Speaker 1: You're listening to American Shadows, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey Clement for
Speaker 1: Lendingham was born in New Lisbon, Ohio, in eighteen twenty.
Speaker 1: He received his education through home schooling until he attended
Speaker 1: Jefferson College in Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania. After an argument with the
Speaker 1: school's president, he left the college without finishing his degree.
Speaker 1: At the time, aspiring lawyers didn't need a degree to practice.
Speaker 1: All they had to do was past the bar exam.
Speaker 1: Lendingham passed the bar and set up his law firm
Speaker 1: in Dayton, Ohio. His lack of the college degree also
Speaker 1: didn't prevent him from being elected to the Ohio Legislature
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty five, or from being elected into the
Speaker 1: House of Representatives shortly before the Civil War. Although Lendingham
Speaker 1: lived in a pro Union state, he was staunchly pro slavery.
Speaker 1: His beliefs on the subject were so strong that he
Speaker 1: looked for any way to oppose President Abraham Lincoln on
Speaker 1: every military bill, and frequently accused the President of prolonging
Speaker 1: the war for his own gain. As the leader of
Speaker 1: the copper Heads, a group of like minded politicians. The
Speaker 1: lending Him believed that the president and the abolitionists were
Speaker 1: destroying the nation. In their opinion, the war was completely unjustified.
Speaker 1: Though landing Him lost his bid for reelection in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty two, he remained popular with anti war factions and
Speaker 1: was considered a candidate for the presidency. Those aspirations ended
Speaker 1: when he entered the public sector and continued his anti
Speaker 1: war rhetoric. His rants violated Ohio's General Order thirty eight,
Speaker 1: which banned anyone from declaring sympathy for the enemy. Thus,
Speaker 1: he was arrested in eighteen sixty three. During the trial,
Speaker 1: he voiced his opinions in sympathy for the Confederacy. As
Speaker 1: a result, the court ordered lending Him held to the South. However,
Speaker 1: despite the court order, his strong opinions and his affiliation
Speaker 1: with the copper Heads, but Confederates didn't exactly give him
Speaker 1: a warm welcome. It took some time for them to
Speaker 1: trust him, even after he ran for governor of Ohio
Speaker 1: and Absentia. Blending Him lost the election, but managed to
Speaker 1: return to Ohio quietly. After the war, he continued his
Speaker 1: crusade against the rights of black Americans. He ran for
Speaker 1: the Senate and then the House of Representatives, losing both times.
Speaker 1: He returned to practicing law, taking on a murder case.
Speaker 1: His client, one Thomas the Gean, had been accused of
Speaker 1: murdering a man by the name of Thomas Myers. Lending
Speaker 1: Him's defense was simple. His client couldn't possibly be guilty
Speaker 1: since Myers had accidentally shot himself. The witnesses stated the
Speaker 1: two men had been enemies, They had been gambling, and
Speaker 1: though the details were murky, Myers wound up dead and
Speaker 1: everyone pointed to m age In blending him insisted that
Speaker 1: the evidence was weak. He fired rounds into a piece
Speaker 1: of fabric to demonstrate the placement of gunpowder residue a
Speaker 1: close range, matching the powder formation on Myer's clothing. After
Speaker 1: the demonstration, a companion reminded him that there were still
Speaker 1: three live rounds and the gun's chambers. Of Lending Him
Speaker 1: shared him that his knowledge and comfort around firearms would
Speaker 1: prevent him from accidentally discharging it. Lending Him found a
Speaker 1: package containing Myer's unloaded pistol waiting for him at the
Speaker 1: hotel and placed it on his nightstand alongside his own gun.
