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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 2: Rather than leak incomplete information as they were going through

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Speaker 2: their investigation, they instead, i think, had faith that they

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Speaker 2: would be able to solve it and sort of soon

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Speaker 2: enough there would be information. The problem was. Soon enough

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Speaker 2: was fifty years later.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor

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Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the

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Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career

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Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken

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Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down

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Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,

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Speaker 1: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true

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Speaker 1: crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both

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Speaker 1: good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the

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Speaker 1: unpublished details behind their stories. Author Becky Cooper was a

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Speaker 1: student at Harvard University when she heard a curious rumor

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Speaker 1: about a murdered student in the late nineteen sixties. Cooper

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Speaker 1: was told that the killer was likely a professor, but

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Speaker 1: her investigation uncovered clues that had been buried for decades.

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Speaker 1: And who the real killer was came as a surprise

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Speaker 1: to everyone. The story of Jane Britten's life and her

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Speaker 1: murder is detailed in the book We Keep the Dead Close.

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Speaker 1: Let's start from the beginning. Where does it make sense

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Speaker 1: for you to start? Were you in journalism or why

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Speaker 1: were you at Harvard to begin with? I was at

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Speaker 1: Harvard because I wanted to be a neuroscientist. I always

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Speaker 1: liked writing.

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Speaker 2: I wasn't a particularly big reader, but over the course

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Speaker 2: of my four years there, I really missed literature, and

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Speaker 2: so I ended up a comparative literature graduate. But along

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Speaker 2: the way, I was having lunch with an old friend

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Speaker 2: of mine who had gotten swept up into this whirlwind relationship,

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Speaker 2: and it was supposed to be the first time that

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Speaker 2: we were having one on one lunch together in months.

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Speaker 2: And suddenly her boyfriend shows up, and I sort of decided,

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Speaker 2: all right, well, I'll make the most of this intrusion,

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Speaker 2: because I knew that this boyfriend was, among other things,

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Speaker 2: an incredible storyteller, So I, you know, figured i'd bait

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Speaker 2: him with some kind of half remembered Harvard lore about

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Speaker 2: some fire truck parked in Harvard Yard that involved ghosts.

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Speaker 2: I don't remember the story, but I do remember that

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Speaker 2: it worked a trick, because he said, well, if you

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Speaker 2: want to hear really crazy Harvard story, and launched into

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Speaker 2: this almost like well worn academic kind of horror story

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Speaker 2: slash fairy tale about this beautiful, nameless archaeology graduate student

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Speaker 2: who had been on a dig in Iran and had

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Speaker 2: had an affair with this professor, the professor who was

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Speaker 2: running it, and when they got back to campus, she

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Speaker 2: didn't want to give up the affair, and he was married,

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Speaker 2: and he didn't want the school to find out about

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Speaker 2: the affair. And one thing leads to another, and she

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Speaker 2: ends up being killed by him in the Peabody Museum,

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Speaker 2: which is the anthropology museum at Harvard, and he lays

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Speaker 2: jewelry on her that they had found at the dig,

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Speaker 2: their cigarette butts that had been burned. And then there's

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Speaker 2: this red ochre, this iron oxide powder that's been sprinkled

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Speaker 2: all over the crime scene. And according to the rumor

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Speaker 2: as I first heard it, the school caught wind the

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Speaker 2: next day that the school newspaper was going to write

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Speaker 2: about this professor's alleged connection to the murder, and they

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Speaker 2: didn't want their sort of superstar professor to be caught

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Speaker 2: up in something so sordid, and so they swashed the story.

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Speaker 2: Fast forward to forty years later, and it's still unsolved.

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Speaker 2: My boyfriend was also notoriously good at spinning tale, so

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Speaker 2: I didn't really give that story a ton of credence.

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Speaker 2: I think it just it lodged in my brain because

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Speaker 2: Harvard I loved it. It was this kind of dreamlike

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Speaker 2: world of possibilities. But it was that also because it

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Speaker 2: was so omnipotent, and so imagining it wielding that power

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Speaker 2: for bad or at least for squashing a story that

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Speaker 2: it didn't like, wasn't that hard to imagine. And so

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Speaker 2: it just sort of found its way into its own archetype.

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Speaker 2: And then a year later, not having looked into the

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Speaker 2: story at all, I happened to go to my advisor,

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Speaker 2: who is in the anthropology department, even though I was

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Speaker 2: comparative literature, and I'm early for this meeting, and I

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Speaker 2: overhear them talking about Samuel Warthrope, who Harvard anthropologists loved

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Speaker 2: to think was the basis for Indiana Jones, and they're

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Speaker 2: telling me it was very common for archaeologists to actually

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Speaker 2: be spies because it offered a very convenient cover, especially

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Speaker 2: between the wars, and so then I can't help myself,

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Speaker 2: and I'm like, well, if you want to hear a

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Speaker 2: really crazy Harvard story about, you know, archaeologists with double identities.

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Speaker 2: And I tell this story, which is, you know, by

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Speaker 2: this point half remembered and I have never fact checked it,

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Speaker 2: and I'm so embarrassed, like metacognitively, as I'm telling the

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Speaker 2: story to people who are in the department that I like,

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Speaker 2: wrap it up as quickly as possible, and then they

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Speaker 2: don't say anything, and they keep looking at me. And

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Speaker 2: finally my advisor says, the woman was killed not in

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Speaker 2: the Puberty Museum, as I had heard in the rumor,

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Speaker 2: but in her off campus apartment. And then his other

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Speaker 2: advisor says, and that professor that you're talking about, he's

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Speaker 2: still on faculty.

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Speaker 1: Wow, And that piqued your interest? Obviously, What is the

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Speaker 1: time span between when you first hear the story from

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Speaker 1: this guy you know, to then having this conversation with

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Speaker 1: your visor, to then saying I'm going to write a book.

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Speaker 1: What is the time span here?

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Speaker 2: It happened incrementally. I knew that my interest was piqued,

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Speaker 2: and I wasn't going to by that point let it

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Speaker 2: lie without investigating it, and so probably within six months

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Speaker 2: I graduated by that point, and so then decided to

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Speaker 2: come back to campus to audit this professor's class. Because

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Speaker 2: Harvard has this, or it used to, I think it

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Speaker 2: stopped it at this point. It used to have this

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Speaker 2: week at the beginning each semester called Shopping Period, where

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Speaker 2: you could just really essentially walk into any class and

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Speaker 2: there was no roster, and it was just a chance

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Speaker 2: to audition classes. And I realized if I was going

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Speaker 2: to be anonymous ever and just sort of like be

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Speaker 2: in the presence of this professor around whom a rumor

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Speaker 2: like this could linger for fifty years, but this was

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Speaker 2: my chance, and so I attend his class for a

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Speaker 2: couple of months, living with my old college roommate, and

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Speaker 2: still at that point I didn't know what I was

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Speaker 2: going to do with all this information. Just I think

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Speaker 2: there was a kind of innocence and a naivety in

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Speaker 2: the sense of it just felt like this hangnail or

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Speaker 2: this inconclusive justice that just required somebody asking the right

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Speaker 2: question or finally listening to the answer, rather than what

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Speaker 2: it turned out to be, which was me spending the

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Speaker 2: next ten years learning how to be an investigative journalist

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Speaker 2: to figure out how to actually solve this case.

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Speaker 1: Well, where do we go from here? Do we start

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Speaker 1: with Jane Britten? Who is the woman who was unnamed,

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Speaker 1: the victim who became the center of the story that

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Speaker 1: clearly was misreported and then you were determined to go

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Speaker 1: in and set the record straight. Do we start with her?

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Speaker 2: Absolutely? I first learned Jane's name from the newspaper reports

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Speaker 2: that came out right after this murder had happened. It

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Speaker 2: reached national news almost immediately, which isn't always the case

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Speaker 2: with murders. But I learned, you know, she had grown

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Speaker 2: up in Needa, Massachusetts, which is just outside of Boston.

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Speaker 2: She had a brother. Her father was the vice president

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Speaker 2: of Radcliffe Administration. Radcliffe was Harvard's sister school at this point,

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Speaker 2: So the murder happened in nineteen sixty nine. A lot

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Speaker 2: of just to preface, and a lot of what was

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Speaker 2: in that original rumor turns out to not have been

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Speaker 2: directly true. The cigarette burns, for instance, is a weirdness

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Speaker 2: translation of a single unstained cigarette butt that was inside

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Speaker 2: of an ash tray. But I do learn from these

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Speaker 2: articles that you know a number of things in the

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Speaker 2: rumor is true or are true, like that she had

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Speaker 2: been on a dag and a round in the previous summer.

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Speaker 2: So after going to a kind of boarding school called

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Speaker 2: Dana Hall nearby Neida, Massachusetts, she went on to go

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Speaker 2: to Radcliffe College. And at that point, even though Harvard

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Speaker 2: and Radcliffe were separate, the Harvard men and Radcliffe women

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Speaker 2: were taking classes together, and Jane was this absolute kick

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Speaker 2: in the pants. Her best friend, who I tracked down,

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Speaker 2: said that she was like a combination between Groucho Marx

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Speaker 2: and Dorothy Parker, except without the mustache. You know. One

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Speaker 2: of the absolute pleasures of working on a book that

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Speaker 2: was otherwise very dark was going through her letters and

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Speaker 2: reading her jokes that still land like. You know, there's

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Speaker 2: one letter where she says, you know, I wouldn't mind

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Speaker 2: getting married, but then again, I wouldn't mind having a

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Speaker 2: pizza when I get home. And so she she was

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Speaker 2: really not of the mold of her family, where silence

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Speaker 2: ruled and the town about it. Her mother, who had

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Speaker 2: been a professor and had given that up when she

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Speaker 2: got married and had two children and had become an

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Speaker 2: alcoholic would just get waved on by the police and

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Speaker 2: her parents. You know, her father clearly had a high

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Speaker 2: powered position within Harvard. Would it turned out to be

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Speaker 2: not feel of the institution, but rather having been welcomed

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Speaker 2: into it, which which then a complicated dynamic for why

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Speaker 2: they ended up not investigating her case. But so then

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Speaker 2: Jane goes from being this dynamite powerhouse at Radcliffe to

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Speaker 2: doing something pretty unheard of because very few people went

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Speaker 2: as a kind of feeder from either Harvard or Radcliffe

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Speaker 2: into the Harvard graduate school programs. But Jane was so

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Speaker 2: exceptional that she did. She went from being an undergraduate

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Speaker 2: in anthropology specializing in archaeology to then doing the same

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Speaker 2: thing at Harvard for grad school. So she was in

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Speaker 2: January of nineteen sixty nine when we're talking about she

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Speaker 2: was in her second year of graduate school, specializing in

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Speaker 2: Near Eastern archaeology.

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Speaker 1: How old is she at the time, twenty three. Do

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Speaker 1: we have any idea where she got this interest love

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Speaker 1: of ithropology.

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Speaker 2: There's nothing that I found that directly in her own words,

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Speaker 2: connects it. I think there is a couple of things.

