 2: I know what it looks like when it's dry, when
Speaker 2: it's been subjected to environmental influences. But now there's a
Speaker 2: photo of this globular mass that they never collect, and
Speaker 2: they're saying it's coming from Bob Crane's skull.
Speaker 1: They're not sure. I know, I know, you know.
Speaker 2: I can't. I personally and I have a level of expertise,
Speaker 2: I cannot draw that conclusion. It seems like somebody's really
Speaker 2: reaching on this item of evidence. And there's these other
Speaker 2: bloodstains in the car. Did they collect those? And has
Speaker 2: DNA testing been done on those?
Speaker 1: Let me get you jumping way ahead, buddy, so you
Speaker 1: just hang Remember this is a two part and we're
Speaker 1: not ten minutes. Let me tell you what they do.
Speaker 1: So thankfully, they do pull a sample of the blood.
Speaker 1: It is type B rare and Bob is a type B.
Speaker 1: John is not. Bob says, I have no idea how
Speaker 1: the blood got in there. I don't know what you're
Speaker 1: talking about. He volunteers to go back to Arizona. He
Speaker 1: does not get a lawyer. He says, I'll take a
Speaker 1: lie detector test, and I'll take truth serum sodium pentothl.
Speaker 2: Yes, so pentothal sure, which just.
Speaker 1: Sounds like an interesting way to die. Truth serum or
Speaker 1: even go under hypnosis, and he says, I don't have
Speaker 1: anything to hide. You know, the police are very frustrated.
Speaker 1: For years, they remain focused on John Carpenter. The tangible
Speaker 1: evidence against him is scant, so every so often there's
Speaker 1: a tip. There's a housekeeper at the Scottsdale Hotel where
Speaker 1: John stayed. She found a bloody pillowcase and a washcloth
Speaker 1: in the room he had slept in. But these are
Speaker 1: thrown out, and you know, her dates are kind of off,
Speaker 1: so we don't even know if that's where John was.
Speaker 1: And then we get to the blood tissue stuff. So
Speaker 1: you know, you saw the photo and we talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about it. The reason this photo comes up
Speaker 1: is more than a decade later. So this is in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen nineties. There's a detective named Jim Rains,
Speaker 1: and he looks at the case with fresh eyes and
Speaker 1: finds what Entertainment Weekly calls a previously unseen crime scene
Speaker 1: photo of the rental car. There's no sample, nobody acknowledges
Speaker 1: this brain tissue is what they're calling it. And this
Speaker 1: detective the decade or so later, finds this photo that
Speaker 1: nobody recognizes. He finds medical experts who say that the
Speaker 1: photo there's no negatives. Pull He finds these experts who
Speaker 1: say the photo it shows what appears to be a
Speaker 1: small piece of human tissue stuck to the interior side
Speaker 1: of the passenger door. Their theory is is that John
Speaker 1: beat Bob Crane to death with this tripod, they're assuming,
Speaker 1: and then got in the car and carried all of this,
Speaker 1: you know, biological evidence with him. It might have bumped
Speaker 1: or rubbed against the car door, he tossed it in
Speaker 1: the back, who knows. And that is when they end
Speaker 1: up arresting him with this little discovery right of this
Speaker 1: photograph that you say, we can't even tell whether this
Speaker 1: is brain tissue or not, but this to them a
Speaker 1: decade later is enough to arrest him. Just so you know,
Speaker 1: he had completed a short stint for molesting his girlfriend's
Speaker 1: ten year old daughter, so they knew.
Speaker 2: Where he was. It sounds like at the very beginning
Speaker 2: of this case that they built against Carpenter. And what
Speaker 2: you were laying out is that they did ABO blood
Speaker 2: testing on the bloodstains and it came back type B
Speaker 2: and Bob Crane is type B. So I'm just having
Speaker 2: to go back to my ABO typing charts.
Speaker 1: I was wondering you. I knew you were listening to me,
Speaker 1: but I was wondering what you were doing at the
Speaker 1: same time.
Speaker 2: As an example, then there's a reason why we moved
Speaker 2: away from ABO typing, and it's because it's not very discriminating.
