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Speaker 1: keep exploring the unknown together. New writing every note. The
Speaker 1: following episode contains graphic scenes of mutilation and sexualized violence
Speaker 1: parental discretion as advised. The early evening of January seventh,
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty seven, in Peking, as Western has called it then,
Speaker 1: was an especially chilly one, not that anyone cared down
Speaker 1: at the French Club in the heart of the city's
Speaker 1: legation district. For a start, there were far more important
Speaker 1: things to be worried about. With China firmly in the
Speaker 1: grip of its own civil war, other forces were also
Speaker 1: looking to assert themselves outside the city walls. The ominous
Speaker 1: presence of Japan's military loomed large, as rumors of an
Speaker 1: imminent attack grew louder by the day. Japan's presence in
Speaker 1: the region had been supported by an eight nation alliance
Speaker 1: of the world's most powerful states, keen to preserve their
Speaker 1: imperial ambitions in China in the way could the Box
Speaker 1: a rebellion of the nineteen hundreds. But things had changed.
Speaker 1: Alliances had fractured, chiefly those between the United States, Germany, France,
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom, and what was now the communist Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: The fracturing of the whole world was only two years away.
Speaker 1: But down in the legation quarter on that especially chilly
Speaker 1: Thursday evening, you'd be forgiven for thinking anything of the
Speaker 1: sort was taking place. A legation is a diplomatic minister,
Speaker 1: one rank below an ambassador. The legation district, then, was
Speaker 1: where said ministers their headquarters and their families were based.
Speaker 1: It was a kind of strange hinterland of wealthy aristocrats
Speaker 1: and foreign dignitaries, a world of gas lit, swanky embassy buildings,
Speaker 1: well stocked bars, and tailored coats, rising incongruously out of
Speaker 1: a city where most people lived cheek by jowl in
Speaker 1: the hutons, ancient networks of low rise, narrow lanes and
Speaker 1: cramped courtyard dwelling that made up the bones of Old
Speaker 1: p King, or Beijing as the Chinese called it, which
Speaker 1: is to say that though Legation District residents were undoubtedly
Speaker 1: highly informed of current events, they were also weirdly shielded
Speaker 1: from them, or at least that was how it seemed
Speaker 1: to them, surrounded by their private guards and the kind
Speaker 1: of luxury that most residents of Beijing, or indeed anywhere
Speaker 1: could only imagine. It was a disconnection experienced most keenly
Speaker 1: by the children of the Legation quarter, especially those occupying
Speaker 1: a strange hinterland of their own, like the three young
Speaker 1: women presently zipping about the French clubs newly installed ice
Speaker 1: skating rink in the French legation zone. Ethel Guryevitch, Lilian
Speaker 1: Maronovsky and Pamela Werner for over an hour, they skated
Speaker 1: about the rink in their fur coats and hats, their
Speaker 1: breath and laughter clouding generously in the cold air. They
Speaker 1: shared cigarettes and a little wine. Then, as it approached
Speaker 1: seven thirty pm, Pamela announced it was time for her
Speaker 1: to leave, as she was expected home for dinner. As
Speaker 1: young women in their late teens and early twenties each
Speaker 1: were caught somewhere between the naivete of adolescence and the mature,
Speaker 1: worldly women they one day hoped to become, perhaps none
Speaker 1: more so than nineteen year old Pamela. As it happened,
Speaker 1: Unlike her friends, she didn't live in the legation quarter,
Speaker 1: but in a traditional Hutong home with her father, a
Speaker 1: retired diplomat. She also loved to cycle everywhere and was
Speaker 1: fluent in Mandarin, affording her a little more freedom than
Speaker 1: most of her expat contemporaries. Nonetheless, it was always a
Speaker 1: little hard for Ethel and Lilian whenever the time came
Speaker 1: to watch her leave the safety of the legation district,
Speaker 1: especially night. They wondered whether it was safe for her
Speaker 1: to be going home alone in the dark, But as
Speaker 1: Pamela always assured them, it would be no different to
Speaker 1: any other time she'd done it. Besides, she said, nothing
Speaker 1: can happen to me here in p King, And with
Speaker 1: that she slung her skates over her shoulder, climbed onto
Speaker 1: her bicycle, and rode off into the chilly night. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Unexplained, and I'm Richard McLean Smith. Pamela Werner's father,
Speaker 1: Theodore Chalmers Werner, was the son of wealthy Prussians, who
Speaker 1: was born in New Zealand but was classed as a
Speaker 1: British citizen. Having been educated at Tunbridge School, one of
Speaker 1: England's oldest and most elite private institutions, Werner joined the
Speaker 1: British Diplomatic Service in his late teens and was promptly
Speaker 1: sent to Beijing to learn Mandarin. He took to the
Speaker 1: language and culture with gusto and held a variety of positions,
Speaker 1: but there was one area in which he was sorely lacking.