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Speaker 2: She traveled a lot as a young person with her family,

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Speaker 2: and I think the other thing that kept coming up

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Speaker 2: time and time again is that she felt like an

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Speaker 2: outsider in many ways and gravitated toward people who were also,

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Speaker 2: as they would describe themselves, alien in some way. And

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Speaker 2: I think anthropology is a discipline where you're allowed to

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Speaker 2: buy necessity or at least aspiration, be participating in something

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Speaker 2: and beyond the outside of it. And so I think

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Speaker 2: it was a career that made the way that she

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Speaker 2: naturally felt feel critical.

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Speaker 1: What were her aspirations after she was done with grad school?

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Speaker 2: It depends who you ask. You know, there are a

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Speaker 2: couple of letters where she's traveling in Oxford with her

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Speaker 2: boyfriend at the time, another archaeologist named Jim Humphries, and

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Speaker 2: either're feeding the ducks in the river and they say,

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Speaker 2: wouldn't it be nice to just give it all up

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Speaker 2: and do this? But she was really phenomenal. She had

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Speaker 2: great training in archaeology, and so a lot of people

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Speaker 2: in her life thought that she want to go on

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Speaker 2: and become a professor in archaeology, though her brother, I think,

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Speaker 2: you know, thought it would be equally likely that she'd

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Speaker 2: go on and maybe be a cocktail pianist or something

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Speaker 2: like that. You know, she really had. She was multidimensional,

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Speaker 2: but she was very serious about academic archaeology.

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Speaker 1: Well, since we're talking about her death, you know, and

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Speaker 1: we start thinking about who her inner circle is, what

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Speaker 1: is a relationship like with her boyfriend? Who is this guy?

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Speaker 2: So Jim is quiet, studious, almost people describe him as,

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Speaker 2: you know, almost disconcertingly courteous.

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Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever heard anybody described like that before.

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Speaker 1: What does that mean? Like Eddie Haskell kind of courteous.

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Speaker 2: He would write handwrite thank you notes after a dinner party.

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Speaker 2: He just was like so put together, always just like

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Speaker 2: holding the door for people that you couldn't really get

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Speaker 2: a rise out of him, whereas Jane was sort of

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Speaker 2: fiery and so sometimes people didn't always understand what their

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Speaker 2: dynamic was. But she loved him. You know. There's beautiful

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Speaker 2: journal entries and letters from their time in London, the

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Speaker 2: summer before just before they go to Iran, where he,

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Speaker 2: you know, says, go put on something nice and she

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Speaker 2: dresses up and he says, no, really nice And it's

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Speaker 2: because he's about to take her to the Savoy And

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Speaker 2: they go and they have a fabulous dinner and they

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Speaker 2: dance and you know, she's six foot seven, and she's like,

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Speaker 2: have you ever been lifted up by someone who's you know,

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Speaker 2: a six foot seven house? Basically, and they go skipping

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Speaker 2: down the street and she writes in her journal that

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Speaker 2: she feels, you know, about two years old, just so

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Speaker 2: raw and thrilled and in love. But you know, things

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Speaker 2: sort of get a little bit rocky over the next

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Speaker 2: six months, starting with in Iran when he starts to

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Speaker 2: maybe pull back a little bit in his normal reticent

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Speaker 2: way and is not this, you know, jolly, pick you

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Speaker 2: up and twirlier around London streets kind of person, and

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Speaker 2: he they're all, you know, everyone in the second year

241
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Speaker 2: is preparing for these huge exams called generals, which is

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Speaker 2: really this make or break moment in their career if

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Speaker 2: you fail, especially if you fail for the second time,

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Speaker 2: which was what Jane's position was going to be. It

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Speaker 2: wasn't a big deal to fail the first time, but

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Speaker 2: if you fail a second time, then you basically get

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Speaker 2: kicked out of the department. So Jim and Jane we're

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Speaker 2: both facing these huge exams within four months of coming

249
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Speaker 2: back from Iran, and they're both they've both gotten very sick.

250
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Speaker 2: In Iran, everyone on this dig loses like thirty pounds.

251
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Speaker 2: She blames the professor for having in part Doug. The

252
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Speaker 2: latrine's downwind from camp, so you know, he in her

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Speaker 2: boyfriend instead of coming back to campus after Iran goes

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Speaker 2: back to his native Canada to recuperate really and to

255
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Speaker 2: study for these exams. Jane goes back to school on

256
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Speaker 2: the other hand, and so for the next for five months,

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Speaker 2: they're doing long distance and they're already fairly strained. And

258
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Speaker 2: you know, she gets a letter from him that is

259
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Speaker 2: so reserved where he ends it in this kind of

260
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Speaker 2: not spiteful but it just feels so icy that it

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Speaker 2: feels it registers that way where he signs it health

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Speaker 2: and luck jim oh okay. And so they're not doing

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Speaker 2: super well by the time January comes around.

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Speaker 1: What were they studying in rural? And I know it

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Speaker 1: seems like I'm asking random questions, but this, to me

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Speaker 1: is the way you get to know somebody is, you know,

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Speaker 1: finding out what their interests are. Do you know what

268
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Speaker 1: the concentration was when they were in Neuron?

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Speaker 2: So they were at a site called Tepeyaya, which is

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Speaker 2: a kind of mounded archaeological site that I think was

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Speaker 2: inhabited for something like seven thousand years continuously, and they

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Speaker 2: were digging in one of the layers of this mounded city,

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Speaker 2: because you know, it's really this sort of superimposed kind

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Speaker 2: of one civilization on top of the other. And Jane

275
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Speaker 2: was looking for her dissertation topic, and she just it's

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Speaker 2: really the kind of luck of the draw when you're

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Speaker 2: an archaeologist. It's like whatever trench you get assigned. So she,

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Speaker 2: you know, the person next to her found this unbelievable

279
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Speaker 2: artifact in his trench. There was this neolithic figurine that

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Speaker 2: had both female and male genitaria. And you know, meanwhile

281
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Speaker 2: Jane's pulling bricks out of her trench, brick after brick

282
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Speaker 2: after brick, rat she maybe finds a tooth, but she's

283
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Speaker 2: just feeling like she's the worst archaeologist because she's not

284
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Speaker 2: getting anything. It turns out, she realizes belatedly as she's

285
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Speaker 2: mapping this out, that she probably found the outer wall

286
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Speaker 2: of at least one of the cities, and so that's

287
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Speaker 2: what she was going to write her dissertation on. And

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Speaker 2: that was a question that it would later turn out

289
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Speaker 2: that she was maybe not going to be allowed back

290
00:17:01,760 --> 00:17:07,520
Speaker 2: on this dig in Iran, So her position within the

291
00:17:07,640 --> 00:17:11,840
Speaker 2: university was a little bit was very dicey, because if

292
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Speaker 2: she wasn't allowed back to Iran, then she wouldn't have

293
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Speaker 2: been able to complete her dissertation without finding another advisor.

294
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Speaker 2: And basically you become this floating free agent. And I

295
00:17:23,040 --> 00:17:26,719
Speaker 2: think that really traces to this animosity between the two

296
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Speaker 2: of them, because the deeper I looked into who this

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Speaker 2: professor was, the less the rumor that they were having

298
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Speaker 2: an affair really held any water, And the more it

299
00:17:37,359 --> 00:17:41,080
Speaker 2: turned into this really strained relationship between the two of them,

300
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Speaker 2: that I was antagonistic relationship between the two of them

301
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Speaker 2: that I was trying to work out the sort of route.

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Speaker 1: Of Okay, so now let's get into who Karl Lamberg

303
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Speaker 1: Karlovsky is.

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Speaker 2: Karl Lambert Karlovski. He in nineteen sixty nine, I think,

305
00:18:00,280 --> 00:18:02,600
Speaker 2: is about thirty five years old, so really young to

306
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Speaker 2: be on the cusp of being tenured. And he rides

307
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Speaker 2: a motorcycle, and he has long hair and he wears

308
00:18:08,760 --> 00:18:12,280
Speaker 2: a leather jacket, I think, and he seems to be

309
00:18:12,440 --> 00:18:18,080
Speaker 2: this kind of miraculous bridge between the older, very sort

310
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Speaker 2: of staid professors tenured professors in the anthropology department who

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Speaker 2: have been there forever, and then the really young professors,

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Speaker 2: probably his age though, who have no power within the department,

313
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Speaker 2: whereas he was of the younger generation but was well

314
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Speaker 2: on his way to becoming one of the kind of

315
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Speaker 2: welcomed in and so he sort of was this escape

316
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Speaker 2: where also he welcomed women onto his dig, which was

317
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Speaker 2: not the case for a lot of the other professors.

318
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Speaker 2: So if Jane, this was the other issue that if

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Speaker 2: she wasn't going to be allowed back to Iran, there

320
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Speaker 2: weren't that many archaeological digs with Harvard that she could

321
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Speaker 2: have gone on as a woman. That's the other issue.

322
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Speaker 2: So he was this kind of breath of fresh air,

323
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Speaker 2: but he had his own complications, and his wife was very,

324
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Speaker 2: very very prim and did not like Jane's foul language.

325
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Speaker 2: So one of the theories is that it was just

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00:19:16,680 --> 00:19:20,399
Speaker 2: friction between Jane and his wife and he didn't want

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Speaker 2: that dynamic necessarily the next year. Another theory is that

328
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Speaker 2: Jane and her boyfriend Jim were both on this dig.

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Speaker 2: They were a little volatile. Jim was really the professor's

330
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Speaker 2: right hand person. Jane seems like a liability and a

331
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Speaker 2: distraction and the other possibility is that Carl's tenure bid,

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Speaker 2: which is very much up for debate at the exact

333
00:19:44,400 --> 00:19:49,440
Speaker 2: moment of Jane's death, hinged on potentially this dig being

334
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Speaker 2: Alexander the great sloss city of Carmania.

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Speaker 1: Oh no pressure.

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Speaker 2: And one of the highly speculative theories, as people I

337
00:19:59,119 --> 00:20:01,880
Speaker 2: think are trying to backfill the reasons for their suspicion,

338
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Speaker 2: is did Jane know that this claim was exaggerated? And

339
00:20:07,720 --> 00:20:11,440
Speaker 2: could Carl have forced her out of the department instead

340
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Speaker 2: of facing her going to the administration of what she knew,

341
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Speaker 2: especially with a father who is as high powered he

342
00:20:18,880 --> 00:20:21,920
Speaker 2: as her father was within Harvard and acklast.

343
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Speaker 1: So there are all of these theories and accusations against

344
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Speaker 1: one professor who seems like he has some baggage and

345
00:20:28,320 --> 00:20:31,879
Speaker 1: Agela's wife, none of which I mean some could have

346
00:20:31,920 --> 00:20:33,359
Speaker 1: been true. We don't know if she would have been

347
00:20:33,400 --> 00:20:35,520
Speaker 1: invited back. We don't know. There's a lot of stuff

348
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Speaker 1: we don't know, right. What we do know is that Carl,

349
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Speaker 1: the professor who is now ninety right or is he?

