Speaker 1: Paper Ghosts is a production of I Heart Radio. As
Speaker 1: far as I had come with these five cases, it
Speaker 1: still felt like a major piece of this fifty year
Speaker 1: old puzzle was missing. Because it's always bothered me that
Speaker 1: throughout all of this, the Connecticut State Police had never
Speaker 1: done the obvious bring canines out to search the biggest
Speaker 1: areas of interest, the Wendell property, the old LaRosa Land,
Speaker 1: and that Flower Memorial area. They've been asked by many
Speaker 1: of the victims families and the windows to do so,
Speaker 1: but they've never made an effort. Time, money, a variety
Speaker 1: of excuses have been to blame, but Kennan Patty Wendell,
Speaker 1: they need to know if their bodies buried on their property,
Speaker 1: and most importantly, the victims families deserve answers. This has
Speaker 1: gone on for far too long. Previously on Paper Ghosts,
Speaker 1: he said, well, you know they're not gonna find anything.
Speaker 1: He said, I didn't do anything wrong to hurt your mother.
Speaker 1: Do you think Bob Larros is a guy who was
Speaker 1: capable of killing his wife? Oh yeah, It's easy to
Speaker 1: point the finger and say he did it, or she
Speaker 1: did it, or they did it. Yeah, But to go
Speaker 1: down and prove me at something else and uh, like
Speaker 1: I said, I didn't hurt nobody, I didn't kill anybody,
Speaker 1: and I didn't kidnap anybody. My name is and William Phelps.
Speaker 1: This is Paper Ghosts. I began this po podcasting journey
Speaker 1: in two thousand nineteen on Ken and Patty Wendell's forty
Speaker 1: six acre property near Crystal Lake. An indirect tip from
Speaker 1: the witness and a bag of seventies Eero clothing set
Speaker 1: things in motion. After years and years of false leads
Speaker 1: and dead ends, and now in I'm back at the Wendell's.
Speaker 1: Only this time I have some help with me. Hello,
Speaker 1: how you doing. It was a cold day in May,
Speaker 1: at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, and I had
Speaker 1: somehow convinced canine team to meet me at Patty and
Speaker 1: Ken Wendell's house. Hi, Marian, how are you? Marian? Baland
Speaker 1: and Don Minor are my field support from Connecticut Canine
Speaker 1: Search and Rescue, one of the most renowned condaver search
Speaker 1: teams in the country. I reached out to the organization
Speaker 1: in late two thousand nineteen, and after several meetings in
Speaker 1: further discussion, they agreed to help these families seek some
Speaker 1: sort of resolution, at least within this latest thread of
Speaker 1: the witness stirring things up after all these decades. How
Speaker 1: the conditions you think? One issue that bothered me immediately
Speaker 1: was the weather, cold, wet, windy. Would it play a
Speaker 1: role in how effective the dogs are going to be? Well,
Speaker 1: it's warming up, so it's not real moist in the
Speaker 1: air right now, so so I'm hoping that that's going
Speaker 1: to give some kind of lath right now. It's been
Speaker 1: told we had a lot of rain over the past
Speaker 1: couple of times. Left to see how the dogs do.
Speaker 1: There are so many variables at play, Mary and explained,
Speaker 1: and most are not what many would think. For example,
Speaker 1: a lot of rain, she says, can be helpful bringing
Speaker 1: up the water table disperses the scent of decomposition. She's
Speaker 1: learned this by training her dogs on burial grounds. Jane's
Speaker 1: pockets sister, Mary angle Brick, was also there. It felt
Speaker 1: appropriate it she be included since she was there when
Speaker 1: we toured the Wendell property one year earlier. Mary, how
Speaker 1: are you feeling about today? I'm kind of nervous, like
Speaker 1: feeling a lot of things. I think nervous. I'm scared,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm I'm scared that they'll find something, and
Speaker 1: then I'm scared that they won't find something, so you know,
Speaker 1: I'm all over the place kind of. So we were
Speaker 1: joined by their colleague Liz Burne, who was the handler
Speaker 1: for the day, and it brought two English Springers Orva
Speaker 1: and Heiress, the springer of favorite breed for Scotland. Yard
Speaker 1: is traditionally a hunting dog used to flush out game
Speaker 1: for the shooter. Their ears are long, floppy and furry.
Speaker 1: They are full of boundless energy. That much was clear
Speaker 1: as soon as I met them. That's Horri ready to work.