Speaker 1: Possessing a quick, hot temper, he became known for terrible
Speaker 1: interpersonal skills and frequently got into violent disagreements with his superiors. This,
Speaker 1: combined with what other British diplomats considered a little too
Speaker 1: much of an interest in Chinese culture, meant that he
Speaker 1: was mostly posted to remote locations to keep him from
Speaker 1: causing too much trouble. Despite his effective ostracization from the
Speaker 1: Foreign Office, Edward Werner developed a great affection for China
Speaker 1: and had no intention of returning back to the UK.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eleven, at the age of forty seven, he
Speaker 1: married a young socilite, the twenty four year old Gladys Ravenshaw,
Speaker 1: and a pair eventually made Beijing their home. After retiring
Speaker 1: from the Consular Service in nineteen fourteen, Werner devoted himself
Speaker 1: fully to scholarly work, indulging his passions for Chinese culture
Speaker 1: and folklore, establishing a reputation as a meticulous and respected sinologist.
Speaker 1: He and Gladys tried for years to have children, but
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, they were unable to conceive, and so
Speaker 1: in nineteen nineteen they decided to adopt. It was then
Speaker 1: that they met and fell in love with a sprightly
Speaker 1: two year old girl from a local orphanage. The couple
Speaker 1: decided to take her home and named her Pamela. Not
Speaker 1: long after, Gladys became seriously ill. After weeks of treatment
Speaker 1: in China, she was eventually diagnosed with meningitis and sent
Speaker 1: to the United States to see a specialist. She returned
Speaker 1: to Beijing sometime in nineteen twenty two, having failed to
Speaker 1: overcome the illness. Tragically, she died shortly after, leaving the
Speaker 1: five year old Pamela without a mother and the by
Speaker 1: then fifty eight year old Edward a single parent. By
Speaker 1: all accounts, Edward Werner, albeit with significant assistance from servants
Speaker 1: and nanny's, was a devoted father to Pamela. With his
Speaker 1: diplomatic career over he was able to devote much of
Speaker 1: his time to bringing her up, including teaching her Mandarin,
Speaker 1: in which she became fairly fluent from an early age.
Speaker 1: The Verners lived at Number one Armor Factory Lane in
Speaker 1: a modernized traditional courtyard house. Like many children of wealthy
Speaker 1: expats in the area, Pamela attended Saint Mary's School for
Speaker 1: Girls in the Legation Quarter, then later tiens In Grammar School.
Speaker 1: It was at Tiensin Grammar that Pamela was allegedly sexually harassed,
Speaker 1: possibly by the school's head teacher, Sidney Yates. To what
Speaker 1: extent he was reprimanded if he was at all, or
Speaker 1: whether Pamela was blamed for the incident by the perpetrator,
Speaker 1: as is often the case isn't known either way. Some
Speaker 1: have speculated it marked the beginning of a change in
Speaker 1: Edward's relationship with his daughter, and he became worried that
Speaker 1: men might start to take advantage of her. Sometime around
Speaker 1: late December in nineteen thirty six, one of Pamela's Chinese classmates,
Speaker 1: a young man named hansho Ching, turned up at her house.
Speaker 1: Some say they were just friends, others that there was
Speaker 1: more to the relationship, and though it isn't clear why.
