Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
Speaker 1: last twenty five years writing about true crime.
Speaker 2: And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
Speaker 2: worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 1: Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
Speaker 1: compelling true crimes.
Speaker 2: And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
Speaker 2: new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 1: Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
Speaker 1: cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 2: Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1: This is buried bones.
Speaker 2: Ay, Kate, how are you?
Speaker 1: I'm doing well, Paul, how are you?
Speaker 2: No, I'm doing good. I got my hot toddy here
Speaker 2: and I'm ready for this next case.
Speaker 1: What's in a hot is that whiskey? Is that just
Speaker 1: hot whiskey that you mic awave? Is that what a
Speaker 1: hot toddy is? See how naive I am? Listeners? I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 2: Uh well, I kind of fibbed a little bit. It's
Speaker 2: a little room temperature, but yeah, it's a little whiskey.
Speaker 1: So that's all it is. It's warm whiskey is that
Speaker 1: a hot.
Speaker 2: Toddy by my definition. Yes, I mean, this is.
Speaker 1: Not what I thought we were going to talk about today.
Speaker 1: But they used to use whiskey for everything, didn't they.
Speaker 1: Did you ever read in history everything that whiskey had
Speaker 1: been used for, I mean, for like knocking out little
Speaker 1: babies so they'd stop crying, to anesthegia, to everything you
Speaker 1: could think of.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, I knew about the anisc You know, if
Speaker 2: they had to amputate the poor victim had to have
Speaker 2: a bunch of whiskey inside and then have to bite
Speaker 2: down on the leather strap to prevent biting his tongue. God,
Speaker 2: what a horrific time, I know.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine? I mean, I just and you know,
Speaker 1: in one of the other episodes, we talked about women
Speaker 1: who died in childbirth and how a lot of the
Speaker 1: times it's because the doctors weren't washing their hands and
Speaker 1: they were getting in bacterial infection. I mean, how awful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, thank god we live in modern medical times. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What I was going to tell you when when you
Speaker 1: mentioned the hot toddie was it reminded me of American Sherlock.
Speaker 1: You know my book. We were talking about Oscar Heinrich,
Speaker 1: the forensic scientist at the center of my book. So
Speaker 1: he got his start working at a pharmacy. When his
Speaker 1: dad died, he had to quit high school and he
Speaker 1: started working in a pharmacy. And he said that it
Speaker 1: was the best thing that ever happened to him because
Speaker 1: it was sort of like a school on handwriting analysis
Speaker 1: because he could never interpret.
Speaker 2: The doctor's script.
Speaker 1: What the doctors yeah, So he said, there's that, and
Speaker 1: then of course there's all kinds of chemistry and kind
Speaker 1: of toxicology. He said it was most valuable for human
Speaker 1: behavior because there would be drug addicts who would come
Speaker 1: in and he said he would just watch them and
Speaker 1: how they were trying to con the pharmacists into giving
Speaker 1: them drugs that didn't belong to them. But one thing
Speaker 1: that I noted. I had not known this was that
Speaker 1: during Prohibition, the pharmacies really started ticking up on medicinal alcohol. So,
Speaker 1: you know, if you needed to treat something. Oscar learned
Speaker 1: how to make medicinal whiskey at his pharmacy, and I
Speaker 1: didn't know this little fact. But it became such a
Speaker 1: big business that Walgreens. I'm looking at my book now,
Speaker 1: Walllgreens expanded from twenty stores in the United States to
Speaker 1: more than five hundred stores, basically based on medicinal whisky
Speaker 1: that was the only legal way to get it.
Speaker 2: I get it, I understand.
Speaker 1: And then we went back to your hot toddy, which
Speaker 1: is I can't take cold whiskey, let alone hot whiskey.
Speaker 2: No. I know, I've tried to get you to imbibe,
Speaker 2: but unfortunately you just seem to want to stick with
Speaker 2: your cider.
Speaker 1: I do. I know. I love cider. Right now, I
Speaker 1: have tea. But you know, like I said, if I
Speaker 1: had any alcohol during our show, I would be in
Speaker 1: the fetal position in sleeping on the floor of myself
Speaker 1: about thirty minutes.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I need it just to kind of soothe
Speaker 2: the nerves because I still get a little anxious before
Speaker 2: you and I start our episodes. No you don't, yeah
Speaker 2: a little bit.
Speaker 1: Why because you're scared you're going to say the wrong thing,
Speaker 1: or that I'm going to outsmart you see, I can't
Speaker 1: even get that out without loud. I'll smart you. Well,
Speaker 1: let me tell you. You'll need some whiskey for this one.
Speaker 1: This is a story that's set during I mean Prohibition
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty one. Love it great time period to talk about.
Speaker 1: We're in Portland, Oregon. Portland is one of my most
Speaker 1: favorite cities. And you said you've been there a couple
Speaker 1: of times.
Speaker 2: I was there twice. The first time I went to
Speaker 2: Portland was actually before a Golden State Killer, you know,
Speaker 2: doing a kind of an early form of the genealogy process,
Speaker 2: and found somebody that was up there in the Portland
Speaker 2: area that I thought possibly was related to who I
Speaker 2: was looking for, And turns out he was about nine
Speaker 2: hundred years ago, so that didn't help. Wait what, No,
Speaker 2: We collected DNA from this old man in a convalescent home,
Speaker 2: thinking that possibly, you know, a Golden State Killer was
Speaker 2: maybe a son or a cousin, and he just was
Speaker 2: so distantly related that it was far beyond, you know,
Speaker 2: the genealogy paper trail that we need to be able
Speaker 2: to use. And then the second time I went to
Speaker 2: Portland was during my book tour. But that's when I
Speaker 2: had the hosts of Small Town Dixon interviewed me on stage.
Speaker 1: Oh that's nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that was Yardley, Dan and Dave. And this
Speaker 2: was the first time that Dan and Dave revealed their
Speaker 2: identities to the world because they had been active law enforcement.
Speaker 2: They had always kept their identities hidden, and so they
Speaker 2: what do you want to say, stepped out of the
Speaker 2: closet at that Portland event.
Speaker 1: That's good. So you have good memories of Portland.
Speaker 2: Absolutely well, this is not a.
Speaker 1: Good memory story, I'll tell you that. But I do
Speaker 1: like going to places and time periods that I'm fond of,
Speaker 1: and I love Portland and I love nineteen twenty one,
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty one for me from American Sherlock is Fatty
Speaker 1: Arbuckle case, which was really interesting, you know, very classic
Speaker 1: old case. And so I remember a lot of sort
Speaker 1: of Hollywood scandals that's not this. This is a little
Speaker 1: bit of a mystery. And you know, we're we're really
Speaker 1: going to dig into a lot of questions that I
Speaker 1: feel like I haven't had answered by you yet. So
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and get into it. Let's set the scene.
Speaker 1: This is July eleventh, nineteen twenty one. Instead of introducing
Speaker 1: you first of all, I guess to say the main players.
Speaker 1: I'm going to start with the action here. There is
Speaker 1: a neighbor named Robert Green. It's about midnight. He's getting
Speaker 1: ready to go to sleep, which would have been about
Speaker 1: three hours after I normally go to sleep. I go
Speaker 1: to sleep at like nine pm. So midnight Robert Green
Speaker 1: says it's time to go to bed. He hears screaming
Speaker 1: from his neighbors. And the neighbors are a family called
Speaker 1: the Age's, and they live across the street on North
Speaker 1: Druid Avenue. And the family is interesting, I would say,
Speaker 1: relatively young couple. That's Harry, he's twenty nine, Louise is
Speaker 1: twenty six, and they have two young children, a three
Speaker 1: year old who's a girl and a six year old
Speaker 1: who's a boy. Robert here's screaming. He sees Louise, who's
Speaker 1: the wife, running over to his house. She's in a
Speaker 1: nightgown and she's saying someone is killing Harry, so someone's
Speaker 1: killing her husband. Robert then sees Harry, the husband, staggering
Speaker 1: to the door holding his neck before he collapses to
Speaker 1: the ground. So Robert runs across the street with Louise
Speaker 1: and they go to help Harry, who's now lying on
Speaker 1: the floor in the house. His throat has been cut,
Speaker 1: and when Robert looks down at Harry, he's awake and
Speaker 1: his lips are still moving, but he can't talk, So
Speaker 1: that's My first question is does that mean his larynx
Speaker 1: was cut? Because I'm going to tell you this. Normally
Speaker 1: I kind of hide this information, but a pathologist will
Speaker 1: eventually say that whoever did cut his throat, unless it
Speaker 1: was Harry, he had missed his jugular vein. So why
Speaker 1: would he not be able to talk?
