Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
Speaker 1: last twenty five years writing about true crime.
Speaker 2: And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
Speaker 2: worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 1: Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
Speaker 1: compelling true crimes.
Speaker 2: And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
Speaker 2: new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 1: Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
Speaker 1: cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 2: Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1: This is buried Bones.
Speaker 2: Hi, Kate, how are you?
Speaker 1: I'm doing well. I have wanted to ask you something
Speaker 1: for a long time. You cheat on me with another show.
Speaker 2: That's one way to put it.
Speaker 1: He cheats on all of us. Although you guys listen,
Speaker 1: I'm sure too. It's a small town Dick's great show.
Speaker 1: One of your co hosts is very, very famous, you know,
Speaker 1: Yardley Smith, who is Lisa Simpson and it does many
Speaker 1: other things I know, but is best known for Lisa
Speaker 1: Simpson on The Simpsons, and so I have not met
Speaker 1: her in person yet, but I've sort of awestruck that
Speaker 1: you can even put together a sentence when you're doing
Speaker 1: a crime show with Lisa Simpson. I mean, she is
Speaker 1: just Yardly to you because you say you're not like
Speaker 1: some massive Simpsons fan like I am.
Speaker 2: No, you know, I watched a few episodes when it
Speaker 2: first came out, and that may have even been I
Speaker 2: think it was the Tracy Allman Show, you know.
Speaker 1: Back when they looked funny. I think, right, yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: So that is thirty plus years ago, and I never
Speaker 2: really followed it since. And then I met Yardley out
Speaker 2: in d C for a true crime conference and Yardly
Speaker 2: and then her now husband Dan and his twin brother
Speaker 2: Dave were to interview me on stage, and then that's
Speaker 2: when I got to know him, and obviously we just clicked,
Speaker 2: you know, Dan, Dave and I being law enforcement, and Yardly,
Speaker 2: even with her celebrity status, is just so down to
Speaker 2: earth and you know. And so that has been a
Speaker 2: great part of my life to get to know them
Speaker 2: and eventually become part of the podcast Smalltown Dicks.
Speaker 1: And I think you all have like a very easy
Speaker 1: way of having a conversation but still being professional. Everybody's
Speaker 1: professional there and being very serious. But I feel like
Speaker 1: it seems like you're all very comfortable with each other,
Speaker 1: which is which is you know, how you and I
Speaker 1: are too.
Speaker 2: I think, oh, yeah, no, you know, and I think
Speaker 2: that that really is what helps drive is success podcast
Speaker 2: is you know, the co host being able to relate
Speaker 2: to each other just in a very natural, friendly way.
Speaker 2: I am not a listener of podcasts, but I could
Speaker 2: only imagine that if there's awkwardness between the co hosts,
Speaker 2: that that probably doesn't come off very well. And so,
Speaker 2: of course, you know, our listeners hear you and I
Speaker 2: and the great relationship we have. But also a small
Speaker 2: town dicks, it's just a natural thing. You know. We
Speaker 2: of course record the episodes, but even if we get
Speaker 2: together and it's we're not recording, we're just, let's say,
Speaker 2: hanging out in a hot tub.
Speaker 1: All right. That's good to know. Well, I am jealous,
Speaker 1: very jealous, because I am a huge Simpsons fan and
Speaker 1: I try to get my kiddos into the Simpsons also
Speaker 1: they get looped into the Halloween specials, and so I
Speaker 1: really admire her as an actress and as a voice actress,
Speaker 1: and I just think it's great. I'm super happy, and
Speaker 1: I hear she's a super fan, maybe not a super fan,
Speaker 1: and she's a fan fan of Buried Bones, so that's good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she listens to Buried Bones. I think she's a
Speaker 2: fan of yours. So you know, let's see if you've
Speaker 2: got some sort of mutual thing going on there.
Speaker 1: Well, what a wonderful way to start an episode. I
Speaker 1: like to start on a you know, positive note here,
Speaker 1: because you know, we now are pivoting into a well,
Speaker 1: I think is a really complicated kidnapping case, and we've
Speaker 1: had those before. I mean, I just feel like the
Speaker 1: more kidnapping episodes we cover, the nuttier these people get
Speaker 1: and the requests that they make it And I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, we've covered kidnappings from all all different sorts
Speaker 1: of decades and we're going to be in the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies in England for this one. But the requests from
Speaker 1: kidnappers just get stranger and stranger. So I always am
Speaker 1: fascinated about your reaction. You always have like a quizzical
Speaker 1: look on your face. I wish listeners could see it
Speaker 1: every time we talk about some of these weird us
Speaker 1: that the kidnappers make. So this will be a good
Speaker 1: one for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. And I can remember we had the
Speaker 2: one episode where the mail that was kidnapped and I
Speaker 2: was really suspicious of him, like he had staged his
Speaker 2: own abduction and turned out to be very very wrong,
Speaker 2: you know. But I do remember some of the requests
Speaker 2: in that particular episode were so bizarre. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: this this just doesn't sound right. Well it turns out
Speaker 2: it was right, you know, And so I'm kind of
Speaker 2: curious to see, you know, this case and what kind
Speaker 2: of requests the kidnappers are going to make.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, let's go ahead and set the scene. So
Speaker 1: this is nineteen seventy five England, and this is a big, big, big,
Speaker 1: big one. I mean, there's lots of evidence, I have
Speaker 1: good photos, there's lots to talk about. It's a double episode,
Speaker 1: too big. Once I saw the prep document, I thought, man,
Speaker 1: this is really big. So this will be a good
Speaker 1: episode for us to really dig into. I think the
Speaker 1: way that kidnappers work and what they're thinking when they
Speaker 1: do stuff like this, so we won't like, you know,
Speaker 1: dink around with this. As I say, my kids don't
Speaker 1: think around like this. We're not going to dink around
Speaker 1: this is let me tell you who the victim is,
Speaker 1: which just already sets me on edge. It is a
Speaker 1: seventeen year old girl, which is already you know, my
Speaker 1: kids are almost fifteen, so that's already I'm already kind
Speaker 1: of on edge to begin with with a story about
Speaker 1: a teenager. She's very small, she's five foot tall, and
Speaker 1: that kind of plays into this. I mean, what would
Speaker 1: you say, Paul, So she's if you have a kidnapping
Speaker 1: victim who's small, five feet it's just like you're going
Speaker 1: to assume that this is somebody who's not going to
Speaker 1: put up as much of a fight.