Speaker 1: Not long after he arrived, Edward Werner is said to
Speaker 1: have violently accosted him, beating him with its cane before
Speaker 1: chasing him away from the house. Werner reportedly hit sho
Speaker 1: Ching so hard that he broke his nose. Not long
Speaker 1: after this incident, Werner announced that he planned to send
Speaker 1: his daughter back to England to continue her education there
Speaker 1: at the first opportunity. It was a move which Pamela
Speaker 1: was said to being extremely resistant to. On the morning
Speaker 1: of Thursday, January seventh, nineteen thirty seven, the day Pamela
Speaker 1: went ice skating at the French Club in the Legation Quarter,
Speaker 1: she attended a dental appointment, then went back home. Later
Speaker 1: just before leaving again that afternoon, she told a family
Speaker 1: servant named Ho Yong that she'd be back for dinner
Speaker 1: at seven thirty, and asked if he could prepare her
Speaker 1: some meat balls and rice. At some point, she made
Speaker 1: her way to the wagon Lits Hotel, a popular hangout
Speaker 1: for the city's expat community, where she met up with
Speaker 1: her friend Ethel Guryevitch. The pair then went back to
Speaker 1: Ethel's home, where Ethel's mother served them tea and cake,
Speaker 1: before they then headed back out to meet their friend Lilian.
Speaker 1: Having left the skating rink shortly before seven point thirty
Speaker 1: that evening, it shouldn't have taken her more than fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes to get home, but by nine pm there was
Speaker 1: still no sign of her. Growing increasingly worried, since it
Speaker 1: wasn't like Pamela not to stick to an arrangement, her father, Edward,
Speaker 1: asked Ho Young to go to the ice rink to
Speaker 1: look for her. By the time he arrived at the rink,
Speaker 1: the whole place was dark and everyone had gone home
Speaker 1: for the night, save for a handful of workers diligently
Speaker 1: cleaning the place up. Oh Young asked if they'd seen
Speaker 1: anyone matching Pamela's description, but all shook their heads. There
Speaker 1: were at least two hundred people there that night, and
Speaker 1: they hadn't been keeping tabs on individual guests. When Ho
Speaker 1: Young returned empty handed, a despondent Edward sent him home
Speaker 1: for the night. Then, grabbing a coat and a flashlight,
Speaker 1: he ventured out alone into the icy darkness to see
Speaker 1: what he could find himself. For hours, with the temperature
Speaker 1: now well below freezing, Werner traped back and forth between
Speaker 1: his home and the legation district, his weary feet crunching
Speaker 1: over the frozen ground as he asked anyone he came
Speaker 1: across if they'd seen his daughter, but no one had.
Speaker 1: It was about one a m. In the morning when
Speaker 1: Edward finally cut his losses and returned home, where he
Speaker 1: spent an anxious night waiting for any word from his daughter.
Speaker 1: Not ten minutes walk from Edward and Pamela Werner's home
Speaker 1: stood the Fox Tower, a dark and imposing monolithic fortress
Speaker 1: with a garish red tiled roof and upturned eaves in
Speaker 1: the manner of much ancient Chinese architecture. Formerly a watchtower,
Speaker 1: built in the sixteenth century, it marked what once had
Speaker 1: been the eastern access gate to the ancient Imperial City,
Speaker 1: a borderland between worlds now strangely out of place. By
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty seven, though it was still an impressive structure,
Speaker 1: it had long been abandoned and was home then only
Speaker 1: to the many hundreds of bats that nested there, though
Speaker 1: some believed it was also home to things a little
Speaker 1: less earthly. The man who ordered its construction was said
Speaker 1: to be cruel and obsessed with achieving immortality, and he
Speaker 1: employed all manner of our chemical practices to achieve his aims.
Speaker 1: No sooner had the tower been constructed, rumors began to
Speaker 1: emerge that it had been taken over by fox spirits,
Speaker 1: which gave rise to its name. Fox spirits are shape
Speaker 1: shifting mythological beings said to typically disguise themselves as beautiful
Speaker 1: women to ensnare unsuspecting men, though it is said they
Speaker 1: also have the power to possessed them, causing them to
Speaker 1: go mad. Even in nineteen thirty seven, locals knew to
Speaker 1: stay away from the Fox Tower. More recently due to
Speaker 1: the belief that the area was also haunted by a
Speaker 1: man who committed suicide the year before, the morning after
Speaker 1: Pamela disappeared, A thick mist swelled at the base of
Speaker 1: the tower. Over the frosty ground. Amorphous shapes seemed to
Speaker 1: flitter in and out of it, long loping, four limbed bodies,
Speaker 1: maybe foxes, maybe wild dogs, it was hard to tell.