350
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Speaker 1: Is he still alive?

351
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Speaker 2: Yeah?

352
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so didn't kill her, I mean we know that.

353
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Speaker 1: So can you tell me about the night or the

354
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Speaker 1: day what happens, you know, within it a few days

355
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Speaker 1: of her dying.

356
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Speaker 2: So we are now in January of nineteen sixty nine

357
00:21:00,520 --> 00:21:04,720
Speaker 2: and Jane's just come back to Harvard's campus from being

358
00:21:04,840 --> 00:21:07,720
Speaker 2: home for the holidays. Jim has just come back from

359
00:21:07,760 --> 00:21:12,200
Speaker 2: Canada because they're about to take their general exams and

360
00:21:12,880 --> 00:21:14,919
Speaker 2: they're studying, and you know, there are a couple of

361
00:21:15,040 --> 00:21:18,560
Speaker 2: there's some New Year's parties. Her neighbors throw a party,

362
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Speaker 2: but Jane says, I got to go home to study,

363
00:21:21,720 --> 00:21:25,480
Speaker 2: and she leaves the party. And then when the neighbors

364
00:21:25,480 --> 00:21:27,840
Speaker 2: go over to get some food from from Jane's place

365
00:21:27,880 --> 00:21:30,159
Speaker 2: that they were showing her friend, she's not there. So

366
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Speaker 2: there are some question marks leading up to the day

367
00:21:34,280 --> 00:21:37,200
Speaker 2: of general exams, which is this huge test that we

368
00:21:37,840 --> 00:21:41,520
Speaker 2: had talked about on which you know, they're destinying the

369
00:21:41,600 --> 00:21:47,800
Speaker 2: department hinges. The exam starts at around nine and Jim

370
00:21:47,960 --> 00:21:51,760
Speaker 2: had called Jane twice that morning to make sure she

371
00:21:51,880 --> 00:21:55,199
Speaker 2: was up for it. She doesn't answer either call, and

372
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Speaker 2: he thinks, Okay, maybe she's already at the exam, maybe

373
00:21:58,920 --> 00:22:02,160
Speaker 2: she fell ill, maybe she's somewhere. But by the time

374
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Speaker 2: he gets to the exam, which takes place within the

375
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Speaker 2: Puberty Museum. He notices she's not there, and he sits

376
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Speaker 2: for this exam for the next two and a half hours.

377
00:22:11,800 --> 00:22:16,080
Speaker 2: When it's over, he races over to her apartment because

378
00:22:16,800 --> 00:22:19,000
Speaker 2: it was not only unlike her to miss an exam

379
00:22:19,119 --> 00:22:21,480
Speaker 2: that's important, it was really it would have been unheard

380
00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:24,920
Speaker 2: of to miss a test like this, and so he

381
00:22:24,960 --> 00:22:27,520
Speaker 2: goes up her stairs her front door. The front door

382
00:22:27,520 --> 00:22:30,960
Speaker 2: of her apartment was never locked, and her front door

383
00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:35,000
Speaker 2: by this point, because it's January and the winter heat

384
00:22:35,080 --> 00:22:36,960
Speaker 2: is making the wood of the door swell so much,

385
00:22:37,119 --> 00:22:39,280
Speaker 2: her front door is also not locked. But he doesn't

386
00:22:39,280 --> 00:22:41,440
Speaker 2: go in. He just sort of knocks on the door,

387
00:22:42,320 --> 00:22:47,359
Speaker 2: and her neighbor hears Jim knocking, and he'd been listening

388
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Speaker 2: out because he wanted to hear how Jane had done

389
00:22:49,640 --> 00:22:53,000
Speaker 2: on her exam, and he's also confused why Jim, of

390
00:22:53,040 --> 00:22:56,359
Speaker 2: all people who knows that Jane's door can't lock, is

391
00:22:56,440 --> 00:22:58,800
Speaker 2: knocking on it. So they have a little conversation in

392
00:22:58,800 --> 00:23:02,200
Speaker 2: the halloway. Jim finally and he comes right back out

393
00:23:02,280 --> 00:23:05,400
Speaker 2: and he says, I think it's a woman's problem, which

394
00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:08,840
Speaker 2: by which I understand he means he sees her on

395
00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:13,880
Speaker 2: her bed and she's not wearing underwear, again disconcertedly courteous,

396
00:23:14,280 --> 00:23:17,879
Speaker 2: and so the neighbor's wife walks in. She also pretty

397
00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:22,320
Speaker 2: immediately walks out. So finally the neighbor Dawn walks in

398
00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:25,320
Speaker 2: and he sees Jane lying face down on her bed.

399
00:23:25,840 --> 00:23:29,199
Speaker 2: There are floccati goat hair rugs piled over her. He

400
00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:32,080
Speaker 2: pulls them back and he sees that her hair is

401
00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:34,440
Speaker 2: matted in a pool of blood. You know. He also

402
00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:37,399
Speaker 2: clocks a couple of things. He clocks eventually that there

403
00:23:37,920 --> 00:23:40,080
Speaker 2: is this red ochre powder that we had heard about

404
00:23:40,119 --> 00:23:42,879
Speaker 2: in the rumor spread over the crime scene. And he

405
00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:45,760
Speaker 2: also notices that there is a window that's open in

406
00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:49,239
Speaker 2: the kitchen, and Jim, who had been there the night

407
00:23:49,280 --> 00:23:51,960
Speaker 2: before after having had dinner with Jane, knows that that

408
00:23:52,280 --> 00:23:56,320
Speaker 2: window had been shut. And then for the next few

409
00:23:56,400 --> 00:23:58,800
Speaker 2: days that you know, it really turns into this kind

410
00:23:58,840 --> 00:24:01,080
Speaker 2: of ag of the Christie constra where everyone's looking at

411
00:24:01,119 --> 00:24:05,120
Speaker 2: everyone else because particularly of this red ocre. It suddenly

412
00:24:05,160 --> 00:24:09,159
Speaker 2: goes as word about it gets out, it goes from this, Oh,

413
00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:12,640
Speaker 2: it might have been a random attacker from Harvard Yard,

414
00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:15,119
Speaker 2: where there was a lot of news being made about

415
00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:18,480
Speaker 2: the drugs that had entered campus in the previous years,

416
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:21,960
Speaker 2: but the red ocre made it feel specifically like it

417
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:24,919
Speaker 2: had to have been somebody within the anthropology department. And

418
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:27,520
Speaker 2: so you get to her funeral, which happens a few

419
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:31,040
Speaker 2: days later, and the police are there, and Don the

420
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:33,920
Speaker 2: neighbor is telling him it is telling the police food

421
00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:37,600
Speaker 2: of film because everyone has suddenly become a suspect. And

422
00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:42,639
Speaker 2: then what's very odd is after Jane's case makes the

423
00:24:42,760 --> 00:24:47,480
Speaker 2: national news, suddenly about four days in a press black

424
00:24:47,520 --> 00:24:51,359
Speaker 2: account is issued and there is no more news about

425
00:24:51,400 --> 00:24:52,040
Speaker 2: Jane's case.

426
00:24:52,440 --> 00:24:55,440
Speaker 1: Who could have ordered that? Really, the president of Harvard

427
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:58,120
Speaker 1: could tell all of the media to shut it down.

428
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:00,520
Speaker 1: It had to have been somebody more important than that, right.

429
00:25:01,080 --> 00:25:04,480
Speaker 2: I actually think one of my favorite things coming back

430
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:08,160
Speaker 2: and thinking about the story is thinking about the ways

431
00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:13,480
Speaker 2: in which conspiracy theories are really just overestimating the incompetence

432
00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:18,359
Speaker 2: of people or how much people want to defer to power.

433
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:20,919
Speaker 2: And so I really think the press blackout was not

434
00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:24,760
Speaker 2: a response to a call by anyone. I think potentially

435
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:29,240
Speaker 2: it was a call by the police chief himself deciding

436
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:32,280
Speaker 2: too much information was being leaked. There was a lot

437
00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:36,199
Speaker 2: of speculation. There were a lot of very powerful people

438
00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:41,639
Speaker 2: being dragged through the speculation, and rather than leak incomplete

439
00:25:41,680 --> 00:25:46,040
Speaker 2: information as they were going through their investigation and worry

440
00:25:46,080 --> 00:25:50,600
Speaker 2: about damaging their relationship to this extremely powerful institution within

441
00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:54,720
Speaker 2: the small town that they are, they instead, I think,

442
00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:56,479
Speaker 2: had faith that they would be able to solve it

443
00:25:56,560 --> 00:26:00,119
Speaker 2: and sort of soon enough there would be information. The

444
00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:02,400
Speaker 2: problem was soon enough was fifty years later.

445
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:05,479
Speaker 1: Tell me about the connection with the anthropology department. So

446
00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:09,040
Speaker 1: I understand the ocre is that hers, whoever killed her,

447
00:26:09,119 --> 00:26:11,520
Speaker 1: could have found this stuff. And also you need to

448
00:26:11,520 --> 00:26:13,840
Speaker 1: tell me about the pathology report, because there was something

449
00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:17,840
Speaker 1: interesting about the kind of wounds that she received and

450
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:20,760
Speaker 1: what could have caused them. I'm just wondering how much

451
00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:23,800
Speaker 1: we can connect it to this must have been someone

452
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:25,119
Speaker 1: involved with anthropology.

453
00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:28,679
Speaker 2: The red ochre itself is something that even with the

454
00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:30,680
Speaker 2: resolution of this case, and I will say that there

455
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:34,680
Speaker 2: is a definitive conclusion that has reached at the end

456
00:26:34,840 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 2: of this book. So I don't take Youth at the

457
00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 2: Pass for nothing. But the thing that I still cannot

458
00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:45,040
Speaker 2: really resolve in my own mind is this red ocre question.

459
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:48,679
Speaker 2: So nobody remembers Jane having had any red ocre in

460
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:51,679
Speaker 2: her apartment. It is very possible some people did, some

461
00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:54,520
Speaker 2: archaeologists did. I think the thing that is really hard

462
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:59,080
Speaker 2: to square is that red ochre, which was described in

463
00:26:59,119 --> 00:27:03,080
Speaker 2: these police d prrogations that I received after the case

464
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:06,800
Speaker 2: was solved, was described as having been spread in a

465
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:09,639
Speaker 2: kind of linear and then circular pattern. So it seemed

466
00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:12,800
Speaker 2: deliberate whatever design it was sprinkled in. The Other thing

467
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:15,960
Speaker 2: that's known is that there were really other than one

468
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:21,120
Speaker 2: fingerprint by the window, no fingerprints at the sea. Granted,

469
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 2: you know, we'll later learn that the police were not

470
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:28,080
Speaker 2: necessarily the most competent in this case, so it is

471
00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:31,919
Speaker 2: possible that they missed some fingerprints. But what's striking is

472
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:34,639
Speaker 2: that so I went to a pigment store, I bought

473
00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:37,920
Speaker 2: some ochre. They didn't have red about yellow, And even

474
00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:43,679
Speaker 2: knowing that ochre is a powerful pigment, and I was

475
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:45,919
Speaker 2: being extremely careful not to get in on my hands,

476
00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:48,919
Speaker 2: I was just trying to see, you know, how easy

477
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:52,600
Speaker 2: it is to spread in a deliberate pattern. Because I

478
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:55,560
Speaker 2: was talking to a pigment specialist and he says, you know,

479
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:59,959
Speaker 2: ochre disperses. It's if it really was ochre that's spread,

480
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:02,240
Speaker 2: it's going to create this cloud.