Speaker 2: I guess, well, I wouldn't necessarily say that. I mean,
Speaker 2: you could in terms of putting up a fight versus
Speaker 2: being effective at the fight as probably how I differentiate that. Then,
Speaker 2: of course, when you start dealing with evaluating the victim
Speaker 2: who's five foot nothing, you know, sounds like a petite
Speaker 2: seventeen year old girl. And let's say the kidnapper is
Speaker 2: a more robust male. Obviously, the male has a size
Speaker 2: and strength advantage, which gives that offender greater latitude in
Speaker 2: terms of how to conduct the abduction versus you know,
Speaker 2: is it an offender who's having to use charm and
Speaker 2: lowering the victim versus an offender who could literally pick
Speaker 2: this girl up, sling her over his shoulder and walk
Speaker 2: her out to a vehicle. You know. So that's going
Speaker 2: to be part of As I hear the details, I'm
Speaker 2: going to be starting to assess, well, you know, how
Speaker 2: did the offender approach the victim and how was she abducted?
Speaker 2: Because that speaks volumes to certain attributes of the offender.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, well here we go. This was a case
Speaker 1: recommended by a listener. Thank you listener. This involves, as
Speaker 1: I said at petit seventeen year old girl. Her name
Speaker 1: is Leslie Whittle and she lives in highly Shropshire hopefully
Speaker 1: I said that right, which is a village in the
Speaker 1: West Midlands of England. She has a very comfortable life.
Speaker 1: We are talking upper class because her father is a businessman.
Speaker 1: His name is George Whittell, and he runs a sizable
Speaker 1: and successful bus company coach company in the United States,
Speaker 1: we'd say bus company. When he died in seventy two,
Speaker 1: he left behind a fortune of three hundred thousand British
Speaker 1: pounds to his surviving family. This is I'm going to
Speaker 1: convert things to American dollars. This is like just south
Speaker 1: of five million, I would say four and a half
Speaker 1: million maybe dollars today. This includes his wife, Dorothy, she's
Speaker 1: in her fifties, and he has a son named Ron
Speaker 1: who is in his early thirties. And then there's Leslie
Speaker 1: who's seventeen. So she actually gets a portion that is
Speaker 1: substantial eighty two thousand, which is you know, about a
Speaker 1: million pounds now, which is you know, one and a
Speaker 1: half million dollars. I would say, So she gets us
Speaker 1: at seventeen. Here's the problem. It's widely reported that she
Speaker 1: got this inheritance in local newspapers. I've never understood this,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, don't you think that would make
Speaker 1: her a target? And I'm not, like I said, I'm
Speaker 1: not dinking around with this one. She's the target here.
Speaker 1: So a seventeen year old who has about a million
Speaker 1: and a half dollars to day dollars in an inheritance.
Speaker 2: Well, I think just the family wealth is driving any
Speaker 2: of them to be a target her inheriting the money.
Speaker 2: Of course, maybe an offender would be evaluating this as
Speaker 2: a seventeen year old girl. Is there a way I
Speaker 2: can steal from her, rob from her if in an
Speaker 2: abduction situation, it's not unheard of her offenders will force
Speaker 2: victims to withdraw from their bank right checks, you know,
Speaker 2: so this is a direct robbery of the victim's financial assets. However,
Speaker 2: in this scenario, there's greater assets with the other family members.
Speaker 2: And so now is Leslie when she gets abducted. Is
Speaker 2: the offender or offenders utilizing her safety as leverage to
Speaker 2: get access to the larger sums of money that the
Speaker 2: family has.
Speaker 1: Let's see what happens. This family's worth a lot of money.
Speaker 1: And now the patriarch has gone, and there is a
Speaker 1: son who's in his thirties but not around. It doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like he lives somewhere else. And then Leslie. This
Speaker 1: is January fourteenth, nineteen seventy five, and we are at
Speaker 1: the Wittell home. Dorothy is wondering, so this is the mother.
Speaker 1: Dorothy wonders why Leslie hasn't come down for breakfast yet.
Speaker 1: That morning, she goes upstairs to look for Leslie, but
Speaker 1: she's not in her bedroom and she doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: be anywhere in the house. Dorothy is really nervous. She
Speaker 1: calls to the adult son, Ron, who lives nearby, but
Speaker 1: her phone isn't working, so she rushes over to Ron's
Speaker 1: house and returns to her own house alongside him, and
Speaker 1: together they start looking for Leslie, but they don't find her.
Speaker 1: They do discover that what you probably have silently suspected
Speaker 1: that someone cut the phone lines to the house.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: They also find a box of candy that has been
Speaker 1: left in front of the homes fireplace, which seems odd.
Speaker 1: They look in this box of candy and there are
Speaker 1: several messages created with a Dimo label maker, which is
Speaker 1: a device that punches letters and numbers onto a plastic tape,
Speaker 1: like you know, I mean, I have a label maker
Speaker 1: at home. Yeah, so this is a message, right, and
Speaker 1: the message demands a ransom of fifty thousand pounds for
Speaker 1: Leslie's safe return, which is quite a lot of money today,
Speaker 1: about a million, maybe a little less than a million
Speaker 1: American dollars. I have a photo of the house, and
Speaker 1: I have a photo of this Dimo label maker message.
Speaker 1: If you want to see those, or if you want
Speaker 1: to keep going.
Speaker 2: No, I'll go ahead and take a look at this.
Speaker 1: Okay, So let's start with the house. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a big house. It's as fancy as I thought it
Speaker 1: could be. But still, I mean, you know, it's a
Speaker 1: big house. What do you think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, when you're telling me that Leslie is not
Speaker 2: inside the how and that it appears that the offender
Speaker 2: or offenders left this box of candy with the message,
Speaker 2: you know, the first thing I thought about is okay,
Speaker 2: so even with Mom Dorothy inside the house, it sounds
Speaker 2: like the offenders somehow gained entry into the house and
Speaker 2: took Leslie without Mom hearing a thing. So now I'm
Speaker 2: looking at a photo of this house, and you know,
Speaker 2: in the foreground it appears that there this is a
Speaker 2: photo taken during some sort of search. There are men,
Speaker 2: numerous men with dogs that are out. I'm assuming this
Speaker 2: is the front yard. It's you know, doesn't look like
Speaker 2: a traditional street. And directly behind the men with the
Speaker 2: dogs is a fairly tall hedge, is how I describe it.