Speaker 2: Well, I think you know, when you start talking about
Speaker 2: a cut throat, it is entirely possible that the trachia
Speaker 2: could be transacted. Trachia is in the center of the neck.
Speaker 2: Now you're they're talking about jugular veins. Yes, those often
Speaker 2: are are cut, but it's also the deeper carotids, you know,
Speaker 2: where when those are cut, obviously, death ensues very very quickly.
Speaker 2: You know, right now, I would only speculate as to
Speaker 2: well why he couldn't talk without more descriptors of what
Speaker 2: the pathologists found. But yes, if your throat is cut
Speaker 2: and your trachya is transsected, or the larynx has somehow
Speaker 2: been affected, that could prevent you from talking. And there's
Speaker 2: no stab wounds to his chest or anything like that.
Speaker 2: It's just all through the neck, right.
Speaker 1: Yep, you got it. So Robert is traumatized. The neighbor
Speaker 1: he leaves Louise and Harry on the ground and he
Speaker 1: runs to the neighbors. Not everybody has a phone in
Speaker 1: this neighborhood, so he goes to the neighbors whom he
Speaker 1: knows does have a phone. They call the police. The
Speaker 1: little boy who's six wakes up and you know, he
Speaker 1: is on the porch when he sees his father die,
Speaker 1: which is terrible. So there is now a confusing crime scene.
Speaker 1: And this will come up very quickly for question number two.
Speaker 2: For me.
Speaker 1: A lot of neighbors wind up gathering on the porch.
Speaker 1: There's a commotion. Of course, there's already Louise had been
Speaker 1: screaming to begin with. There's Harry, the neighbor who's dead
Speaker 1: on the porch, and they are already going through the
Speaker 1: house before the cops even get there. So of course
Speaker 1: what I write down on my notes is a contaminated
Speaker 1: crime scene. But before I ask you about that, I
Speaker 1: wondered when it became a thing to really secure a
Speaker 1: crime scene in history. So listen to this. This is
Speaker 1: an article written by Livia Gershaan and she says that
Speaker 1: the first practical guide to investigating a crime scene was
Speaker 1: written by Austrian jurist Hans Gross in eighteen ninety three
Speaker 1: and translated into English in nineteen oh six. So what
Speaker 1: Gross said was there were instructions to an investigative officer
Speaker 1: who would lead the effort. They would secure the perimeter,
Speaker 1: protect the scene from contamination, including from the officer himself.
Speaker 1: And you know, he said, you will have as an officer,
Speaker 1: the impulse to immediately touch any object of apparent significance.
Speaker 1: You have to fight that impulse essentially. So they have
Speaker 1: been talking about securing crime scenes for you know, decades,
Speaker 1: So I was wondering about that. I mean, I have
Speaker 1: written so much about this time period, neighbors just walking
Speaker 1: all over the place, and how it must have been
Speaker 1: awful to get a conviction if you have a good
Speaker 1: devinse attorney saying, how do we even know that these
Speaker 1: are this person's fingerprints or you know anything?
Speaker 2: Right? Well, and that's, you know, fundamentally why crime scenes
Speaker 2: have to be secured as soon as you possibly can.
Speaker 2: Of course, life preserving measures take precedence, and so whether
Speaker 2: it be you know, patrol officers arriving first, securing the house,
Speaker 2: making sure there isn't a thread inside the house, rendering
Speaker 2: first aid, e MTS coming. You know, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of chaos if there is going to be any type
Speaker 2: of medical attention going on. But once that step, if
Speaker 2: that step is needed, once that step is done, then
Speaker 2: absolutely freezing the scene and preventing unnecessary entry into the
Speaker 2: scene is critical because a lot of evidence is very fragile.
Speaker 2: You mentioned fingerprints. You know, you could have let's say,
Speaker 2: the killer's fingerprint on a doorknob, and now a patrol
Speaker 2: officer trying to secure the house grabs that doorknob to
Speaker 2: open up the door and eliminates the fingerprint and shoe impressions,
Speaker 2: you know, tracking blood you know, all over the place
Speaker 2: as you walk through the house. That now confuses the
Speaker 2: blood patterns inside the crime scene, and on and on
Speaker 2: and on. So you know, in this particular case, obviously
Speaker 2: it is a very contaminated crime scene. Maybe so it
Speaker 2: just depends on, you know, where the actual violence occurred
Speaker 2: in the house, did the people go in to that
Speaker 2: location or not. And then Harry's body, his clothing is
Speaker 2: also part of the crime scene and has critical forms
Speaker 2: of evidence that can be interpreted.
Speaker 1: When police are reporting or CSI whoever it is, and
Speaker 1: everybody is securing a crime scene and collecting evidence and
Speaker 1: all of that. Is there some sort of systematic way
Speaker 1: that all officers across the nation are taught, Like, is
Speaker 1: there a standard that says this is how many officers
Speaker 1: we need with the yellow, this is what you should
Speaker 1: do next, this is what you should do next, or
Speaker 1: does everybody just do whatever they want to do and
Speaker 1: depending on their jurisdiction, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I would say that there's in essence best practices.
Speaker 2: Every crime scene is different. Now you can kind of
Speaker 2: group crime scenes into kind of clusters as to the circumstances.
Speaker 2: You have an outdoor scene versus an indoor scene as
Speaker 2: the first obvious thing, and then how you deal with
Speaker 2: an outdoor scene versus an indoor scene, you know, you
Speaker 2: take certain steps as a result, depending on the circumstances,
Speaker 2: there may be additional measures that have to be taken
Speaker 2: to protect the scene, and sometimes you don't have to
Speaker 2: take as many measures, you know, and that's really upon
Speaker 2: the expertise of the people that are arriving on scene,
Speaker 2: you know, whether it be the patrol officers or the
Speaker 2: CSIS or the forensic scientists. You know. I know, like
Speaker 2: by the time I got out to my crime scenes,
Speaker 2: I was a you know, reputy share of krimlist. That
Speaker 2: crime scene became mine. And I've seen in other jurisdictions
Speaker 2: that the investigators control the crime scene and oftentimes they
Speaker 2: don't have the wherewithal about the physical evidence because they've
Speaker 2: never done the work themselves, and then they often inject
Speaker 2: certain biases into how that crime scene is processed, you know.
Speaker 2: And so I really like the model of having that
Speaker 2: independent CSI that once they're there, they are controlling how
Speaker 2: the processing of that scene, the documentation of scene, who
Speaker 2: goes in and out of that scene, because they're sort
Speaker 2: of like this independent physical evidence investigator that should be
Speaker 2: paired with, you know, the actual investigators as sort of
Speaker 2: a check and balance.
Speaker 1: Well, there doesn't seem to be anybody in control of
Speaker 1: this particular crime scene of Harry's death, So that's unfortunate
Speaker 1: for us. As we know, the forensics available in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty one were pretty limited. Yes, there are microscopes. Yes,
Speaker 1: they can look at hair and kind of determine what's
Speaker 1: animal hair, what's human hair. No blood typing yet, and
Speaker 1: fingerprint analysis is a thing ish, I mean, not great yet,
Speaker 1: So it's pretty sketchy. We're in the middle of the
Speaker 1: third degree era of policing, so finding out who did
Speaker 1: this would be tough. I have a photo of the
Speaker 1: exterior of the house and a map of the interior.