481
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:05,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, like talcum powder, probably even finer.

482
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:09,159
Speaker 2: But yes, and unless you're deliberately, unless you know what

483
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:11,760
Speaker 2: it is, and you're deliberately trying to make a pattern,

484
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 2: you're just gonna create this smudge. Not only that, you're

485
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 2: gonna get the smudge all over your hands, and then

486
00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:21,760
Speaker 2: you're gonna get it everywhere. So you know, I, knowing

487
00:28:21,840 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 2: what this was, still had yellow on the door handles,

488
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:28,920
Speaker 2: on the walls, on just sort of everything. And yet

489
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:31,560
Speaker 2: there was none of this in Jane's apartment. And so

490
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 2: that's the thing that I find really hard to square

491
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:36,840
Speaker 2: that there's a chemist report that kind, you know, because

492
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 2: there was a huge question of was this in fact

493
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:40,960
Speaker 2: red ochre. There was a period where I was like

494
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 2: wondering whether it was some other kind of iron powder

495
00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:47,680
Speaker 2: that she had been taking for her version of anemia,

496
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 2: which a pharmacist said probably not. But anyway, it turns

497
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:54,960
Speaker 2: out there there was definitely iron within this powder. Whether

498
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,440
Speaker 2: it was in fact red acre has been lost to time,

499
00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 2: but nobody knows exactly where it came from. A graduate

500
00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:05,320
Speaker 2: student who then becomes one of these three people around

501
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:09,640
Speaker 2: whom these constellations of suspicion build up, claims to have

502
00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:14,320
Speaker 2: seen a little like pot of red ochre powder in

503
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:17,240
Speaker 2: a lab in the Peabody Museum, out of which a

504
00:29:17,360 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 2: huge scoop had come out. And just as everyone seems,

505
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:24,040
Speaker 2: you know, myself included, very willing to jump to these

506
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 2: huge conclusions based on inconclusive evidence because the kshtalt is

507
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 2: very appealing. He says, you know who, I know who

508
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:35,240
Speaker 2: the supervisor of this lab was at the time, and

509
00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:39,200
Speaker 2: that is, in fact the second suspect around whom. So

510
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:42,920
Speaker 2: you have Karl, you have the person who oversaw this lab,

511
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:45,560
Speaker 2: and then you have this graduate student claiming and for

512
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:48,840
Speaker 2: three very you know, a series of very different reasons

513
00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 2: people suspect to each of them.

514
00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Okay, So what does the pathology report

515
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:58,800
Speaker 1: say about injuries and sexual assault?

516
00:29:59,240 --> 00:30:02,480
Speaker 2: This was extreme hard to read because the police had

517
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:07,600
Speaker 2: been really circumspect talking about the case. One of the

518
00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 2: things that they were pretty definitive about was that Jane

519
00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:16,560
Speaker 2: had not been sexually assaulted, and in the pathology report

520
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:19,520
Speaker 2: it states very clearly that she had been raped and

521
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:22,720
Speaker 2: that there was sperm. She had been bludgeoned in multiple

522
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:27,240
Speaker 2: places across her head, which seemed like there was a

523
00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:29,560
Speaker 2: question of whether she was facing her attacker when she

524
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:32,680
Speaker 2: was killed, and whether she had been killed off of

525
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:35,360
Speaker 2: her bed, which seems likely, and then dragged back into

526
00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:36,440
Speaker 2: position on the bed.

527
00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:40,080
Speaker 1: Where is the main pool of blood where the head

528
00:30:40,080 --> 00:30:43,200
Speaker 1: wound started, not on the bed. I'm assuming again the

529
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:44,320
Speaker 1: police never say this.

530
00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:47,480
Speaker 2: The neighbor who's allowed in and out of this crying

531
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:50,560
Speaker 2: scene in the days following because it's not ockt up,

532
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 2: which is one of the other issues is he says

533
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 2: that there's a big pool of blood on or a

534
00:30:55,360 --> 00:30:58,400
Speaker 2: big ish pool of blood on the ground, but potentially

535
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:01,080
Speaker 2: not so big that maybe the police missed it or

536
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:03,600
Speaker 2: they didn't cut it out and document it. But there's

537
00:31:03,640 --> 00:31:07,000
Speaker 2: also a blood on the sheets and her pillows.

538
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:12,160
Speaker 1: So she is coming home to an unsecured building, right,

539
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 1: unsecured apartment, she can't lock the door. Who knows who's

540
00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:19,320
Speaker 1: watching her. She's on a you know, in student housing

541
00:31:19,640 --> 00:31:22,600
Speaker 1: on a busy campus. It's late at night, people are

542
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:26,000
Speaker 1: on campus though, and I know it's cold because it's Cambridge.

543
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:29,960
Speaker 1: But we have just endless possibilities of everything from a

544
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 1: stranger to now I'm assuming the police whomever is competent

545
00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:38,440
Speaker 1: in investigating this, hopefully is of course talking to Jim

546
00:31:38,640 --> 00:31:41,320
Speaker 1: and then finding out about the rumors and talking to Carl.

547
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:44,280
Speaker 1: But I know this gets complicated because you might have

548
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:48,880
Speaker 1: Harvard Police who are competent, but are you thinking their

549
00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:51,080
Speaker 1: hands are starting to be tied? I mean, how is

550
00:31:51,120 --> 00:31:55,400
Speaker 1: this investigation moving along here when you have an administration

551
00:31:55,600 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 1: who doesn't seem to be enthusiastic about investigating this case

552
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 1: because it might dig up too much stuff.

553
00:32:02,080 --> 00:32:05,440
Speaker 2: Harvard Police weren't directly involved in this case because it

554
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 2: did take place office campus. It was the Cambridge Police

555
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 2: who were investigating it. But you know, the relationship between

556
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:14,120
Speaker 2: the Cambridge Police and Harvard I think was also incredibly tight.

557
00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:16,400
Speaker 2: So even if it wasn't within the institution itself, it

558
00:32:16,480 --> 00:32:20,800
Speaker 2: still felt in some ways of it. It's unclear from

559
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 2: the outside exactly how much investigating they're actually doing. I

560
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:30,520
Speaker 2: have access to the interrogations that were conducted, but I

561
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:35,040
Speaker 2: also interviewed dozens of people who were very close to Jane,

562
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:37,400
Speaker 2: who had their own stories to share, who were never

563
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:40,960
Speaker 2: contacted by the police. Jane's brother was contacted once by them.

564
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 2: He didn't know, for instance, or claims he doesn't. There's

565
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 2: no reason why he wouldn't actually remember. He has an

566
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:50,320
Speaker 2: impeccable memory. He doesn't remember the grand jury hearing there

567
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:52,880
Speaker 2: had been one a little while later. It goes on

568
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:57,200
Speaker 2: for six months, it ends inconclusively, but it's again everything's

569
00:32:57,240 --> 00:32:59,680
Speaker 2: really complicated because it turns out the foreman of the

570
00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:03,160
Speaker 2: grand jury was friends with a number of people in

571
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 2: the anthropology department, and he had confessed this to the

572
00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 2: people in charge because he recognized it for what it was,

573
00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:12,040
Speaker 2: which was a conflict of interest, and they said, oh,

574
00:33:12,120 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 2: no problem. So everything feels really kind of muddied. The

575
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:21,200
Speaker 2: other thing that was interesting in in tracing how history

576
00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:24,520
Speaker 2: became the rumor that I had originally heard was that

577
00:33:24,840 --> 00:33:27,160
Speaker 2: part of the original rumor was that the police had

578
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:30,360
Speaker 2: stopped investigating. And then I started to hear whispers of

579
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:34,960
Speaker 2: police misconduct. And while it didn't seem directly true that

580
00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:38,760
Speaker 2: the police totally stopped investigating, it would turn out that

581
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 2: even up until the nineties there was somebody who was

582
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 2: quite active in looking into leads. Eventually there was in

583
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:48,840
Speaker 2: fact police misconduct, whether that was because of pressure put

584
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:51,360
Speaker 2: on by anyone in particular, or because somebody wanted to

585
00:33:51,360 --> 00:33:54,000
Speaker 2: be a hero solving this very high profile case. Again

586
00:33:54,080 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 2: not in the documents, but it is extremely clearly documented

587
00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 2: what this gross misconduct was. So I think one of

588
00:34:01,040 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 2: the impediments to the case really deeply being looked into,

589
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:09,120
Speaker 2: or at least why the case had to move from

590
00:34:09,200 --> 00:34:14,600
Speaker 2: the Cambridge PD to the Massachusetts State Police, was because

591
00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:17,520
Speaker 2: of this gross misconduct in the nineteen sixties.

592
00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:20,920
Speaker 1: Who does the first set of interrogations? Is that Cambridge

593
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 1: or is that the state Police?

594
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:23,080
Speaker 2: It is Cambridge?

595
00:34:23,160 --> 00:34:25,560
Speaker 1: So how did they do they Were there tapes that

596
00:34:25,600 --> 00:34:27,319
Speaker 1: you were able to watch or listen to, or were

597
00:34:27,320 --> 00:34:31,839
Speaker 1: their transcripts that you reviewed just transcripts thorough? Were they good?

598
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:34,520
Speaker 2: They were pretty good. A lot of it was odd,

599
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 2: you know. In Jim's interrogation where it's time stamped, it

600
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:41,120
Speaker 2: says it takes place over the course of something like

601
00:34:41,239 --> 00:34:43,480
Speaker 2: ten hours. They asked him to go and get coffee

602
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:46,960
Speaker 2: for them. But you know, there's I became very close

603
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:51,200
Speaker 2: to Don, the neighbor, and he says the police kept

604
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:55,280
Speaker 2: pushing him and his wife, trying to make them feel

605
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:59,560
Speaker 2: like they were each squealing on the other, forcing Jill,

606
00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:02,080
Speaker 2: his wife at the time, to look at these bloody

607
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:05,800
Speaker 2: photos even though they knew that she was incredibly squeamish

608
00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:08,520
Speaker 2: and look at these awful photos of their friend Jane,

609
00:35:08,560 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 2: and then get them to the point where you know,

610
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:13,160
Speaker 2: they were saying they started to doubt their own knowledge

611
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 2: of their friend, and they said, you know, we know

612
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:17,720
Speaker 2: that she wasn't killed because she was a wonderful person.

613
00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:19,239
Speaker 2: We need to know every bad thing that she did.

