Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: They take the cars for processing. They go to his workplace,
Speaker 2: they go to the house in Connecticut. They go through everything,
Speaker 2: They find nothing.
Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,
Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken
Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,
Speaker 1: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true
Speaker 1: crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both
Speaker 1: good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the
Speaker 1: unpublished details behind their stories. In nineteen ninety eight, FBI
Speaker 1: agent Robert Hilland was at a dead end with a
Speaker 1: cold case until he got a huge break from a
Speaker 1: famous psychic named John Edward. Hilland was a skeptic, but
Speaker 1: he's not anymore. They spent twenty five years solving crimes together.
Speaker 1: Robert Hilland tells me the story at the center of
Speaker 1: his book, Chasing Evil, Shocking Crimes supernatural forces and an
Speaker 1: FBI agent's search for hope and justice. Tell me a
Speaker 1: little bit about how you got into the FBI to
Speaker 1: begin with. Was this a childhood dream of yours?
Speaker 2: Not at all. You know. I'm a guy from Brooklyn,
Speaker 2: New York, and from Jersey and I became a police
Speaker 2: officer a good friend of mine and I always wanted
Speaker 2: to be a cop. And next thing, you know, I
Speaker 2: became this police officer in a small town in Jersey
Speaker 2: called West Windsor. I really enjoyed it. I loved being
Speaker 2: a cop. I was a young guy wearing a uniform.
Speaker 2: Responding to was exciting. I really really enjoyed it. I
Speaker 2: was there, I guess seven years, almost eight years. And
Speaker 2: during the course of my career there, I had met
Speaker 2: somebody who was in the FBI, a senior official who
Speaker 2: knew of me from you know, local stories in the papers,
Speaker 2: and started talking to me about joining the FBI. And
Speaker 2: I kind of dismissed it, thinking, yeah, I don't know
Speaker 2: that I want to do that, And over time I said, hey,
Speaker 2: why not. You know, I really enjoyed what I did,
Speaker 2: but it was a small department and I thought that
Speaker 2: maybe the FBI could offer me other opportunities. I applied
Speaker 2: and I went through that process and I joined the
Speaker 2: FBI in nineteen ninety seven. I went through Quantico, graduated,
Speaker 2: and my first assignment was the New York Field Office,
Speaker 2: which was kind of home to me.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm surprised when I talked to FBI former
Speaker 1: FBI agents, because you're probably the sixth I've talked to,
Speaker 1: maybe even you know, I've talked to more about their cases.
Speaker 1: I have always made the assumption that somebody gets recruited
Speaker 1: for the FBI when they have achieved some dissolving of
Speaker 1: some mass of case and they get on the radar,
Speaker 1: or they're in you know, Boston PD or San Francisco
Speaker 1: in a bigger, you know station. But I didn't realize
Speaker 1: they recruit from even really small areas. What does it
Speaker 1: take to get on their radar?
Speaker 2: You know, the FBI always has to evolve with the
Speaker 2: newest challenges and threats that the country's facing. Right, So
Speaker 2: that's going to force the FBI to recruit people that
Speaker 2: are equipped to deal with those problem sets. Right. So,
Speaker 2: you know, back in the day, in you know, pre
Speaker 2: nine to eleven world, we were still while we were
Speaker 2: focused on terrorism and counterintelligence crime was the big thing
Speaker 2: for the FBI, and historically it was always former military
Speaker 2: law enforcement accountants to that kind of thing, lawyers, That
Speaker 2: was kind of the staple for the FBI. It has
Speaker 2: now grown exponentially where we look for data scientists, We
Speaker 2: look for people in the IT world, people who can
Speaker 2: hack systems, people with diverse language skills, people who have
Speaker 2: an ability to think like the adversaries. We're going up again,
Speaker 2: So today's FBI is a lot more efficient and effective
Speaker 2: than we were years ago. You have to evolve, and
Speaker 2: I'm confident the FBI has and always won't do that.
Speaker 1: So you get to the FBI and give me your
Speaker 1: first impressions. I know you went through the training in
Speaker 1: Quantico and everything. Were you just scared to death going
Speaker 1: through all of this?
Speaker 2: I wasn't scared of death. I think what came to
Speaker 2: mind when you asked that question. It felt to me
Speaker 2: like the scene of Willie Walker where they opened up
Speaker 2: and it was this magical place right. I felt like
Speaker 2: I was in the major leagues, like you know, like
Speaker 2: major League Baseball, and now we're dealing with really significant crimes,
Speaker 2: with significant adversaries and big cases and working with very
Speaker 2: experienced men and women who had done some crazy phenomenal work.
Speaker 2: So I was surrounded by I would argue the best
Speaker 2: of the best, and I had the ability to kind
Speaker 2: of be a sponge and soak in from those people
Speaker 2: their lessons while taking on these new cases. So it
Speaker 2: was exhilarating. As much as I love being a cop
Speaker 2: and responding to calls and doing that, when I first
Speaker 2: joined the FBI felt like I was playing in the
Speaker 2: super Bowl. It was excited every day. I loved it.
Speaker 1: So when did you become an active agent? When did
Speaker 1: you get out of out of Quonaco and you're ready
Speaker 1: to go? Was that ninety seven?
Speaker 2: Yes, so in the ninety seven. I joined the FBI
Speaker 2: in May of ninety seven, and the training was I
Speaker 2: don't know, four or five months, and then I respond
Speaker 2: to I report to New York five months later. Whatever
Speaker 2: that was.
Speaker 1: Tell me what brings you to the case that's at
Speaker 1: the center of your book where you will eventually meet
Speaker 1: John Edward. How far into your career does this case come?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So by you know, I look back and you say,
Speaker 2: things don't happen by circumstance, right, nothing is by accident.
Speaker 2: And my first assignment was. I was assigned to a
Speaker 2: cold case homicide squad, and man, it was exciting. I
Speaker 2: was working old mob cases. I was working with the NYPD,
Speaker 2: some very experienced detectives and FBI agents, and those cases
Speaker 2: were typically organized crime, the mob, criminal enterprise cases, and
Speaker 2: those have a different flavor to them. It's I don't
Speaker 2: want to say there were business, but you know, it's
Speaker 2: more about power, money control, but exciting. You learn how
Speaker 2: to work homicide cases and learn how to prosecute cases
Speaker 2: at the federal level. So I was working at different
Speaker 2: points over twenty cases at one time, and it was
Speaker 2: exciting and overwhelming. But to your question, when I was
Speaker 2: a cop in Jersey back in nineteen ninety one, October fourth,
Speaker 2: this man came into the police station by the name
Speaker 2: of John Smith, and it was a Friday night. He
Speaker 2: came around ten o'clock. I was getting off shift and another
Speaker 2: officer was coming on and the guy came in to
Speaker 2: report that his wife was missing. Her name was Betty
Speaker 2: frant I had nothing to do with the initial case.
Speaker 2: I just remember when him coming in, kind of a
Speaker 2: nerdy looking guy. I saw the officer taking initial report.
Speaker 2: As that case unfolded, it became very evident from the
Speaker 2: detectives you started looking at case, it's something nefarious had
Speaker 2: likely happened to her.
Speaker 1: First, I guess, tell me about both of these people.
Speaker 1: What did you all know about John Smith? And then
Speaker 1: you know how he met Betty and how they got
Speaker 1: married and.
Speaker 2: All of that. So she went by her name was
Speaker 2: Betty Fran, but she went by he re named Fran
Speaker 2: a friend. Was ten years older than John. They had
Speaker 2: met a year earlier in Florida. John was working as
Speaker 2: an engineer and a company that produced commercial aircraft engines.
Speaker 2: She was an admin, secretary receptionist. Her personality she was
Speaker 2: very extroverted. Friendly. People were drawn to her because of
Speaker 2: her positiveness and she just she exuded that. And she
Speaker 2: meets John. John is the opposite of her. He's a
Speaker 2: quite introvert, doesn't have much in the way of friends
Speaker 2: or social like you would say. He was an awkward
Speaker 2: kind of guy. They meet, he asked her on a date,
Speaker 2: and believe or not, within the month of them going
Speaker 2: on that first date, they get married. John was her
Speaker 2: fifth husband, although she married one of her husbands twice
Speaker 2: or really her fourth husband, and John told her that
Speaker 2: he had never been married that he was a bachelor.