Speaker 1: Through it all came a long, eerie howl. Two rickshaw
Speaker 1: pullers appeared through the mist, when their attention was caught
Speaker 1: suddenly by a pack of feral dogs sniffing about a strange,
Speaker 1: lump and gray thing at the base of the tower.
Speaker 1: Every so often, they dug their teeth into it and
Speaker 1: wrenched a bit of it away. The sweet trill of
Speaker 1: a bird pierced the air, followed moments later by the
Speaker 1: appearance of an elderly man holding a song bird in
Speaker 1: a cage, which he was taking for a walk. He
Speaker 1: too was distracted by the sight of the dogs milling
Speaker 1: about the strange, lumpen thing. With his curiosity getting the
Speaker 1: better of him, he settled the cage by the side
Speaker 1: of the road and carefully lowered himself into the frozen
Speaker 1: ditch for a closer look. After shewing the dogs away,
Speaker 1: he drew near to the shape until his brain was
Speaker 1: finally able to calibrate what it was. To recognize the
Speaker 1: twisted limbs as arms and legs, their appendages as hands
Speaker 1: and feet, and the thickly matted material at the top
Speaker 1: of it all as hair. But where there should have
Speaker 1: been a face, he saw only a ragged gray void.
Speaker 1: He reeled back in horror, leaving the rickshaw men to
Speaker 1: cover the body with a bamboo mat and keep the
Speaker 1: feral dogs and onlookers away. The man with the songbird
Speaker 1: hurried to the nearest police box to report his grisly find.
Speaker 1: Officers from the Beijing Police arrived soon after. Inspector Hang
Speaker 1: shir Chung stepped forward to inspect the corpse. From what
Speaker 1: little he could discern from the partially clothed body, he
Speaker 1: concluded it was a young white woman, probably European. He
Speaker 1: looked up at the Fox Tower looming over him. Had
Speaker 1: she jumped from there, he wondered. Many formerly wealthy Russians
Speaker 1: from the now Soviet Union had fled to Beijing in
Speaker 1: the wake of the Bolshevik uprising. Unable to reconcile their
Speaker 1: new found destitution with the luxuries of their past, some
Speaker 1: chose to end their lives that would at least explain
Speaker 1: the horrific injuries and the crumpled manner of the body,
Speaker 1: he thought, But then he took a closer look. Almost
Speaker 1: hidden within the extensive bruising that covered the body were
Speaker 1: quite clearly multiple stab wounds. Some were especially large, though
Speaker 1: oddly there were no big stains or any other sign
Speaker 1: of the blood that should have flowed out of them.
Speaker 1: He noticed then that the arm was virtually hanging off,
Speaker 1: and a particularly deep incision had been made across the
Speaker 1: woman's neck. That the face was almost entirely missing, he reasoned,
Speaker 1: was probably due to wild dogs who may well have
Speaker 1: been picking at the corpse ever since it appeared in
Speaker 1: the area. This then, was no suicide, and as it happened,
Speaker 1: the victim was no destitute immigrant, not at least judging
Speaker 1: by the expensive platinum jewelry that still adorned her body
Speaker 1: and the platinum and diamond wrist watch that lay close by.
Speaker 1: So not a robbery gone awry either. There was something
Speaker 1: else too, a cart lying in the frosty dirt. Inspector
Speaker 1: hand bent down to pick it up. It appeared to
Speaker 1: be a membership card for an ice rink, splattered with blood.
Speaker 1: It was about this time that Edward Werner, who had
Speaker 1: since resumed the search for his daughter happened to be
Speaker 1: passing the Fox Tower when he saw the small crowd
Speaker 1: of people gathered at the base of it. He drew
Speaker 1: closer until he was just about able to make out
Speaker 1: the grim scene at the center of it all and
Speaker 1: what was quite clearly a badly battered dead body. No, please, no,
Speaker 1: he muttered to himself as he continued forward toward it.