Speaker 2: And then beyond that hedge is a two story house.
Speaker 2: What strikes me about at least this side of the house,
Speaker 2: and I can't tell if this is the front side
Speaker 2: or not, but there's very large windows all across this
Speaker 2: side of the house.
Speaker 1: I would bet Paul, this is the back because look
Speaker 1: that ugly antenna is right there, yeah, you know, sticking
Speaker 1: up above. I would bet this is the back. And
Speaker 1: I also wonder if there's a building to the upper
Speaker 1: left or if that's one of their buildings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, the to the left of the house,
Speaker 2: I'm guessing that's maybe a garage, maybe a detached garage.
Speaker 2: I think you're right, you know, this is likely the
Speaker 2: back of the house. I'm not seeing anything even that
Speaker 2: suggests that there is a a an entrance, you know,
Speaker 2: that would be what would be considered a front entrance.
Speaker 2: So the house looks like it has some size. It
Speaker 2: does appear that it's a visibility into the house. Is
Speaker 2: it's significant, you know, these large windows. I'm not seeing curtains.
Speaker 2: It appears that at least with the windows that I
Speaker 2: can see that there's plane view into the house, and
Speaker 2: that would be a significant portion of the interior of
Speaker 2: the house and an offender could see from the outside.
Speaker 2: You know, this is a wealthier family. I'm assuming that
Speaker 2: this house is something that is fitting with their lifestyle.
Speaker 2: So the size of the house definitely aids the offender.
Speaker 2: If Leslie, let's say she was last seen going into
Speaker 2: her bedroom or in her bedroom. And Mom's bedroom is,
Speaker 2: you know, on the other side of the house. And yes,
Speaker 2: I could easily see an offender coming in and abducting
Speaker 2: a petit seventeen year old girl, keeping her quiet either
Speaker 2: by force or fear, and getting her outside of the house.
Speaker 1: And it's just these two women. It's Dorothy and her daughter.
Speaker 1: So that's it in this house. You know you had
Speaker 1: mentioned this hedge. This is what I would call a
Speaker 1: privacy hedge, and it is substantial. I mean it's tall
Speaker 1: and taller than these men who are standing next to it.
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's a wire above it or something.
Speaker 1: It definitely looks like some kind of privacy like security.
Speaker 1: There's a gate there. But then you're right, I mean,
Speaker 1: the upper floors are completely exposed right below the I
Speaker 1: don't know if those are terracotta tiles. But let me
Speaker 1: show you this message, so I don't know. You see
Speaker 1: where the chimney is, which was on the left hand
Speaker 1: side of the house. I don't know if Leslie's room
Speaker 1: is right above where the chimney is. And you know,
Speaker 1: whoever took her went downstairs and just sort of dropped
Speaker 1: this candy box on the ground, but this is what
Speaker 1: was inside. So this is it says, well, why don't
Speaker 1: you read it? Tell me what you think.
Speaker 2: So this is a single strip of this dimo plastic
Speaker 2: you know, and I remember utilizing these in you know,
Speaker 2: when I was much younger. You know, the offender is
Speaker 2: having to rotate a wheel and then press on a
Speaker 2: handle that causes like a crimping aspect where the plastic
Speaker 2: where it gets crimped. Now it changes color in the
Speaker 2: shape of the letter. So this is a dark background
Speaker 2: with white letters, single strip, and it says only after
Speaker 2: fifty thousand pounds has been cleared will victim be released.
Speaker 2: So obviously this is an essence a ransom note in
Speaker 2: a very unusual format.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously he doesn't want to do this with handwriting,
Speaker 1: because it's seventy five. Everybody knows that there's handwriting analysis.
Speaker 1: This is an odd choice, right, I mean, I've seen
Speaker 1: kidnappers do everything from you know, newspaper clippings to make
Speaker 1: the letters, to obviously using a typewriter or computer. I
Speaker 1: don't know if this choice is going to be significant
Speaker 1: using a label maker, but this is certainly what he did,
Speaker 1: and there's obviously more lines than just this one that
Speaker 1: they just wanted to just show an example here.
Speaker 2: Sure, well, you know, this is an offender who is
Speaker 2: trying to think about physical evidence, and so in the
Speaker 2: offender's mind, by utilizing this DIMO device to craft the
Speaker 2: ransom note, he's avoiding leaving physical evidence. However, he's not
Speaker 2: knowledgeable enough about how forensics can actually get a ton
Speaker 2: of evidence from this type of material. You know, of
Speaker 2: course we're seeing the investigator's hands, assuming it's investigators are
Speaker 2: some you know, authorities, hands with no gloves on. You know,
Speaker 2: this plastic is a very good surface for latent prints.
Speaker 2: It's so narrow that you'd only get partial prints. But
Speaker 2: of course now we have some contamination from whoever bare
Speaker 2: fingers are showing here to kind of hold on to
Speaker 2: this strip, you know, But this this device, there may
Speaker 2: be characteristics that, due to the wear of this device
Speaker 2: previously being used, might be unique to this particular device.
Speaker 2: The finding of the source material for this ransom you know, plastic,
Speaker 2: if you will, if it's with the device and the
Speaker 2: fender's home, you know that significant fingerprints, of course could
Speaker 2: be recovered from this material. And in this ana, it
Speaker 2: also would be a source of DNA, but you know,
Speaker 2: it informs me that the offender is trying in his
Speaker 2: mind to limit the amount of evidence that law enforcement
Speaker 2: can use to identify him or her.
Speaker 1: Okay, So these are messages that demand a ransom as
Speaker 1: you had read, of fifty thousand pounds for Leslie's safe return,
Speaker 1: and they instruct a member of the family to go
Speaker 1: to a specific telephone box like the classic red payphones
Speaker 1: that you find, you know, in the United Kingdom, at
Speaker 1: the Swan shopping center later that night. So this is
Speaker 1: in a town, at a shopping center that's about ten
Speaker 1: to fifteen miles away from where they are. Once at
Speaker 1: the payphone, the family member has to wait for a
Speaker 1: call from the kidnapper, who will then give further instructions
Speaker 1: that will culminate in a ransom drop and Leslie's release.