Speaker 2: He had never been previously married. So life was good
Speaker 2: when they first got married. They're living in Florida. They
Speaker 2: bought a modest home. It was a new home which
Speaker 2: literally next door to her elderly mother. Fran's life was good.
Speaker 2: She had her social friends, she had her workplace friends.
Speaker 2: Life was great for her. And she's got this new
Speaker 2: husband and she really enjoyed everything. And then ultimately John
Speaker 2: his contract expires and now he's looking for a job.
Speaker 2: He's out of work. Fast forward, he's offered a job
Speaker 2: by one of his former bosses who's now up in
Speaker 2: New Jersey, a place called Keyesby, New Jersey, working at
Speaker 2: a industrial plant that made concrete products. So now John
Speaker 2: uproots and takes Fran all their new furnitures. She had
Speaker 2: bought all of her belongings put in storage, and now
Speaker 2: they moved to New Jersey, a place that she's never
Speaker 2: been and doesn't know anybody.
Speaker 1: Away from her elderly mother too, right away from her
Speaker 1: support system.
Speaker 2: She's very close with her daughter named Dee Dee Deanna
Speaker 2: who at the time was living in Houston, Texas, half
Speaker 2: sister in Indiana named Sherry, and that they were kind
Speaker 2: of her support systems. So now here is Fran up
Speaker 2: in New Jersey trying to establish herself, and she's having
Speaker 2: a hard time. She's gotten no no system up there.
Speaker 2: She's struggling to find a good job. Meanwhile, John, he's
Speaker 2: one of those guys that he goes to work early
Speaker 2: in the morning, comes home late at night. And then
Speaker 2: add to it, he told her that he owned the
Speaker 2: house in Milford, Connecticut, and he had tenants living up there,
Speaker 2: and every weekend he'd go up to this house because
Speaker 2: allegedly the house was in disrepair. So now here is
Speaker 2: this poor lady Fran with this new man, and she's
Speaker 2: got nothing going on. He's never at home, so she's
Speaker 2: growing more and more frustrated around there. One year anniversary,
Speaker 2: Fran is very frustrated with the circumstance. Nothing seems to
Speaker 2: make sense to her. He's rarely at home, and he's
Speaker 2: sensing that she's not happy, so he says, listen, let's
Speaker 2: go on. We never really had a kind of a honeymoon,
Speaker 2: so let's go on vacation. So he takes her away
Speaker 2: to the Pocones, which is in Pennsylvania, a couple hours
Speaker 2: from where they lived, and while they're there. On the
Speaker 2: first day, Fran suffers a fall, legitimate fall. She fell
Speaker 2: coming out of the tub and she broke her hip,
Speaker 2: all legitimate. But now she goes to a hospital, she
Speaker 2: has surgery, and now she's transported back to that condo
Speaker 2: in New Jersey. She can't walk. She's just had major surgery,
Speaker 2: and she's droning and meanwhile nothing has changed. She's lying
Speaker 2: in bed and pain, can't walk. He's gone all day.
Speaker 2: On weekends, he's going up to this house in Milford, Connecticut.
Speaker 2: Nothing makes sense. She's living in a furniture home with
Speaker 2: none of her belongings. The only thing she has is
Speaker 2: the clothing and her personal effects. But she's more and
Speaker 2: more frustrated, and she's expressing these frustrations with her family.
Speaker 2: Her daughter says, hey, Mom, I'll come pick you up,
Speaker 2: come out and live with us in Texas. You know,
Speaker 2: don't worry about this her. In those conversations with a sister,
Speaker 2: her sister says, we listen, if you're not happy, maybe
Speaker 2: you should make the list of things that you want
Speaker 2: to talk to him about and confront him with these
Speaker 2: with these issues. And Fran does that, so you know
Speaker 2: the list consisted of things like, Hey, I want to
Speaker 2: go see the place you work. I've ever been there.
Speaker 2: I want to go to your house in Milford, Connecticut.
Speaker 2: I want to go to the storage and see all
Speaker 2: my furniture that's in storage. I want to be a
Speaker 2: part of the financial the bank. I need these things.
Speaker 2: And she persisted on that. And the last time she
Speaker 2: was seen alive was Saturday, September twenty eighth, nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 2: And what was significant about that day was it had
Speaker 2: been I don't know a month or more since her accident,
Speaker 2: and she was getting cabin fever. She wanted to get out,
Speaker 2: and she spoke on the phone with her daughter, and
Speaker 2: she said she was excited because John was going to
Speaker 2: take her to a Toys r Us if she ruarned
Speaker 2: the Toys r Us stores. They were going to buy
Speaker 2: a gift for Franz's grandson, Deanna's son. And so she's
Speaker 2: talking to her daughter saying, I can't wait to get out.
Speaker 2: It's going to be great. And John walks through the
Speaker 2: door and says, I just went shopping and he comes
Speaker 2: in with a gift. He had no intention of taking her.
Speaker 2: So there's some kind of disagreement that happens, and Franz says, Tona,
Speaker 2: I'll talk to you later, I love you, and hangs up,
Speaker 2: and that's the last time anybody heard from her. The
Speaker 2: last time she has seen is that same day. She
Speaker 2: has seen leaving the condo using crutches, and there was
Speaker 2: another couple walking into the building as she is leaving
Speaker 2: with John. One of the people that saw her was
Speaker 2: a paramedic and he described her face is red and
Speaker 2: blotchy and soul and almost like she had been hit
Speaker 2: or was crying or something. And that's the last time
Speaker 2: anybody ever saw of her. Now you have to understand
Speaker 2: her family was in daily contact with her, giving her
Speaker 2: encouraging words of support and conversation. After September twenty eighth,
Speaker 2: their calling and the phone's not being picked up day
Speaker 2: after day after day after day. Finally, I think it's
Speaker 2: Wednesday or the following week. The daughter calls John at
Speaker 2: work and he answers the phone and she says, John,
Speaker 2: where's my mother? And he offers some hesitation, and then
Speaker 2: he says, I thought she was with you, and said,
Speaker 2: what do you mean she's with me? She couldn't walk,
Speaker 2: she couldn't drive a car. What are you talking about.
Speaker 2: None of this makes sense, And she says, John, something's
Speaker 2: wrong her. You need to go to the police. And
Speaker 2: John says, you know your mother wouldn't want the police
Speaker 2: to get involved. You know she'll show up. I'm sure
Speaker 2: she was homesick and either went down to Florida or
Speaker 2: went somewhere. But nothing is adding up. And to the
Speaker 2: credit of the daughter and the sister, they basically called
Speaker 2: him on that Friday and said, look, if you don't
Speaker 2: go to the police today and report mom missing, we're
Speaker 2: flying to New Jersey and we're going to report her missing.
Speaker 2: We're telling they need to talk to you. So that's
Speaker 2: how the investigation ensued or started. As it unfolded, it
Speaker 2: was determined that that house up in Milford, Connecticut, he
Speaker 2: had a common law wife up there that he was
Speaker 2: hiding from her. All of her stuff that was in
Speaker 2: storage was not in storage, but he gave it to
Speaker 2: that of the wife. So all of his lies started
Speaker 2: to unravel. They did a consensual phone call in which
Speaker 2: the woman up in Connecticut, her name was Sheila. Sheila
Speaker 2: pleased with him on the phone and says, John, look,
Speaker 2: I love you, I'll stay with you, but we got
Speaker 2: to work this out. I've got an affidavity if the
Speaker 2: search for and says you were married to another woman
Speaker 2: named Janice Hartman. Who is she? She's confronting him and
Speaker 2: she pleased with him. She says, let's do the right thing.
Speaker 2: Let's help the police find Fran and find Janice. And
Speaker 2: he says it's too late to help them. Now, it's
Speaker 2: too late for that. He admits that he's applied to
Speaker 2: the police. He made a lot of incriminating statements, but
Speaker 2: nothing that rose to the level where they can bring
Speaker 2: a case against him, but certainly suspicious. And then as
Speaker 2: the police spoke with the family members of Fran, John
Speaker 2: had represented to them that he had never previously been married.
Speaker 2: But when John spoke to the investigators, he reported he
Speaker 2: was married to woman named Janis Hartman years ago in Ohio.