Speaker 2: Now Type B. You know, it's a smaller percentage of
Speaker 2: the population, so there's a little bit more weight that
Speaker 2: can be put on it. But I'm looking at I
Speaker 2: had to go. I have an old book, it's called
Speaker 2: The Source Book of Forensics Sorology, but on the fly,
Speaker 2: trying to find what I needed was going to be
Speaker 2: too much, so I'm just going online. And this is
Speaker 2: pretty cool because I didn't have this back in the day.
Speaker 2: But they've actually got the percentages of the blood types
Speaker 2: per ethnicity, if you will, across the world, and I'm
Speaker 2: looking at type B, and depending on where you're at,
Speaker 2: it's anywhere from nine percent of a population up to
Speaker 2: I'm seeing as high as thirty five percent, like one
Speaker 2: third of the population of certain ethnicities are type B. Basically,
Speaker 2: they cannot exclude this blood as being from Bob Crane,
Speaker 2: but I can't put depending on the ethnicity who knows
Speaker 2: who's been bleeding inside this rental car. Depending on the
Speaker 2: ethnicity background, one third of the population of that person's
Speaker 2: ethnic background could be Type B. This is where hopefully
Speaker 2: they still have this evidence and we do modern DNA
Speaker 2: testing on it and then say yeah, this is Bob
Speaker 2: Crane's blood inside John Carpenter's rental car. Now I'm on
Speaker 2: board right now. It's just like, well, you can't exclude
Speaker 2: all it is is a weak inclusion from a physical evidence.
Speaker 2: I'm just talking physical evidence by itself. That blood Type
Speaker 2: B inside the rental car is just like, well, I
Speaker 2: can't eliminate Carpenter on that.
Speaker 1: And you know, back then they said when they found
Speaker 1: it in the early nineties, they were saying the estimate
Speaker 1: was one in seven people had Type B. But right
Speaker 1: are they looking at the different ethnicities? And who knows?
Speaker 1: Their point is that it's rare enough for John Carpenter
Speaker 1: to still be in their crosshairs, that it was just
Speaker 1: too weird. You know.
Speaker 2: Sure, well then they you know, I was listening, but
Speaker 2: they said, this is where the investigator found a previously
Speaker 2: unknown crime scene photo. So let me hear what you
Speaker 2: were talking about with that.
Speaker 1: Well, that was the brain matter one that you looked at.
Speaker 1: So the point with that tissue I know I'm putting,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put quotes brain matter. The point of that
Speaker 1: photo is that they didn't keep the evidence. There's no
Speaker 1: way of identifying what that actually is. But it was
Speaker 1: enough to arrest John Carpenter more than a decade after
Speaker 1: Bob Krane's death.
Speaker 2: Again, just speaking from the physical evidence it's been presented. No,
Speaker 2: there isn't probable cause on that. Now, you know the
Speaker 2: investigative side, his movement patterns, statements he's making. You know
Speaker 2: that all has to factor in as to whether they've
Speaker 2: actually built sufficient probable cause to arrest. I'm not convinced
Speaker 2: that they have that with what you've told me.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know what it was like in
Speaker 1: the seventies, but if you rented a car and then
Speaker 1: return the car, I would assume they would clean it
Speaker 1: and examine it in between each rental. I mean maybe not.
Speaker 2: I'm kidding. You know, I travel a lot. I mean
Speaker 2: rental car companies today are very very good, but I
Speaker 2: have had some rentals that are dirty. They're you know,
Speaker 2: they smell like weed. You know, it's it's like really
Speaker 2: you're you're you're not even trying, you know, to clean
Speaker 2: the car. So no, I are the rental car technicians
Speaker 2: really paying that much attention to maybe there's a red
Speaker 2: stain on you know, the window, you'll ever, No, they're not,
Speaker 2: you know. So that's just where we know that there's
Speaker 2: a transient population that has been in and out of
Speaker 2: this particular car. And so to put any weight on
Speaker 2: the blood and that globular mass as being related to
Speaker 2: the homicide with the testing that they've done, no, you
Speaker 2: can't draw that conclusion that is right now. I think
Speaker 2: that's on the level of almost absurdity. They need to
Speaker 2: find that evidence and do DNA testing to show it's
Speaker 2: from Bob Crane.