Speaker 1: So the kidnappers call will come so time between six
Speaker 1: pm and one am on this night. You know that
Speaker 1: she's been kidnapped in January. There's another message printed on
Speaker 1: dimo tape that the kidnapper says, you are on a
Speaker 1: time limit if police or tricks death. What do you
Speaker 1: think so far? Besides he doesn't want to type too anymore,
Speaker 1: and he's losing. He's leaving out a lot of words
Speaker 1: in these messages. I guess that's what happens when you
Speaker 1: use a label maker as your ransom note generator.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean this is, right now, pretty prototypical language.
Speaker 2: You know. It is leveraging Leslie's safety for money, the
Speaker 2: use of the dimo. You know. I remember having to,
Speaker 2: you know, twist each letter for the word crimp it off,
Speaker 2: go to the next letter. It is a kind of
Speaker 2: a time consuming process to do, and that possibly contributes
Speaker 2: to the curtness, if you will, of the message. But
Speaker 2: the message is effective. It's not like it's leaving out
Speaker 2: any clarity of what the intent is. And at least
Speaker 2: with the previous strip, it looked like all the words
Speaker 2: were spelled correctly, you know, so that might indicate something
Speaker 2: about the offender too.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we're thinking this one might be of the
Speaker 1: range of offenders that we've had, this might be one
Speaker 1: of the more intelligent ones. I guess we're going to
Speaker 1: find out then, right, Well.
Speaker 2: I want to go that far. At least it's not
Speaker 2: so because we've had some you know, ransom letters in
Speaker 2: which the grammar and the spelling of the words is
Speaker 2: just so poor, and sometimes it's purposely done as a
Speaker 2: form of staging, so the offender is making him look
Speaker 2: like somebody else that he's not, or it's just that
Speaker 2: the offender is just not very well educated.
Speaker 1: So Ron and Dorothy, so the mother and the son
Speaker 1: are prepared, they're ready to pay this ransom. But despite
Speaker 1: the threat, they always call the police. You know, despite
Speaker 1: the threat from the capers, Ron decides he's going to
Speaker 1: call the police. And I'm never quite sure what the
Speaker 1: right answer is here, because we have never seen anything
Speaker 1: good come from calling the police in any of our
Speaker 1: ransom stories. But you know, Ron calls the police and
Speaker 1: they start quietly working with the police. So what do
Speaker 1: you think about that it's always a good idea to
Speaker 1: call investigators. I'm assuming I.
Speaker 2: Think, yeah, you know, I think in most instances, you know,
Speaker 2: to have the types of resources that authorities have in
Speaker 2: order to be able to investigate and monitor, you know,
Speaker 2: do surveillance. I think there's a greater ability with bringing
Speaker 2: law enforcement in right off the bat of being able
Speaker 2: to possibly catch the offenders prior to the loved one
Speaker 2: suffering harm or more harm. You know, it would be
Speaker 2: a tough one though. You know, if your your loved
Speaker 2: one is abductive and now there's threat of that loved
Speaker 2: one's life if you do notify authorities, you know, you
Speaker 2: kind of are You've got to be second guessing. Well,
Speaker 2: how are the offenders monitoring me?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: Could I do something that inadvertently I have no idea
Speaker 2: that the offenders would be able to find out, and
Speaker 2: now my loved one is hurt, so I can see
Speaker 2: where the dilemma is. My position would be is, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think it is more favorable to pull in law
Speaker 2: enforcement up front than to try to handle this situation
Speaker 2: just as a family.
Speaker 1: Well that's what Ron wants to do. So they called
Speaker 1: the police. They start working with the family. The officers
Speaker 1: don't find very much physical evidence at all. They think
Speaker 1: that Leslie was basically taken right from her bedroom, and
Speaker 1: they said the only items that Dorothy say are missing
Speaker 1: from the room were Leslie's blue robe and her pair
Speaker 1: of slippers. It's the dead of winter, it's very very cold,
Speaker 1: so they said she didn't even have a She is
Speaker 1: not willingly leaving the house with a boyfriend or some
Speaker 1: you know anything. She was taken. They really feel pretty
Speaker 1: strongly about that. There's no substantial clothing taken along. So
Speaker 1: once the police become involved, then the press becomes involved.
Speaker 1: And this is the big problem. And we've seen this
Speaker 1: with other stories too. There is a leak somewhere. Somebody
Speaker 1: is leaking in all of our stories. Somebody leaks to
Speaker 1: the press just hours after she's discovered missing. Paul, listen
Speaker 1: to this. The BBC breaks in on the evening news
Speaker 1: because she's an heiress, very wealthy, young teenage girl, an heiress,
Speaker 1: and she is missing, and the BBC breaks in and
Speaker 1: the police freak out, as would anybody, and they say,
Speaker 1: this obviously is going to spook the kidnapper, and they
Speaker 1: call off the plan to have Ron wait at this
Speaker 1: designated payphone with the ransom money. So you know, the
Speaker 1: kidnappers had given him specific instructions, and the police say,
Speaker 1: we're not going to do that. I'm not sure that's
Speaker 1: a great idea, But what do you think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not sure why they would have him not
Speaker 2: do it unless the media got a hold of the
Speaker 2: information as to which telephone booth and that window of
Speaker 2: time that he was supposed to receive a phone call.
Speaker 2: I would imagine with the high profile nature of this
Speaker 2: family that now you know what we've seen over there
Speaker 2: in Britain with the paparazzi. You know, they're very, very aggressive.
Speaker 2: So I imagine you possibly have media that's following we're
Speaker 2: on around you now that they know about it, and
Speaker 2: that maybe why law enforcement is saying, okay, hold on,
Speaker 2: you know, we can't have this. This just isn't going
Speaker 2: to work because the media is going to see what
Speaker 2: telephone booth we're on is going to and that he
Speaker 2: has I mean, the kidnappers said anywhere. I think he
Speaker 2: said like from six pm to one am, like some
Speaker 2: huge window of time that they might be calling within
Speaker 2: that whole plan is shot. I'm now understanding why law
Speaker 2: enforcement would call this off.
Speaker 1: Okay, so now we kind of have to deviate into
Speaker 1: a little bit of a different storyline that works with
Speaker 1: the main storyline. So Ron does not call one am
Speaker 1: passes A few hours after that, in the very early
Speaker 1: hours of January fifteenth, there is a security guard named
Speaker 1: Gerald Smith. He's on shift at a rail yard in Dudley,
Speaker 1: which is about twenty five miles east of highly He's
Speaker 1: forty four, and during his shift he sees a man
Speaker 1: driving around the property and he approaches this guy. He
Speaker 1: doesn't belong here. It's unclear if at this point the
Speaker 1: man is in the vehicle or if he's outside of it,
Speaker 1: but Gerald confronts him, says, you're not supposed to be here,
Speaker 1: it's late, and he is shot six times. The gunman
Speaker 1: then flees on foot, leaving the car that he was
Speaker 1: driving behind, and I have a picture of that car.