Speaker 1: Then he summoned the rest of the lawyers to his
Speaker 1: room for one last reenactment. He grabbed a pistol from
Speaker 1: the nightstand and placed it in his pocket. As he
Speaker 1: withdrew it, he demonstrated how Myers had held the gun,
Speaker 1: then pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, he had grabbed the loaded
Speaker 1: gun and cried out that had shot himself. The shot
Speaker 1: proved fatal. The court acquitted, and aghe in blending him,
Speaker 1: had proved in his client's innocence. It might not have
Speaker 1: been the most intelligent of defenses, but it certainly wasn't
Speaker 1: the worst. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. Welcome to American Shadows. It
Speaker 1: was the Roaring twenties. Ruth Snyder was a blonde, pretty,
Speaker 1: thirty two year old homemaker and described as having a
Speaker 1: playful personality. It had been married to Albert for twelve years,
Speaker 1: and the two had a young daughter, Lorraine, and an
Speaker 1: eight room home in Queens Village, New York. A forty
Speaker 1: two year old Albert worked as an art editor for
Speaker 1: a magazine about motor boats and did not share his
Speaker 1: wife's playful personality. Most women dreaded him. His idea of
Speaker 1: fun was to slap his wife and nine year old
Speaker 1: daughter around. He took every opportunity to let Ruth know
Speaker 1: he had never forgiven her for not giving him a son.
Speaker 1: When he did out compliments, they were about his late
Speaker 1: ex fiancee, Jesse was shard. He kept a picture of
Speaker 1: his beloved on a wall in the home and frequently
Speaker 1: mentioned that Jesse had been the finest woman had ever known.
Speaker 1: To add insult to injury, when Albert purchased a boat,
Speaker 1: he named it Jesse. Understandably, Ruth's love and devotion toward
Speaker 1: her husband turned sour. On top of being verbally, emotionally
Speaker 1: and physically cruel, he drank a lot, so much so
Speaker 1: that Albert took to brewing beer in his basement, which
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly legal during the Prohibition era. When he tired
Speaker 1: of beer, he visited the local bootlegger for stronger stuff.
Speaker 1: In women like Ruth didn't have many options. Women were
Speaker 1: considered property of sorts, first belonging to their fathers and
Speaker 1: then to their husbands. They had little to know rights
Speaker 1: to their own finances. In the US, it wouldn't be
Speaker 1: until the nineteen sixties before women were allowed to open
Speaker 1: a bank account on their own. They weren't allowed to
Speaker 1: have a credit card, without a husband's signature. Until nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy four, single women need not apply. The men earned
Speaker 1: more of the same jobs. Companies openly overlooked women in
Speaker 1: favor of men when it came to hiring, until President
Speaker 1: Kennedy signed a law prohibiting such tactics in nineteen sixty four.
Speaker 1: Until nineteen twenty, women hadn't been allowed to vote for
Speaker 1: those who worked. Any paycheck that they brought home immediately
Speaker 1: belonged to their husband. The only financial wealth a woman
Speaker 1: had was her jewelry. For many women, marriage meant a
Speaker 1: lifetime of love and financial security. For others, marriage was
Speaker 1: a prison. In the twenties, society frowned on divorce, which
Speaker 1: usually entailed proof of adultery or abandonment, and in society's view,
Speaker 1: if Ruth filed, she was breaking the family apart. The
Speaker 1: words till death do us part had real meaning. For Ruth.
Speaker 1: She was stint for a lifetime of misery and abuse,
Speaker 1: and like other women in her shoes, she did her
Speaker 1: best to occupy her time outside the home when possible,
Speaker 1: since having lunch with her friends in Manhattan had become
Speaker 1: her only escape. Once she dropped Lorraine off at school,
Speaker 1: she caught a train to the city to spend the day.