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm going to show it to you
Speaker 1: just yet. Just know that I have it. So Harry
Speaker 1: is now dead. It is confirmed he has been cut
Speaker 1: across his throat, and the pathologist will have a little
Speaker 1: bit more information. But let me set the scene inside
Speaker 1: the house so that we can start to figure out
Speaker 1: what the police are trying to figure out. What is
Speaker 1: the motivation to kill this man when his wife is
Speaker 1: also right there and there are these two little kids.
Speaker 1: So he is dead by the time the police get there,
Speaker 1: and the scene seems very confusing. It seems apparent to
Speaker 1: the police from all of the blood in the bed,
Speaker 1: in Harry's bed, that Harry was first attacked when he
Speaker 1: was lying in bed, he was lying next to his wife.
Speaker 1: It's midnight, they're sleep. It looks to investigators like whoever
Speaker 1: attacked him had stood behind the head of the bed
Speaker 1: and mend over him. Now, I'm not sure how that
Speaker 1: came they came to that conclusion. Can you think about
Speaker 1: would that be the spray or would what do you
Speaker 1: think that would be for them to determine that?
Speaker 2: Well that I guess I'm puzzled because typically nowadays, the
Speaker 2: head of the bed is pushed up against the wall,
Speaker 2: and so this bed is potentially out in the middle
Speaker 2: of the floor or somehow positioned where they the offender
Speaker 2: could have accessed Harry from behind the headboard. Is that
Speaker 2: how you're interpreting that?
Speaker 1: Well, maybe that's my cue to go ahead and show you.
Speaker 1: Let me share. I don't see. This is how I
Speaker 1: find stuff out. Let me share What I would say
Speaker 1: is a very crude drawing, but I know you find
Speaker 1: these helpful. So this here in the lower left hand
Speaker 1: corner is the map of the room. So if you
Speaker 1: see the little dashes from bed, I think that means
Speaker 1: his pillow is in the center of the room and
Speaker 1: their feet are toward the wall, unless you interpret that differently,
Speaker 1: and then I think the dashes are there showing you
Speaker 1: Harry's root to get on the front porch where he
Speaker 1: ultimately died.
Speaker 2: I guess I haven't seen a bed positioned like that.
Speaker 2: But you know, this is a what I would call
Speaker 2: it bird's eye view, sort of a crime scene sketch.
Speaker 2: Showing the inner layout of the house, you know, with
Speaker 2: the various bedrooms, their relationship to the living room, dining room,
Speaker 2: as well as the door that Harry went out to
Speaker 2: get out onto the porch, the bed that I'm I'm
Speaker 2: assuming Harry originated from where there's all this blood. It
Speaker 2: does look like they've somewhat drawn in the pillows to
Speaker 2: the part of the bed that is actually sticking out
Speaker 2: into the floor. And so I think I agree with
Speaker 2: you is that, yes, the foot of the bed is
Speaker 2: actually what's pushed up against the wall. In terms of
Speaker 2: their positioning of Harry, this is where it's critical to
Speaker 2: understand what the pathologists found. It sounds like Harry's throat
Speaker 2: is cut while he's laying there, possibly while he's asleep.
Speaker 2: You know, I'd be looking for the possibility of defensive
Speaker 2: injuries on his hands, indicating that he was, you know,
Speaker 2: conscious and aware that he was being attacked. But if
Speaker 2: he doesn't have those defensive injuries, then I think it's
Speaker 2: possible that he was asleep when his throat is cut. Now,
Speaker 2: in terms of you called a spray when your throat
Speaker 2: is cut, and if it's cut deeply enough to where
Speaker 2: it breaches the carotid arteries. While your your heart is
Speaker 2: still pumping, you can get what is called an arterial spurt,
Speaker 2: and that's a pretty significant blood pattern if it's present
Speaker 2: and you have an artery that's been breached. If the
Speaker 2: carotids were not cut as a result of this neck wound,
Speaker 2: then in essence, what you're going to have is more
Speaker 2: passive bleeding. And it sounds like the or I think,
Speaker 2: if I remember correctly, you said the pathologist said his
Speaker 2: jugular veins weren't cut. Correct. This is interesting because typically
Speaker 2: with with you know, when you have a throat that
Speaker 2: is cut, the knife wound is going directly across the
Speaker 2: front of the neck, and you know, the jugulars are
Speaker 2: fairly superficial, and so if the jugulars are not cut,
Speaker 2: then it sounds like this incision is pretty focused in
Speaker 2: the front of his neck, which might indicate that his
Speaker 2: trachey or larynx was damaged as a result of this. However,
Speaker 2: if there's bleeding after that neck wound, now like when
Speaker 2: he stands up, he's breathing, or even with these laying down,
Speaker 2: he could potentially be breathing in this blood. This blood
Speaker 2: is getting into his trachea, potentially his oral cavity, and
Speaker 2: if he is gasping, you know, trying to breathe, you
Speaker 2: get potentially these expiratory patterns of blood that come out
Speaker 2: of the mouth, and so that can look like blood
Speaker 2: spatter and that can often be misinterpreted as to what
Speaker 2: caused that type of pattern. So blood patterns, when you
Speaker 2: do blood pattern analysis, you always want to know what
Speaker 2: the autopsy results are first so you can correlate the
Speaker 2: injuries with the patterns at the scene.
Speaker 1: Well, one thing to note about this is this is
Speaker 1: a small house. So look, it looks like it's only
Speaker 1: two bedrooms. You walk through the front porch where Harry died,
Speaker 1: and there's a living room in a dining room, and
Speaker 1: then it looks like the master is on the left
Speaker 1: where he sleeps with Louise, and there's the kitchen, and
Speaker 1: then there appears to me to only be one other bedroom,
Speaker 1: which is I'm assuming we're the boy and the girl
Speaker 1: are sleeping with just the kitchen separating them, and then
Speaker 1: we've got a back porch and then a back one
Speaker 1: bathroom it looks like for the house. So just noting
Speaker 1: that we're going to end up coming back to this sketch,
Speaker 1: and I do want to show you here's the photo
Speaker 1: of the house. It's just a very small, modest house,
Speaker 1: but I thought you might be interested in access. Like
Speaker 1: we're not talking about the deep back top floor where
Speaker 1: they are. I mean, this is pretty exposed and it's
Speaker 1: right on a big street.
Speaker 2: Well, at least per this sketch, it looks like there's
Speaker 2: just one door into this small house, single story house.
Speaker 2: There are multiple windows. I can't see all the windows
Speaker 2: around the house, but in the sketch I can see
Speaker 2: the location of the windows. I mean, those could potentially
Speaker 2: be points of entry for an offender if an offender
Speaker 2: actually got inside this house, you know, And I think
Speaker 2: we'll have further discussions on that. And then it looks
Speaker 2: like he came out that front door and collapsed right
Speaker 2: on that porch.
Speaker 1: So setting the rest of the scene here, so we
Speaker 1: know that the police think that the origin where this
Speaker 1: happened was Harry was in bed. All the blood is there.
Speaker 1: He holds his neck, he kind of crawls, slash staggers
Speaker 1: out onto the front porch and he dies. So they
Speaker 1: go and they look and they say this place is
Speaker 1: a mess. In the bedroom Harry's pant pockets are turned
Speaker 1: inside out and they were just you know, wherever he
Speaker 1: left them last the drawers and the bureau opened Louise's
Speaker 1: purses on the floor. It's open. Now, why we have
Speaker 1: to go back. So this is obviously looking like a burglary.
Speaker 1: Why we have to go back? Something weird. There is
Speaker 1: a pile of jewelry and some silverware found on the
Speaker 1: ground outside the house, underneath a dining room window, So
Speaker 1: we'll go back to the photo that I showed you.
Speaker 1: But the dining room window is locked from the inside,
Speaker 1: so no one went out through it, or at least
Speaker 1: it's locked by the time the police get there. And
Speaker 1: the jewelry, the police say, looks like it was placed.