Speaker 1: Okay, here we go. Let's talk about the trial, and
Speaker 1: we do talk about this quote unquote brain matter. So
Speaker 1: John Carpenter goes on trial in ninety four. Bob Crane
Speaker 1: was murreed in seventy eight, So this is what sixteen
Speaker 1: years later, and two pathologists testify for the prosecution. They
Speaker 1: say that a piece of human tissue would shrivel up
Speaker 1: after a few hours on a hot day and a car.
Speaker 1: But based on these photos you know that were taken,
Speaker 1: I guess as soon as they found the car, which
Speaker 1: would have been a few days later. The sample appeared
Speaker 1: fresh more than a day after John turned in the car.
Speaker 1: So I think this was not good for the prosecution
Speaker 1: because they're saying, we didn't find this car on the
Speaker 1: day that his body was discovered. We found it four
Speaker 1: or five days later.
Speaker 2: Right, And that was my observation. I talked about how
Speaker 2: bright red that initial photo was, and then when they
Speaker 2: had the close up photo, it's all shriveled up in
Speaker 2: like this brown globular It's almost looks like like these
Speaker 2: this little globular amber like substance. And you know, this
Speaker 2: is where you know, I have to be cautious. I
Speaker 2: can't say it's not tissue, but I'm looking at it,
Speaker 2: going that doesn't look like what I have personally witnessed
Speaker 2: in actual homicide cases where I can test it and
Speaker 2: know what it is. You know, It's like I can't
Speaker 2: draw any conclusion as to what that mass is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well let me tell you. I mean the prosecution
Speaker 1: just gets shamed. I think through this whole trial, there
Speaker 1: are technicians they put on the stand who process the
Speaker 1: car as a crime scene, and they can't remember hardly
Speaker 1: anything about doing this in seventy eight, and they barely
Speaker 1: remember seeing any blood even let alone this tissue on
Speaker 1: the passenger door. So they're useless. So they're out the door.
Speaker 1: The defense then says, you guys can't identify any of
Speaker 1: this stuff based on these photos, and they put a
Speaker 1: DPS Lieutenant colonel on the stand who is supposedly an expert,
Speaker 1: who says, according to the crime Laboratory, even under the
Speaker 1: best of circumstances, it's unlikely that stains or substances can
Speaker 1: be identified as blood, smears or tissue just by looking
Speaker 1: at photographs. Therefore, a confirmation of any stain as being
Speaker 1: blood or tissue requires extensive laboratory testing. Therefore, it must
Speaker 1: be assumed that personal examination of the door panel did
Speaker 1: not reveal tissue, that no evidence was destroyed. So I
Speaker 1: don't know what that means, Like, what was that a
Speaker 1: kernel of popcorn? I mean, what is he saying?
Speaker 2: No, well, I mean he's saying. What I'm saying is
Speaker 2: that you can't draw any conclusions from these photographs. You
Speaker 2: have to do testing. The undercurrent about that is for
Speaker 2: people like myself and like this Lieutenant colonel out of
Speaker 2: Arizona DPS lab. We've seen the spectrum, let's say, of
Speaker 2: bloodstains and various colors and forms it takes. And that's
Speaker 2: where you can't say, well, hold on, I've got this here,
Speaker 2: this mass as an example, and that looks like this,
Speaker 2: so therefore it's got to be human tissue. And from
Speaker 2: Bob Crane's skulls, there's no way you can jump to
Speaker 2: that conclusion. We have also been fooled ourselves when we go, wow,
Speaker 2: that really looks like blood and then we test it
Speaker 2: and it turns out it's not blood, you know. So
Speaker 2: that's fundamentally what he's saying. Now that the last phrase
Speaker 2: that you read, I didn't understand the meaning of that.
Speaker 2: And what did he say at the end of.
Speaker 1: Their So he says, you know, the confirmation of any
Speaker 1: stains as being blood or tissue requires extensive laboratory testing.
Speaker 2: Which you said golden, yep.
Speaker 1: Yes, he says, Therefore it must be assumed that the
Speaker 1: personal examination of the door panel did not reveal tissue,
Speaker 1: and that there was no evidence that was destroyed because
Speaker 1: it wasn't there to begin with, is what he's saying.