Speaker 2: So there's a huge inconsistency. The investigation continues and they
Speaker 2: identified Janice Hartman as his first wife, who disappeared in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy four in Ohio under almost identical circumstances, never
Speaker 2: to have been seen again. So now that got a
Speaker 2: guy married to two women, both who disappeared, no bodies,
Speaker 2: no physical evidence, and it's very frustrating.
Speaker 1: Well, I have a lot of questions, I guess to
Speaker 1: start with. You know, obviously John is very, very controlling,
Speaker 1: and he's isolated her and coerced her into staying and
Speaker 1: she's pretty well trapped. Is there a money motivation? Also?
Speaker 1: I don't know if I remember, did Fran have money?
Speaker 2: There was not money involved. There was not a financial
Speaker 2: motive in this case. It was no insurance policy, nothing
Speaker 2: of that nature. I think if you had ask me,
Speaker 2: John always lived separate lives. He compartmentalized, like he led
Speaker 2: a life where this was the life he showed publicly,
Speaker 2: but then he always had a secret life, and the
Speaker 2: secret life involved mistresses, all kinds of crazy, and he
Speaker 2: kept those worlds apart. And when those worlds come together,
Speaker 2: that's going to be a problem. And I think what
Speaker 2: happened in these women's cases, they started bringing those worlds
Speaker 2: together and he had to control that.
Speaker 1: Tell me what you know about Janice. Did you go
Speaker 1: missing in seventy four or they were married in seventy four?
Speaker 2: Maybe they got married in seventy four, forgive me, it's
Speaker 2: been a while now, but in the seventies.
Speaker 1: A good ten years though, right, yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, And much like fran You know, because I
Speaker 2: through the investigation, I interviewed so so many people. Janis
Speaker 2: was this vibrant, extroverted personality. Everybody loved her. When I
Speaker 2: would say, Hey, tell me about Janis, they would light up,
Speaker 2: they would smile, and they would say, Janis was the
Speaker 2: life of the party, the one that everybody gravitated to.
Speaker 2: The similarities between the women or were remarkable. You could
Speaker 2: see it, and I think that people would say, I know,
Speaker 2: people would say, I never quite understood why this beautiful,
Speaker 2: attractive woman would hook up with this guy. They were opposites,
Speaker 2: you know. So, but John had this thing, and the
Speaker 2: best way I can describe it, he had this ability
Speaker 2: to whether it was it the workplace or social situation,
Speaker 2: he could kind of survey the people around him, with
Speaker 2: the women particularly, and he could kind of figure out
Speaker 2: the one that was kind of off to herself, or
Speaker 2: he would identify, I don't want to say a higher riskpectum,
Speaker 2: but in effact that's what they were, and speaking with them,
Speaker 2: he would identify the things in their life that was missing,
Speaker 2: that was lacking. So for some women through the years,
Speaker 2: it was financial, for some, it was religion. For someone
Speaker 2: was love, for some of it was sex. He became
Speaker 2: those things because when I talked to all these women
Speaker 2: over the years who knew him, were my relationships with him?
Speaker 2: They would say, Asian Hill, And you don't understand. When
Speaker 2: I met John Smith, it was like God had heard
Speaker 2: my prayers and send him to me. He's a chameleon.
Speaker 2: He's that guy that can just He's adept at playing people.
Speaker 2: He's very good at that.
Speaker 1: What were the red flags that corresponded between Janesis family
Speaker 1: and Fran's family. You must have seen an overlap of
Speaker 1: people's impressions of him, you know, who were outside of
Speaker 1: the marriage and could see without these rose colored glasses
Speaker 1: that the women had.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think in both cases it's fair to say
Speaker 2: that the family members the friends question how were they
Speaker 2: with him? It didn't make sense to them. They were
Speaker 2: attractive women, they weren't they weren't dumb. A term that
Speaker 2: kept coming up was they wondered if the women felt
Speaker 2: sorry for him, because he could come off like this
Speaker 2: guy that you would want to feel sorry for. He
Speaker 2: had like this mousey kind of thing. So they wondered,
Speaker 2: you know, is out why they were with him? But
Speaker 2: outsiders looking at them, who know both women said, you
Speaker 2: know my mom or Janie. They had everything going for them.
Speaker 2: They had this energy about them, and the connection between
Speaker 2: them and John didn't seem to make sense.
Speaker 1: Was he friendly with the families or did he have
Speaker 1: any kind of coreer Did anybody like him in the
Speaker 1: family other than the women?
Speaker 2: No, no, no. I think the family members and friends
Speaker 2: saw that he was a con He was a con man.
Speaker 2: He had this over exaggerated sense of self. He would
Speaker 2: tell these stories that just never added up about the
Speaker 2: things he had done in his life through the years.
Speaker 2: When I would ask people tell me about John Smith,
Speaker 2: it was like they were talking about one hundred different
Speaker 2: John Smith. And I would say, what did John do
Speaker 2: for a living? Here's some of the things I heard. Well.
Speaker 2: John worked as an engineer. He built aircraft engines. He
Speaker 2: was an undercover FBI agent. He worked for the CIA.
Speaker 2: He worked for a company that interpreted the Dead Sea scrolls.
Speaker 2: He was an archaeologist. There was one story that he
Speaker 2: claimed that he installed the turbo charger at the Indy
Speaker 2: five hundred race where some guy named Andy granat Telly
Speaker 2: won in the sixties. John would have been like ten
Speaker 2: years old when this happened, but he told these elaborate
Speaker 2: stories to make himself look and feel important, and I
Speaker 2: think I think some people believed him and thought, Wow,
Speaker 2: this guy's amazing, and a lot of people said, this
Speaker 2: guy's this guy's not honest.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, now I want to know about what you
Speaker 1: all know about John Smith? Is that his real name.
Speaker 2: First of all, his name is John David Smith. Yes,
Speaker 2: that's his true name.
Speaker 1: Tell me about him. What did you all figure out
Speaker 1: about the way he grew up and all of that.
Speaker 2: So he was born and raised in Ohio. His mother
Speaker 2: was Grace. She's passed now. John's father's name was Carl.
Speaker 2: When John was I think less than two years old,
Speaker 2: his mother became pregnant with Michael, which would be John's
Speaker 2: brother and the father, Carl realized that he could not
Speaker 2: live with Grace. I hate to sound so crass about it,
Speaker 2: but Grace had some issues. I don't know if there
Speaker 2: are mental health issues, emotional issues. I think she had
Speaker 2: experienced some trauma early in her life, and her personality
Speaker 2: as far as living in these grandios life with these
Speaker 2: stories was much like John. So when she was pregnant
Speaker 2: with Michael, father Carl enlists I think it was during
Speaker 2: the Korean War or something or Vietnam, and to get
Speaker 2: away from her and divorced.
Speaker 1: He enlisted in the army.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, okay, so Michael was born. John's grandparents, which
Speaker 2: would be Grace's parents, really raised the kids with Grace.
Speaker 2: I would say they were poor. They lived in this
Speaker 2: It was like Maybury, very small town. They kind of
Speaker 2: grew their own crops. They ran a small gas station,
Speaker 2: go over pile, kind of two pump gas station with
Speaker 2: a little garage there. They struggled, but they got by.
Speaker 2: I think my thoughts on the matter now, Grace was
Speaker 2: always motivated by material things and financial game. I think
Speaker 2: Grace was looking for a man in her life, and
Speaker 2: I think she started dating men and ultimately she remarried.
Speaker 2: And she married a man named Sam sam Mull who
Speaker 2: just by circumstance, he was a survivor of the concentration
Speaker 2: camps as a young boy. Sam was Sam was a
Speaker 2: very successful businessman in Ohio. He developed real estate, townhomes,
Speaker 2: apartment complexes. He was very successful. So Grace marries him
Speaker 2: and over she goes from Povery to drive a Mercedes Benz.
Speaker 2: John up until that point was always kind of like
Speaker 2: the man of the house. He did have a strange
Speaker 2: relationship with his mother, nothing to suggest it was sexual
Speaker 2: and nothing of that nature, but it was kind of
Speaker 2: like this Anthony Perkins thing where he would refer to
Speaker 2: his mother and she spoke to him like he was
Speaker 2: an adult. So I think it was that dynamic going on.