Speaker 1: Then he caught a glimpse of the body's clothing, and
Speaker 1: his legs went weak. Werner recognized it immediately as his
Speaker 1: daughter's No, no, no, he repeated as he hurried ever closer,
Speaker 1: the tears welling up in his eyes as the officers
Speaker 1: tried to hold him back, until finally he saw it all.
Speaker 1: Oh God, Pamela, he cried. Then everything went black. Edward
Speaker 1: Werner fainted at the sight of his daughter's body. Such
Speaker 1: was the brutality with which he had been quite evidently murdered.
Speaker 1: He was eventually dragged away and carried back home. Later
Speaker 1: that evening, the nineteen year old Pamela Werner's body was
Speaker 1: taken to the Peaking Union Medical College to be autopsied.
Speaker 1: It was not an easy time to carry out a
Speaker 1: murder investigation among the general chaos of the city, crowded
Speaker 1: as it was with so many war refugees, most mornings
Speaker 1: authorities would find themselves collecting several bodies from the streets,
Speaker 1: Although most had died by suicide or natural causes. This
Speaker 1: was significantly different, with the victim being a foreign national.
Speaker 1: Detective hand brought it immediately to the attention of the
Speaker 1: Legation Quarters. British Police Commissioner William Thomas both knew that
Speaker 1: the ensuing investigation would not be a mere formality. It
Speaker 1: had been an especially brutal attack, and while Pamela's body
Speaker 1: was found on land under Chinese jurisdiction, there was every
Speaker 1: reason to suspect, not least of all because of the
Speaker 1: lack of blood at the scene, that the murder had
Speaker 1: not been committed. There s just whose jurisdiction it fell
Speaker 1: under was not entirely clear. Not only that, with it
Speaker 1: occurring close to the Legation Quarter, which Pamela regularly frequented,
Speaker 1: did likely need to interview others who spent time there.
Speaker 1: Only the Beijing Police had no authority in that region,
Speaker 1: and in any case, many of its residents and diplomatic immunity.
Speaker 1: Then there was the social standing of the Wernets, which
Speaker 1: would most certainly attract press attention. In short, it was
Speaker 1: a complicated and delicate case, so in a very unusual move,
Speaker 1: Commissioner William Thomas agreed to a joint investigation with the
Speaker 1: Beijing Police, in which they would work together to find
Speaker 1: the perpetrator. Detective Chief Inspector Richard Dennis, a former veteran
Speaker 1: from Scotland Yard who was now the chief of police
Speaker 1: for the British in the city of Tienjin, was selected
Speaker 1: to lead the investigation alongside Inspector Hahn. The Beijing Police
Speaker 1: agreed to this because Inspector Dennis was not under the
Speaker 1: authority of the British Diplomatic Service, and so it was
Speaker 1: hoped his findings could not be influenced by them. For
Speaker 1: the most part, Inspector Hahn was glad to have Dennis's assistance,
Speaker 1: not least of all because of the access it afforded
Speaker 1: him with the expat community, But it would be a
Speaker 1: few days yet before he could join him in Beijing,
Speaker 1: so in the meantime, Inspector Hahn began by reviewing the
Speaker 1: evidence from the scene where Pamela was found. Pamela's skirt
Speaker 1: was loosened around her body. Her silk stockings had been
Speaker 1: torn and her underwear was missing, although her overcoat, scarf,
Speaker 1: and shoes were still with the body when it was discovered.