Speaker 1: And then let me tell you what another person says
Speaker 1: that gave me a little bit more perspective. Prosecutors can't
Speaker 1: explain why police reports in seventy eight didn't mention the
Speaker 1: tissue photo or the speck itself, or why there are
Speaker 1: no negatives. A jury is going to be asked to
Speaker 1: believe that an untold number of investigators and prosecutors for
Speaker 1: whom a solution to the famed Crane murder would have
Speaker 1: been career crowning as an achievement, never noticed that stinkin photo.
Speaker 1: So I don't know where they think the photo came from,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't sound like it's even remotely a possibility
Speaker 1: that there was a brain spec found in the back
Speaker 1: of the car, because that guy would have been under
Speaker 1: arrest much sooner most likely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm going back to these these photos. So
Speaker 2: one of the things that I'm looking for is definitely
Speaker 2: you know, in the lab, when we take photos of
Speaker 2: physical evidence, you know will use a scale so you
Speaker 2: have a sense for the size of the stain or
Speaker 2: whatever you're looking at. But oftentimes the scale will have
Speaker 2: the lab number or the case file number and the
Speaker 2: item number written on it, so the photograph shows it's
Speaker 2: from this case and it's from this item. And so
Speaker 2: you know, with what I'm seeing of these photos, there's
Speaker 2: a there's a steel ruler that is being used to
Speaker 2: show size of various stains. But there's no markings anywhere
Speaker 2: in these photos within the photo itself to indicate what
Speaker 2: case it's associated with. And that's not to say it's
Speaker 2: these photos are from some other case. It's just that
Speaker 2: that would be something that I, as a reviewer of
Speaker 2: the processing and of the documentation, would be noting. And
Speaker 2: I also think it's notable I mentioned it's a steel ruler.
Speaker 2: This steel ruler, and this is something you know, back
Speaker 2: in the day I'm guilty of, we had plastic ones,
Speaker 2: but this is a this is a ruler that is
Speaker 2: being used from case to case to case to case.
Speaker 2: It's a source of contamination, and this day and age,
Speaker 2: we would use something that's disposable so we don't track,
Speaker 2: let's say, DNA from a previous homicide into a current
Speaker 2: homicide that we're working. But it looks like this this
Speaker 2: photo of the car door, the inside panel, you know,
Speaker 2: it's so cropped, but it doesn't look like that's currently
Speaker 2: attached to the car, So it's like it was removed
Speaker 2: and possibly the entire panel, if not, the entire door
Speaker 2: was collected. You know, so this is where Okay, they
Speaker 2: say they can't find this evidence, Well, is there a
Speaker 2: paper trail? You know, where did it go? If it
Speaker 2: went to the lab, did it go from the lab
Speaker 2: back to property? Where in property was at place? You know?
Speaker 2: How rigorously have they looked for this evidence. I've got
Speaker 2: my own cases, you know, from back in the day,
Speaker 2: in which we can't find the evidence. And then you
Speaker 2: find it and it's been placed in the wrong box.
Speaker 2: You have to start rolling up your sleeves and start
Speaker 2: going through where it most likely is going to be.
Speaker 2: Have they done that? This is such a critical These
Speaker 2: bloodstains inside Carpenter's rental car are so critical. They have
Speaker 2: to exhaust everything in terms of trying to find it
Speaker 2: because it could prove the case and show that yes,
Speaker 2: if Bob Crane's blood is inside Carpenter's rental car, I'm going, okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: he's the killer. But if it comes back and it's
Speaker 2: not even Bob Crane's blood, then it's just spurious and
Speaker 2: they got nothing on Carpenter to be frank.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And I think you hit the nail on
Speaker 1: the head because the prosecutor's case fell apart and annoinege
Speaker 1: On Carpenter is acquitted by the jury.
Speaker 2: You know, and this is this is a problem.
Speaker 1: And this is not the end. Poll hole, So don't
Speaker 1: you tell me your statement. But don't think this is
Speaker 1: the end. Don't say bye bye. I'm gonna go have
Speaker 1: a drink a bourbon now, because there's more of this.