Speaker 2: Poor Michael. Michael was never treated very well by the family.
Speaker 2: He was really kind of taking advantage of and really
Speaker 2: never taken seriously. And then ultimately Sam and Grace have
Speaker 2: another child named Steven, who was born years later. So
Speaker 2: that's John's upbringing. He graduates high school. He ran track
Speaker 2: in high school. He was a good student, very smart,
Speaker 2: kind of nerdy. He went to college for one semester
Speaker 2: Ohio State, and it's unclear if he dropped out or
Speaker 2: failed out, but he never completed college. He worked as
Speaker 2: a handyman. He worked all these different jobs. But John
Speaker 2: was a con So John would create resumes where he
Speaker 2: had an engineering degree from Ohio State in aeronautics. So
Speaker 2: his whole resume, his whole background when he on his
Speaker 2: resume was a lie. Everything about his experience was a lie.
Speaker 2: But he could pull it off. He had this ability
Speaker 2: he was a very smart guy in some ways. You know,
Speaker 2: his bosses that I talked to would say, hey, he
Speaker 2: was a great worker. He had the ability to kind
Speaker 2: of look at a machine or something that was working
Speaker 2: and kind of take it apart and then put it
Speaker 2: back together better than it was. So he had that
Speaker 2: kind of ability, and he had the ability to sell
Speaker 2: himself as more than he was. And then so when
Speaker 2: I pick it up, I've got to go through twenty
Speaker 2: five years of investigative efforts and now try to shake
Speaker 2: out new opportunities, which wasn't easy. So that was quite
Speaker 2: an undertaking.
Speaker 1: Now between the time that you picked up the case,
Speaker 1: when you were at the FBI and when John first
Speaker 1: stepped in to the police station and said, Frans missing,
Speaker 1: what is that time period?
Speaker 2: So he reports her October fourth of nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 2: I get involved in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 1: Okay, so seven years is he still with the common
Speaker 1: law wife or no?
Speaker 2: No, When everything unfolded, she said I'm out of here.
Speaker 2: She left, but worse yet, and it's a great question.
Speaker 2: He disappeared. The investigators had no idea where he was.
Speaker 2: He was last known to be in Ohio, I think
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety five. I think he was selling these cars.
Speaker 2: He had something to do with his family's business. Sam
Speaker 2: had died, but he was in the wind. Nobody knew
Speaker 2: where he was. They lost touch with him. So now
Speaker 2: I've got a case a guy named John Smith. There's
Speaker 2: no bodies nobody knows what this guy is. And if
Speaker 2: you don't already know this, John Smith is the most
Speaker 2: common name in the United States. And this is before
Speaker 2: the days of technology, where those searches were more manual
Speaker 2: than they are today, more paper driven. So finding him
Speaker 2: was quite a task.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you about the error is happening here.
Speaker 1: So the era one that we're talking about is, you know,
Speaker 1: the seventies, to find Janice, and because he could have
Speaker 1: just said, listen, we got into a fight, she took off.
Speaker 1: She's not dead. I don't know where she is. How
Speaker 1: would you be able to figured that out? What would
Speaker 1: be You know, now we know if somebody's not using
Speaker 1: their cell phone, if they're not using their bank cards,
Speaker 1: there are keys that say this person's probably not coming back.
Speaker 1: What would those keys be in the seventies other than
Speaker 1: she would never leave her children or her mother's dying,
Speaker 1: and she would never not call her mother kind of thing.
Speaker 2: You hit it on the head. I mean the problem
Speaker 2: with the first investigation. And please, I'm not trying to
Speaker 2: be critical of any of the investigators. They all did
Speaker 2: a good job. But Janie was a girl in her
Speaker 2: early twenties who was a product of the seventies and
Speaker 2: you know, like most young people at that time, they
Speaker 2: were living their lives and having fun and doing their things.
Speaker 2: Janis was one of I think seven kids. You know,
Speaker 2: her parents were divorced, and she kind of, I don't
Speaker 2: want to say raise herself, but she was kind of
Speaker 2: on her own from the early age, and she would
Speaker 2: hang out with their friends. I will tell you that
Speaker 2: the evidence does show in the case, in the timeline
Speaker 2: that John was starting to abuse her physically and otherwise,
Speaker 2: and she was the one that initiated divorce, that petitioned
Speaker 2: for the divorce, and even though what had become finalized,
Speaker 2: he started stalking her. There's testimony to the specifics of
Speaker 2: what he was doing and stalking her, but ultimately not
Speaker 2: that she didn't have a family that loved her. Of course,
Speaker 2: they were all concerned about her. But the irony is
Speaker 2: when she disappeared. It was I think seven days after
Speaker 2: the divorce became final. John Smith was the one that
Speaker 2: reported her missing, and he said, my wife was missing.
Speaker 2: I'll just say this, without trying to sound too critical,
Speaker 2: I think the initial county Sheriff's office of Wayne County,
Speaker 2: I don't think they took this very seriously. I think
Speaker 2: they probably perceived it this is a young girl who
Speaker 2: just took off, a runaway. She's a young girl. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so I don't know that a lot of effort
Speaker 2: was put into it on the front end, which made
Speaker 2: him getting away with it even easier.
Speaker 1: Did they dig enough do you think in that initial
Speaker 1: investigation to learn that she was the one that filed
Speaker 1: and to learn that he had been, according two friends
Speaker 1: or coworkers or whoever, had been abusing her, or was
Speaker 1: it simply ugging her and she took off?
Speaker 2: So leave it alone, guy, I'll just say there were
Speaker 2: a lot of missed opportunities the initial investigation that should
Speaker 2: have been done that were to include the things you
Speaker 2: just raised. One of the things that was very important.
Speaker 2: Janie didn't have much, but she had just bought herself
Speaker 2: a brand new car. It was a Ford Mustang and
Speaker 2: she'd loved this car. She was proud of. It was
Speaker 2: the first thing she ever owned. After John reported her missing,
Speaker 2: one of the sheriff's officers drove past a trailer where
Speaker 2: John was living and saw the car in his driveway
Speaker 2: after she had been reported missing. But I just think
Speaker 2: there were a lot of missed opportunities initial case, and
Speaker 2: I think that was realized. Fast forward to nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: one when Fran went missing and the detectives from Jersey
Speaker 2: contact at Ohio and they started looking at the similarities
Speaker 2: and they went, oh, man, there's problem.
Speaker 1: Okay, So now take me to ninety one when Fran
Speaker 1: is missing. What is John saying. Is he saying we
Speaker 1: got into a fight and she took off or what
Speaker 1: is his narrative?
Speaker 2: No, So you know, the first thing that the investigator
Speaker 2: and Jersey did they looked in the calls for service
Speaker 2: and there was no history of domestic violence. There was
Speaker 2: no issues. The only issue was when she had come
Speaker 2: back from the Pocono was there was a call for
Speaker 2: service to help her get back up to the condo
Speaker 2: because she was immobile. There was no history there. So
Speaker 2: John said, listen, she's been here a year with me.
Speaker 2: She's terribly homesick, She's having a hard time selling here.
Speaker 2: She's got family in Florida, Texas, and Indiana. She's talked
Speaker 2: to me repeatedly. She wasn't happy, and I strongly suspect
Speaker 2: she she took off to go see one of them.
Speaker 2: And then his story started changing. He started describing she
Speaker 2: left them a note, but then there really wasn't a note.
Speaker 2: And of course, in ninety one, before the cell phones
Speaker 2: are what they are today, where everybody has one, what
Speaker 2: did they do? The investigators looked at all means of transportation, planes, trains,
Speaker 2: and automobiles. Did she buy a ticket anywhere? Did she
Speaker 2: get a taxi anywhere? Her cars were still there. When
Speaker 2: they went to the condo to search the condo, all
Speaker 2: of her effects were there, all of her clothing. Friends,
Speaker 2: she always wanted to look good, so all of her cosmetics,
Speaker 2: all of her perfume was there. Her toothbrush was there,
Speaker 2: her eyeglasses were there. Everything that a person would need
Speaker 2: was still there. So it just didn't add up. And then,
Speaker 2: of course, when they found out that John has this
Speaker 2: other relationship with another woman in Connecticut, it just added
Speaker 2: to the mystery and the deception. His stories just kept
Speaker 2: falling apart. And when a story would fall apart, he
Speaker 2: would get confronted with it, he would come up with
Speaker 2: another story. He would keep changing the story. And I
Speaker 2: will give credit to Fran's family, the sister and the daughter.