Speaker 1: In the afternoon, she boarded another train back home, and
Speaker 1: during those lunches at the counter in a Fifth Avenue restaurant,
Speaker 1: Ruth met Judd Gray, another regular, and my most accounts,
Speaker 1: Judd wasn't the most memorable man. He was short, curly haired,
Speaker 1: and wore thick horn rimmed glasses that gave him an
Speaker 1: owlish appearance. And Judd worked as a traveling salesman for
Speaker 1: a corset and brawl company, although we conducted most of
Speaker 1: his work from the Waldorf Storia Hotel. He spent his
Speaker 1: spare time as a member of an Elks lodge in
Speaker 1: New Jersey, and he taught Sunday school. The two quickly
Speaker 1: struck up a friendship. They talked to family and life,
Speaker 1: and before long, jud confided that he was also in
Speaker 1: an unhappy marriage. Over several weeks, the growing attraction and
Speaker 1: tension between them increased. They began to flirt. By the
Speaker 1: end of the summer, Ruth and Jed took the flirtations
Speaker 1: even further and started a fiery and all consuming affair.
Speaker 1: Albert never came home during the day, providing the couple
Speaker 1: with a convenient place to meet. Other times, Ruth met
Speaker 1: her new lover at the Waldorf. Meanwhile, little Lorraine entertained
Speaker 1: herself by riding along with the elevator operators until her
Speaker 1: mother returned for her. Jed was smitten with Ruthe whoop
Speaker 1: seemingly couldn't get enough of him either. She called him Loverboy,
Speaker 1: among other pet names. Over the next year and a half,
Speaker 1: the affair turned riskier and the lovers grew bolder in
Speaker 1: their liaisons. On Sunday, March, Loreen Snyder made a frantic
Speaker 1: phone call to the next door neighbor, Missus Harriet Mulhouser.
Speaker 1: Lorrain's cries that her mother was sick urged Harriet hurry
Speaker 1: to the Snyder home. When Harriet entered, she had no
Speaker 1: idea what to expect. Moans from an upstairs bedroom met
Speaker 1: her at the door. She ran up the stairs to
Speaker 1: find Ruth lying on a bed with a loosened gag
Speaker 1: around her neck. Her feet had been bound, but her
Speaker 1: hands were free. Ruth moaned that she had been hit
Speaker 1: on the head. Unsure of what had happened or where
Speaker 1: Albert was, Harriet told Lorraine to go and get Mr.
Speaker 1: Mulhauser and then to wait outside. Lewis Mulhouser arrived moments later.
Speaker 1: He found Albert in another room, lying face first under
Speaker 1: a pile of blankets on a twin bed. His hands
Speaker 1: and feet had been bound. The blood on the pillows
Speaker 1: and the wire around his neck made it clear someone
Speaker 1: had strangled him. Lewis also noted a revolt he lay
Speaker 1: next to the body. He covered Albert with a sheet
Speaker 1: and called for the police and doctor for Rufe. The
Speaker 1: doctor examined Rufe while she told him what had happened.
Speaker 1: Though she insisted she had been hit on the head,
Speaker 1: he couldn't find any evidence of an injury. Two officers
Speaker 1: arrived shortly afterward. The house appeared to have been ransacked,
Speaker 1: and the officers thought the Snyders had been victims of
Speaker 1: a burglary gone wrong. There had been reports of a
Speaker 1: strange man prowling around the neighborhood and Snyder House in particular.
Speaker 1: Detectives Frank Hainer and Harry Krauss arrived shortly after eight
Speaker 1: am to take over the case. The doctor had finished
Speaker 1: his exam of Ruth and Albert and gave the detectives
Speaker 1: his findings. Ruth's calm demeanor seemed off, and he couldn't
Speaker 1: find any signs of injury. Albert had been dead for
Speaker 1: about six hours. He noted heavy bruising on his face,
Speaker 1: which indicated blunt force trauma. The doctor wasn't sure whether
Speaker 1: Albert had died due to that trauma or to strangulation.
Speaker 1: While an ambulance took Albert to the more, the detectives
Speaker 1: questioned Ruth. They also noted how calm she seemed given
Speaker 1: her account of what had happened. The Ruth claimed she
Speaker 1: had been knocked out. The detectives had more questions than answers.