Speaker 2: No, but but this is where, you know, you take
Speaker 2: a weak case to court and you get an acquittal,
Speaker 2: you're done. Don't take a weak case like this to
Speaker 2: court because now, let's say they do test, they find
Speaker 2: those those bloodstains out of Carpenter's rental car, and it
Speaker 2: comes back to Bob Crane. They can't prosecute him. All
Speaker 2: they can say is, well, we now know who the
Speaker 2: right killer, the right guy is, but he's free and clear.
Speaker 1: Well he was free and clear for four years and
Speaker 1: then he dies. So you know, after that, there are
Speaker 1: of course lots of people who say that John definitely
Speaker 1: was the one who killed Bob with a tripod and
Speaker 1: a VCR cord. And you know, he probably took the
Speaker 1: tripod and folded it up and put it in his
Speaker 1: case and took it back home to LA with them.
Speaker 1: And then there are other people who say, listen, the
Speaker 1: police really dropped the ball here. I don't know if
Speaker 1: they should have called the state police or what, but
Speaker 1: that they dropped the ball and they didn't investigate enough.
Speaker 1: And then there are more developments. But what I can
Speaker 1: tell the way you sit up that usually I can
Speaker 1: When you sit up like that, that's how I usually
Speaker 1: can tell you've got something to say.
Speaker 2: Well, I think you know. This is where agencies need
Speaker 2: to recognize what they're good at and what they might
Speaker 2: want to reach out for help, you know, and this
Speaker 2: case was not handled right based off of what you
Speaker 2: told me. But I'm not going to cast I'm not
Speaker 2: going to say bad things about Scottsdale PD from nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy eight, but I can guarantee that the agency right
Speaker 2: next to them, Phoenix PD, has very experienced investigators, very
Speaker 2: experienced csis. This is where you have agreements when you're
Speaker 2: a smaller agency, recognize your weaknesses and get MOUs in
Speaker 2: place with the resources that you can pull in when
Speaker 2: you have a case like this. And you know, this
Speaker 2: is something that I've seen over and over again, and notably,
Speaker 2: let's say John Bene Ramsay, where you have a smaller
Speaker 2: inexperienced agency who probably should have called in Denver homicide
Speaker 2: to be frank, you know, kind of a similar type
Speaker 2: of scenario where from the very beginning, it really underscores
Speaker 2: that you have to do it right from the very beginning,
Speaker 2: otherwise you can possibly just completely kill the case.
Speaker 1: Well, let me tell you, you know, John Carpenter dies and
Speaker 1: this case goes very cold. So in the mid two
Speaker 1: thousand tons, the reporter I told you about, John Hook,
Speaker 1: who wrote the book, was given permission to submit the
Speaker 1: blood samples from John's car using you know more updated
Speaker 1: or using updated DNA processes in which were available during
Speaker 1: earlier phases, which were not available during earlier phases of
Speaker 1: the investigation. So according to Hook, this is what the
Speaker 1: testing concluded, and this is from him. John Hook really
Speaker 1: did think that John Carpenter was responsible for this. The
Speaker 1: DNA found on the door of John Carpenter's mental car
Speaker 1: is not from Bob Crane. The test actually picked up
Speaker 1: two DNA profiles, a major contributors from a man we
Speaker 1: don't know who he is. The second is from a
Speaker 1: partial profile too degraded to reach any conclusions. So what
Speaker 1: John hook says, is I still think he's the guy
Speaker 1: John Carpenter, But I mean the DNA detected and our
Speaker 1: test might be completely unconnected to the crime, might have
Speaker 1: been depositive before after you know, who knows. It's unlikely
Speaker 1: this has anything to do with the crime in general.
Speaker 1: But that was the conclusion. And just as a note, Paul,
Speaker 1: they said that. And I don't know if you want
Speaker 1: to call somebody and double check that this is the
Speaker 1: truth or not, but they said that all of the
Speaker 1: samples in Bob's case are done and can't use him anymore.
Speaker 1: They've all been used up, so there's no further DNA
Speaker 1: testing possible.