Speaker 1: It is related to this case. Gerald survives, He makes
Speaker 1: it back to his office and he calls for help,
Speaker 1: and the newspaper reports say that what the gunman wanted
Speaker 1: and why he acted with such ferocity when challenged is
Speaker 1: puzzling to police. And then they start searching for this,
Speaker 1: you know, countrywide hunt for this man. Of course, they're
Speaker 1: not quite connecting it. I know they're connected, but they're
Speaker 1: not quite connecting this yet. So we have had some
Speaker 1: really dumb kidnappers, you know, where things have happened and
Speaker 1: it's they've been sort of not accidental, but they're kind
Speaker 1: of bumbling kidnappers. These are connected, and this is violent.
Speaker 1: So this is somebody who is using a gun and
Speaker 1: almost killed someone.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's you know, we're talking over there
Speaker 2: in Britain where there aren't a lot of guns. Right,
Speaker 2: of course, I'm kind of curious if the security guard
Speaker 2: got a description of the type of firearm, description of
Speaker 2: the offender who shot him. You said, you have a
Speaker 2: photograph of the car, you know, so this is in
Speaker 2: many ways. Of course, you know, law enforcements treated it
Speaker 2: as a standalone seeing a standalone case and know it's
Speaker 2: related to Leslie's subduction, But there could be a lot
Speaker 2: of evidence that could help solve who this offender was
Speaker 2: in the security guard shooting.
Speaker 1: I'll show you the car in a second, because I
Speaker 1: have a second photo that goes with the car that
Speaker 1: makes the connection for us between Leslie's kidnapping and this
Speaker 1: shooting of this guard at this freightline yard. Okay, so
Speaker 1: the kidnapper does not apparently know that the police are
Speaker 1: working with this family, so he connects with the family.
Speaker 1: So he kidnaps her on the fourteenth of January. Two
Speaker 1: days later, he gets in touch with the family with
Speaker 1: a phone call to her house. You know, he cut
Speaker 1: their phone lines. We're assuming so I guess he thought
Speaker 1: they were getting him fixed. He calls Dorothy's house and instead,
Speaker 1: so listen to this instead of talking to the family.
Speaker 1: He when they pick up, he plays a tape recording
Speaker 1: of Leslie's voice, which must have just been terrifying. Sure,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what she said, but you tell me
Speaker 1: what you think first.
Speaker 2: Well. I think using the victim's voice in part is
Speaker 2: to try to convince the family that Leslie is still
Speaker 2: alive and is still cognisant. However, by using a tape recording,
Speaker 2: you know, that is something that could have been recorded
Speaker 2: earlier and Leslie could have suffered harm where she is
Speaker 2: no longer alive, you know, Yet the offender can utilize
Speaker 2: that recording to convince the family to move forward with
Speaker 2: the ransom aspect. Of course, you know, the offender is
Speaker 2: also using Leslie's voice to pull out the heartstrings. You know. Okay,
Speaker 2: there's my loved one is on the other end, and
Speaker 2: I have to double down and get the money out
Speaker 2: so I can get Leslie back. Is probably part of
Speaker 2: the reason to use her voice and the offender. By
Speaker 2: recording Leslie as opposed to having Leslie just talk on
Speaker 2: the phone, the defender has absolute control over what is
Speaker 2: said over that phone call, versus Leslie blurting something out
Speaker 2: that the offender doesn't want blurted out during let's say
Speaker 2: a live phone call.
Speaker 1: Well, this is terrifying, I'm sure to her mother. This
Speaker 1: is what the taped message says in Leslie's voice, Mum,
Speaker 1: you are to go to the Kidsgrove Post office telephone box.
Speaker 1: That's another town. The instructions are inside behind the backboard.
Speaker 1: I'm okay, but there's to be no police and no tricks. Okay.
Speaker 1: And he plays it twice. So what do you think
Speaker 1: about that?
Speaker 2: It's completely in line with the first instructions that had
Speaker 2: been left that weren't followed through on. This appears to
Speaker 2: be a process that the offender has got worked out
Speaker 2: in his head that he's comfortable with. And I wonder,
Speaker 2: you know, the these telephone booth they have a they're
Speaker 2: somewhat spread out, right, you know, because they're they're standalone.
Speaker 2: You don't have like a cluster of these where you
Speaker 2: have a bunch of people, you know, like we'll see
Speaker 2: like banks of payphones back in the day here in
Speaker 2: the United States, and so you have people that are
Speaker 2: just constantly flowing up to these payphones. These telephone booths
Speaker 2: are stand alone, and I would imagine that he's selecting
Speaker 2: telephone boosts that he can observe without being seen himself,
Speaker 2: just to see is let's say Dorothy alone and if
Speaker 2: it's not him, you know, do we have do we
Speaker 2: have a group that's involved with this? Is is there
Speaker 2: a member of the group that would be able to
Speaker 2: observe this telephone booth from afar and see and evaluate
Speaker 2: whether or not Dorothy's following instructions and doesn't appear that
Speaker 2: there's any law enforcement or any any shenanigans going on
Speaker 2: on Dorothy's.
Speaker 1: Part, Well, let's continue on. They put a wae him,
Speaker 1: which I'm not sure in seventy five, what do you
Speaker 1: think that would have been, Like, what's a wire from
Speaker 1: the police in seventy five, Well.
Speaker 2: You know, it would be a microphone that would feed
Speaker 2: into a recording device. And back in the seventies, likely
Speaker 2: some sort of cassette tape. And I'm not sure if
Speaker 2: this would have been you know, the standard size cassettes
Speaker 2: that we used to buy our music on, or they
Speaker 2: actually had microcassettes. You know that they could at least
Speaker 2: have a smaller device on there, but I don't think
Speaker 2: they had anything more sophisticated than that. In the mid seventies.
Speaker 1: Well, Ron must be petrified. Also, they put a wire
Speaker 1: on him and he has to drive to this payphone
Speaker 1: in kids Grove as instructed and according to the Stoke
Speaker 1: on Trent Live news website, this is sixty miles away.