Speaker 1: Why had someone bound Ruth's feet but not her hands
Speaker 1: and they couldn't find an injury. Why hadn't she gone
Speaker 1: for help herself? And something wasn't right? Detectives Hayin and
Speaker 1: Krauss called for assistance while other detectives began a thorough
Speaker 1: search of the house and property. Hayner and Krauss took
Speaker 1: Ruth to the police station for further questioning. She repeated
Speaker 1: the story that she and Albert had attended a bridge
Speaker 1: party lad into the night. When they arrived home, they
Speaker 1: immediately went to bed. Some time in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night, she heard a noise and went to investigate
Speaker 1: the Ruth told them that an enormous Italian thug attacked
Speaker 1: her and hit her on the head before she could
Speaker 1: scream for Albert. Ruth claimed that the man must have
Speaker 1: robbed them and killed Albert. She took the time to
Speaker 1: describe valuable pieces of jewelry and expensive fur coats she owned.
Speaker 1: Given the doctor's findings, the detectives thought that the attackers
Speaker 1: description played too heavily on the general racism against Italian
Speaker 1: immigrants of the time, and it didn't take the detectives
Speaker 1: long to find more problems with Ruth's story. Albert's gold
Speaker 1: pocket watch had been found next to his deathbed. They
Speaker 1: also found Ruth's jewelry wrapped in a rag and stuffed
Speaker 1: under the mattress, and her fur coat tucked away in
Speaker 1: a trunk in the basement. But most damning was the
Speaker 1: toolbox that had found A large iron sash weight had
Speaker 1: been married beneath an assortment of hammers and screwdrivers, and
Speaker 1: the weight had blood on it. To say Ruth was
Speaker 1: the number one suspect would be an understatement. They told
Speaker 1: her what they had found and prompted her to confess.
Speaker 1: After a couple of hours of intense questioning, Ruth slipped
Speaker 1: and gave them a name, Jed Ray. Then she refused
Speaker 1: to answer any more questions. Police quickly arrested jud They
Speaker 1: were not surprised to hear that he had a different story.
Speaker 1: He was innocent, he claimed. In fact, like Albert, he
Speaker 1: also claimed to be one of Ruth's victims. She had
Speaker 1: seduced him and made him an unwilling accomplice to the
Speaker 1: murder plot. Within hours, the detectives had their killers, but
Speaker 1: the two lovers weren't done with the details just yet.
Speaker 1: Judd claimed that Ruth had been the mastermind. She had
Speaker 1: taken out an insurance policy with a double indemnity clause.
Speaker 1: If Albert died from an act of violence, Ruts stood
Speaker 1: to get twice the money. While Ruth had bought the
Speaker 1: iron weight, he had been seduced into buying chloroform. He
Speaker 1: told the detectives that Ruth had told him to smash
Speaker 1: Albert's head with the weight, but he was so frightened
Speaker 1: that he couldn't do it, he said. Ruth grabbed the
Speaker 1: way and eagerly did the job herself, striking Albert on
Speaker 1: the side of the head of The blow knocked Albert unconscious,
Speaker 1: and jud admitted dragging him to the bed, and he
Speaker 1: also admitted to using the wire to ensure he was dead.
Speaker 1: The entire murder seemed to happen in a daze. He
Speaker 1: told the detectives he had been entirely under Ruth's spell.
Speaker 1: Prosecutors decided to try the pair together instead of individually.