Speaker 2: Well, and I you know, when you start talking about
Speaker 2: DNA tech technology in the mid twenty ten range, we're
Speaker 2: talking modern DNA technology. This is where now you have
Speaker 2: the discriminating power. At least with the sample that they
Speaker 2: got results on, they've eliminated Bob Crane as being a
Speaker 2: contributor to that bloodstain. Just like what I say it
Speaker 2: was saying before, it's like it's somebody else's. It could
Speaker 2: be somebody else's. It's a rental car. So you know,
Speaker 2: it's unfortunate if they've completely consumed the samples that they
Speaker 2: don't have results on. Because the technology from a sensitivity
Speaker 2: standpoint has greatly improved since the twenty ten timeframe, it's
Speaker 2: possible with the current law enforcement type of DNA testing
Speaker 2: that maybe they could get a result. I guess my
Speaker 2: question would be is why are they saying it's now consumed.
Speaker 2: It's because they consumed the entire extract. Have they consumed,
Speaker 2: you know, the swab that they used to collect it.
Speaker 2: Do they still have let's say, the door panel. Can
Speaker 2: you go back and reswab that area? But absent being
Speaker 2: able to do that, I think that one test in
Speaker 2: and of itself pretty much in all likelihood. Okay, you've
Speaker 2: got a bleeder inside this rental car. That's and that
Speaker 2: blood is not coming from Bob Crane. Well likely the
Speaker 2: other blood stains which have very similar color appearance, you know,
Speaker 2: they don't look like they you know from a temporal
Speaker 2: standpoint that some of these stains have been there much
Speaker 2: longer than other stains. Likely all those stains are from
Speaker 2: that same bleeder that's not Bob Crane, you know. So
Speaker 2: this is where the physical evidence against Carpenter, at least
Speaker 2: from that rental car is you know, you have to
Speaker 2: throw all of that out. You can't rely upon that
Speaker 2: at all, you know, the circumstantial case he is, he's
Speaker 2: a suspect. I just don't think that they have enough
Speaker 2: to be confident he is one responsible. Do you know
Speaker 2: did they ever go out to LA and search Carpenter's residents?
Speaker 2: I have an issue maybe with Carpenter bringing a murder
Speaker 2: weapon back home with him flying it. You know, I
Speaker 2: would think he would have gotten rid of that somewhere
Speaker 2: in the you know, Scottsdale, Phoenix area.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I was thinking, Paul, what would make those
Speaker 1: stains in the car? Like I guess the theory is
Speaker 1: is that he uses a tripod he beats Bob Crane
Speaker 1: to death. It's not that he's using a knife and
Speaker 1: he's cut his hands. It's that the blood was transferred
Speaker 1: from the tripods somehow in the car. But do the
Speaker 1: patterns that you saw make sense for flinging a tripod
Speaker 1: into the back of a car. And would he do that?
Speaker 1: To begin with? Why would he do that? It's a
Speaker 1: rental car, you know.
Speaker 2: You know you have one blood stain where obviously you
Speaker 2: have a finger that has blood on it that is
Speaker 2: being used to operate the window switch, right, that's obvious,
Speaker 2: you know. So I would say that chances are as
Speaker 2: those blood stains are being transferred because the person has
Speaker 2: blood on their hands, and not so much that it's
Speaker 2: because you've got a bloody tripod that's being flung back there.
Speaker 2: It's not going to be touching that part. If it's
Speaker 2: a tripod that's leaving those linear those parallel linear stains
Speaker 2: on the bedsheet, that's a significant amount of blood on
Speaker 2: the legs of that tripod. And if that is not
Speaker 2: cleaned off and that's thrown in the trunk or that's
Speaker 2: you know, thrown into the back seat or something, you'd
Speaker 2: probably see some fairly significant transfers if those particular legs
Speaker 2: with blood on them are contacting surfaces within the car versus.
Speaker 2: What I'm seeing in those photos is more consistent with
Speaker 2: somebody transferring blood from their fingers. And it may not
Speaker 2: be the person's own blood. It could be somebody else,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe this car was used in a different homicide,
Speaker 2: who knows, you.
Speaker 1: Know, or someone with a bloody nose. My kid gets
Speaker 1: bloody noses a lot, so who knows, you know.