Speaker 1: As mentioned before, there wasn't much blood on them or
Speaker 1: at the scene at all. Pamela's watch that was located
Speaker 1: near the body was found to have stopped shortly after midnight,
Speaker 1: suggesting this as a possible time of death. And while
Speaker 1: her skating rink membership cart was discovered at the scene,
Speaker 1: her bicycle and skates were nowhere to be found. And
Speaker 1: then there was the autopsy. Pamela had received several blows
Speaker 1: to the head, strong enough to fracture her skull, possibly
Speaker 1: inflicted with a smooth wooden or stone implement. The pathologists
Speaker 1: surmised to inflict such direct blows, the assailant would have
Speaker 1: been very close to the victim, suggesting that Pamela may
Speaker 1: well have been killed by someone she knew. But there
Speaker 1: were many other wounds, more blunt forced trauma to her
Speaker 1: right arm, along with numerous stab and slash wounds in
Speaker 1: multiple locations which went clean through muscle, likely inflicted with
Speaker 1: a two edged blade at least four inches long, possibly
Speaker 1: post mortem even more horrifically. When the coroner inspected her
Speaker 1: sexual organs, he found that a sharp implement had been
Speaker 1: used repeatedly to penetrate the young woman's vagina, so much
Speaker 1: so that it was impossible to tell if she'd been
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted, either before or after she was killed. And
Speaker 1: there was more. The coroner couldn't help but notice how
Speaker 1: some of the larger stab wounds actually looked more like incisions.
Speaker 1: When he opened the body up, he discovered why most
Speaker 1: of Pamela's internal organs had been removed. Her bladder, liver,
Speaker 1: and kidneys were all gone, and so too was her heart.
Speaker 1: The ribs surrounding it had even been broken specifically to
Speaker 1: take it out, judging by the extensive neck wound and
Speaker 1: the partially severed arm. The coroner also concluded that it
Speaker 1: was likely the perpetrator had attempted to dismember Pamela's corpse,
Speaker 1: but for whatever reason, had been forced to give up
Speaker 1: and leave the body as it was, perhaps having been
Speaker 1: spooped off by a passer by. As for the lack
Speaker 1: of blood, it seemed that the body had been deliberately
Speaker 1: exanguinated shortly after death. The watch suggested that Pamela had
Speaker 1: been alive for several hours after leaving the ice rink,
Speaker 1: placing her time of death somewhere between ten pm and
Speaker 1: two am. One of the few internal organs remaining was
Speaker 1: the stomach, which contains some partially digested meat and rice.
Speaker 1: Since Pamela was only known to have eaten a little
Speaker 1: bread and cake before she left the ice drink to
Speaker 1: make the fifteen minute journey back home, it begged the
Speaker 1: question when had she eaten this? Was it possible that
Speaker 1: Pamela hadn't in fact left to go home, but to
Speaker 1: do something else since stead to many, the murder of
Speaker 1: Pamela Werner was reminiscent of the crimes committed by so
Speaker 1: called Jack the Ripper some fifty years previously. According to
Speaker 1: a guynecologist who was also present at the autopsy, although
Speaker 1: Pamela's killing appeared to be sexually motivated, it was not
Speaker 1: the work of what might be termed an ordinary sexual sadest,
Speaker 1: but something far more unusual. When Chief Inspector Richard Dennis
Speaker 1: arrived in Beijing to join Inspector Han, the unlikely duo
Speaker 1: began their investigation by retracing Pamela's steps on the day
Speaker 1: that she died. From this, they quickly gleaned one vital
Speaker 1: new piece of information. It was something that had come
Speaker 1: up in speaking with Pamela's friend Ethel Garyevitch, one of
Speaker 1: the last known people to have seen Pamela alive. When
Speaker 1: the pair had met at the Wagons Lits Hotel the
Speaker 1: day she disappeared, Pamela let slip that she'd already been
Speaker 1: there that afternoon. Chasing up the lead, hann and Dennis
Speaker 1: discovered that she'd spoken to the concierge there about renting
Speaker 1: a room. The men couldn't help but wonder if she
Speaker 1: was planning to meet an unknown romantic acquaintance there. Either way,
Speaker 1: the revelation hinted at the possibility of Pamela having something
Speaker 1: of a secret life, or at least one she wanted
Speaker 1: to keep hidden from her father. The two detectives combed
Speaker 1: through Pamela's diary, but couldn't find anything significant to expand
Speaker 1: on the theory. At a press conference a few days later,
Speaker 1: the pair admitted that they'd yet to find even a
Speaker 1: single solid lead. In the absence of a possible suspect,
Speaker 1: public speculation began to intensify. Some wondered if perhaps the
Speaker 1: evil spirits that reside in the foxtower might have been
Speaker 1: to blame, but there was something else that had caught
Speaker 1: the public's attention. Pamela's body had been found on the
Speaker 1: edge of an especially shady part of town known as
Speaker 1: the bad Lands, a maze of narrow hutong streets packed
Speaker 1: with opium dens, brothels and gambling houses, where the city's
Speaker 1: underworld did its business openly and the lights burned a
Speaker 1: little lower. It sat just outside the walls of the
Speaker 1: Legate Quarter, close enough that it was well known to
Speaker 1: the foreign community, and even frequented by some of them,
Speaker 1: even if they preferred not to say so out loud.