Speaker 1: Reporters flocked to the courtroom. While wives killing abuse of
Speaker 1: husbands for money wasn't exactly new, competing newspapers saw a
Speaker 1: sensational story. The tabloids were quick to add creative details,
Speaker 1: and they're retelling. As they put it, Ruth the Ruthless
Speaker 1: was a fem fatale who had it all a house
Speaker 1: car money before taking on a lover and seducing him
Speaker 1: into killing her husband. Journalist Damon Runyan thought the two
Speaker 1: killers were about as dumb as any had ever seen,
Speaker 1: and began calling the incident the Dumbbell Murder. The New
Speaker 1: York Times kept the story on the front page as
Speaker 1: the trial continued. It began on April eighteenth of n
Speaker 1: and became nothing less than a circus. Fifteen hundred people
Speaker 1: crammed themselves into the courtroom outside vendors sold sash weight
Speaker 1: replica pins, and food vendors hiked up prices to the
Speaker 1: thousands of people waiting outside the courtroom. The celebrities, from
Speaker 1: renowned historians and film producers to the nation's elite, reserved
Speaker 1: seating inside. Among them were songwriter Irving Berlin and mystery
Speaker 1: novelist Mary Roberts Reinhardt. Though Jed and Ruth were tried
Speaker 1: together and were at the same table, they each retained
Speaker 1: their own lawyer. For hours, each lawyer worked to sway
Speaker 1: the all male jury that the other defendant in the
Speaker 1: case was the more guilty party. Most felt sympathetic toward
Speaker 1: Jed's confessions. He told the courtroom that Ruth completely seduced him,
Speaker 1: earning him the nickname the putty Man. He said that
Speaker 1: he was helpless whenever she drew his face close to
Speaker 1: hers and looked deeply into his eyes. Judd sobbed when
Speaker 1: he told the Jerry how she had pressured him into
Speaker 1: doing her dirty work. The plot went sideways when he
Speaker 1: arrived that night and he had struck Albert in self defense.
Speaker 1: In turn, Ruth fainted whenever the prosecution brought out the
Speaker 1: most gruesome of the details her attorney told the courtroom
Speaker 1: that such gore made his client faint easily, and jud
Speaker 1: and Ruth exchanged barbs and accusations, dividing the court on
Speaker 1: who had been ultimately responsible for Albert's death, until the
Speaker 1: prosecution brought a toxicologist to the stand. Using only the
Speaker 1: facts from pathology and chemistry, Alexander Getler systematically laid out
Speaker 1: what had happened to Albert that night. The police had
Speaker 1: found a bottle of whiskey on Judd on the night
Speaker 1: of his arrest. He had told detectives that Ruth asked
Speaker 1: him to dispose of the bottle. A lab results showed
Speaker 1: that the whiskey contained so much bichloride of mercury that
Speaker 1: it was undrinkable, and, knowing Albert's penchant for drinking heavily,
Speaker 1: had given Ruth the idea to poison her husband. However,
Speaker 1: the acrid, foul taste would have undoubtedly made Albert spit
Speaker 1: the drink out. Albert had already been drinking, and he
Speaker 1: had consumed so much bootleg whiskey that it would have
Speaker 1: been unlikely that he could stand much less attack Judd.
Speaker 1: And if the whiskey wasn't enough, the chloroform they found
Speaker 1: in his system was though the iron weight had fractured
Speaker 1: Albert's skull and the wire had cut off his last breadths.
Speaker 1: Albert was already a dying man. That bootleg whiskey combined
Speaker 1: with the heavy amount of chloroform had been fatal. Getler
Speaker 1: testified that Ruth and Judd might have gotten away with
Speaker 1: murder if they had just let the whiskey and chloroform
Speaker 1: run their course. Ninety minutes later, the jury returned a
Speaker 1: guilty verdict for jud and Ruth. Both were sentenced to
Speaker 1: death at Sing Sing. The story continued to dominate headlines
Speaker 1: for weeks. One reporter noted that, in an odd twist,
Speaker 1: Albert's beloved ex fiance, Jesse Guischard and Ruth's affair partner
Speaker 1: Judd Gray shared the same initials. It turned out that
Speaker 1: this twist had helped the detectives with the case. They'd
Speaker 1: come across some papers with the initials j G, but
Speaker 1: they didn't belong to Judd. Before her death, Jesse had
Speaker 1: sent Albert love letters on monogram stationary. Albert had kept
Speaker 1: letterhead from his beloved Jesse. Of course, the detectives didn't
Speaker 1: know that when they showed it to Ruth and asked
Speaker 1: who j G was. In a moment of panic, she'd
Speaker 1: asked why they were looking at Judd in connection with
Speaker 1: her husband's death. On the day of Ruth's execution at
Speaker 1: sing Sing Prison, photography was prohibited in the execution chamber.