614
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:22,120
Speaker 2: So it is, well, this flip of victim blaming, which

615
00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:23,600
Speaker 2: is all too common.

616
00:35:24,040 --> 00:35:27,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely so Jim has Alabi, right is and he's

617
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:30,760
Speaker 1: studying with other students when this is happening or what's

618
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 1: his situation.

619
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:35,640
Speaker 2: So he was with Jane that night in her apartment

620
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:39,319
Speaker 2: up until about I'm forgetting exactly the time. Somewhere around

621
00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:42,000
Speaker 2: eleven or twelve. They've got ice skating. They go home.

622
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:44,840
Speaker 2: She had wanted to drive him home it's raining, but

623
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:47,920
Speaker 2: he doesn't want her to. It's you know, cozying her apartment.

624
00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:50,319
Speaker 2: Why not. So he walks home in the rain and

625
00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:54,759
Speaker 2: climbs into bed. He's sharing a room because he again

626
00:35:54,760 --> 00:35:57,919
Speaker 2: doesn't live on campus this semester. He climbs into bed

627
00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:02,960
Speaker 2: around another graduates store. He is also taking exams. Next day,

628
00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:06,239
Speaker 2: he you know, gets interrogated, the police ask is it

629
00:36:06,320 --> 00:36:08,560
Speaker 2: possible that Jim could have snuck out and you didn't hear?

630
00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:11,880
Speaker 2: And he says, you know, highly highly, highly unlikely. And

631
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:13,640
Speaker 2: Jim wakes up in the apartment the next day and

632
00:36:13,680 --> 00:36:16,839
Speaker 2: they the two of them go to class together to

633
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:18,359
Speaker 2: take this to take this exam.

634
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:21,400
Speaker 1: How did the police know that Jim was not the

635
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:24,280
Speaker 1: last person to see her? Does somebody see her alive

636
00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:27,520
Speaker 1: other than the killer? After Jim leaves?

637
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:31,800
Speaker 2: Yes, After Jim leaves, Jane goes over to her neighbor's apartment,

638
00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 2: Don and Jill and they have a glass of sherry.

639
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:38,240
Speaker 1: And then she comes back. And then it happens sometime

640
00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:42,200
Speaker 1: between when she's discovered and when she leaves that apartment. Okay,

641
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:45,560
Speaker 1: so is he cleared quickly or Jim or are they

642
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:47,680
Speaker 1: really keeping an eye on him? Or how does that go?

643
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:51,839
Speaker 2: After the you know, initial ten hours of investigation, there's

644
00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:54,320
Speaker 2: a little bit more suspicion that's thrown on him because

645
00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:57,520
Speaker 2: he backs out of a light detector.

646
00:36:57,120 --> 00:37:00,680
Speaker 1: Test, and rightly, so, let mean exactly, don't ever to

647
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:03,680
Speaker 1: the audience, don't ever take a polygraph. Please, nobody ever

648
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:06,280
Speaker 1: do it unless it's for fun in a parlor game.

649
00:37:06,200 --> 00:37:09,200
Speaker 2: And also as a Canadian citizen, he felt really unprotected

650
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 2: that he might get deported anyway. So his friend, his

651
00:37:13,239 --> 00:37:16,160
Speaker 2: roommate that night, sets him up with a very good lawyer,

652
00:37:16,200 --> 00:37:18,279
Speaker 2: and he does eventually take the light detector test, but

653
00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:21,080
Speaker 2: gets the lawyer first, good and rightly so, and then

654
00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:24,799
Speaker 2: pretty quickly, you know, really, not a single person I

655
00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:29,280
Speaker 2: talked to within the anthropology department ever suspected the boyfriend

656
00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 2: of having done it.

657
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:30,759
Speaker 1: Interesting.

658
00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:34,680
Speaker 2: But he's interesting too, because after another three or four

659
00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:37,359
Speaker 2: years in the department, he basically disappears. And it took

660
00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:39,879
Speaker 2: me a long time to figure out where to and why.

661
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:45,000
Speaker 1: When do the police start looking at Carl, the professor,

662
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:48,160
Speaker 1: because I'm sure they've heard rumors really quickly about acrimony

663
00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:51,439
Speaker 1: with the wife and Jane and you know, blah blah

664
00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:53,000
Speaker 1: everything that happened in Iran.

665
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:57,759
Speaker 2: Well, Carl brings himself into the police department the very

666
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:00,640
Speaker 2: first day. He hears about what had happened to Jane

667
00:38:00,880 --> 00:38:05,000
Speaker 2: in the museum from the director, and he says, you know,

668
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:06,759
Speaker 2: I brought him. I brought myself right here to be

669
00:38:06,840 --> 00:38:09,359
Speaker 2: as helpful as I possibly could. And then a week

670
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 2: later they call him back in because I think by

671
00:38:11,520 --> 00:38:15,000
Speaker 2: that point they've started to hear stories of as some

672
00:38:15,040 --> 00:38:17,680
Speaker 2: people call it, or the newspaper reports put it, reports

673
00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:20,719
Speaker 2: of hostilities on the dig, and so they start questioning

674
00:38:20,800 --> 00:38:24,200
Speaker 2: him about this antagonism, and I think it's an interesting

675
00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:26,799
Speaker 2: case of is this truly the word that was on

676
00:38:26,840 --> 00:38:29,040
Speaker 2: the tape or did the transcriber miss it? But he

677
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:32,879
Speaker 2: describes her or the police ask if she had been

678
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:36,760
Speaker 2: tantalizing to him and he says, yes, was that actually

679
00:38:37,360 --> 00:38:41,120
Speaker 2: something more like tormenting? Antagonistic? What was that word? Because

680
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:42,840
Speaker 2: there's so much hinges on it, but I have no

681
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:45,480
Speaker 2: access to what that tape actually sounded like.

682
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:49,680
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so is Coral a suspect for a long

683
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:52,480
Speaker 1: time other than just of the rumor mill? As far

684
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:53,760
Speaker 1: as the police.

685
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:56,720
Speaker 2: Go, it doesn't seem to be that way. The grand jury,

686
00:38:56,800 --> 00:39:00,279
Speaker 2: according to this foreman who I've tracked down, I saw

687
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:02,520
Speaker 2: him as their prime suspect for a very long time.

688
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:05,440
Speaker 2: But the foreman, who was an engineer, says there was

689
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:08,520
Speaker 2: a lot of noise, but ultimately no signal, and a

690
00:39:08,640 --> 00:39:12,520
Speaker 2: conscience of guilt isn't actually guilt. And so I think

691
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:15,400
Speaker 2: in many ways there was a really interesting interview I

692
00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:18,640
Speaker 2: did with a former graduate studior who said, really, these

693
00:39:18,719 --> 00:39:22,640
Speaker 2: rumors around Carl were meted out as punishment for his

694
00:39:23,080 --> 00:39:26,799
Speaker 2: behavior and other arenas of the department. That he was

695
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:30,120
Speaker 2: quite a bully in many ways in some people's eyes,

696
00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:33,840
Speaker 2: and so it was a story that they could wield

697
00:39:34,040 --> 00:39:37,799
Speaker 2: almost like a kind of warning about making sure not

698
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:43,240
Speaker 2: to upset him. But also he, according to some graduate students,

699
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:45,840
Speaker 2: knew that people had suspected him of murder, and he

700
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:51,160
Speaker 2: seemed to wear it like an invincibility cloak. And then

701
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:54,360
Speaker 2: one of the more interesting things was that graduate students

702
00:39:54,400 --> 00:39:59,080
Speaker 2: for the next forty years passed down this file between themselves,

703
00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 2: making sure that this story doesn't get buried.

704
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:04,640
Speaker 1: Well, I want to talk about that file in a minute.

705
00:40:04,680 --> 00:40:08,759
Speaker 1: Can we wrap up the suspects in nineteen sixty nine,

706
00:40:09,239 --> 00:40:11,919
Speaker 1: according to the police, the state police or the Cambridge police,

707
00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:15,319
Speaker 1: whoever we're picking up with. So Carl, there's no there

708
00:40:15,400 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 1: there with Carl, nothing with Jim either. They're looking at

709
00:40:18,600 --> 00:40:21,319
Speaker 1: this you're talking about the lab supervisor. Is that right

710
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:25,520
Speaker 1: where there's missing the ookre Is that what the connection is?

711
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:28,400
Speaker 2: The connection is that he was a kind of failed

712
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:30,680
Speaker 2: suitor of hers. He was in the midst of a divorce,

713
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:33,280
Speaker 2: and there were many nights where he would come ringing

714
00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:35,320
Speaker 2: her doorbell because she knew that he was in the

715
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:37,000
Speaker 2: middle of the divorce, had been sort of kind to him,

716
00:40:37,040 --> 00:40:38,440
Speaker 2: said why don't you come over for dinner? And he

717
00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:41,520
Speaker 2: came over. He was he had a drinking problem, and

718
00:40:41,560 --> 00:40:44,279
Speaker 2: he'd come over very late at night, and the neighbors, Jim,

719
00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:47,400
Speaker 2: Don and Jill could hear him sort of yelling in

720
00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:51,080
Speaker 2: the hallway. And then there's this one night that Jane

721
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:53,920
Speaker 2: and Don and Jill go back to his place and

722
00:40:53,960 --> 00:40:56,920
Speaker 2: he's behaving very oddly. It comes to be known as

723
00:40:56,960 --> 00:40:59,759
Speaker 2: Incense Night. He's burning incense on his rug. It burns

724
00:40:59,760 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 2: a whole on his rug, and Don and Jill are

725
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:06,000
Speaker 2: weirded out. They go home, inviting Jane to come home

726
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:08,680
Speaker 2: with them because it's a long walk at one in

727
00:41:08,719 --> 00:41:12,279
Speaker 2: the morning, and Jane says, no, I'm gonna stay. And

728
00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:16,640
Speaker 2: then the next morning, both Jill and Don remember seeing

729
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:20,400
Speaker 2: this kind of look in Jane's eyes. They each interpret

730
00:41:20,400 --> 00:41:23,319
Speaker 2: it differently. Jill thinks that she's had a sleepless night

731
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:26,720
Speaker 2: and is on some kind of uppers. Don, however, thinks

732
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:31,120
Speaker 2: that she's really experienced something that's deeply spooked her and

733
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 2: that she's unwilling to talk about.

734
00:41:32,719 --> 00:41:32,959
Speaker 1: Wow.

735
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:35,960
Speaker 2: And so between this and the yelling and then later

736
00:41:36,239 --> 00:41:41,760
Speaker 2: an alleged drunken confession, he becomes someone who they suspect deeply.

737
00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:45,200
Speaker 2: And in nineteen sixty nine, the police he's on the

738
00:41:45,239 --> 00:41:49,080
Speaker 2: police's radar, and he really doesn't have an alibi. His

739
00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:52,080
Speaker 2: alibi is I was asleep for fourteen hours that night.