Speaker 1: Or of a We all stood massed up socially distanced
Speaker 1: about a hundred yards away from Liz as she brought
Speaker 1: one dog at a time into the areas. The idea
Speaker 1: behind this strategy is for Don and Marian to watch
Speaker 1: the dog for signs of alerting on a scent. Canine
Speaker 1: searched the air. Mostly they scurry around trying to pick
Speaker 1: up on an airborne scent that spring foliage growing up
Speaker 1: from the ground might project into the air, or they
Speaker 1: can hit on water. They do all this while wearing
Speaker 1: a GPS tracking device, so every step the raw data
Speaker 1: is recorded. As they search. The dogs give tells which
Speaker 1: Marian and Don are there to pick up on and
Speaker 1: take note of Heiress. The first dog heading into the
Speaker 1: window woods was hyper focused. She wore a bell around
Speaker 1: her collar so the handler could find her easily if
Speaker 1: she picked up on something, and kind of moved swiftly
Speaker 1: through the woods. We headed towards the spot where Ken
Speaker 1: Wendell found that bag of clothes. Procedure sent Liz and
Speaker 1: Arress well beyond the target area. The idea is not
Speaker 1: to bring the dog into the direct location. Instead allow
Speaker 1: that dog to seek out herself whatever it is of interest.
Speaker 1: So that's the well where UM the clothing was found.
Speaker 1: There's a carpet in there that I was curious about.
Speaker 1: Blue carpet. Marion explained what an alert on an area
Speaker 1: would look like, and she whispers, because we didn't want
Speaker 1: to disturb the focus of Liz or Heiress. We're looking
Speaker 1: for UM. Possibly the dogs pacing to slow down on
Speaker 1: head hooks one way or the other. UM. Usually they slow,
Speaker 1: they slow down and get more intense. The dogs are
Speaker 1: trained on decomposing placentas and actual dirt samples from the
Speaker 1: colonial period, civil war, and known slave grave sites. They
Speaker 1: are often brought to archaeologist digs and support as well.
Speaker 1: She's down inside that well now, hairis actually dove into
Speaker 1: the well and swam around in the water. This is
Speaker 1: the exact location where the clothes and that blue carpet
Speaker 1: were found. The well being full of water was actually
Speaker 1: helpful in bringing the potential scent of remains out of
Speaker 1: whatever might have been down there as quickly as area
Speaker 1: seemed interested in it. However, out she came, shaking off
Speaker 1: excess water before moving on. Doesn't seem interested in anything
Speaker 1: in there? Huh Yeah. There she went in twice and
Speaker 1: she actually tasted the water, but she didn't. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is her saying, there's no set. I'm just being
Speaker 1: a goofy dog right now because there's nothing. The dog
Speaker 1: worked this section of the woods for about twenty five minutes,
Speaker 1: covering it in a grid like fashion, nose to ground
Speaker 1: at times, nose in the air at others. The green
Speaker 1: roof well is towards that way. It's far, but it
Speaker 1: is that way, so maybe that area all nice, nicely
Speaker 1: fool now. The witnesses tip included the words green roofed well.
Speaker 1: There's only one of those anywhere on the property. So yeah, Liz,
Speaker 1: there's the green roofed well right there. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: in about twenty ft in back of that is another well.
Speaker 1: Right then you want both of them checked, yeah, I thought,
Speaker 1: but that has the green roof which the witness described.
Speaker 1: Liz took the dog a hundred yards and more up
Speaker 1: past both wells and unleashed. As we looked on, my
Speaker 1: gut was telling me there was nothing there yet. Investigation
Speaker 1: requires elimination. If I could eliminate the window property, the
Speaker 1: windows and the victims families could move on from this
Speaker 1: and go back to their lives. Oh, look at that.
Speaker 1: We were in the vicinity the witness had specifically described,
Speaker 1: and there was a noticeable change in Herriss's behavior as
Speaker 1: soon as she started searching this area. You think she's
Speaker 1: just interested in that the dog picked up on something.
Speaker 1: She's back at that green roof well. The well is
Speaker 1: square about ten by ten with an upside down V
Speaker 1: shaped roof over it. Both ends are covered one side
Speaker 1: with a hatch door to look inside. Ken Wendell, if
Speaker 1: you recall, put an underwater camera down this well and
Speaker 1: found nothing but water on one side of the well.
Speaker 1: As a pool of water deep part of the well
Speaker 1: runoff as it fills during a rainstorm. Harris dove into
Speaker 1: that pool of water, tasted it, jumped out, sniffed around
Speaker 1: the well, then made her way over to the hatch door.