Speaker 1: One creative reporter rigged a camera under his clothing. At
Speaker 1: the moment of Ruth's execution, he snapped a single photo.
Speaker 1: The Daily News used the image and the headline dead.
Speaker 1: The paper sold out in fifteen minutes. The Dumbell murder
Speaker 1: had been a sensational story, but with the case over
Speaker 1: and jud and Ruth executed, the papers returned to other
Speaker 1: news Over time, the story faded from most people's memories.
Speaker 1: Murder for money was hardly new or unheard of, and
Speaker 1: true crime stories have seemingly fascinated us. All while plenty
Speaker 1: of reporters covering the trial simply looked for enough headline
Speaker 1: worthy material before moving on to their next assignment. One
Speaker 1: of those reporters never forgot it. James M. Caine said
Speaker 1: the trial had been larger than life and stranger than fiction.
Speaker 1: He had always wanted to write a novel like f
Speaker 1: Scott Fitzgerald or Ernest Hemingway, and the murder gave him
Speaker 1: an idea. Over the years, he had written a few
Speaker 1: plays and novels without much success, but the betrayals and
Speaker 1: murder in this case inspired him to try once more.
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty four, he made the best seller's list
Speaker 1: with The Postman Always Rings Twice. Characters Frank and Cora
Speaker 1: begin an affair and soon plot the murder of Cora's
Speaker 1: older husband, Nick. The lover's first attempt, striking Nick with
Speaker 1: a blunt object, fails. He recovers but has amnesia. The
Speaker 1: second attempt, a fake car accident, works. The two killers
Speaker 1: stand trial, each blaming the other. Kine wrote a twist
Speaker 1: to the ending, which I won't divulge here in case
Speaker 1: you haven't read it or seen the films based on it.
Speaker 1: At the height of the book's popularity, Boston banned it
Speaker 1: due to the amount of sex and violence it contained
Speaker 1: for the time, and as popular as this book was,
Speaker 1: another became an even larger success. Using the case and
Speaker 1: trial again as inspiration, he wrote Double Indemnity, first publishing
Speaker 1: it as a serialized story in Liberty Magazine in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty six, and then as a novel in nineteen forty three.
Speaker 1: The plot revolves around a woman who seduces an insurance
Speaker 1: salesman to help her kill her husband alike jud The
Speaker 1: man becomes so entangled in the fog of the affair
Speaker 1: he feels compelled to help commit the murder, and just
Speaker 1: like the Dumbbell murder, the plan backfires, pitting the couple
Speaker 1: against each other. There's more to this story. Stick around
Speaker 1: after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.
Speaker 1: Every once in a while, a new story stands out
Speaker 1: far from the rest. Such is the case of the
Speaker 1: Denver spider Man. Helen and Philip Peters had lived in
Speaker 1: their Denver, Colorado neighborhood for a long time. The neighbors,
Speaker 1: young and old alike, loved them. During the fall of
Speaker 1: nineteen forty one, sixty four year old Helen spent five
Speaker 1: weeks for ring in the hospital after breaking her hip.
Speaker 1: Every morning, after breakfast, Philip went to visit, returning in
Speaker 1: time for dinner each night. And to keep Philip from
Speaker 1: eating alone and in sure he didn't have to cook,
Speaker 1: neighbors took turns inviting him to dinner, and when Philip
Speaker 1: failed to arrive at a neighbor's house on October sevent
Speaker 1: they began to worry. The neighbor checked on Philip, knocking
Speaker 1: and trying the door. Soon more neighbors gathered outside the
Speaker 1: dark house. All windows and doors were locked, but a
Speaker 1: young girl found a loose window screen and managed to
Speaker 1: pry the window open and climb inside. After a couple
Speaker 1: of moments, the neighbors heard her screams. The girl threw
Speaker 1: the door open and ran out inside. Among the blood
Speaker 1: spladder lay Philip's body. The police arrived, confident the killer
Speaker 1: was still inside, except the house was empty. Whoever killed
Speaker 1: Philip Peters bludgeoned him to death using two cast iron shakers.