740
00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:56,120
Speaker 1: Terrible elbow, but reality for a lot of people. I mean,

741
00:41:56,120 --> 00:41:57,520
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do if you don't have an elba.

742
00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:00,560
Speaker 1: You don't have an albi doesn't mean you're guilty exactly,

743
00:42:00,920 --> 00:42:03,319
Speaker 1: but he does sound like an excellent suspect spurm lover.

744
00:42:03,440 --> 00:42:04,840
Speaker 1: I mean, really, that would be at the top of

745
00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:09,000
Speaker 1: my list. Also, what do the police conclude about this guy?

746
00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:11,600
Speaker 1: There's no there there with him either. There's nothing to

747
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:15,440
Speaker 1: really connect him except this odd ocre maybe.

748
00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:19,480
Speaker 2: Exactly there's it's it's all circumstantial. I think what's interesting

749
00:42:19,880 --> 00:42:23,960
Speaker 2: and really tragic with this figure is I worry that

750
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:25,960
Speaker 2: he doesn't know what he was doing that night, And

751
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:31,080
Speaker 2: because years later you get this really heart benching conversation

752
00:42:31,560 --> 00:42:34,920
Speaker 2: where he's on this mountain pass he's also an archaeologist.

753
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:37,480
Speaker 2: He's on this mountain pass in Guatemala with a young

754
00:42:37,560 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 2: archaeologist and he's getting more and more and more upset

755
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:45,880
Speaker 2: about this period where he was suspected of murder. He

756
00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:49,600
Speaker 2: starts to scream that. He says, I've never been someone

757
00:42:49,640 --> 00:42:51,800
Speaker 2: to yell. Why would they think I'm yelling. He's seeming

758
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:54,640
Speaker 2: to lose control, going on these really winding kind of

759
00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:58,600
Speaker 2: hairpin turns, and this young archaeology student, you know, he's

760
00:42:58,719 --> 00:43:01,319
Speaker 2: only learning about the act of this murder through this

761
00:43:01,560 --> 00:43:03,919
Speaker 2: yelling that this man seems to have no control over.

762
00:43:04,400 --> 00:43:08,920
Speaker 2: So it clearly continues to torment him for years to come.

763
00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:12,960
Speaker 1: Wow. Is there anyone else in nineteen sixty nine that

764
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:16,160
Speaker 1: we need to talk about who was at interrogated at

765
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:18,919
Speaker 1: all a serious suspect before that person was cleared because

766
00:43:18,960 --> 00:43:21,280
Speaker 1: it was an unsolved case until twenty eighteen.

767
00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:24,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there was an ex boyfriend who was

768
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:28,480
Speaker 2: also extensively looked at. According to Jane, he had been

769
00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:32,399
Speaker 2: physically abusive. The deeper I went into that potentially she

770
00:43:32,520 --> 00:43:34,719
Speaker 2: was the one who was physically abusive with him, but

771
00:43:34,840 --> 00:43:37,719
Speaker 2: either way, he was not in the country at the time,

772
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:41,239
Speaker 2: but the police really looked extensively into him, and he

773
00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:44,359
Speaker 2: was Jane's best friend's prime suspect for a very long time.

774
00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:47,080
Speaker 1: When I talk about cases like this, when I hear

775
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:51,120
Speaker 1: about cases from journalists, I just sometimes I think, you know,

776
00:43:51,440 --> 00:43:55,959
Speaker 1: these women, these victims are holding so much information that

777
00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:57,959
Speaker 1: if they hadn't been murdered a lot of people would

778
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:01,759
Speaker 1: not have even known. I mean, boyfriends, people being harassed.

779
00:44:01,800 --> 00:44:04,960
Speaker 1: It's just her inner circle that knows about this lab supervisor,

780
00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:07,440
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, this is the amount of secrets

781
00:44:07,440 --> 00:44:11,880
Speaker 1: when we start digging up suspects with women who were murdered,

782
00:44:12,040 --> 00:44:14,160
Speaker 1: and you just find out all of this shit, like,

783
00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:16,759
Speaker 1: oh my god, they were she was sexually assaulted in

784
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 1: her teens, her father abused her, like it just adds up.

785
00:44:19,600 --> 00:44:22,680
Speaker 1: And I just always think, like, this is why women

786
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 1: end up killed? Is this like host of people in

787
00:44:25,120 --> 00:44:28,760
Speaker 1: their lives sometimes and you just wouldn't know it exactly.

788
00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:30,960
Speaker 2: I would say, it's not just women who end up

789
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:32,840
Speaker 2: being murdered. I think I think if you looked in

790
00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:36,480
Speaker 2: many women's closets, if you just kept you know, the

791
00:44:36,520 --> 00:44:39,439
Speaker 2: force of the spotlight of an investigative journalism on any

792
00:44:39,480 --> 00:44:43,200
Speaker 2: person's life, you end up unearthing all of this pain

793
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:45,360
Speaker 2: and all of these secrets, and absolutely, and I was

794
00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:48,080
Speaker 2: also you know, hyper conscious of that too, as as

795
00:44:48,120 --> 00:44:50,719
Speaker 2: I was surfacing reasons to you know, in quotes, to

796
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:53,720
Speaker 2: suspect someone that like somebody could turn the same attention

797
00:44:53,800 --> 00:44:57,160
Speaker 2: to to my family and unearthed. You know, a whole

798
00:44:57,200 --> 00:45:00,919
Speaker 2: litany is things in my family's pasted that would add

799
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:03,439
Speaker 2: up if somebody wanted to kind of lead to one

800
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:05,719
Speaker 2: conclusion or another to something else. So I think, like

801
00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:09,440
Speaker 2: it's well, once you start digging, there's sometimes no end.

802
00:45:10,239 --> 00:45:12,400
Speaker 1: Well, And I think you and I are in the

803
00:45:12,400 --> 00:45:16,319
Speaker 1: same position because I have to think very hard when

804
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:20,479
Speaker 1: I put stuff in my books that is private. Jane

805
00:45:20,560 --> 00:45:24,080
Speaker 1: did not mean for people to read her journals publicly,

806
00:45:24,320 --> 00:45:27,120
Speaker 1: and I know you thought about that. I have to think.

807
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:29,560
Speaker 1: You know, one particular case I had from one of

808
00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:32,560
Speaker 1: my books, American Sherlock, about a woman who may or

809
00:45:32,560 --> 00:45:34,400
Speaker 1: may not have been murdered by her husband, and I

810
00:45:34,520 --> 00:45:38,520
Speaker 1: had her journals and her diaries. I was specifically looking

811
00:45:38,560 --> 00:45:42,319
Speaker 1: for things that would shed light on their relationships, specifically

812
00:45:42,360 --> 00:45:44,600
Speaker 1: because I felt like it would help inform the reader.

813
00:45:45,080 --> 00:45:47,480
Speaker 1: But you know, when people get a hold of journals

814
00:45:47,680 --> 00:45:49,200
Speaker 1: and they don't know what they're doing, and they're maybe

815
00:45:49,200 --> 00:45:52,080
Speaker 1: content creators who just want clicks, or they don't care,

816
00:45:52,200 --> 00:45:54,239
Speaker 1: or they you know, they're not trained journalists, whatever it is,

817
00:45:54,719 --> 00:45:57,279
Speaker 1: and they're just putting out whatever they want. These are

818
00:45:57,320 --> 00:46:01,200
Speaker 1: not inner thoughts that people want published, you know, and

819
00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:03,480
Speaker 1: we have to be responsible. And I know you were

820
00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:05,239
Speaker 1: with this book, but I'm sure it was something you

821
00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:07,080
Speaker 1: had to think about as you were reading a lot

822
00:46:07,080 --> 00:46:08,000
Speaker 1: of this stuff from her.

823
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:10,239
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, I wrestled with it all the time,

824
00:46:10,719 --> 00:46:13,480
Speaker 2: you know, because I also was hyperconscious of the fact

825
00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 2: that she was twenty three. She wasn't ever allowed to

826
00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:20,239
Speaker 2: get older, you know, mature in various ways that you know.

827
00:46:20,320 --> 00:46:23,040
Speaker 2: I also think about the pain that I was on

828
00:46:23,200 --> 00:46:26,680
Speaker 2: earthing and the people who lived through it and had to,

829
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:29,200
Speaker 2: you know, for sort of forty or fifty years, had

830
00:46:29,200 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 2: to cauterize an unsolved wound, and here I was unearthing it,

831
00:46:33,840 --> 00:46:37,840
Speaker 2: and I couldn't guarantee them any kind of resolution, And

832
00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:40,839
Speaker 2: so really it became this question of what is it

833
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:44,160
Speaker 2: that I what greater good do I think I'm doing

834
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:46,080
Speaker 2: here if I can't As it turned out, I was

835
00:46:46,080 --> 00:46:49,200
Speaker 2: able to offer them at least an answer as to

836
00:46:49,239 --> 00:46:51,279
Speaker 2: who the police think did at the end of the day.

837
00:46:51,560 --> 00:46:54,680
Speaker 1: So let's fast forward here unless we need to stay

838
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:57,400
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty nine. You talk about this sort of

839
00:46:57,400 --> 00:47:01,160
Speaker 1: secret file that is passed. I mean, I would like

840
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:04,200
Speaker 1: to say just Harvard students, but it was specifically women,

841
00:47:04,360 --> 00:47:07,600
Speaker 1: right that passed this along this file along for I

842
00:47:07,640 --> 00:47:11,080
Speaker 1: think you said forty years that were sort of cautionary tales,

843
00:47:11,160 --> 00:47:15,000
Speaker 1: warnings information. Tell me about what you found out about this.

844
00:47:16,080 --> 00:47:18,359
Speaker 2: It was talked about in this really mythic way. When

845
00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:19,879
Speaker 2: it came down to it, it was sort of looking

846
00:47:19,880 --> 00:47:21,759
Speaker 2: at the Wizard of Oz and the sense of it,

847
00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:23,880
Speaker 2: the myth of it loomed larger than the reality of it.

848
00:47:23,920 --> 00:47:26,440
Speaker 2: But I think you know what it ended up being

849
00:47:26,840 --> 00:47:30,400
Speaker 2: was newspaper clippings of exactly the things that I was

850
00:47:30,440 --> 00:47:32,840
Speaker 2: reading as I was discovering who Jane was and what

851
00:47:32,920 --> 00:47:35,279
Speaker 2: happened in this case. But it was made at a

852
00:47:35,320 --> 00:47:37,440
Speaker 2: time when you couldn't just you had to go to

853
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:39,480
Speaker 2: the libraries, you had to go to the archives, you

854
00:47:39,520 --> 00:47:42,239
Speaker 2: had to get the microfiches. So it was done as

855
00:47:42,280 --> 00:47:46,680
Speaker 2: this like really kind of involved labor of suspicion that

856
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:52,160
Speaker 2: multiple institutions would fail Jane and vulnerable people with an

857
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:56,200
Speaker 2: academium are broadly so it was you know, it was

858
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:58,319
Speaker 2: done in the spirit. I think the power of this

859
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:01,480
Speaker 2: file as an art fact is that it was done

860
00:48:01,880 --> 00:48:05,200
Speaker 2: in the spirit of we have to look out for ourselves.