Speaker 1: It was a place where people went to disappear, and
Speaker 1: not the kind of place that you went to by accident.
Speaker 1: Could the killer have come out of there? The inspectors wandered.
Speaker 1: Helen and Edgar Snow were American journalists who lived in
Speaker 1: one of the courtyard homes adjacent to the Werners. When
Speaker 1: Helen found out about Pamela's gruesome murder, she was reportedly
Speaker 1: extremely shaken. She later told Inspectors Han and Dennis that
Speaker 1: the quom In Tang government might have carried out the
Speaker 1: killing and have mistaken Pamela for her. The quom In
Speaker 1: Tang or Nationalist Party, had governed China since the late
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, when their leader Chiang Kai Shek's forces swept
Speaker 1: to power following a bloody civil war. By nineteen thirty seven,
Speaker 1: they were the official government of the Republic of China,
Speaker 1: based in the southern capital of Nanjing, and were locked
Speaker 1: in an uneasy stand off with both the communist forces
Speaker 1: of moods At Dong and the ever encroaching Japanese military.
Speaker 1: They were not, by any measure, a government that tolerated
Speaker 1: descent or scrutiny from foreign journalists. Although now based in Nanjing,
Speaker 1: the Kuomintang still had agents in Beijing, and Helen snow
Speaker 1: knew that they were not happy about certain things that
Speaker 1: she and her husband had written, in particular unsympathetic portrayals
Speaker 1: of the Kuomintang hierarchy, which had contrasted markedly with their
Speaker 1: more positive portrayal of Maos at Dong's communists. Helen thought
Speaker 1: it quite possible that Kuomintang assassins had been sent to
Speaker 1: murder her, but in the dark, had mistakenly attacked Pamela instead.
Speaker 1: The two women looked somewhat similar, especially in low lighting,
Speaker 1: and they lived on the same street. To Inspector Dennis,
Speaker 1: it seemed partially plausible, But why would they have gone
Speaker 1: to such lengths to mutilate the corpse. Weren't their typical
Speaker 1: political assassinations much tidier affairs, he thought, usually involving just
Speaker 1: a single shot to the head. After ten days of investigating,
Speaker 1: Inspectors Hahn and Denis still had very little to show
Speaker 1: for their efforts, other than their leading hunch that Pamela's
Speaker 1: killer had possible links to the bad Lands area. Perhaps
Speaker 1: they'd just been visiting there when they caught sight of
Speaker 1: Pamela and attacked her. But then Inspector Han began to
Speaker 1: wonder what if it wasn't the killer who had the
Speaker 1: connection with the bad Lands, but Pamela herself. Han immediately
Speaker 1: ordered his officers to go door to door through the
Speaker 1: bad Lands, dingy, smoke filled streets to see what they
Speaker 1: might uncover. It wasn't long before their diligence paid off,
Speaker 1: when shocking new evidence came to light that would take
Speaker 1: the investigation in an entirely new and even darker direction.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to the first part of Unexplained Season nine,
Speaker 1: episode fifteen, Red Dust, the second and final part, will
Speaker 1: be released next Friday, March twenty seven. This episode was
Speaker 1: written by Diane Hope and Richard McLain Smith. Thank you
Speaker 1: as ever for listening Unexplained as an Avy Club Productions
Speaker 1: podcast created by Richard McLain Smith. All other elements of
Speaker 1: the podcast, including the music, are also produced by me
Speaker 1: Richard McLain Smith. Unexplained. The book and audiobook is now
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