Speaker 2: In the ninety one they were dogged. They traveled on
Speaker 2: their own expense to New Jersey, spent time with him,
Speaker 2: got flyers, tried to find clues for the police. They
Speaker 2: I think their efforts drew more intention by the investigators
Speaker 2: that something was wrong.
Speaker 1: I assume they get a warrant and they get into
Speaker 1: wherever he's staying. Are there any physical clues in ninety one, Yeah.
Speaker 2: So they initially did a consent search and they didn't
Speaker 2: find anything. And then so she disappears. Like I said,
Speaker 2: September twenty eighth, I think it's April of the following year.
Speaker 2: They execute simultaneous search forts at the condo in Jersey,
Speaker 2: they take the cars for processing, They go to his workplace,
Speaker 2: they go to the house in Connecticut. They go through
Speaker 2: everything and nothing they find nothing. Wow, you look at
Speaker 2: the timeline, and I argue that if a jury were
Speaker 2: to be presented with the timeline and the facts, you know,
Speaker 2: they would see what took place here? But there was
Speaker 2: no body, and as you know, prosecutors very reluctant to
Speaker 2: move forward out a body, so that's what happened.
Speaker 1: I think that they seem to be more motivated. Now,
Speaker 1: why do you think, because there's so much more digital
Speaker 1: evidence to just say this woman's dead, she's dead. There's
Speaker 1: no way all of these things have not been used.
Speaker 2: I think the advent of technology plays a huge piece
Speaker 2: in that. In cell phones and text messages and travel
Speaker 2: records and financial records, they're able to paint a clearer
Speaker 2: picture today than existed back in the nineties that did
Speaker 2: not exist back then. And I would suspect or I
Speaker 2: suspect that had those things that existed back then, probably
Speaker 2: would have come together, but it just didn't exist at
Speaker 2: that time because.
Speaker 1: We were just a few years out in ninety one
Speaker 1: from email. I remember my first year in college was
Speaker 1: ninety three, and I think I just had really gotten
Speaker 1: email at that point.
Speaker 2: Right, there's a digital trail. Everybody has a digital footprint,
Speaker 2: there's evidence.
Speaker 1: Right, Did you have fran or Janice's voices at all,
Speaker 1: as in letters or anything other than hearsay? I guess
Speaker 1: from what the family was saying, what Fran there.
Speaker 2: Was and at some point in the case, I remember,
Speaker 2: I think a family member of Janice's gaming an old
Speaker 2: cassette where I could hear Janis's voice, which was kind
Speaker 2: of interesting because you know, you worked you know, I'll
Speaker 2: tell you it's funny about this case. I had worked
Speaker 2: so many cases they didn't feel personal for some reason.
Speaker 2: I mean, they were intriguing, they were challenging. This one
Speaker 2: felt different, like you kind of felt they were personalized
Speaker 2: for me, right, they became real people. Not that the
Speaker 2: other victims in the mob cases weren't victims. They were,
Speaker 2: but it was different.
Speaker 1: So his common law, it sounds like, seven years later,
Speaker 1: is safe. So he never well safe? Does he abuse
Speaker 1: her too before she ends up leaving?
Speaker 2: No, she must have had a guardian or guardian angels.
Speaker 2: He asked her on several occasions to marry him, and
Speaker 2: something told her not to do that, so that never happened.
Speaker 2: And I think at some point where that relationship may
Speaker 2: have been genuine in its inception, and it was the
Speaker 2: same m she worked at the place he worked, much
Speaker 2: like Fran and the others, and that was one of
Speaker 2: his mos. But I think that relationship quickly became cold
Speaker 2: and it became almost like a platonic relationship, and it
Speaker 2: was a relationship of convenience for her. They were sharing
Speaker 2: a house, they had a couple of dogs together. It
Speaker 2: was a convenient relationship for her that they were sharing expenses.
Speaker 2: I think it wasn't necessarily a romantic relationship for a
Speaker 2: woman in Connecticut.
Speaker 1: But why was he fixated on Janice and on Fran
Speaker 1: but not on she Is there a possessiveness that he
Speaker 1: had on those first two women that he didn't have
Speaker 1: on Sila, because maybe they had kind of grown platonic.
Speaker 2: No, I would submit that. I think the difference is
Speaker 2: in Janice's case, in Fran's case, they were taking control
Speaker 2: away from him, Okay, right, they were taking control from him,
Speaker 2: where that dynamic didn't exist with Sheila. She was just
Speaker 2: going along to get along. She wasn't questioning him or
Speaker 2: challenging him or confronting him. She was just going along
Speaker 2: with it, where if you look at Fran and Janie,
Speaker 2: they were calling him out and saying, I don't want
Speaker 2: to be a part of this anymore.
Speaker 1: I assume when he's with Shila he can sleep with
Speaker 1: other women or do whatever he wants, and she's not
Speaker 1: really him and a haunt about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think Sheila suspect. She even said I suspected
Speaker 2: he had another wife. I suspected he had other stuff
Speaker 2: going on. Yeah. I don't think she was broken hearted
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Sheila is safe in ninety eight and you're
Speaker 1: looking at the case and you can't find him. He
Speaker 1: is in the wind somewhere. Where do you start? I
Speaker 1: know the priority was obviously finding John Smith, but also
Speaker 1: I know you have in your head where are his
Speaker 1: two wives? And how do you find them? So you've
Speaker 1: got kind of three different things that you're trying to
Speaker 1: deal with at the same time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, step one is to find him, right, find
Speaker 2: them and let's figure out his pattern of life. What
Speaker 2: is he doing now? Where is he easy married again?
Speaker 2: Which would be a problem. The challenge, and again this
Speaker 2: is before nine to eleven. The process was I feel
Speaker 2: old when I tell the story. There was a form
Speaker 2: we would fill out when you were trying to find
Speaker 2: out some information on somebody, and you would fedexit to
Speaker 2: Butte Montana, which was the FBI's repository of all their stuff,
Speaker 2: and they would based upon the name and date of birth,
Speaker 2: they would search their records and they would get hits
Speaker 2: and they would send you a box of records. The
Speaker 2: problem the name here was John Smith, and in an
Speaker 2: overabundance of caution, what the FBI would do is they
Speaker 2: would send people with similar names or similar data base
Speaker 2: of birth. So I'm not joking. Were one day I'm
Speaker 2: in my office and is knocking my door and there's
Speaker 2: like four or five guys in the hallway with hand
Speaker 2: trucks with boxes. So John Smith is one of thousands
Speaker 2: of these files. It was a needle in a haystack
Speaker 2: trying and it was overwhelming. So I was trying to
Speaker 2: go through that, but I was always also trying to
Speaker 2: figure out other ways to figure it out, and eventually
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 1: How do you end up ultimately finding him?
Speaker 2: One of the first pieces was in going through the files,
Speaker 2: I learned of a woman who was a sex worker
Speaker 2: who at one point was living with him, and I
Speaker 2: found her. She was incarcerat at the time when I
Speaker 2: interviewed her, and I learned a lot of information from
Speaker 2: her about him and their life together. But the key
Speaker 2: and how I found him was at some point in
Speaker 2: I think it was nineteen ninety five, John was arrested
Speaker 2: in Ohio on a silly charge of driving with a
Speaker 2: suspended license, And when they brought him in and questioned him,
Speaker 2: in his possession he had a little wallet sized photo
Speaker 2: of an unidentified a woman. So when the cops asked
Speaker 2: who was this woman, he said, it's my girlfriend from
Speaker 2: New Hampshire, and he wouldn't reveal her identity. So now
Speaker 2: years later, I've got this photograph. When I looked at
Speaker 2: the bottom of the photograph, it had that little trademark
Speaker 2: said Glamour Shots, and I blew it up. You know,
Speaker 2: I knew it was New Hampshire or girlfriend. I sent
Speaker 2: it to the studios up there, and through a lot
Speaker 2: of work, I identified that woman. She cooperated and ultimately
Speaker 2: she identified where he was. And unfortunately, at that point
Speaker 2: he had been remarried. He remarried it again to a
Speaker 2: woman in California, re established himself out there like a chameleon.