Speaker 1: Police discreetly, I mean discreetly. I have no idea if
Speaker 1: they're really doing that. They discreetly follow him as he
Speaker 1: goes along and Ron gets lost. He doesn't get there
Speaker 1: until three am, and then it takes him another half
Speaker 1: an hour to find the instructions behind this you know,
Speaker 1: phones backboard. When he finds him, he's directed to another location.
Speaker 1: It's a really pretty spot in Bathpool Park and the
Speaker 1: kidnapper leaves this message for Ron. So he finds this message.
Speaker 1: Go to the top of the lane and turn into
Speaker 1: no entry, so I'm assuming the lane that says no intrigue.
Speaker 1: Go to the wall and flashlights. Look for torch. Run
Speaker 1: to torch. Further instructions on torch is a flashlight in
Speaker 1: the UK. Ron is totally confused by this and I'll
Speaker 1: just stop here. He does not know and it's not
Speaker 1: just you. Ron is also confused by this message.
Speaker 2: Yeah I'm not sure. So Ron is to drive basically
Speaker 2: down this what we would say here in the United States,
Speaker 2: you know, wrong way road, and then come to a
Speaker 2: dead end and flash his headlights. If flashlights would be
Speaker 2: signaling him back by being turned on and off, I mean,
Speaker 2: that's kind of what I gathered, but then there would
Speaker 2: be further instructions after those flashlights.
Speaker 1: That's what Ron thinks. But nothing happens when he does
Speaker 1: exactly what she just said. He doesn't see one. He's
Speaker 1: very frustrated, and after about an hour of flashing his
Speaker 1: lights and waiting for a signal, which I mean, I
Speaker 1: know he's in a more isolated area, but flashing your
Speaker 1: lights at three in the morning is going to get
Speaker 1: somebody's attention. No response. He says that he gets out
Speaker 1: of the car. The police watch him do this, and
Speaker 1: he screams, this is Ron Whittle. Is anybody there? And
Speaker 1: nobody responds smartly, He eventually leaves without dropping the ransom
Speaker 1: money or obviously finding Leslie. So this has become a mess,
Speaker 1: what the police involved and this kidnapper, These kidnappers who
Speaker 1: don't know what they're doing obviously, I mean, they're making
Speaker 1: it difficult for him to find the message in the
Speaker 1: phone booth to begin with, and then they leave behind
Speaker 1: a confusing message. It's like cloak and Dagger, but sort
Speaker 1: of the stupid version. I guess.
Speaker 2: Well, that's kind of what I'm debating in my head
Speaker 2: is you know, how incompetent are these kidnappers? You know,
Speaker 2: on one hand, you know, the way that they are
Speaker 2: having Ron take these steps obviously is they're not getting
Speaker 2: what they're after. The money isn't showing up because they're
Speaker 2: making it too hard, and Ron getting lost on the
Speaker 2: way to you know that one location with the telephone booth. Well,
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, you know, you think about before Google
Speaker 2: Maps and if he had just as a paper map,
Speaker 2: and you know the types of roads that are out
Speaker 2: there in England. You know, I think it would be
Speaker 2: expected that he would struggle to find the right location. However,
Speaker 2: you know, something that I'm chewing on is this this
Speaker 2: kind of this wrong way road that they have Ron
Speaker 2: turned down. Was this a counter surveillance move that they're doing?
Speaker 2: You know? Was the configuration of where Ron had to
Speaker 2: drive to get to that road and then go onto
Speaker 2: that road such that if there had been you know,
Speaker 2: law enforcement somewhat tailing him from Afar, that it would
Speaker 2: kind of expose that that tale was present, that there
Speaker 2: was some active surveillance of Ron occurring by law enforcement,
Speaker 2: you know. So that would tend to suggest that the
Speaker 2: offenders are are thinking, Okay, hold on, we got we
Speaker 2: got some issues with this whole kidnapping and the ransom demands.
Speaker 2: What is going on with the family, Let's do something
Speaker 2: to see if we can expose is law enforcement involved
Speaker 2: or not?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is turned into a nightmare. I feel
Speaker 1: like the police are making questionable decisions. Let me tell
Speaker 1: you what they do next, and you tell me what
Speaker 1: you think. So they feel like this place, Bathpool Park,
Speaker 1: where they were directed, is a hotspot. They feel like
Speaker 1: Leslie could be here or there is a big clue here.
Speaker 1: They were drawn here and the police have a discussion
Speaker 1: with the family, and the police decide they're going to
Speaker 1: do a discrete sweep of Bathpool Park the next morning.
Speaker 1: So this is probably four hours, seven maybe five hours
Speaker 1: after the family goes home. They don't find anything useful.
Speaker 1: So when we say discrete, we mean they are not
Speaker 1: doing a full on search, you know, for this young
Speaker 1: woman in the park. They are concerned that a big,
Speaker 1: high profile operation like that would make the kidnapper aware
Speaker 1: of their involvement. On the other hand, if she's there
Speaker 1: and alive, wouldn't a full scale search maybe find her.
Speaker 2: We would discover her, you know, I think, you know,
Speaker 2: if it is a full scale search, the concern would
Speaker 2: be they don't know where she's at. They make their
Speaker 2: presence obvious. Now the offenders have the advantage going up
Speaker 2: law enforcements here, and now you know, Leslie could be
Speaker 2: killed and the offenders you know, run off. So I
Speaker 2: can understand where using a more discrete option might be preferable,
Speaker 2: though obviously you can't be as thorough in any location.
Speaker 2: I just kind of question when they say discrete, you know,
Speaker 2: I is this you know, where they just have a
Speaker 2: few people that are milling about and kind of you know,
Speaker 2: knocking on some doors. Are we talking about full blown
Speaker 2: spy versus spy where now you have what appears to
Speaker 2: be utility work going on with men in uniforms, and
Speaker 2: they're having to notify all the neighbors, Hey, we're about
Speaker 2: to shut down your electrical or your phone lines, whatever else.
Speaker 2: And now they can actually be much more aggressive in
Speaker 2: terms of thoroughness by contacting all these places because they're
Speaker 2: using a full blown ruse that might throw off the
Speaker 2: offenders from suspecting this is a law enforcement operation.
Speaker 1: Let's go with option number one, okay, which is men
Speaker 1: in playing clothes, probably with sticks, poking around at bushes.