Speaker 1: The killer took the time to wash one of the
Speaker 1: shakers and left behind the damp, blood stained dish towel.
Speaker 1: The attack had been merciless. It appeared Philip had tried
Speaker 1: to flee his attacker. Blood splatter was found throughout the home,
Speaker 1: and they estimated he had been struck thirty seven times.
Speaker 1: As the weeks went on, the investigation stalled, and when
Speaker 1: Helen returned home, the housekeeper and neighbors stayed with her
Speaker 1: as much as possible. They couldn't stay forever, though, Helen
Speaker 1: was uncomfortable in the house, not just because of the murder.
Speaker 1: The strange things kept happening even before Helen arrived home
Speaker 1: from the hospital, and neighbors noticed the lights would come
Speaker 1: on in the house. One saw a ghostly face in
Speaker 1: the window. The residence along the street began to whisper
Speaker 1: that the house was haunted. Helen frequently called the police
Speaker 1: to check up on the case and to report missing food,
Speaker 1: strange sounds in the walls, objects out of place. Oh
Speaker 1: one night, she fell again, fracturing her leg. Being home,
Speaker 1: nurse also heard rattling in the walls. Once a specter
Speaker 1: appeared on the backstairs. It chattered its teeth at the nurse,
Speaker 1: scaring her off. She promptly quit, leaving Helen in the
Speaker 1: care of a neighbor. The neighbor spotted the ghost standing
Speaker 1: at the base of the stairs one night. It vanished
Speaker 1: when she screamed. Police kept watch on the house but
Speaker 1: never saw anyone or anything strange. Eventually, Helen left, despite
Speaker 1: having lived much of her life in the home. On
Speaker 1: July two, a couple of police officers saw a pale
Speaker 1: face looking out of a window and ran inside to investigate.
Speaker 1: When the men reached the top of the stairs, closet
Speaker 1: door swung shut. Unwilling to let the intruder escape, they
Speaker 1: opened the door in time to see two feet disappear
Speaker 1: into a tiny trap door in the ceiling. They grabbed
Speaker 1: the legs and pulled the man out of his hiding place.
Speaker 1: One of them commented that a human would need to
Speaker 1: be a spider to fit into such a small opening.
Speaker 1: The pale, gray skinned man wore tattered clothing. He was
Speaker 1: impossibly thin, which explained how he fit into a hole
Speaker 1: too small for most adults. During questioning, the officers learned
Speaker 1: that Theodore Coneys had been living in the Peters house
Speaker 1: since nineteen forty one. Coney said that when he was
Speaker 1: a teen, he took guitar lessons from Philip Peters and
Speaker 1: they fed him dinner. Twenty years later, houseless and broke,
Speaker 1: he returned to the Peters home to see if they
Speaker 1: might still offer him food. Coney's broke in when he
Speaker 1: found no one home. After stealing some food, he decided
Speaker 1: to sleep there. His search of the home revealed the
Speaker 1: trap door. Coney's managed to squeeze up into the ceiling
Speaker 1: and decided that he might as well stay it all
Speaker 1: seemed to work until Philip Peters caught him in the
Speaker 1: kitchen one evening. Philip fought back who before retreating, Coney's
Speaker 1: admitted to killing him and cleaning up and returning to
Speaker 1: his hiding place. After his trial, he told reporters that
Speaker 1: he felt safe in prison and that it was a
Speaker 1: better home than he had had in years, and Coney's
Speaker 1: enjoyed the rest of his years in prison until he
Speaker 1: died in American Shadows is hosted by Lauren Vogelbaum. This
Speaker 1: episode was written by Michelle Muto, researched by Ali Steed,
Speaker 1: and produced by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive
Speaker 1: producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. To learn
Speaker 1: more about the show, visit Grim and Mild dot com.
Speaker 1: From more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.