Speaker 1: Fiddled with it a bit, trying to get in, just curiosity,
Speaker 1: not thing more. Harris actually found more interest in a
Speaker 1: second well nearby. See um, where that other sort of
Speaker 1: arcas in a well where there's the metal posts over
Speaker 1: the top around there, really yeah, where there was the deep.
Speaker 1: She's the deep sniffing and here she was scared. She
Speaker 1: stuck her head and she actually stammed through that water. Um,
Speaker 1: but I heard more of the breathing changes, like if
Speaker 1: I'm working up there. Eiris went from the green roof
Speaker 1: well to an area about thirty yards behind it, up
Speaker 1: a hill in front of a large section of bedrock
Speaker 1: sticking out of the ground. Luz, can you work or
Speaker 1: above that rock in the woods behind? She's interested in
Speaker 1: that area. Huh, she's digging there. She's interested in that.
Speaker 1: Talking back, I'm really three times three times later I
Speaker 1: got three times in yeah, um yeah. She went over
Speaker 1: there to back over there, laid down and started digging.
Speaker 1: She went back on her own. Yeah, laying down is
Speaker 1: Harris's trained indication that she has locked onto decomposition. Don
Speaker 1: and Marian, when they saw it, became incredibly focused. I
Speaker 1: had not seen them all day long look as serious
Speaker 1: as they were. If they come back, do it on
Speaker 1: your own. I mean she actually started pawn at it.
Speaker 1: She was digging to do out of frustration or CONSI
Speaker 1: something there and you're not moving fast enough. I was
Speaker 1: trying to listen for her breathing, because if you're going
Speaker 1: to get a fossil lert, so I'll just they might
Speaker 1: go and give you their behaviors, but you don't hear
Speaker 1: that deep stacking beforehand. Like I'm working. I'm working on
Speaker 1: her breathing, drink breathing. Aara settled in on one spot
Speaker 1: in front of a large piece of bedrock protruding from
Speaker 1: the ground. She dug, vigorously, laid down over the spot
Speaker 1: she had dug, and waited for Liz to come over.
Speaker 1: After Liz took Ariss away and allowed her to go
Speaker 1: where she wanted, the dog came back to the same location.
Speaker 1: The team all agreed there could be something there. What
Speaker 1: that something is would be to speculate a bone decomposition
Speaker 1: in the soil run off from a nearby cemetery or
Speaker 1: perhaps one of the missing girls. After Arius hit on
Speaker 1: that particular location, the handlers brought out the second dog, Orva,
Speaker 1: and she showed interests there as well. The team then
Speaker 1: arraided the area probed as they call it, by spending
Speaker 1: a half hour poking the ground with skinny metal rods,
Speaker 1: then brought the dogs back. So how did the probeing
Speaker 1: go good? A lot of holes? He made good. She
Speaker 1: seemed that she saw the area. Yeah, it's above there,
Speaker 1: in front of that piece of lege. Yeah. Yeah. Seeing
Speaker 1: the two dogs show more interest in a well behind
Speaker 1: the one the witness had been talking about came as
Speaker 1: no surprise. It's been decades since the girls went missing.
Speaker 1: Memories naturally fade over time, and sometimes they can even change.
Speaker 1: It's like a game of telephone, where a detail you
Speaker 1: once remembered make it slightly altered as the years go by.
Speaker 1: Dates maybe off colors can be different. So if you
Speaker 1: wanted to work the dogs more, we could go over here.
Speaker 1: I pointed to the area near the flower memorial Tina
Speaker 1: LaRosa and her family members put on the birch tree
Speaker 1: in back of the old LaRosa property, and also where
Speaker 1: the state police once dug and came up with those
Speaker 1: five pairs of saddle shoes I mentioned in episode one,
Speaker 1: Yes through here and the rope stuff some time to ye,
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's best if we walk
Speaker 1: them down the street and come in from the street
Speaker 1: on the side or it didn't show any indication whatsoever
Speaker 1: near the LaRosa property or the flower memorial safe for
Speaker 1: her pawing at a tree close by. Sometimes canines will
Speaker 1: act as though they want to climb a tree, indicating
Speaker 1: perhaps there is something under the tree or even in
Speaker 1: the tree itself kind of sucked in or absorbed by
Speaker 1: the roots system. That second go around after probing, turned
Speaker 1: in the same results. It had been a long cold day.