861
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:08,880
Speaker 2: No one's going to protect us. And in fact, you know,

862
00:48:08,960 --> 00:48:11,239
Speaker 2: these are the sorts of stories that get buried, and

863
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:15,080
Speaker 2: it's these powerful, often male, tenured professors who get to

864
00:48:15,120 --> 00:48:18,279
Speaker 2: stay in the department even if the abuse from the

865
00:48:18,320 --> 00:48:18,920
Speaker 2: other direction.

866
00:48:19,520 --> 00:48:23,320
Speaker 1: Tell me about the story I alluded to earlier, Carl

867
00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:26,640
Speaker 1: is the suspect. The police are interrogating him, and he

868
00:48:26,680 --> 00:48:29,560
Speaker 1: gets a call from the administration at Harvard. Is that right?

869
00:48:29,960 --> 00:48:33,480
Speaker 2: Yeah? And the guy basically says you're safe, and Carl

870
00:48:33,560 --> 00:48:34,919
Speaker 2: sort of gloats to me, and he's like, he didn't

871
00:48:34,920 --> 00:48:37,000
Speaker 2: even ask me if I did it. What was very

872
00:48:37,040 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 2: interesting was the deeper I got into the story, you know,

873
00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:43,680
Speaker 2: the more convinced I was that Carl had nothing to

874
00:48:43,680 --> 00:48:45,880
Speaker 2: do with her death. But then you know, the story

875
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:48,359
Speaker 2: forked into two questions. One was, all right, then, who

876
00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:51,360
Speaker 2: did kill Jane? And the other question was, why was

877
00:48:51,400 --> 00:48:54,320
Speaker 2: this the version of history we're so ready to believe?

878
00:48:55,160 --> 00:49:00,560
Speaker 2: And it for me unearthed as one archaeology didn't put

879
00:49:00,640 --> 00:49:02,719
Speaker 2: it this disease of academia that we don't want to

880
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:06,359
Speaker 2: admit that we have, where it's all too common that

881
00:49:06,960 --> 00:49:09,960
Speaker 2: often female graduate student will have an issue with an

882
00:49:10,040 --> 00:49:15,200
Speaker 2: often male tenured faculty professor. And if the problem, which

883
00:49:15,239 --> 00:49:19,719
Speaker 2: is euphemism for any number of abuses, is reported, it

884
00:49:19,760 --> 00:49:23,520
Speaker 2: falls back then the person who was abused or harassed

885
00:49:23,640 --> 00:49:25,920
Speaker 2: or whatever, and the other person gets to stay. And

886
00:49:25,960 --> 00:49:29,200
Speaker 2: so I came to realize that much like this graduate

887
00:49:29,239 --> 00:49:32,160
Speaker 2: student file being passed from one to the other, Jane's

888
00:49:32,239 --> 00:49:36,719
Speaker 2: story held sway in its kind of metaphorical power, in

889
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:38,840
Speaker 2: the sense that it was being used as a cautionary

890
00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:42,960
Speaker 2: tale to warn students of the kinds of ways that

891
00:49:43,360 --> 00:49:46,919
Speaker 2: people can disappear with an academia. It wasn't always used

892
00:49:46,960 --> 00:49:49,600
Speaker 2: in the most kind of like empowering way. It was

893
00:49:49,640 --> 00:49:52,400
Speaker 2: also a cautionary tale to not act out, to stay

894
00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:53,120
Speaker 2: within bounds.

895
00:49:53,760 --> 00:49:56,520
Speaker 1: So how do we get to twenty eighteen? When you

896
00:49:56,960 --> 00:49:59,240
Speaker 1: when do you start this? What year do you start this?

897
00:49:59,440 --> 00:50:04,120
Speaker 2: Inerno Ernest, probably twenty fourteen. I end up that you're

898
00:50:04,160 --> 00:50:06,719
Speaker 2: starting to do a lot of the interviews with her

899
00:50:06,760 --> 00:50:09,320
Speaker 2: brother for the first time reaching out to her best friend.

900
00:50:09,719 --> 00:50:12,040
Speaker 2: And then I start working for the New Yorker magazine,

901
00:50:12,239 --> 00:50:15,200
Speaker 2: trying to learn biasmosis how to be an investigative journalist.

902
00:50:15,280 --> 00:50:18,359
Speaker 2: And I'm so grateful to my colleagues for, you know,

903
00:50:18,400 --> 00:50:22,800
Speaker 2: showing me how to reply to foyas constantly. I remember

904
00:50:22,840 --> 00:50:25,560
Speaker 2: the New Yorker lawyer knighted me when he read my

905
00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:29,200
Speaker 2: final appeal, which was great wow. And then I left

906
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:31,480
Speaker 2: the New Yorker in twenty seventeen and worked on it

907
00:50:31,560 --> 00:50:33,520
Speaker 2: full time until it came out in twenty twenty.

908
00:50:33,560 --> 00:50:37,880
Speaker 1: So okay, so how do we land at twenty eighteen,

909
00:50:38,200 --> 00:50:41,960
Speaker 1: this is a year after you started really really you know,

910
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:44,000
Speaker 1: working full time on the book. How do we get

911
00:50:44,040 --> 00:50:45,560
Speaker 1: to the DNA analysis?

912
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:48,839
Speaker 2: The first thing is I tracked down some of the

913
00:50:48,880 --> 00:50:51,839
Speaker 2: police officers from Cambridge in the nineties who start to

914
00:50:52,040 --> 00:50:54,680
Speaker 2: try to work on the case in earnest again, and

915
00:50:54,719 --> 00:50:58,560
Speaker 2: they tell me that there is DNA left to be tested.

916
00:50:58,640 --> 00:50:59,880
Speaker 1: So that was a huge.

917
00:50:59,680 --> 00:51:04,040
Speaker 2: Revel that made it seem hopeful that some definitive answer

918
00:51:04,040 --> 00:51:06,400
Speaker 2: could be reached. So that's step one. Step two is

919
00:51:06,440 --> 00:51:09,320
Speaker 2: I start filing all these four year requests. Step three

920
00:51:09,760 --> 00:51:13,600
Speaker 2: is this wonderful journalist named Todd Wallach who works for

921
00:51:13,600 --> 00:51:16,400
Speaker 2: the Spotlight team at the Boston Globe, and he trolls

922
00:51:16,480 --> 00:51:20,440
Speaker 2: all these public records requests databases, especially in Massachusetts, starts

923
00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:24,040
Speaker 2: seeing something odd, which is two journalists, me and then

924
00:51:24,080 --> 00:51:28,880
Speaker 2: this man named Mike Widmer, who's now at that point

925
00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:32,120
Speaker 2: was about eighty, is trying to get files in the

926
00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:36,480
Speaker 2: same fifty year old case. And Todd is confused who

927
00:51:36,520 --> 00:51:41,080
Speaker 2: we are, whether we know each other, and why Massachusetts

928
00:51:41,120 --> 00:51:43,839
Speaker 2: won't release any records. So he contacts me and he

929
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:47,120
Speaker 2: writes a story for the Boston Globe that makes the

930
00:51:47,120 --> 00:51:50,960
Speaker 2: front page that says, fifty year old murder in Massachusetts,

931
00:51:51,040 --> 00:51:54,480
Speaker 2: who likes to think of itself as the bastion of liberty,

932
00:51:54,640 --> 00:51:58,000
Speaker 2: ranks among the worst in terms of releasing public records.

933
00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:00,399
Speaker 2: Are you going to do something about it? He puts

934
00:52:00,400 --> 00:52:02,680
Speaker 2: me in Mike in touch, and we end up working

935
00:52:02,680 --> 00:52:05,600
Speaker 2: on this together, and that puts a ton of pressure

936
00:52:05,880 --> 00:52:09,600
Speaker 2: on the Massachusetts by the Middle Sex District Attorney. She

937
00:52:09,719 --> 00:52:13,680
Speaker 2: ultimately makes a promise. She says, We're going to do

938
00:52:13,760 --> 00:52:17,800
Speaker 2: some DNA testing and after we do that, we either

939
00:52:18,120 --> 00:52:22,319
Speaker 2: will hopefully have a match or we will finally no

940
00:52:22,400 --> 00:52:24,319
Speaker 2: longer be able to say, as they were claiming to me,

941
00:52:24,400 --> 00:52:27,640
Speaker 2: that this was an open and active investigation, and therefore

942
00:52:27,680 --> 00:52:30,040
Speaker 2: the exemption that they were citing and their Foyer responses

943
00:52:30,080 --> 00:52:32,840
Speaker 2: was no longer valid, and they would release the records.

944
00:52:33,239 --> 00:52:38,480
Speaker 2: And so you get to twenty eighteen, and suddenly I

945
00:52:38,560 --> 00:52:42,600
Speaker 2: hear from Don, the neighbor, that they've made a match,

946
00:52:43,360 --> 00:52:47,160
Speaker 2: and I hear from her brother before I hear from

947
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:49,520
Speaker 2: Don about who this match is. I don't want to

948
00:52:49,560 --> 00:52:51,640
Speaker 2: spoil exactly who it is, but I will say that

949
00:52:51,680 --> 00:52:54,120
Speaker 2: it's none of the people that we've talked about so far.

950
00:52:54,800 --> 00:52:59,520
Speaker 2: It is this incredible revelation that still gives me pause

951
00:52:59,640 --> 00:53:02,840
Speaker 2: for any reasons, one of which is that the DNA

952
00:53:02,960 --> 00:53:05,879
Speaker 2: by this point has had to be amplified so much,

953
00:53:06,480 --> 00:53:11,560
Speaker 2: and it's why chromosome analysis that yields the presence of

954
00:53:11,560 --> 00:53:14,000
Speaker 2: two male DNA suspects, only one of which is the

955
00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:17,520
Speaker 2: person who they match. The second person's never identified. And

956
00:53:17,560 --> 00:53:19,840
Speaker 2: as I've tried to, you know, get clarity on this

957
00:53:19,920 --> 00:53:22,279
Speaker 2: from the Massachusetts Crime Lab, they've not only barred me

958
00:53:22,320 --> 00:53:25,319
Speaker 2: from talking to the lab analysts, they've barred me from

959
00:53:25,320 --> 00:53:28,640
Speaker 2: talking to anyone within the crime lab. So That still

960
00:53:28,640 --> 00:53:31,319
Speaker 2: gives me pause. But they are able to get a

961
00:53:31,360 --> 00:53:33,880
Speaker 2: match which they hadn't been able to do in the nineties.

962
00:53:33,960 --> 00:53:38,640
Speaker 2: On the very very last bit of DNA that exists

963
00:53:38,680 --> 00:53:41,239
Speaker 2: in the case, it wasn't a sperm cell. It was

964
00:53:41,800 --> 00:53:44,759
Speaker 2: a skin cell that was on the side of a

965
00:53:44,800 --> 00:53:48,040
Speaker 2: test tube that had held a swab that had swabbed

966
00:53:48,080 --> 00:53:49,880
Speaker 2: a glass plate in nineteen sixty nine.