Speaker 1: It doesn't look like it was flung. It was almost
Speaker 1: like it was stacked outside and it was dropped from
Speaker 1: a few feet up. So they thought that this was curious.
Speaker 1: And the dining room is on the opposite side of
Speaker 1: the house of the bedroom. So let me show you
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about, because they're starting to try to
Speaker 1: figure out as this staged burglary or something you know,
Speaker 1: bigger happening here. When you see this sketch down here,
Speaker 1: and it says Jay, that's where the jewelry was. So
Speaker 1: you see the bedrooms kind of in the upper left
Speaker 1: hand corner. Whoever did this had to go through the
Speaker 1: bedroom into the living room, hang a left at the
Speaker 1: dining room, and then I don't know, this stuff ends
Speaker 1: up out of this window right here, so it's curious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that window is locked from the inside. So
Speaker 2: if this jewelry was dropped out of this window, then
Speaker 2: that person closed the window and locked it. Early on
Speaker 2: in my career, I processed a fair number of burglary scenes.
Speaker 2: That's how I really learned sort of the fundamentals of
Speaker 2: crime scene investigation. Burglars don't do this. So you know,
Speaker 2: when a burglar enters into a house and is gathering
Speaker 2: up items of value, there's usually a container that they use,
Speaker 2: whether it's something that they've brought themselves or something from
Speaker 2: inside the house. A common container that burglars use are
Speaker 2: pellow cases, you know, So any jurisdiction has these pellow
Speaker 2: case burglars. You know, so they don't have any burglary
Speaker 2: tools on their person as they're walking through the neighborhood,
Speaker 2: but they can get inside the house and now they
Speaker 2: can start gathering up items and sometimes a significant number
Speaker 2: of items that they can place into a pellow case
Speaker 2: or the homeowner's backpack or you know, whatever container that
Speaker 2: they can find. You know. So for a burglar to
Speaker 2: take these items of jewelry and toss them out the
Speaker 2: window and then lock the window, that isn't right, you know.
Speaker 2: So that's a red flag to my mind. But I'm
Speaker 2: kind of curious to see what else, what other details
Speaker 2: you provide.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to the scene. So the police
Speaker 1: are automatically just like you. This is a big red
Speaker 1: flag for them, especially just the locked window, the way
Speaker 1: that this is piled up neatly. They said that maybe
Speaker 1: the killer robbed the house of jewelry and silverware, put
Speaker 1: it out the window and it landed weirdly. I don't
Speaker 1: know about that, then locked the window and then went
Speaker 1: back to the bedroom to look for cash. And then
Speaker 1: Harry woke up and saw the person but didn't make
Speaker 1: it out of bed. Because I guess this is a
Speaker 1: burglar who came armed with a knife or a razor
Speaker 1: or something. The police are saying this is a thing.
Speaker 1: They don't really think that's what happened. They feel like
Speaker 1: this is you know something that pretty clearly was focused
Speaker 1: on Harry and murder and not on jewelry and money.
Speaker 1: So when they make a discovery in the street twenty
Speaker 1: five feet away from the front door, police find a
Speaker 1: straight razor with a black handle and it has blood
Speaker 1: on it. This is not belong to Harry, so they
Speaker 1: think maybe this is the murder weapon. But this is
Speaker 1: not Harry's straight razor. First of all, when they say
Speaker 1: straight razor, I'm assuming it's the kind of razor, the
Speaker 1: old school razor that men used to shave with.
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 1: Is that what you would think?
Speaker 2: That's how I'm interpreting it. And that's what barbers use today.
Speaker 2: So you go get a shave at of barber they
Speaker 2: use a straight razor.
Speaker 1: That would terrify Have you done that? That would scare
Speaker 1: me to death? That would somebody come at me with
Speaker 1: one of those with a handle on a razor? I
Speaker 1: guess you're used to it.
Speaker 2: I actually have, Yeah, and it is you know, you
Speaker 2: sit there and you think this person with a single
Speaker 2: stroke could end my life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, little sweeny tadd action happening. Well, that's what they have.
Speaker 1: They have this straight razor. They assume this is what
Speaker 1: the murder weapon is. It's got some blood on it.
Speaker 1: So you know, this has all become a mystery. Louise
Speaker 1: is hysterical, and the neighbors, everybody's trying to console her,
Speaker 1: and the police are investigating, and they don't think it's
Speaker 1: a burglary. So now we have to learn a little
Speaker 1: bit about the couple. This is not straightforward the way
Speaker 1: we think it could go. There's some complications here. And
Speaker 1: I will say I usually say this at the top
Speaker 1: of the episode, but I want to say it now.
Speaker 1: This is something he said, she said, This is what
Speaker 1: this story is about, he said, she said. And I
Speaker 1: don't even have that many of those. So it's interesting
Speaker 1: to see how people perceive the main players in a
Speaker 1: murder case, especially in the nineteen twenty one, which is still,
Speaker 1: you know, a conservative We're not in the roaring twenties,
Speaker 1: yet it's still a very conservative country. Many people think
Speaker 1: women should be wearing corsets still, so you know, this
Speaker 1: case kind of brings up some different things as far
Speaker 1: as our culture. Let me tell you about these folks.
Speaker 1: So they moved from the Ozarks region of Missouri Beautiful
Speaker 1: to Portland. They had known each other their whole lives.
Speaker 1: They grew up on farms next to each other, which
Speaker 1: is sweet. They got married when Louise was seventeen and
Speaker 1: Harry was twenty. And then, you know, Harry wanted to
Speaker 1: work in a World War One shipyard, so they moved
Speaker 1: to Portland. And since moving to Portland, they had very
Speaker 1: robust social lives. They were members of a church, They
Speaker 1: had a lot of social clubs that they were active in.
Speaker 1: Louise played trombone in a local band and took private lessons.
Speaker 1: We have not had a trombone player involved in any
Speaker 1: of our cases yet. I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 2: I guess that's surprising for a female trombone player from
Speaker 2: this era. You know, I'm not sure I've seen that,
Speaker 2: you know, watching old historic you know, like the jazz
Speaker 2: musicians from that timeframe. So interesting.
Speaker 1: Okay, let me tell you what Louise said to investigators.
Speaker 1: Now that we know about Harry and Louise. She said
Speaker 1: her kids are asleep. That the night that Harry died,
Speaker 1: they had both gone to bed about ten o'clock and
Speaker 1: she had fallen asleep pretty quickly. She assumed Harry had.
Speaker 1: She was woken up two hours later by his moaning,
Speaker 1: So she climbs over him, runs to the front door,
Speaker 1: which this is not a big place, as we talked
Speaker 1: about before, it was you know, a few steps. Basically,
Speaker 1: she saw someone running through that front door at the
Speaker 1: same time, wearing a long overcoat. You know. One note
Speaker 1: I would say, as my first instinct I guess was
Speaker 1: why did she not stay there and tend to him.
Speaker 1: She was not covered in blood, so that's not what
Speaker 1: she did. She wanted to run out and get help.
Speaker 1: Is there a wrong reaction to have in that situation?
Speaker 1: You're either you know, trying to help your husband but
Speaker 1: there's nobody who knows help needs to be called because
Speaker 1: they don't have a phone, or you're trying to you know,
Speaker 1: get help and you're leaving your husband there bleeding out.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it really comes down to what is
Speaker 2: her perception at the time. Right now, I'm just hearing
Speaker 2: that she's hearing her husband moaning, you know, is this
Speaker 2: akin to he's having a bad dream, you know, or
Speaker 2: does she see something that causes her to you know,
Speaker 2: climb over him and run out. We can never say
Speaker 2: that there's the perfect way somebody should respond, you know,
Speaker 2: when there is a crime that has occurred. You know,
Speaker 2: we've seen that over and over again. Some people, you know,
Speaker 2: their loved ones have been killed, and they respond a
Speaker 2: certain way, and other people respond a different way. And
Speaker 2: of course, you know, you pay attention to the response,
Speaker 2: but it's not a reliable predictor as to whether or
Speaker 2: not somebody was involved in the crime because they didn't
Speaker 2: respond the way that you think they should have. So
Speaker 2: in Luis situation, it's you know, I guess I'm just
Speaker 2: kind of confused. Harry's moaning and now she's running out
Speaker 2: of the house. She must have, you know, taken in
Speaker 2: more information or sent something more than just hearing him moaning.