Speaker 2: Sure you know they've got if they put a bloody
Speaker 2: nose and transfer that onto their fingers. But right now
Speaker 2: that blood is irrelevant. It's not related to the crime
Speaker 2: per modern DNA testing. So now it's okay, you think
Speaker 2: it's John Carpenter. How do you prove it's John Carpenter
Speaker 2: in this day and age, you know, are they going
Speaker 2: to get any further circumstantial evidence against him? You know
Speaker 2: it's going to be tough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I don't see that. I'm assuming they did
Speaker 1: Search's apartment and didn't find anything. They never found the
Speaker 1: tripod which was Bob Crane's tripod, if that's what was used,
Speaker 1: and so you know, this just becomes a big mystery,
Speaker 1: and that's why it's an unsolved case. I guess the
Speaker 1: big movement would be if somebody like a Pole Hooles calls,
Speaker 1: you know, Scottsdale PD and says, do you guys still
Speaker 1: have any biological evidence anywhere, any kind of evidence at
Speaker 1: all from this Bob Crane case.
Speaker 2: Well, and that's where I would be going back to
Speaker 2: the original. You have to go to the origin of
Speaker 2: the crime, which is Bob Crane's body, where Bob Crane
Speaker 2: is killed, and then an outer circle, if you will,
Speaker 2: is whatever they collected out of their apartment, how much
Speaker 2: Layton processing did they do? Do they have any latents
Speaker 2: that are unidentified? Today we always get Layton's out of
Speaker 2: houses if we do a decent job, and we always
Speaker 2: find Layton's that we can never identify because you have
Speaker 2: so many people that flow in and out of that apartment.
Speaker 2: But we have technology today that if they have unidentified latents,
Speaker 2: they could identify that person and go that person was.
Speaker 2: You know, like I had one case in GSK where
Speaker 2: we got super excited because in the bottom of the
Speaker 2: victim's phone there was an unidentified Layton, and one of
Speaker 2: the examiners identified, you know, forty some odd years later,
Speaker 2: and then investigation showed that turned out to be a
Speaker 2: telephone repairman. That's why his Layton is on that phone.
Speaker 2: It's not GSK. But you have to go through those motions.
Speaker 2: And so this is where if I were to look
Speaker 2: at this case today, it's like I want everything. I
Speaker 2: need to see the entire case file, and I need
Speaker 2: to see the entire evidence list of what was collected
Speaker 2: back in the day, which should be in the case file.
Speaker 2: I would also need to go to property and start
Speaker 2: auditing the property room, like my old property room. For
Speaker 2: these old cases, they use three by five index cards
Speaker 2: really kind of a pretty pretty good file system for
Speaker 2: back in the day that wasn't computerized. Do you still
Speaker 2: have those cards? And on the back of the card
Speaker 2: would be written information as to this evidence was destroyed
Speaker 2: on such and such a date whatever, you know, so
Speaker 2: you establish a paper trail. If you don't have the
Speaker 2: paper trail, that's like, well, where would this evidence normally
Speaker 2: be kept in the property room? And are there cases
Speaker 2: from this era that are in this area. Have you
Speaker 2: guys opened up the boxes to see is there bob
Speaker 2: crane evidence that got just put somewhere else where it
Speaker 2: shouldn't be. You know, that's just the reality of what
Speaker 2: happens with these old cases. And so this is part
Speaker 2: of if I get involved in the case, that's all
Speaker 2: part of the step to compile the current state of
Speaker 2: the case at this point in time, in the current
Speaker 2: state of the evidence that exists, and then make decisions
Speaker 2: on how to proceed from there.
Speaker 1: It's been a while since I think you've gotten this
Speaker 1: excited about a case, and I understand why. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm always trying to think about what the lesson is
Speaker 1: when we do these cases, things that I think about,
Speaker 1: you know, with historical cases, and sometimes I put them
Speaker 1: in a couple of different categories. There's one category where
Speaker 1: it's clear the police in the eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: or even in the nineteen seventies want to do everything
Speaker 1: they can. They know they don't have the technology to
Speaker 1: solve this. Now, they collect everything in the best way
Speaker 1: they know how. And then there are the investigators and
Speaker 1: the prosecutors who are doing things that where they should
Speaker 1: know better and they're not doing them. And we've talked
Speaker 1: about climbing over the body to shave it right then
Speaker 1: and there, you know, putting on a case that is
Speaker 1: clearly weak based on a photograph that's not going to
Speaker 1: lead you anywhere, and ruining any chance of being able
Speaker 1: to prosecute this guy later on. So you know, there
Speaker 1: are these balances where I look at the investigators in
Speaker 1: the past and just go, man, I'm so sorry that
Speaker 1: you will that you had to attach a magnet to
Speaker 1: a fishing line to try to find a gun in
Speaker 1: a river. I mean that was fortitude. But then there
Speaker 1: are other times where I just think, yeah, you really
Speaker 1: didn't even think about what was going to happen. What
Speaker 1: consequences were of your decisions.