967
00:53:50,160 --> 00:53:54,360
Speaker 1: Wow, amazing, Is this somebody who's still alive?

968
00:53:54,960 --> 00:53:55,080
Speaker 2: No?

969
00:53:55,480 --> 00:53:56,600
Speaker 1: Is this somebody with a record?

970
00:53:57,040 --> 00:53:57,320
Speaker 2: Yes?

971
00:53:57,680 --> 00:54:00,960
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, is there anything that a

972
00:54:01,160 --> 00:54:07,400
Speaker 1: competent fully like throttled. I'm going to solve this case

973
00:54:07,800 --> 00:54:11,160
Speaker 1: with the Massachusetts police or Cambridge. Is this something that

974
00:54:11,200 --> 00:54:13,960
Speaker 1: would have been solvable in nineteen sixty nine based on

975
00:54:14,000 --> 00:54:18,880
Speaker 1: what you now know we think happened, or is a

976
00:54:19,280 --> 00:54:22,160
Speaker 1: only DNA fifty years later would have done it?

977
00:54:22,160 --> 00:54:26,080
Speaker 2: It is likely that only DNA fifty years later would

978
00:54:26,080 --> 00:54:28,839
Speaker 2: have done it. I think there is some argument that

979
00:54:28,880 --> 00:54:31,719
Speaker 2: this person with a record maybe should never have been

980
00:54:31,760 --> 00:54:33,400
Speaker 2: out at the time that he was out, and so

981
00:54:33,600 --> 00:54:36,160
Speaker 2: the crime shouldn't have happened. He was caught for other

982
00:54:36,160 --> 00:54:39,880
Speaker 2: offenses that maybe he shouldn't have gotten the worker at

983
00:54:39,920 --> 00:54:40,399
Speaker 2: least that he.

984
00:54:40,360 --> 00:54:43,440
Speaker 1: Had gotten, But it's unlikely that any a number of

985
00:54:43,880 --> 00:54:48,120
Speaker 1: interviews would have yielded this suspect. I mean, unless they

986
00:54:48,160 --> 00:54:52,360
Speaker 1: just interviewed the entire city. I'm assuming likely, yes, Okay, Well,

987
00:54:52,680 --> 00:54:55,480
Speaker 1: I mean when you wrap up this story like that,

988
00:54:55,960 --> 00:54:59,000
Speaker 1: how did you feel at the end? You know, dealing

989
00:54:59,040 --> 00:55:01,120
Speaker 1: with something that you've been dealing with with for years.

990
00:55:01,360 --> 00:55:05,680
Speaker 1: You get an answer, but not a resolution necessarily, What

991
00:55:05,920 --> 00:55:07,799
Speaker 1: is reaction from all of the people who have been

992
00:55:07,840 --> 00:55:09,560
Speaker 1: talking to you for the book.

993
00:55:10,000 --> 00:55:12,399
Speaker 2: A lot of people are really grateful to have had,

994
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:15,239
Speaker 2: after all these years, an answer, even if it was

995
00:55:15,280 --> 00:55:18,319
Speaker 2: not an answer that they had seen coming. Like the

996
00:55:18,360 --> 00:55:20,920
Speaker 2: police officer in the nineties had one of the toughest

997
00:55:20,920 --> 00:55:24,600
Speaker 2: times dealing with this answer because having gone through the evidence,

998
00:55:25,080 --> 00:55:28,480
Speaker 2: he was all but certain that it was this person

999
00:55:28,520 --> 00:55:31,040
Speaker 2: that he had interviewed in the nineties, So that was

1000
00:55:31,080 --> 00:55:33,920
Speaker 2: really hard for him to stomach. For the brother, there

1001
00:55:33,960 --> 00:55:37,760
Speaker 2: was never going to be any kind of solace offered

1002
00:55:37,800 --> 00:55:39,920
Speaker 2: in the answer, I think, and I hope that the

1003
00:55:39,960 --> 00:55:44,000
Speaker 2: process of remembering her and getting to know him outside

1004
00:55:44,200 --> 00:55:46,680
Speaker 2: of the case in some ways was its own kind

1005
00:55:46,719 --> 00:55:50,600
Speaker 2: of solace. And then I think, more broadly, the answer

1006
00:55:50,600 --> 00:55:52,640
Speaker 2: itself was kind of in a meta way where I

1007
00:55:52,719 --> 00:55:56,560
Speaker 2: was going with the investigation, which I hope is also

1008
00:55:56,640 --> 00:56:00,719
Speaker 2: about the ways in which stories can be dangerous and blinding,

1009
00:56:00,960 --> 00:56:04,600
Speaker 2: that the ways in which myself included, we were all

1010
00:56:04,680 --> 00:56:09,399
Speaker 2: willing to kind of suspend our logical brain, knowing that

1011
00:56:09,640 --> 00:56:13,520
Speaker 2: eight pieces of evidence and someone making a good suspect

1012
00:56:13,560 --> 00:56:17,640
Speaker 2: doesn't in fact turn someone into one that intellectually makes sense.

1013
00:56:17,680 --> 00:56:19,359
Speaker 2: But I think on an emotional level, when you can

1014
00:56:19,400 --> 00:56:21,920
Speaker 2: craft a narrative, you can get swept up in it.

1015
00:56:21,960 --> 00:56:24,399
Speaker 2: And so what I've tried to do was to have

1016
00:56:24,920 --> 00:56:27,600
Speaker 2: with each of the suspects that sense of kind of

1017
00:56:27,719 --> 00:56:30,640
Speaker 2: seduction from the story, and then the kind of breaking

1018
00:56:30,680 --> 00:56:35,120
Speaker 2: apart of it, the conclusion of the case feels to

1019
00:56:35,480 --> 00:56:37,560
Speaker 2: thematically continue that trend.

1020
00:56:37,880 --> 00:56:40,000
Speaker 1: Well, where does this go from here? They've used up

1021
00:56:40,000 --> 00:56:42,560
Speaker 1: the last bit of DNA? I mean, are we just

1022
00:56:42,560 --> 00:56:45,360
Speaker 1: saying case closed at this point? With the murder of

1023
00:56:45,440 --> 00:56:46,040
Speaker 1: Jane Britten?

1024
00:56:46,520 --> 00:56:49,680
Speaker 2: My great hope is that the crime lab would release

1025
00:56:49,719 --> 00:56:53,319
Speaker 2: to me the electro faragram of the DNA test so

1026
00:56:53,360 --> 00:56:56,120
Speaker 2: that I could see. What I've had access to is

1027
00:56:56,400 --> 00:56:59,000
Speaker 2: basically a chart where they say, you know at X,

1028
00:56:59,120 --> 00:57:02,880
Speaker 2: Y and z losa on the Y chromosome you have

1029
00:57:03,440 --> 00:57:06,239
Speaker 2: basically this particular read out. The issue is that there's

1030
00:57:06,360 --> 00:57:09,520
Speaker 2: interpretation that gets from the electro pagram like a kind

1031
00:57:09,520 --> 00:57:14,040
Speaker 2: of line graph, to this chart. And I has an

1032
00:57:14,080 --> 00:57:17,480
Speaker 2: expert in reading exactly this who says he would be

1033
00:57:17,560 --> 00:57:19,800
Speaker 2: very happy to double check the homework because one of

1034
00:57:19,840 --> 00:57:22,640
Speaker 2: the things that troubles me is that the DNA analysts

1035
00:57:22,640 --> 00:57:25,760
Speaker 2: who conducted the test Number one was aware of the

1036
00:57:25,800 --> 00:57:32,640
Speaker 2: person who this DNA eventually matches before she conducts the analysis,

1037
00:57:33,280 --> 00:57:35,960
Speaker 2: and number two asks to be assigned to the case.

1038
00:57:36,800 --> 00:57:41,080
Speaker 2: So talking to somebody who an ethicist who specializes in

1039
00:57:41,160 --> 00:57:45,720
Speaker 2: how to limit bias within DNA testing, because you know

1040
00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:48,400
Speaker 2: it's seen as this gold standard, but there is still

1041
00:57:48,880 --> 00:57:52,440
Speaker 2: bias that can be introduced, especially where interpretation needs to happen.

1042
00:57:52,800 --> 00:57:55,200
Speaker 2: He says, this is one oh one. What you don't do.

1043
00:57:55,320 --> 00:57:57,960
Speaker 2: It's like a teacher asking to grade his or her

1044
00:57:57,960 --> 00:58:01,439
Speaker 2: favorite students tests, Like you don't ask to be fut

1045
00:58:01,480 --> 00:58:04,840
Speaker 2: into a particular case, and you certainly don't know the

1046
00:58:04,880 --> 00:58:07,800
Speaker 2: identity of the person to whom you're hoping to answer.

1047
00:58:08,080 --> 00:58:10,160
Speaker 2: And it's not that I think that there's been any

1048
00:58:10,280 --> 00:58:13,919
Speaker 2: kind of nefarious matching of this consciously, but I think

1049
00:58:14,280 --> 00:58:18,240
Speaker 2: you cannot rule out cognitive bias from having played a

1050
00:58:18,280 --> 00:58:23,000
Speaker 2: part in this. Whereas we're somebody neutral without access to

1051
00:58:23,920 --> 00:58:28,720
Speaker 2: or any kind of external factors leading to biasing one

1052
00:58:28,760 --> 00:58:32,040
Speaker 2: outcome over another. If that person also concluded exactly the

1053
00:58:32,080 --> 00:58:34,600
Speaker 2: same thing, I would rest a lot easier, But in

1054
00:58:34,640 --> 00:58:57,120
Speaker 2: the absence of that I can.

1055
00:58:47,640 --> 00:58:50,520
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the

1056
00:58:50,560 --> 00:58:53,440
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That

1057
00:58:53,560 --> 00:58:56,800
Speaker 1: Is Wicked, and American Sherlock, and Don't Forget. There are

1058
00:58:56,880 --> 00:59:01,080
Speaker 1: twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast, Tenfold More Wicked.

1059
00:59:01,560 --> 00:59:04,520
Speaker 1: Right here in this podcast feed, scroll back and give

1060
00:59:04,520 --> 00:59:07,400
Speaker 1: them a listen if you haven't already. This has been

1061
00:59:07,440 --> 00:59:11,640
Speaker 1: an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexis Amerosi.

1062
00:59:12,000 --> 00:59:16,480
Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode was mixed

1063
00:59:16,520 --> 00:59:20,400
Speaker 1: by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer, artwork by

1064
00:59:20,520 --> 00:59:24,960
Speaker 1: Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen Kilgarriff and

1065
00:59:25,040 --> 00:59:29,400
Speaker 1: Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram at tenfold More

1066
00:59:29,440 --> 00:59:32,760
Speaker 1: Wicked and on Facebook at Wicked Words Pod.