Speaker 1: I do not think that is the kind of operation
Speaker 1: that this police force is unfortunately operating under, because you know,
Speaker 1: they are trying to be discreete they're scared. They don't
Speaker 1: know what they're doing. I don't know why. You know,
Speaker 1: Scotland Yard or someone bigger is not involved. But let's
Speaker 1: keep going. So Dorothy and Ron are really really, of
Speaker 1: course upset, and they're getting desperate, so they turn to
Speaker 1: the media, hoping to issue a plea to the kidnappers directly. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: what happens is, you know, they say, of course we've
Speaker 1: got you know, we've got ransom money here for you.
Speaker 1: What ends up happening is scammers and hoaxers and they
Speaker 1: are derailed because of this situation. And I know you're
Speaker 1: nodding your head. And that is the risk with going
Speaker 1: to the media sometimes, isn't it.
Speaker 2: No, Yeah, you know, And now this is where the
Speaker 2: general population nut jobs who want to have some notoriety
Speaker 2: because they inserted themselves into the investigation just can cause
Speaker 2: this case to go off the complete rails, you know.
Speaker 2: You know, the complexity in this case, of course, is
Speaker 2: early on the media got a hold of this, and now,
Speaker 2: you know, law enforcement is trying to work behind the
Speaker 2: scenes without alerting the media of what their operations are
Speaker 2: and work with the family, and then family gets frustrated
Speaker 2: with however, how these things are turning out, and now
Speaker 2: it's just like, okay, you know, poor Leslie. At this point,
Speaker 2: I think the killers, you know, this is where they
Speaker 2: should be cutting bait and running. You know, they just
Speaker 2: either leave Leslie or probably kill her to eliminate her
Speaker 2: as a witness and get the hell out of Dodge.
Speaker 1: Basically, well, that's not what happens with these guys. So
Speaker 1: let's move forward. We're going to go back to Gerald Smith,
Speaker 1: poor Gerald who was shot. So no idea why this
Speaker 1: is happening, I guess you know, they have not made
Speaker 1: this connection yet between the man who shot Gerald Smith
Speaker 1: the guard at the railroad yard. They have not made
Speaker 1: that connection yet. They have not searched this stolen car
Speaker 1: that had been abandoned. The man who shot Gerald had
Speaker 1: a car there. They finally searched it eight days later,
Speaker 1: and listened to what they found. There's a gun that
Speaker 1: was used to shoot Gerald, There's a box of bullets,
Speaker 1: a foam mattress, a flashlight, several unused Dimo labels, a
Speaker 1: tape recorder with cassettes, and her parents confirmed Leslie's slippers.
Speaker 1: So now they've made the connection eight days later, and
Speaker 1: I have photos of the car and of the tape recorder.
Speaker 2: Is this the same law enforcement jurisdiction handling both Leslie's
Speaker 2: abduction as well as this shooting.
Speaker 1: That's the impression I'm getting.
Speaker 2: Yes, Okay, yeah, I'm surprised, you know, I mean, especially
Speaker 2: in Britain, when you have a shooting of a security guard,
Speaker 2: I would have thought that that would be a high
Speaker 2: priority case. And they don't pursue the evidence, you know,
Speaker 2: search the offender's car for eight days. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: either they really drop the ball on that inexcusably, or
Speaker 2: is so much law enforcement resources being tied up with
Speaker 2: Leslie's abduction that they don't have the manpower to do
Speaker 2: some of what should be timely and routine tasks in
Speaker 2: the investigation of the security guard shooting.
Speaker 1: And keep in mind, this is not London, I mean,
Speaker 1: and this is not a major city. This is a
Speaker 1: series of small towns with I don't know how experienced
Speaker 1: these folks are. I'm not reading the description Scotland yard
Speaker 1: anywhere on this document, so you know this is not
Speaker 1: as sophisticated I think as we think it could be,
Speaker 1: or we wish it could be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's my guess. And I mean both types
Speaker 2: of cases, the abduction of a seventeen year old girl
Speaker 2: and a shooting, particularly a shooting in Britain, these are
Speaker 2: cases that would be probably once in a career for
Speaker 2: most of these investigators for this small department, So you know,
Speaker 2: they may be just kind of fumbling around because they've
Speaker 2: never experienced anything any one of these cases at a time,
Speaker 2: let alone both of these types of cases. Kind of concurrently.
Speaker 1: Let me show you the car. It's kind of a
Speaker 1: cool little car. So there's the kidnappers car. It's stolen.
Speaker 1: You know, he left it there, He shot the guard
Speaker 1: and left it there. We don't know why he was
Speaker 1: at this railway yard to begin with. We don't know.
Speaker 2: Okay, well I'm you know right now, I'm just seeing
Speaker 2: a picture of a looks like an old style four
Speaker 2: doors at Anne that has the brand Morris on the
Speaker 2: front grill. I just see the headlights, the bumper, the windshield,
Speaker 2: The windows are rolled up. I was half expecting to
Speaker 2: see some damage from bullets passing out of the vehicle
Speaker 2: at the security guard. So maybe you know, a window
Speaker 2: was down or the door was open. I don't know,
Speaker 2: you know, but this is just its nondescript to me.
Speaker 2: It just looks like a car that's just sitting, you know,
Speaker 2: in a parking lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So here down here is the tape recorder. You'll
Speaker 1: probably recognize this type of tape recorder.
Speaker 2: I had one pretty close to that, you know, when
Speaker 2: I was younger.
Speaker 1: This does date you, yes, So this is.
Speaker 2: A photograph of a standard cassette player from from back
Speaker 2: in the day. Yeah. I can't tell if there's a
Speaker 2: cassette in there. Maybe there is a cassette. Yeah, in fact,
Speaker 2: I think there is a cassette in that photograph, but
Speaker 2: I'm not entirely sure, you know. So, this obviously would
Speaker 2: be how they could record Leslie's voice to say that
Speaker 2: message and then replay it several times during the phone call. Yep,
Speaker 2: obviously they found, you know, evidence that's tying this car
Speaker 2: to the abduction. But I mean in terms of the
Speaker 2: evidents to identify the offender who's involved in the shooting,
Speaker 2: you know, from Layton print processing on and inside the car,
Speaker 2: Layton print processing on that cassette recorder. You know, there's
Speaker 2: scores of evidence, you know that could be pursued, you know,
Speaker 2: using the technologies of the mid nineteen seventies. And is
Speaker 2: this car even registered to the person that's that abducted
Speaker 2: Leslie or is it a stolen vehicle?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, this is really it gets so convoluted.