Speaker 2: I had this whole new life, and now we're very concerned.
Speaker 2: There is a you know, there's a sense of urgency.
Speaker 2: Now is this woman in harm's way? So that's how
Speaker 2: we found him.
Speaker 1: Well, that's incredible. So what happens with John and his
Speaker 1: new wife at what stage in their marriage. Were you
Speaker 1: introduced into this?
Speaker 2: They had just been married a few months by the
Speaker 2: time I learned this.
Speaker 1: They were just married, so she was safe at least.
Speaker 2: At that time. I couldn't answer that. All I know
Speaker 2: is they had just been married. I didn't know, but
Speaker 2: I had to figure that out.
Speaker 1: So you find him, But do you have additional evidence
Speaker 1: that you know he murdered and then hid the bodies
Speaker 1: of his first and his second wife.
Speaker 2: No, I have nothing in the way of new evidence.
Speaker 2: I just had a different strategy. And the strategy very
Speaker 2: simply was. You know, in talking to all the investigators
Speaker 2: from the previous years, they would tell similar stories where
Speaker 2: Smith would come in to be interviewed for hours at
Speaker 2: a time, seemingly pretend to cooperate, but ultimately wouldn't reveal anything.
Speaker 2: But then when he was done, he would go to
Speaker 2: his closest friend and families and warned them, Hey, if
Speaker 2: the cops come talk to you, this is nonsense. Don't
Speaker 2: talk to them, don't answer their questions, and lo and
Speaker 2: behold when the cops would go No, nothing was gleaned.
Speaker 2: So what I decided to do was in May on
Speaker 2: May fifth of nineteen ninety nine. By this point. I
Speaker 2: had surveillance on John and I knew his pattern of life.
Speaker 2: I knew everything about what he was doing. I knew
Speaker 2: he came to work very early. So one day when
Speaker 2: he arrives at work, I intercepted him and I took
Speaker 2: him to a hotel room. The room was stage and
Speaker 2: set up, and there were cameras in next door or
Speaker 2: two profiles from Quantico. But what I did differently was
Speaker 2: I had identified all the people in his life through
Speaker 2: all the years, from the seventies to present time, who
Speaker 2: I felt had a piece of this. And once I
Speaker 2: had John Smith in that room, around the United States,
Speaker 2: fbis and detectives interviewed everybody in his life the same
Speaker 2: day and the same time, and as those interviews revealed information,
Speaker 2: it would be funneled next door to the profiles, who
Speaker 2: would then pass it to me. So I spent I
Speaker 2: don't know, from seven in the morning till about three
Speaker 2: thirty in the afternoon interrogating Smith. That's a whole story and
Speaker 2: of itself. There was a time when he nearly broke
Speaker 2: and he got emotional, and he almost you could see it.
Speaker 2: He started making very incremating statements. I feel responsible what
Speaker 2: tappening to these women. My life is a nightmare. I
Speaker 2: don't know how the nightmare. I don't know how to
Speaker 2: make this nightmare end. He started talking like this, and
Speaker 2: then he caught himself, and then ultimately he faked a
Speaker 2: heart attack to get out of the interview. But as
Speaker 2: a result of that, the following week, John's younger brother,
Speaker 2: Michael Smith came forward. Michael cooperated and Michael told us
Speaker 2: that back in the seventies, when Janice had disappeared, so
Speaker 2: this would have been nineteen seventy four when Janie had disappeared,
Speaker 2: it was around Thanksgiving and they were celebrating things to
Speaker 2: give me. The grandparents' house, there was a little like
Speaker 2: farmhouse and next to it was this little gas station
Speaker 2: that was closed for the holiday. Michael was watching the
Speaker 2: football game and walked out and saw that the garage
Speaker 2: the doors were opened, and Michael walked in and saw
Speaker 2: John building a box. And he walked in. There's plywood,
Speaker 2: and he says, what are you doing. John says, well,
Speaker 2: I'm building a box. Mike says, why are you building
Speaker 2: a box? John says, well, Janie took off and she
Speaker 2: left them over belongings behind. So I was building a
Speaker 2: box to put her stuff in, and Michael says, that
Speaker 2: doesn't make sense. Why we just get some cardboard boxes?
Speaker 2: And John says, just leaving me alone. Michael walks away.
Speaker 2: About an hour or more later, he looks outside, and
Speaker 2: now the garage doors are closed, and Michael walks over,
Speaker 2: and there were glass panes in the garage door. Michael
Speaker 2: pressed his face against the door the glass, I should say,
Speaker 2: and he saw what appeared to be a fully constructed
Speaker 2: plywood box, you know, four foot long, two foot wide
Speaker 2: or so. And he sees John picking up clothing that
Speaker 2: belonged to Janice, and he's rolling him up and he's
Speaker 2: putting him inside this box, and John is reportedly crying.
Speaker 2: Michael doesn't confront him, doesn't say anything. That box allegedly
Speaker 2: stays in that garage. A week later, Mike sees the
Speaker 2: box nailed shut in the garage. It's sitting on the
Speaker 2: floor there. It stayed in there from November of nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy four until May of nineteen seventy nine. And at
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine, John is now relocated to Indiana, which
Speaker 2: was eight hours away by car. The grandfather finds the box,
Speaker 2: summons Michael, and they discover that Janice had been dismembered
Speaker 2: in her body's in that box. Instead of contacting the authorities,
Speaker 2: they call John. John comes and retrieves a box and
Speaker 2: drives off of it. So now we have to find
Speaker 2: this box. Through a lot of effort and a lot
Speaker 2: of searching, I was searching everywhere you can imagine, it
Speaker 2: was found that what John did was he drove back
Speaker 2: to Indianapolis nearly eight hours with this box with his
Speaker 2: wife's membered body in it, and he stopped along a
Speaker 2: rural road and threw the box down a hill like
Speaker 2: a ravine. The following spring, which was spring of nineteen eighty,
Speaker 2: a road crew was fixing potholes, found this box, opened
Speaker 2: it and found the remains. She was buried as a
Speaker 2: Jane Doe. So once we put all the pieces together,
Speaker 2: we exhumed the body, did some DNA analysis confirmed it
Speaker 2: was her. So with Michael's testimony and everything, we went
Speaker 2: to trial. He was convicted for Jenesi's murder and that's
Speaker 2: why he's in jail today.
Speaker 1: First of all, that's amazing, don't get that out of
Speaker 1: the way, But how did you figure out where he
Speaker 1: had dumped the body, because I can't imagine that that's
Speaker 1: the first crew to have found a Jane Doe. Just
Speaker 1: remember Jane Doe. Maybe it is, but what matched up.
Speaker 1: That's five years.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we had Michael's story, and I'll be honest,
Speaker 2: I didn't believe it. A lot of it didn't make sense.
Speaker 2: I had more questions than anything. But I started doing excavations.
Speaker 2: I dug up properties and houses looking for this unsuccessfully.
Speaker 2: Law enforcement has a teletype system back then. It was
Speaker 2: this loud printer thing, and I would on a monthly
Speaker 2: base put out alert saying the FBI is in receipt
Speaker 2: of information, we're looking for an alleged box and all this,
Speaker 2: and I got nothing. One of the detective sergeants I
Speaker 2: was working with, by the name of Brian Potts in Ohio,
Speaker 2: he wrote letters and mailed them to all of the
Speaker 2: medical examiners and sheriff's office in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana,
Speaker 2: and by I say, divine intervention, one of the letters
Speaker 2: landed on a sheriff's desk in Indiana who was a
Speaker 2: young deputy was called by the road crew saying, hey,
Speaker 2: we just found a box on the side of the roads.
Speaker 2: When he got the letter, he said, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I think this is the box from twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: And then he contacted us. That's how it was made.
Speaker 1: I'm just curious about this. When you have a situation,
Speaker 1: when you are with a person like Michael Smith, who
Speaker 1: did nothing for so many years, knowing something bad was happening,
Speaker 1: but then he does this really brave thing, you must
Speaker 1: have mixed feelings. Are you surprised one way or the
Speaker 1: other when either family turns against each other or they
Speaker 1: keep a secret for decay and decades for somebody who's
Speaker 1: truly horrible and they know it.