Speaker 1: The dogs were tired, same as we were in the
Speaker 1: weeks after we all met up at the Wendells, the
Speaker 1: Connecticut Canine Search and Rescue Team sent me its report
Speaker 1: for the day regarding the location around the artesian water
Speaker 1: well as well as the flower memorial near the LaRosa property.
Speaker 1: Canines arison or of a quote showed no behavior changes
Speaker 1: indicative of the odor of decomposed human remains being present.
Speaker 1: As for the area surrounding the green roofed well. Both
Speaker 1: dogs exhibited deep sniffing and digging with airis, returning to
Speaker 1: the location three times before lying down her trained indication.
Speaker 1: This certainly adds more credibility to the witnesses supposed tip
Speaker 1: about bodies being buried somewhere in that area. Now knowing this,
Speaker 1: it's hard not to imagine the frustration felt by the
Speaker 1: victims families after the request for state police to bring
Speaker 1: out search dogs has and ignored. More so when you
Speaker 1: learned that during the summer the state police actually acted
Speaker 1: on a psychics tip and brought canines out to a
Speaker 1: home in Tolland to search for Janic's pocket. They turned
Speaker 1: up with nothing. I just don't get it. A seemingly
Speaker 1: credible tip from the witness leads to new breakthroughs at
Speaker 1: Crystal Lake, and the state police are searching a home
Speaker 1: six miles away based on a psychics tip. We had
Speaker 1: also gone to the location where Susan Larrossa was found,
Speaker 1: but the wind picked up and it was nearly impossible
Speaker 1: to search. I will say this, however, when we got there,
Speaker 1: the dogs were unleashed and ran straight toward the exact
Speaker 1: location where Susan's body had been dumped. According to the report,
Speaker 1: both dogs showed changes in body carriage indicative of attempts
Speaker 1: to locate the odor of decomposed remains, deep sniffing and
Speaker 1: pasting in circles. The report ends with the Connecticut Canine
Speaker 1: Search and Rescue Team's recommendation to follow up with a
Speaker 1: search further into the woods west of Wendell Road, northwest
Speaker 1: of the Green Roof covered well area, and additional areas
Speaker 1: near where Susan LaRosa was found. What I do with
Speaker 1: this information becomes the question. The state police had made
Speaker 1: it clear they were uninterested in sharing information, but I
Speaker 1: had Connecticut Canine send them my Canine Search Info Report.
Speaker 1: I've been providing the State Police in Tallan County States
Speaker 1: Attorney's Office with information at tips I have received and
Speaker 1: vetted for over ten years. I'm not about to stop now.
Speaker 1: Armed with the info I had, I went over to
Speaker 1: speak with Bill Meyer, the Vernon Police Department lieutenant, see
Speaker 1: what he thought. We made some progress. You know, generations
Speaker 1: of detectives have worked on this case, going back before
Speaker 1: I was even born. But these are the types of
Speaker 1: cases to stick with you, and we know that someone
Speaker 1: knows something. Someone out there across the United States, across
Speaker 1: the world, knows the answers that we're looking for. Which
Speaker 1: out of the case is Debbie Spickler, Lisa White, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, the Janis Pocket case, Susan LaRosa, Irene Larrosa.
Speaker 1: I mean, which which one you think is most solvable?
Speaker 1: Certainly the ones where we've recovered the remains have more
Speaker 1: solvability to them. And with with her husband, Bob Lerosa
Speaker 1: being dead, what do you think the chances are solving
Speaker 1: that case. It's a challenge with any of these cases,
Speaker 1: you know, the amount of time becomes a challenge because
Speaker 1: memories fade, people die, people move away. But we don't
Speaker 1: give up, you know, we're still hoping for that breakthrough.
Speaker 1: It's going to give us the answers we've been looking
Speaker 1: forward for many, many years. It's very important if you
Speaker 1: have some information to bring it forward, even if you
Speaker 1: think it's something we've already investigated. Part of the fallout
Speaker 1: from taking a cold case investigation public is the urgency
Speaker 1: for answers and expected resolution to have everything tied up
Speaker 1: in a nice little bow with papers filed away. Trust me,
Speaker 1: I'd love that too. But the best we can hope
Speaker 1: for is that the needle has been moved a bit more.