Speaker 1: Yep, she must have. I mean, I think the big
Speaker 1: deal to me is she didn't have any blood on her.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I didn't think that she wouldn't
Speaker 1: at least touch him if there was that much blood.
Speaker 1: And she's lying next to him, but they report that
Speaker 1: she doesn't have any blood on her, and she says,
Speaker 1: I didn't clean up anything. I just knew something was
Speaker 1: wrong with him and ran and then she saw this
Speaker 1: person leaving in a long overcoat.
Speaker 2: Right now, I do want to address that though, when
Speaker 2: people see a very bloody crime scene, and it sounds
Speaker 2: like the bed has a fair amount of blood in it.
Speaker 2: A lot of that blood possibly was deposited after Louise
Speaker 2: left the bed. So that's you know, because you have
Speaker 2: to think about the dynamics. If Harry's laying there, his
Speaker 2: throat is cut, yes, he's going out, there's going to
Speaker 2: be some external bleeding, gets up and she gets out.
Speaker 2: There's not a lot of blood that has saturated the
Speaker 2: sheets or the mattress or the pillow whatever this, you know,
Speaker 2: the circumstances are. And then as Harry lays there for
Speaker 2: a period of time, now you get more blood being deposited.
Speaker 2: But then also fabric causes blood to spread even further
Speaker 2: even if there's not more blood being deposited. So when
Speaker 2: you now go into and take a look at this bed,
Speaker 2: it looks like half the bed is covered in blood.
Speaker 2: It was like, well, it's actually wasn't like that when
Speaker 2: Louise was in the bed.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. If things happen the way that Louise
Speaker 1: said they happen, I would say the police are very
Speaker 1: suspicious of Louise because there's nobody who else is there around.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, if they're thinking this is not
Speaker 1: a burglary. Somebody's targeting Harry. They're looking at her first.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that's the right thing. I'm saying that's
Speaker 1: where we are right now.
Speaker 2: Sure, now, I think, you know, going back to you
Speaker 2: know what was observed in the room where his hands have,
Speaker 2: pockets turned out, drawers have been pulled out, You've got
Speaker 2: money and jewelry that has been deposited outside. This all
Speaker 2: must have occurred before Louise got up and got out
Speaker 2: of that bed. So now that's part of the assessment
Speaker 2: of Louise and how and why is somebody doing this
Speaker 2: while she's asleep next to Harry? And then why does
Speaker 2: that offender only attack Harry when Louise was laying right
Speaker 2: next to him asleep. So there are there again, there's
Speaker 2: some red flags here. So I want to know more.
Speaker 1: But you know, we go back to the theory that
Speaker 1: you say all the time, which is you eliminate the threat.
Speaker 1: Louise isn't a threat, right, I mean, Harry is the
Speaker 1: threat with Louise. He can probably intimidate her and he
Speaker 1: can do whatever you take, whatever he wants.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, you eliminate the threat, but you're also eliminating
Speaker 2: the witnesses. So if you're taking the step to kill Harry, yes,
Speaker 2: you kill him first, but then you would also eliminate
Speaker 2: Louise and this offender. At least per Louise's statement, it's
Speaker 2: not like she's in the bed and seeing somebody standing
Speaker 2: over her in the bed like he was about to,
Speaker 2: you know, take further action against her. It almost sounds
Speaker 2: like she wakes up, Harry's throat has been cut and
Speaker 2: the offender is running out of the house, you know,
Speaker 2: So that seems more of Harry is targeted, you know,
Speaker 2: And that's that's odd that the offender has taken the
Speaker 2: time before killing Harry to go through the drawers and
Speaker 2: go through his pockets and put the jewelry outside. Something
Speaker 2: is not adding up here.
Speaker 1: Well, the police agree. A physician who works for the
Speaker 1: corner will later say that he believes it looked like
Speaker 1: Harry's windpipe had been severed, and he's calling bs on
Speaker 1: Louisa's story. He's saying Harry would not be moaning or
Speaker 1: not enough to wake her up. Yeah, now what do
Speaker 1: you think about that? Remember Robert, the neighbors said Harry's
Speaker 1: mouth was moved, but no words were coming out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, And that that adds up the trachia, the windpipe,
Speaker 2: you know, being transsected. Absolutely, if you can't get you know,
Speaker 2: air up through your vocal cords, you can't utter a sound,
Speaker 2: but you still are able to mouth. You know, you know,
Speaker 2: you don't have all these nerves that have been severed.
Speaker 2: You know, you still have you know, motor control over
Speaker 2: the innervations and the muscles that are in your face.
Speaker 2: So you know, it comes down to what exactly is
Speaker 2: this moaning sound with this doctor saying his trachya is transsected,
Speaker 2: his windpipe is transsected. He's not vocalizing anything, but there
Speaker 2: is going to possibly be air passing it in and
Speaker 2: out of this wound? Is she hearing that?
Speaker 1: She can't even identify it. She just assumed it was
Speaker 1: something woke her up, sounds of pain. So the police say, okay,
Speaker 1: tell us about the suspect that you saw running out
Speaker 1: the front door when you were running to go get
Speaker 1: help from your neighbor. So the only description she was
Speaker 1: really able to give, because his back was to her
Speaker 1: and he was wearing a long overcoat, was that he
Speaker 1: was short and squat. The issue is the next day
Speaker 1: she says he was tall and lanky. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to go back to what you've said before, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, inconsistencies can be alarming. At the same time,
Speaker 1: witnesses stink sometimes they can't remember anything. And my description
Speaker 1: of short and squatty as a woman might be different
Speaker 1: than your description of one.
Speaker 2: Well for sure. And she's also seeing this individual in
Speaker 2: what sounds like like a trench.
Speaker 1: Coat in the middle of the night.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the dark, you know, And so this is
Speaker 2: where you know. Of course, if she's being interviewed and
Speaker 2: he's short and squatty and then the next day he's
Speaker 2: now tall and lanky, then the follow up is, well,
Speaker 2: why are you changing your description? And if she's saying,
Speaker 2: you know, I started thinking about it, and I remember
Speaker 2: I can remember him, you know, running past let's say,
Speaker 2: the living room sofa, and now as I think about,
Speaker 2: you know, how tall he is relative to the sofa,
Speaker 2: he was taller than what I initially thought. Is Is
Speaker 2: there a really good reason for her to change so
Speaker 2: dramatically in this physical description.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, let's see. There is a corner's inquest held
Speaker 1: three days after Harry is killed. Of course, the police
Speaker 1: are still interviewing everyone in his life, including Louise. Still
Speaker 1: the corner is a guy named doctor Earle Smith. I mean,
Speaker 1: the jury agrees that Harry was killed by a sharp object.
Speaker 1: There's now an interesting debate on whether or not the
Speaker 1: corner looked at Harry's neck wound and can say it
Speaker 1: was this razor. He's not sure it was the razor.
Speaker 1: Multiple doctors who examined the body agree that this looked
Speaker 1: a little bit more like a large knife. And here
Speaker 1: in lies my question to you. This is their description
Speaker 1: and the reason why they think it was a knife
Speaker 1: and not this bloody razor, this straight edge with a
Speaker 1: handle that was found twenty five feet away. They said
Speaker 1: the cut had been deeper in the middle than on
Speaker 1: the ends, and that hairy skin had been damaged by
Speaker 1: what looked like the hilt of a knife. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: I know it matters in a way. Can they really
Speaker 1: tell that based on a neck wound.
Speaker 2: Which one is describing the neck wood? Is this the pathologist.