Speaker 2: I think that's a great question. The answer is, I'm
Speaker 2: never surprised by anything anymore. I will tell you that
Speaker 2: that this traumatized Michael. I don't want to say it
Speaker 2: destroyed him, but he'd lived with this, and then you
Speaker 2: can imagine his guilty years later when he's contacted again
Speaker 2: in the nineties by cops from Jersey saying Franz disappeared,
Speaker 2: and in his mind he's going, oh, my god, had
Speaker 2: I done the right thing years ago? But in his defense,
Speaker 2: the grandfather was a very strong figure, and Michael said, hey, Grandpa,
Speaker 2: we gotta contact the Sheriff's office, and grandfather said, no,
Speaker 2: the only person we're calling is your brother John. That's it.
Speaker 1: What about Grace his mom?
Speaker 2: Kate. I've interviewed a lot of people in my career.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine how many. She had this chilling nature
Speaker 2: about her. She was a small woman, but she had
Speaker 2: I don't know if you want to say energy about her,
Speaker 2: but there was something about that woman that didn't sit well.
Speaker 1: Well, let's get to you clearly running into a brick
Speaker 1: wall at some point on Fran's case, because you had
Speaker 1: a sad but satisfying conclusion in Janii's case. So now
Speaker 1: you're on Fran's case, which I'm sure you've been working
Speaker 1: the whole time too. At what point do you have
Speaker 1: to throw this hail? Mary?
Speaker 2: Well, that's kind of a funny story. So early on
Speaker 2: the case, when I just started it, you have to understand,
Speaker 2: I am overwhelmed with twenty five years of investigative boxes
Speaker 2: and boxes of police reports. I'm trying to make sense
Speaker 2: of all the facts and details. On top of working
Speaker 2: twenty other cases. I was working Manhattan, commuting from Jersey,
Speaker 2: and there was a very popular radio station. Everybody listened
Speaker 2: to this WPLJ. And you have to understand, I'm a
Speaker 2: very cynical guy. That's my nature. I am a skeptical guy.
Speaker 2: And this guy came in the radio, and when I
Speaker 2: heard him, I shut the radio off because it was
Speaker 2: so silly. And the guy who was invited guests. His
Speaker 2: name was John Edward. He claimed to be psychic, and
Speaker 2: his thing was he claimed that he if he took
Speaker 2: a call from you, he would have the ability to
Speaker 2: connect to your past level one, so he callers would
Speaker 2: call in. He started doing this thing and saying, oh,
Speaker 2: I got your mother or father, And I said, how
Speaker 2: stupid could people be? And I would shut the radio
Speaker 2: wall for change the station. A couple of weeks later,
Speaker 2: I'd hear him again and again, and finally about the
Speaker 2: third or fourth time, it really bothered me. There was
Speaker 2: something about this, How could people be so silly? I
Speaker 2: called his office and I told them that I was
Speaker 2: an FBI New York and I was working unsolid murder cases,
Speaker 2: missing person cases. And I heard him on the radio,
Speaker 2: and I wanted to meet with him because the way
Speaker 2: I saw it, I could put him on the phone
Speaker 2: with Fran's family, and I didn't tell them or him
Speaker 2: the name of friend. I just said the victim's family,
Speaker 2: he could do his thing and maybe help me figure out,
Speaker 2: you know, where she is. And they were very reluctant,
Speaker 2: and to me, that just confirmed to me that he
Speaker 2: was a con. But a week later or so, I
Speaker 2: get a call from his assistant who says, John is
Speaker 2: willing to meet with you. Would you want to come
Speaker 2: in tomorrow? I did. The only thing they asked me
Speaker 2: to bring were artifacture items connected to the person I
Speaker 2: was looking for. And I said, like what they said,
Speaker 2: it could be jewelry, it could be anything, Okay. So
Speaker 2: I called the detective in Jersey, Mike, and I said him, Mike,
Speaker 2: go evidence to get some of the fans stuff. We're
Speaker 2: going to see this alleged psychic. And the day we
Speaker 2: went to see him, before we left, I went around
Speaker 2: my office to four different women. I would say, Hey, Kate,
Speaker 2: let me borrow your earrings, Say Susie, let me borrow
Speaker 2: your watch. I took four items from four other women
Speaker 2: and I put him in the bag with these other items,
Speaker 2: And just to expedite the story we went to see him,
Speaker 2: I'm for sure going to reveal in my mind that
Speaker 2: he's not who he says he is, and he basically
Speaker 2: in no one's certain terms, said, hey, listen, when I
Speaker 2: get started here, I'm going to get a lot of information,
Speaker 2: a lot of things I'm going to say. You're going
Speaker 2: to resonate with. I don't want you to respond. I
Speaker 2: don't want you to give me anything. I just want
Speaker 2: you to be quiet, he said. But I may also
Speaker 2: say things that you don't that's not familiar with you.
Speaker 2: It's important to write these things down as well. So
Speaker 2: I put these nine objects in front of them, and
Speaker 2: if I put them before, you couldn't discern one from
Speaker 2: the other. Nothing stood out about any of them. And
Speaker 2: he looked across these things, and he started pulling some
Speaker 2: things together, and he put his hands and he pushed them.
Speaker 2: These things away. He says, I don't know what these
Speaker 2: things are, but they have nothing to do with why
Speaker 2: you're here. They were the four items of the women
Speaker 2: that I brought. And then Kate. He picked up a
Speaker 2: pair of eyeglasses that belonged to fran and the information
Speaker 2: he provided was impossible for him to know. He called
Speaker 2: her by her name, he described her in detail, told
Speaker 2: us physical attributes that were He said, she has mail
Speaker 2: in her hip, like a pin or a screw or
Speaker 2: a rod pins. He described her physically. He described she
Speaker 2: was missing a toe, and he described that she had
Speaker 2: breast implants. He described how many kids she had, and
Speaker 2: he said, she's dead. The person who caused her death
Speaker 2: is either a husband or boyfriend. It's a Jay name
Speaker 2: and I'm pretty short John. And that was the very
Speaker 2: first meeting. And he starts getting more and more information
Speaker 2: and says, whose name is Michael. Michael, of course, is
Speaker 2: John's brother. He says, Michael knows everything you need to
Speaker 2: get to Michael, and he starts giving us information about
Speaker 2: Michael and the case in facts that were mind blowing.
Speaker 2: And then somewhere in that initial meeting, he says, wait
Speaker 2: a minute, why are you really here. He almost became indignant,
Speaker 2: and he says, you already have this this victim. He says,
Speaker 2: I see a box on the side of a road.
Speaker 2: It's a plywood box and it's Dana Ravine. I see
Speaker 2: the line the police cars, he says, I see the
Speaker 2: newspaper article woman in the Box or girl in the Box.
Speaker 2: And at this point in the case, Kate the detective,
Speaker 2: and I have no idea what he's talking about. Turns
Speaker 2: out all the things he said turned to be true.
Speaker 2: So that's how I met John Edward and I formed
Speaker 2: a relationship with him, and that relationship lasted twenty five
Speaker 2: years till actually today thirty years, and that one case
Speaker 2: led to many others, and he was instrumental in assisting
Speaker 2: me in many cases.
Speaker 1: So he was helpful in the case of France. Is
Speaker 1: that right?
Speaker 2: One hundred percent? Wow?
Speaker 1: So you went from a skeptic of you know, psychics, mediums,
Speaker 1: clairvoyancy and all of that stuff to specifically believing in
Speaker 1: John Edward or are you open minded about the whole field?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's a great question. I don't have a
Speaker 2: crystal ball or Oluigi board, and I'm not like pursuing
Speaker 2: this in any other realm. The answer is because he
Speaker 2: proved himself to me in that case, I trusted him.
Speaker 2: I'm not an expert on psychics or mediumship, but I
Speaker 2: can tell you from my personal experience with John's Edward
Speaker 2: he is who he says he is. He has this
Speaker 2: incredible ability and the information that he has provided over
Speaker 2: these twenty five years is undeniable. In other cases, he
Speaker 2: led me at midnight to the location of a missing
Speaker 2: five year old boy another case, he led me to
Speaker 2: another or another. I mean, it's undeniable what he helped
Speaker 2: me with. And I had to keep this relationship secret
Speaker 2: for all these years. So that's what prompted us to
Speaker 2: write this book. I retired and I wrote the book.