Speaker 1: Now you know why this is a double episode. I
Speaker 1: have a confusing thing piece of evidence here. Remember I
Speaker 1: told you there are cassettes in this car, So they
Speaker 1: did not discover anything inside this car until eight days
Speaker 1: after Gerald was shot. They find the cassettes in the car.
Speaker 1: The cassettes play more messages in Leslie's voice, which instruct
Speaker 1: the family to head to a specific payphone in another
Speaker 1: English town. One says this, please, Mum, go onto the
Speaker 1: M six north to junction ten and onto the A
Speaker 1: five four five towards Walsall instructions are taped under the
Speaker 1: shelf of a telephone box. There's no need to worry, Mom,
Speaker 1: I'm okay. I got a bit wet, but I'm quite
Speaker 1: dry now. I'm being treated very well. Okay. So one,
Speaker 1: I need your reaction to the reassurance he's obviously trying
Speaker 1: to make her say to her mother. But number two,
Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure what the point of these cassettes
Speaker 1: are because they're laying. I know they were recorded, they're
Speaker 1: laying in this car. They haven't been delivered. These are
Speaker 1: undelivered instructions essentially.
Speaker 2: Well, it sounds like the offenders had several different plans
Speaker 2: depending on the circumstances that they were going to be
Speaker 2: confronted with as the days went on. So they had
Speaker 2: Leslie pre record Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, whatever
Speaker 2: it was, and then implemented one of those plans with
Speaker 2: the actual phone call with Leslie's voice telling Dorothy, this
Speaker 2: is what I want you to do now right now.
Speaker 2: Of course, we don't know why they chose that particular
Speaker 2: plan over the others, but this gives me a little
Speaker 2: bit of concern, you know, I know Leslie's voice is
Speaker 2: saying that she's being treated well. That only she got
Speaker 2: a little bit wet, which I'm assuming is during the abduction.
Speaker 2: Maybe it was raining that night or something. No, it
Speaker 2: was winter, Okay, yeah, January. But to record these plans,
Speaker 2: all these plans ahead of time and right now, maybe
Speaker 2: I'm exaggerating in terms of the number of plans that
Speaker 2: they recorded, But are they capturing Leslie's voice because their
Speaker 2: plan was that she was going to be dead very
Speaker 2: shortly afterwards. You know, That's where I'm getting a little
Speaker 2: bit concerned about that.
Speaker 1: Well, there's even more to be concerned about. So there
Speaker 1: are some fingerprints that they are able to match from
Speaker 1: Jerald's crime scene where he has been shot, to a
Speaker 1: series of violent robberies that include murders starting in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy four. These are all postal workers. These are all
Speaker 1: murders that were connected, like I said, through fingerprints and
Speaker 1: some ballistics. They said, so the last postal worker who
Speaker 1: was murdered, robbed and murdered was killed in November of
Speaker 1: seventy four, and that's just two months before Leslie was kidnapped.
Speaker 1: So these are really, I mean, it sounds like just
Speaker 1: like awful violent robberies. And because these have all been
Speaker 1: nearly identical and there are at different locations across the country,
Speaker 1: the investigators believe the perpetrator is the same man they're
Speaker 1: just they all feel the same, and of course now
Speaker 1: they have these fingerprints. He's eventually dubbed the Black Panther
Speaker 1: by the press because of his knack for wearing all black,
Speaker 1: including a you know, like a head covering that covers
Speaker 1: you know, his entire head except from two eye holes,
Speaker 1: and witnesses he says he moves very swiftly during the robberies.
Speaker 1: You know, the press loves a good moniker. So the
Speaker 1: bottom line is now the main suspect here, who's connected
Speaker 1: to the car, who's connected to Gerald, who is still
Speaker 1: in critical condition but awake, connected to the kidnapping of Leslie.
Speaker 1: All of these surround this one man that they've dubbed
Speaker 1: the Black Panther.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're finding Layton's from these various robbery scenes
Speaker 2: and homicide scenes of postal workers that they are able
Speaker 2: to interconnect. They don't know who this man is, this
Speaker 2: black Panther man. And then now with the security guard shooting,
Speaker 2: they get latens I'm assuming either from the car or
Speaker 2: from objects that they collect out of the car that
Speaker 2: have that they're able to connect to these prior robberies
Speaker 2: and homicides of the postal workers. So now black Panther
Speaker 2: is suspect number one. They just don't know who black
Speaker 2: panther there is. When you think about these robberies, you know,
Speaker 2: robbery is typically a financially motivated crime, you know, And
Speaker 2: why go after postal workers? Are you going after you know,
Speaker 2: paychecks that are in the mail? Are you going after
Speaker 2: other items of value that these postal workers would have
Speaker 2: had in on their routes?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: But typically it's a financially motivated crime, and of course
Speaker 2: this kidnapping if Leslie, is a financially motivated crime, even
Speaker 2: though it's a it's a very different type of financially
Speaker 2: motivated crime, but the fundamental motive is there, you know.
Speaker 2: And now you have you have fingerprints that are are
Speaker 2: matching everything up.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: It's just who is it? Who is this black panther?
Speaker 1: That's what we're going to have to find out next week, Paul,
Speaker 1: Who is it? And where is Leslie? Where is she?
Speaker 1: What happened? Does he ever make a connection with the family. Again,
Speaker 1: Ron and Dorothy are just beside themselves. The police are
Speaker 1: not doing a great job. It sounds like I things
Speaker 1: are going to get better, but we're going to have
Speaker 1: to find out next week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, things are not looking good for Leslie because you
Speaker 2: have the black panther who is willing to kill prior
Speaker 2: is he willing to kill her? So I will wait
Speaker 2: and hear the rest of the story.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll be back with you in a week.
Speaker 2: Sounds good.
Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production for our sources
Speaker 1: and show notes go to exactlyrightmedia dot com slash Buried
Speaker 1: Bones sources. Our senior producer is Alexis Emosi.
Speaker 2: Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1: Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 2: Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1: Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2: Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark, and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 1: You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Speaker 1: Barry Bones Pod.
Speaker 2: Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
Speaker 2: Age story of and the race to decote the criminal mind,
Speaker 2: is available now
Speaker 1: And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's
Speaker 1: Cold Cases is also available now