Speaker 1: It's like four of them, and they're all kind of
Speaker 1: having the same agreement that it's deeper in the middle
Speaker 1: than on the ends, and it looks like kind of
Speaker 1: a jagged cut.
Speaker 2: Okay, so yes, you know, they can make assessments. They
Speaker 2: can even determine a pathologist can determine is it a
Speaker 2: single edge or a double edged knife, you know. But
Speaker 2: of course assessing the wound in terms of the depth
Speaker 2: of the wound, with it being deeper in the middle
Speaker 2: than on the sides, well, that helps explain why the
Speaker 2: juggler veins the carotids aren't cut because those are on
Speaker 2: the side of your windpipe of the trachia. So this
Speaker 2: knife wound sounds more like it has more of a
Speaker 2: stabbing motion to the center of his neck than like
Speaker 2: an ear to ear type of incision that we often
Speaker 2: see with throats that have been cut. Now you can
Speaker 2: stab the knife in but also do an incisive movement
Speaker 2: and then pull it out, and that would explain almost
Speaker 2: it would almost look like a V shaped neck wound
Speaker 2: from the skin surface of the skin into the neck structures.
Speaker 2: And that's now he's got his trachia transected. He can't
Speaker 2: talk yet his jugulars are intact, as crowdits must be
Speaker 2: intact unless the knife went underneath the jugular on one
Speaker 2: side and possibly severed acrot it. I mean, there's got
Speaker 2: to be. I imagine some significant bleeding going on. If harryus
Speaker 2: is getting up and walking out of the house and
Speaker 2: collapsing due to loss of blood or potentially do sort
Speaker 2: of almost like an asphyxia because his lungs are filling
Speaker 2: up with blood. But either way, he's got a significant
Speaker 2: bleeding injury inside his neck. But it's not like both
Speaker 2: carotids are completely cut, you know, like if we have
Speaker 2: a homicidal throat slashing, you know, this can often be
Speaker 2: near decapitation and that person dies within a matter of
Speaker 2: seconds because the brain absolutely has no blood pumping up
Speaker 2: into it. The carotids are completely transsected, and all the
Speaker 2: bleeding is going there's no blood pressure up to the brain.
Speaker 2: That type of neck wound, it's close to instantaneous death.
Speaker 2: We don't see that with Harry. So Harry is getting
Speaker 2: enough oxygen up to his brain to be able to
Speaker 2: get up and walk out of the house before collapsing.
Speaker 2: So the description of these medical experts of the neck
Speaker 2: wound it makes sense to me. But there is is
Speaker 2: going to be something happening in terms of significant bleeding
Speaker 2: and right now, yeah I'm not hearing Oh yeah, the
Speaker 2: jugglers were cut or the crowd as were cut. There
Speaker 2: are other blood vessels in the neck that this knife
Speaker 2: probably transacted and that's the source of the blood.
Speaker 1: So do you agree with them based on their description
Speaker 1: that this is more likely to be a large knife
Speaker 1: instead of a straight edge, which is consistent all the
Speaker 1: way across based on what they're saying, because it makes
Speaker 1: a difference, Paul, I'll tell you that.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, in terms of the size of the knife,
Speaker 2: you know, I right now I don't have any information
Speaker 2: that would be informative as to the size of a knife. However,
Speaker 2: you know, envisioning the typical straight edge, where you know,
Speaker 2: the front, the top of the blade is blunt, and
Speaker 2: then you have the working edge of the blade along
Speaker 2: you know, just the single edge, and then you have
Speaker 2: that handle, I could envision a way that that blade
Speaker 2: could have been used to inflict a similar looking neck wound.
Speaker 2: They're observing the hilt of a knife handle in the neck. Well,
Speaker 2: necks aren't very big, you know, So if this knife
Speaker 2: is going all the way up to the length of
Speaker 2: it's played to where now you have this part of
Speaker 2: the handle contacting the skin, that doesn't sound like a
Speaker 2: very long knife to me. At all, you know, we're
Speaker 2: talking a few inches. I'm not sure what they mean
Speaker 2: by a large knife. Are we talking about like a
Speaker 2: chef's knife. No, because in order to get that hilt
Speaker 2: to contact the skin, for them to see that that
Speaker 2: knife has gone completely through the neck and into the bed,
Speaker 2: you know, so they would be seeing that complete, you know,
Speaker 2: through and through type of injury.
Speaker 1: Well, let's continue on because there's a lot more ahead here.
Speaker 1: So the newspapers, of course, are yellow journalism. They're reporting
Speaker 1: this all over the place. It's a really big story,
Speaker 1: and you know, people are fascinated with the idea that
Speaker 1: police think this woman might be responsible for murdering her husband,
Speaker 1: and public opinion starts to shift against her. She is arrested,
Speaker 1: but as a this is an interesting phrase. Is this
Speaker 1: a real thing? Witness under arrest, but she's not charged?
Speaker 1: So what is that nowadays? What would we call.
Speaker 2: That a false imprisonment?
Speaker 1: I guess person of interest who's been collected by the way,
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Here in the United States, you have to have probable
Speaker 2: cause in order to deny somebody their freedom, you know,
Speaker 2: that's a constitutional right that we have. And so now
Speaker 2: to say that she's a witness under arrest that you know,
Speaker 2: at least the way that I'm interpreting that where Okay,
Speaker 2: they don't have a they don't have a sufficient probable cause,
Speaker 2: but they think she's the one responsible. She's a suspect.
Speaker 2: That's how I would describe her. She most certainly is
Speaker 2: a suspect. But you still need to cross that probable
Speaker 2: cause threshold in order to deny somebody their right to freedom.
Speaker 2: And it doesn't sound like they've got that with what
Speaker 2: you've told me.
Speaker 1: Yet, I agree, And she is doing the right things.
Speaker 1: She's clamming up. She's not talking to anybody about her attorney,
Speaker 1: which just drives the press crazy and the police, but
Speaker 1: especially the press, and you know, they start describing her
Speaker 1: as a caged tigriss gross because she had reddish hair,
Speaker 1: and they start to sexualize her very much. I would say,
Speaker 1: speaking along those lines, the police are saying and the
Speaker 1: prosecutor are saying, Okay, what's our motive here? And I
Speaker 1: will tell you they don't have a great motive. So
Speaker 1: the neighbors are saying, they seem like a good couple.
Speaker 1: Of course, we never know. She is taking trombone lessons
Speaker 1: from a handsome man his name is J. H. Klecker.
Speaker 1: He is leazy. I will tell you that. And the
Speaker 1: police say that they think that these two people were
Speaker 1: having an affair and that she wanted things to get
Speaker 1: more serious, and you know, the way to convince Glecker
Speaker 1: that she's serious is to kill her husband. They also
Speaker 1: think maybe they were in on it together, and this
Speaker 1: is where we come up with sort of desperate police
Speaker 1: trying to find a motive. And at the same time
Speaker 1: that he said, she said, so I can tell you
Speaker 1: more about Klecker the trombone teacher, or what the police
Speaker 1: are thinking, I will tell you they never do a
Speaker 1: good job settling on. Did Luis do this to draw
Speaker 1: her boyfriend in or did they do it together so
Speaker 1: they could be together. There is zero evidence for either
Speaker 1: one of these theories.
Speaker 2: No, but you know, at least during the investigative stage,
Speaker 2: this is I would say a decent theory from the information.
Speaker 2: This crime scene does have an element of staging that
Speaker 2: is a parent you know, Tupac is obviously turned out
Speaker 2: of Harry's pants, drawers being pulled out, the money and
Speaker 2: jewelry being weirdly positioned outside. You know, considering Harry is
Speaker 2: in essence executed. You know, that's where I'm seeing contradiction.
Speaker 2: I'm seeing staging. And anytime you see staging, that suggests
Speaker 2: that the person responsible, in their mind thinks that they
Speaker 2: are likely going to be considered a suspect. And so
Speaker 2: that would be Louise, and that would be somebody she
Speaker 2: is an intimate relationship with, which is this JH trombone player. Now,
Speaker 2: whether or not Louise acted alone in order to make
Speaker 2: herself free to be able to continue on a relationship
Speaker 2: with JH, or she convinced Jah to come over and
Speaker 2: make this look like a burglary, but kill Harry so
Speaker 2: those so Louise and JH could have a future together.