Speaker 1: Now, why did you have to keep it a secret?
Speaker 1: And I know that he does tell you with this
Speaker 1: initial investigation, do not go to the media. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be named. I don't want press. Is that
Speaker 1: why or is it the FBI?
Speaker 2: Well both, I there's no there's no chance I'm going
Speaker 2: to the media or the FBI saying I guess what,
Speaker 2: I'm talking to a psychic, because you know, but from
Speaker 2: my own experience, if one of my colleagues came in
Speaker 2: and said, Bob, I'm talking to a psychic, I would
Speaker 2: have said, you're crazy. There's no chance. So I probably
Speaker 2: for me, I didn't reveal this because I didn't want
Speaker 2: to embarrassed by it. I didn't want my reputation to
Speaker 2: suffer that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: So they no one knew in the FBI except your buddy,
Speaker 1: the buddy you took with you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were It's revealed in a book There are
Speaker 2: a couple of cases where some of my colleagues were
Speaker 2: present when John called me on the phone and led
Speaker 2: me to a location, and when it was over, they
Speaker 2: would say, Bob, how did you know look there? How
Speaker 2: did you know to do that? So there were a
Speaker 2: handful of close colleagues that became aware of my relationship
Speaker 2: with him, But the big FBI I wasn't aware of.
Speaker 1: Do you when people read the book, do you get
Speaker 1: skeptics toward you? Like going There's no way, you know,
Speaker 1: you must have had the information. You're blowing this up,
Speaker 1: you know, to sell more books. I'm just wondering if
Speaker 1: there are skeptics out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent. We get everything right, We get
Speaker 2: people and listen. I was that guy. But from my
Speaker 2: experience with John, if somebody wrote a silly book like this,
Speaker 2: I would have said, this is nonsense. So yeah, we
Speaker 2: get a lot of that. We get a lot of
Speaker 2: people who are true believers and people in the middle.
Speaker 2: But I you know, I did not write the book
Speaker 2: with the intent of hoping to convince people of John Edward.
Speaker 2: This was just a book that detailed what took place.
Speaker 2: There was no stretching of the truth or elaboration. There
Speaker 2: were some cases where he didn't provide barely any information
Speaker 2: but symbols or look for something, but it turned out
Speaker 2: to be very significant. So I didn't, in any way,
Speaker 2: shape or form try to make him more than he was.
Speaker 2: This is what happened.
Speaker 1: Do you think there are other agents in the FBI
Speaker 1: who utilize not him necessarily, but this sort of a method.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think if that is happening, it's
Speaker 2: probably on a case by case, probably similar to my story,
Speaker 2: where an investigator happened to meet somebody by unusual circumstances
Speaker 2: who maybe had this thing and perhaps, but the FBI
Speaker 2: doesn't traditionally and nor should they consult with psychics. I
Speaker 2: mean the majority of my cases for my career I
Speaker 2: worked without John's Obama, because I had leads, I had evidence,
Speaker 2: I had witnesses, I had things I could pursue. I
Speaker 2: didn't need John. But some cases go cold for reason,
Speaker 2: because you've exhausted all of those things and you're a
Speaker 2: dead ends. And I don't like dead ends. I don't
Speaker 2: want to be in a dead end.
Speaker 1: Did you ever have families go? How did this happen?
Speaker 1: How did we come upon? Did you have to tell
Speaker 1: anybody like the nine year old boy, you know that
Speaker 1: he helped find.
Speaker 2: It's funny that case raised a lot of questions because
Speaker 2: I was out there at midnight, and people said, why
Speaker 2: were we out there at midnight? So that certainly yeah,
Speaker 2: And sometimes I'd come up with cover stories and things.
Speaker 2: But there were times, as I said, where some of
Speaker 2: my colleagues were present when things took place where there
Speaker 2: was no getting away from the fact I had to
Speaker 2: give him a good answer, and the good answer is
Speaker 2: always the truth. But I didn't really have to tell
Speaker 2: people that didn't need to know.
Speaker 1: Can you give me one or two examples. You don't
Speaker 1: have to tell me about the specific cases, but one
Speaker 1: or two examples where he led you in the right direction,
Speaker 1: just sort of general examples.
Speaker 2: There was a woman who disappeared at Yale University at
Speaker 2: a young PhD student, and John called me on the
Speaker 2: phone one night. I'm in the presence of my colleagues,
Speaker 2: and he's directed me down this labyrinth of hallways and rooms.
Speaker 2: She was missing for two or three days at that point,
Speaker 2: and we were working under this theory that she was
Speaker 2: somewhere in the building where the perpetrator had somehow got
Speaker 2: her body out and disposed her a landfill or somewhere else.
Speaker 2: So we had no idea. John's on the phone saying
Speaker 2: she's right there, and he's leading me, telling me where
Speaker 2: to go, and my colleagues around me, and he leads
Speaker 2: us to this room and he says, she's right there.
Speaker 2: She's right there. We go in the room and she's not.
Speaker 2: He says, I'm telling you, she's right there. She's in
Speaker 2: the pipes. We're looking in the room and there's nothing there.
Speaker 2: And he says, what's on the right, the other side
Speaker 2: of the wall. Well, there was a men's room. So
Speaker 2: we go, there's nothing. He's I'm Tony, she's right there.
Speaker 2: So John, she's I'm sorry, pal, she's not there. So
Speaker 2: the next day or day after, I I'm driving home
Speaker 2: and I get a call from my friends who's the
Speaker 2: lead agent on it, says, you're not going to believe this.
Speaker 2: After you left, we went through there again with Cadwver
Speaker 2: dogs and dogs got a hit on the men's room.
Speaker 2: There was like a they call it a pipe chase
Speaker 2: and stay in the steel door and they opened it
Speaker 2: up and the perpetrator had taken her body and shoved
Speaker 2: her in the wall between the two rooms.
Speaker 1: You would have never found her.
Speaker 2: Well eventually, I mean the body would have decomposed and
Speaker 2: it would have been found, right, I mean, but it was.
Speaker 2: That was one the case with Little Boy. The crazy
Speaker 2: part about that case was the place where John led
Speaker 2: me at midnight had been searched twice and had been
Speaker 2: checked off that he's not there. So but for John
Speaker 2: taking me back there, he would not have been found.
Speaker 1: Does John do this for anybody else?
Speaker 2: Not law enforcement? You know, his work is more helping
Speaker 2: people through the grieving process and loss, and you know
Speaker 2: it was. I hope people are interested in to read
Speaker 2: the book because they're going to feel like they're a
Speaker 2: part of these cases. They're going to learn a lot
Speaker 2: about John, a lot about me.
Speaker 1: Did you ever have John give you information about your
Speaker 1: life or yourself or the people who have passed in
Speaker 1: your life.
Speaker 2: Yes, accidentally it happened. It happened more than a couple
Speaker 2: of times. And it was the first time it happened.
Speaker 2: I went to him on a case and he was
Speaker 2: getting information, and all of a sudden stuff started coming
Speaker 2: out about my family, which was very powerful, very powerful.
Speaker 1: So your true believer and we're not talking about the
Speaker 1: whole lot of them, clairvoyance mediums and all that, but
Speaker 1: at least in John Edward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, he is who he says he is is.
Speaker 2: The things he provided were undeniable. He could not have
Speaker 2: known the information he did over these twenty five years.
Speaker 2: And you know when on my first visit with him,
Speaker 2: it wasn't like, oh my god, I'm all in and
Speaker 2: I believe this guy. I had to take time in
Speaker 2: marrying and say, did I do anything that I typically?
Speaker 2: He knew nothing, zero, nothing nothing.
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Sinners, All About the
Speaker 1: Ghost Club, All That Is Wicked, and American Sherlock, And
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Speaker 1: crime podcast, Tenfold More Wicked right here in this podcast feed,
Speaker 1: scroll back and give them a listen if you haven't already.
Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right Our senior producer is
Speaker 1: Alexis Amrosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode
Speaker 1: was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer.
Speaker 1: Artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen Kilgariff,
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