Speaker 1: What's important is the facts are out there that so
Speaker 1: many more people are now aware of these cases. We
Speaker 1: have a cold Cake hotline um that that people can
Speaker 1: reach out to with that information that will get back
Speaker 1: to investigators so that they can be followed up. By
Speaker 1: early October, the podcast have been out for nearly a
Speaker 1: month and people were talking. More importantly, the state police
Speaker 1: were moving. Ken Wendell gave me a call. He told
Speaker 1: me the police now want to come up to his
Speaker 1: property and survey the areas where I had brought the
Speaker 1: canine team, and they want to bring their own dogs
Speaker 1: out right away. All small town politics aside. The good
Speaker 1: news is that the state police is paying attention. I've
Speaker 1: since learned that their dogs hit on two areas, one
Speaker 1: not too far away from the spot Arras had laid down,
Speaker 1: and another where that flower memorial is located. Next steps
Speaker 1: include ground penetrating radar in those areas of interest, and
Speaker 1: also possibly more digging. That's on the Connecticut State Police.
Speaker 1: All we can do now is wait and hope they
Speaker 1: follow up. I promised the families of the missing girls
Speaker 1: that I would tell them about my latest findings with
Speaker 1: the Canine team, their strength and candor, and sharing with
Speaker 1: me one of the most traumatic moments of their lives,
Speaker 1: something for which I am forever grateful. Mary angele Breck,
Speaker 1: the sister of Jane's Pocket, April White Filetti, the sister
Speaker 1: of Lisa White. Terry Shanks, the sister of Susan Rosa.
Speaker 1: These three women share a bond that very few people
Speaker 1: can understand. We all met up at a campsite one night,
Speaker 1: sat around a fire and just talked. You know, we
Speaker 1: all grew up with our experience, isn't I And I'm
Speaker 1: thinking each of us, did you ever think that you
Speaker 1: would find someone else that actually understands what you went
Speaker 1: through and how you grew up, in how losing a
Speaker 1: sister and the way we did. No one understands. No
Speaker 1: one understands. And it's it's so funny because when I
Speaker 1: talked about Lisa and it sets me. Um. It's it's
Speaker 1: hard to do because it just takes you to such
Speaker 1: a dark place, but um, I always know that I
Speaker 1: have you guys it, and it makes it so much easier.
Speaker 1: And even April makes a good point that dark place
Speaker 1: all of this brings up. It's a daily reality for
Speaker 1: these families. We suffer the same, the three of us,
Speaker 1: like we are sisters. Forever we are, the three of us,
Speaker 1: we will always be connected. I feel so blessed and
Speaker 1: lucky that we found my sister, but my bond still
Speaker 1: remains with the women who have not, because even though
Speaker 1: I we found my sister's body, we still don't know
Speaker 1: the particulars of what happened. And there's no justice, no justice,
Speaker 1: bottom line. Really, in the end, five females for missing,
Speaker 1: one confirmed murder, and those responsible walk free. Mary goes
Speaker 1: on to say what many of us might forget about
Speaker 1: the day her sister disappeared, and that echo chamber of
Speaker 1: pain and what a tragedy like this does family and friends.
Speaker 1: It's crazy, And I think, you know, I think April
Speaker 1: and Terry can identify with this. But I think in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, you know, here we are all
Speaker 1: women are fifties now, but I still feel like a
Speaker 1: part of me is still six years old, a part
Speaker 1: of April is still ten years old, and a part
Speaker 1: of Terry is twelve years old, because that's when our
Speaker 1: life ended, our life as we knew it. Paper Ghosts
Speaker 1: has written an executive produced by me and William Phelps.
Speaker 1: I want to extend my gratitude to I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and will Pearson for allowing me to do what I do. Likewise,
Speaker 1: I could not have done this podcast without the great
Speaker 1: work of Christina Everett, who really shaped these episodes and
Speaker 1: stepped in co wrote an executive produced with me, and
Speaker 1: a big thank you to Pete Cardi from back Room
Speaker 1: Audio for sound editing and a booze afar from My
Speaker 1: Heart for sound editing and mixing. The series theme number
Speaker 1: four four two is written and performed by Tom Mooney
Speaker 1: and Thomas Phelps. That cold case hotline number the Vernon
Speaker 1: Police Department set up is eight six oh three two
Speaker 1: to eight. It will be posted in the show notes
Speaker 1: of this episode along with my contact in phone. If
Speaker 1: tiplines and cops aren't your thing, you can send me
Speaker 1: a direct message on Facebook or email me personally. Any
Speaker 1: tip or a bit of information can be helpful, and
Speaker 1: all of it is kept completely confidential. To stay updated
Speaker 1: on any new development on the cases, check out the
Speaker 1: Paper ghost podcast page on Facebook and be sure to
Speaker 1: stay subscribed to Paper Ghosts. But lots more to come
Speaker 1: for more podcasts from My Heart Radio visit the I
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.