Speaker 2: Either scenario, I mean those are real. You know, either
Speaker 2: one has had and time and time again throughout history.
Speaker 2: So you know, I think during the investigator stage that
Speaker 2: is a decent theory. But now you have to prove
Speaker 2: that you know? And and is JH? You know the
Speaker 2: man in the overcoat and Louise is lying about well
Speaker 2: it's a stranger versus why I knew exactly who it was?
Speaker 2: And what is Jh's description? Is he short in squat
Speaker 2: or is he tall and lanky? You know, is there
Speaker 2: a reason where she goes, Oh, maybe I described him
Speaker 2: too accurately the first time. So now I'm going to
Speaker 2: go the opposite way and say he's the opposite You know,
Speaker 2: the strange man in the overcoat is a taller guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I think he's a medium guy. He's
Speaker 1: not short and squat, he's not super tall. He's in
Speaker 1: the medium range. Number one, Get that out of the way.
Speaker 1: Number two. Here's the problem with Clecker, I think is
Speaker 1: that Louise said, I am not sleeping with this guy.
Speaker 1: I am not having an affair with this guy. Klecker says,
Speaker 1: I don't know if she killed her husban or not.
Speaker 1: We were not having an active affair. We had some intimate,
Speaker 1: inappropriate intimate moments. I had a girlfriend who was in
Speaker 1: San Diego who is supposed to be moving up to Portland.
Speaker 1: He says, basically, this hot woman, Louise, who was married,
Speaker 1: was hot for me, and a couple of things happened.
Speaker 1: That was not a big deal. I wasn't interested in her.
Speaker 1: I have no idea if she wanted anything deeper with me.
Speaker 1: She didn't profess her love for me. I don't know
Speaker 1: if she killed her husband he had no proof, and
Speaker 1: Louise says, this guy's nuts. I did not sleep with
Speaker 1: this guy at all. But the police are using Clecker's
Speaker 1: story to really kind of bolster their idea of why
Speaker 1: would a woman who is a homemaker, whose husband makes
Speaker 1: a good living, who seems to have a good marriage,
Speaker 1: why would she in nineteen twenty one kill the golden
Speaker 1: goose and go with this trombone guy who doesn't have
Speaker 1: a steady job. He brags about sleeping with her or
Speaker 1: fooling around with her. I think that there is a
Speaker 1: little bit of a disbelief of why this would happen.
Speaker 1: But there's zero proof. I mean, Louise denies sleeping with
Speaker 1: this guy, and he can't come up with anything. There's
Speaker 1: no witnesses who saw them out. I mean, there's just nothing.
Speaker 1: And I'll say one more thing, Paul, because I know
Speaker 1: you probably want to say something. Here. His family, Harry's family,
Speaker 1: and Louise's family all come from Missouri. No one believes
Speaker 1: this story. Everybody is behind her, including Harry's brother. They've
Speaker 1: known her the whole life. I mean, they live next
Speaker 1: door to each other on this farm, and everyone says
Speaker 1: this is nuts. She did not do this at all,
Speaker 1: and she wasn't sleeping with.
Speaker 2: This guy, you know, the police saying that why would
Speaker 2: Louise do this? Yes, it appears that her life with
Speaker 2: Harry at the relationship with Harry at least on the
Speaker 2: surface is good. On the outward appearances of things is good.
Speaker 2: But we've seen time and time again that it's what
Speaker 2: the person is feeling on the inside. I right now
Speaker 2: cannot just say, oh, no, you know, Louise is not involved.
Speaker 2: It's like Louise very much could still be involved in this,
Speaker 2: even though everybody, including her friends and Harry's family are
Speaker 2: you know, saying no, there's no way she would have
Speaker 2: done this. You know, right now, I've got a stage
Speaker 2: crime scene and one of the individuals that has the
Speaker 2: access to Harry as he's laying in bed is Louise.
Speaker 2: So she's still in my mind a suspect. The relationship
Speaker 2: with this J. H. Klecker, you know, that has to
Speaker 2: be drilled down on because now it's not to eliminate
Speaker 2: other possibilities, but it doesn't seem like this is where
Speaker 2: you have a random stranger who's broken into this house
Speaker 2: and was trying to commit a burglary and then decided
Speaker 2: to just you know, cut into Harry's throat. That's not
Speaker 2: how these crimes occur. The staging really suggests that it's Louise,
Speaker 2: this Clecker, or somebody else that's close to this family
Speaker 2: circle that is committing this crime. And at least right now,
Speaker 2: the two potential suspects, or that what I would say,
Speaker 2: The two suspects are Louise and or jh. There may
Speaker 2: be somebody else that comes along, but right now they're
Speaker 2: the suspects and Harry's homicide.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, let's continue on Louise and Harry's families. As
Speaker 1: I said, all think this is crazy. This is not
Speaker 1: what happened. Harry and Louise had a great marriage. Because
Speaker 1: the whole family is in from out of town, the
Speaker 1: trial is pushed up from September to July, so this
Speaker 1: is less than two months after Harry is murdered. And
Speaker 1: the prosecution, Boy, I was shocked when I read this.
Speaker 1: They're looking at the death penalty for a woman.
Speaker 2: So now we've moved from Louise being a witness under
Speaker 2: arrest to Louise being charged for Harry's murder.
Speaker 1: Right, and it is totally based on clicker what he
Speaker 1: tells the police, and he again is not saying she
Speaker 1: didn't confess to me. I don't think she did. You know,
Speaker 1: he's not saying anything except yeah, we had some inappropriate
Speaker 1: relationship stuff. But that was it, I mean, he was
Speaker 1: That was the extent of it, and they ran with this.
Speaker 1: There's no other evidence. The police said, that's why we're
Speaker 1: arresting hers because of what this guy said.
Speaker 2: It's flimsy, very flimsy. He's offering very interesting information for sure,
Speaker 2: as a witness, but you need to corroborate that somehow,
Speaker 2: some way, you know, And of course in this day
Speaker 2: and age, we would be looking for physical evidence, you know,
Speaker 2: such as you know, like this straight edge razor, is
Speaker 2: that Harry's blood on it? And if it is, that
Speaker 2: likely is the murder weapon whose DNA is also on
Speaker 2: this razor, you know, on the handle. I know they
Speaker 2: don't have that technology today, but you know this Trombone
Speaker 2: instructor saying, well, we had sort of inappropriate thing. She
Speaker 2: was kind of coming on to me, and Louise is
Speaker 2: completely denying it. You know, It's like, God, that's not
Speaker 2: enough to push this up to where, oh yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: confident that Louise is Harry's killer. Yeah, you know, she's
Speaker 2: still a suspect, and potentially a strong suspect. You know,
Speaker 2: maybe there is some motive there, but I'm unconvinced right now.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, let's talk about flimsy. One of the neighbors.
Speaker 1: The prosecutor loves this. One of the neighbors who came
Speaker 1: to the house before the police showed up, one of
Speaker 1: those contaminators I call them, said that Louise's side of
Speaker 1: the bed did not look like it had been slept in,
Speaker 1: Like the pillow was too fluffy. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: know how I feel about that, and I know you're
Speaker 1: One of the things you'll say is like, I don't
Speaker 1: know if that makes a difference. Number One. To me,
Speaker 1: it's what's more important is that there's no blood on her.
Speaker 1: That seems a little bit more important than whether the
Speaker 1: pillow was fluffy. And it's a neighbor, a layperson who's
Speaker 1: determining that to begin with, what do you think?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's an observation, but it's sort of
Speaker 2: like I would need to, you know, see the photos
Speaker 2: of that to verify. Is there something that seems to
Speaker 2: be inconsistent with Louise having slept on that side of
Speaker 2: the bed that night. But that's very subjective. Now, the
Speaker 2: blood on Louise or the lack of blood on Louise.