Speaker 2: I don't want to just call out incompetence. I think
Speaker 2: oftentimes you have very well meaning individuals that are working
Speaker 2: a case, but they don't have the experience, they don't
Speaker 2: have the expertise. And that goes back to when you
Speaker 2: say the message, you know, this case here, if properly done.
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy eight, sexual assault case were being done
Speaker 2: on victims' bodies, Fingernail scrapings were being collected, crusty material
Speaker 2: from pub care was being collected out of you know,
Speaker 2: the agency I worked for in the Bay Area. If
Speaker 2: they didn't do that, this is where you go, Okay,
Speaker 2: they were in over their heads. And that's where agencies
Speaker 2: just need to know what they don't know and be
Speaker 2: prepared when they have to recognize I've got a case
Speaker 2: that my agency cannot fully handle. I need outside help
Speaker 2: in order to do this right from the very beginning.
Speaker 1: So that's maybe a better takeaway. The better takeaway here
Speaker 1: is get over yourself about taking the lead on a
Speaker 1: case because it's your jurisdiction or it's your town, and
Speaker 1: call and help when you need it. Here, they call
Speaker 1: the Texas Rangers. Also, you know, I mean there are
Speaker 1: resources that everyone has certainly more than they used to have,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming. So okay, I like that too. So you know,
Speaker 1: as we move along in our seasons here, I want
Speaker 1: to definitely keep an eye on the really good performances
Speaker 1: that we see, the impressive people. Sometimes you say, I
Speaker 1: didn't know that pathologist figure that out, And I've done
Speaker 1: that too, So I'm surprised sometimes and then sometimes I go,
Speaker 1: don't what is going on with these people? So it's
Speaker 1: good for you to tell me the difference between just
Speaker 1: people who are malicious or don't give a shit versus
Speaker 1: the people who just clearly are sort of drowning in
Speaker 1: a case that has you know, more to it than
Speaker 1: they can handle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's for sure, you know. And and most
Speaker 2: certainly there are just negligent individuals and law enforcement that
Speaker 2: purposely are just lazy and they don't try, you know.
Speaker 2: But oftentimes what I see, you know that the general
Speaker 2: population is going to blame that. But oftentimes it's what
Speaker 2: I think is going on here is that you know,
Speaker 2: it's an experience. Yeah, and maybe you know certain things
Speaker 2: like you know, evidence tracking within the evidence room, property
Speaker 2: room could have been more robust back in the day
Speaker 2: than what it sounds like they have, you know, but
Speaker 2: I'm not convinced just because I've seen it before. Where
Speaker 2: and it's it's because of experience? Is that? Nope, we
Speaker 2: can't find the evidence. So the case is done. And
Speaker 2: I was like, did you really look, you know? Or
Speaker 2: is your property technician just telling you, hey, there's nothing
Speaker 2: on the shelf under that case file number. Then I'd go, well,
Speaker 2: you need to go back and you need to look.
Speaker 2: It didn't look well.
Speaker 1: Next week? Can I guarantee you that we're not going
Speaker 1: to have lazy investigators?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: I can't. Will there be investigators, yes, that's about the
Speaker 1: only thing I can say that. We will have people
Speaker 1: looking into a crime. And that's it. But every week
Speaker 1: to week, I'm always interested in seeing how you rate
Speaker 1: these people, and you know, some of them I press
Speaker 1: for sure. So we'll see what happens next week.
Speaker 2: All right. Again, I'm looking forward to it, and thank
Speaker 2: you again for bringing this case to me.
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Speaker 1: Alexis Emirosi.
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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
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Speaker 1: Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life solving America's Cold
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