Speaker 2: That's where I need to see the photos of the bed.
Speaker 2: You know, I need to know the extent of the
Speaker 2: blood patterns. I need to know better, you know, the
Speaker 2: the you know, the the blood patterns on Harry, in
Speaker 2: order to assess whether or not somebody could have been
Speaker 2: on Louise's side of the bed and gotten up and
Speaker 2: left without getting any blood on them. And you know,
Speaker 2: part of that assessment is also, as I explained earlier,
Speaker 2: well how much blood was there when Louise would have
Speaker 2: been in the bed versus how much blood is being
Speaker 2: seen at the time that these contaminators are walking into
Speaker 2: the bedroom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and I'm not sure this occurs to
Speaker 1: the police. I mean, they really focus in on who
Speaker 1: is the most likely suspect and they can't get around Louise.
Speaker 1: Now I will say, I mean Klecker. I don't know
Speaker 1: how I feel about him. I don't know who to
Speaker 1: believe her or him, but I'm sure he is whiplashed
Speaker 1: by what the prosecutor does. Klecker is the prosecutor star
Speaker 1: witnessing this, and the prosecutor cannot seem to decide whether
Speaker 1: or not Clecker and Louise did this together or it
Speaker 1: was Louise alone. So you've got this trombone teacher sitting
Speaker 1: on the stand testifying for the district attorney, and the
Speaker 1: district attorney is in some ways accusing him of doing this.
Speaker 1: They cannot settle on anything, I will say this, so
Speaker 1: things get a little complicated. You have not I'm surprised
Speaker 1: you haven't asked this yet. Did Harry have any money
Speaker 1: or did Harry have a life insurance policy? I'm sure
Speaker 1: you were going to get to that though, right Well.
Speaker 2: After looking at the house, I'm pretty confident that there
Speaker 2: wasn't a ton of money in this family, you know,
Speaker 2: most certainly it's all relative, you know, it's what is?
Speaker 2: What is something? I mean, I've seen a woman killed
Speaker 2: for five dollars, Yeah, you know, so it's all relative.
Speaker 2: I hadn't, you know, even form the thought of the
Speaker 2: possibility of life insurance. I should have, but I didn't.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, good, I'm glad I caught you in something
Speaker 1: I did not smart you. So they find out that
Speaker 1: Harry did have a life insurance, a modest one, although
Speaker 1: you're right, I mean it's all relative. Forty five hundred
Speaker 1: dollars in a life insurance policy today that would have
Speaker 1: been about eighty thousand, which doesn't seem like it's a
Speaker 1: lot to many people. And as you pointed out, modest neighborhood,
Speaker 1: modest family. Sure, so there's that. Okay. The biggest weird
Speaker 1: thing that happens in this case is this Klecker is
Speaker 1: on the stand and the prosecution sits down and there's
Speaker 1: cross examination. Okay, Now Louise's defense attorney produces something and
Speaker 1: it's a piece of evidence that shocks the whole courthouse, Okay,
Speaker 1: including Klecker. And the reason that he's able to do this,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you what it is in a second,
Speaker 1: is that there is no discovery in nineteen twenty one.
Speaker 1: There are no discovery rules. Will you quickly and swiftly
Speaker 1: explain the concept behind discovery rules and why they're important,
Speaker 1: and how this lawyer can really throw a gotcha at
Speaker 1: Klecker on the stand, you know, in.
Speaker 2: A nutshell, and this isn't going to be you know,
Speaker 2: the real legal description. So any prosecutors out there listening
Speaker 2: to me, don't don't cringe too hard. But fundamentally that
Speaker 2: the prosecutors have to turn over everything that they have
Speaker 2: in their case to the defendant's attorneys. This is the discovery.
Speaker 2: Now there are select items that can be withheld, but
Speaker 2: that's very limited. And fundamentally this process is that if
Speaker 2: the people who are prosecuting the defendant have information half
Speaker 2: evidence that is potentially exculpatory, you know, that's what the
Speaker 2: defense attorneys are looking for. And that way, the discovery
Speaker 2: process guarantees that the defendant is able to mount the
Speaker 2: most rigorous defense possible with all the evidence and all
Speaker 2: the information that the investigating agency in the prosecutor's office
Speaker 2: has compiled. And this is now where there's a case
Speaker 2: decision of Brady v. Maryland, which really cements the obligation
Speaker 2: of the prosecutor to the point of potentially being personally
Speaker 2: liable if it is found that they've withheld potential exculpatory
Speaker 2: information from the defense. So like when I was working
Speaker 2: for the DA's office, one of the most impressive things
Speaker 2: that I saw was how rigorous the prosecutors from my
Speaker 2: office were at ensuring that the defense got everything that
Speaker 2: they could possibly get there's always going to be some
Speaker 2: some things that are contentious in this adversarial system as
Speaker 2: to whether or not it was actually turned over under
Speaker 2: discovery or not. Now, in this scenario, it sounds like
Speaker 2: Louise's attorney is producing evidence. Now the defense doesn't have
Speaker 2: the same discovery obligation, you know. So this is where
Speaker 2: if the defense discovered evidence, and sometimes you know, defense
Speaker 2: attorneys hire their own investigators, et cetera, then that is
Speaker 2: something that they could potentially produce if there is sufficient
Speaker 2: relevance to defending you know, the defendant. Sometimes the defense
Speaker 2: will do let's say, scientific testing on the people's evidence,
Speaker 2: evidence collected by you know, the investigating agency. Well there,
Speaker 2: now there's a little bit more of okay, you need
Speaker 2: to inform the prosecutors in terms of what you know
Speaker 2: you've done with with our evidence, you know, with the
Speaker 2: people's evidence. But under this scenario, it doesn't sound like
Speaker 2: the situation would require the defense attorney to have divulged
Speaker 2: anything up front under any type of discovery process. And
Speaker 2: I may be completely wrong, but that's my understanding, yep.
Speaker 1: And you're right. I mean that's what leads to this
Speaker 1: what I can only describe as a Perry Mason moment
Speaker 1: in the courtroom. So let me know you what happens.
Speaker 1: Louise's lawyer reaches down looking at Cleicker into a bag
Speaker 1: and he produces an overcoat, and we remember the notorious
Speaker 1: overcoat that the suspect, Louise says, was wearing as he
Speaker 1: was running out the door after murdering her husband. It
Speaker 1: is bloodstained. There's a hunting knife in one pocket. There
Speaker 1: is trombone. I really want to get through this without laughing.
Speaker 1: There is sheet music.
Speaker 2: In the other pocket for trombone.
Speaker 1: Yes, try, yes, it would be not great if it
Speaker 1: were clarinet, but yes, for a trombone. So there's trombone,
Speaker 1: sheet music. There's a knife in the other pocket. And
Speaker 1: then it's blood soaked, they say, with human blood. So
Speaker 1: I have never gotten I have looked everywhere. I've never
Speaker 1: gotten a satisfactory answer about whose blood this could have been.
Speaker 1: Of course, the defense attorney is proclaiming that this is
Speaker 1: Clecker's coat, that you know, he's the one who murdered Harry,
Speaker 1: and then he discarded this, so then I have more information,
Speaker 1: but I want to get your reaction first. I don't
Speaker 1: know whose blood this is. They say it's human. I
Speaker 1: am dubious that this would be human blood. I mean,
Speaker 1: unless we really believe that this is the overcoat of
Speaker 1: the person who murdered Harry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know this right off the bat, there's issues.
Speaker 2: You know, of course today need to see is that
Speaker 2: Harry's blood on the coat. But going back to nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty one, you know, this is where if Harry is
Speaker 2: in essence, is his the front of his throat, his
Speaker 2: windpipe is being transsected, and the offender immediately runs off.
Speaker 2: It's entirely possible that offender has zero of Harry's blood
Speaker 2: on him or her And that's where evaluating the blood
Speaker 2: patterns at the scene and Harry's injuries, all of that
Speaker 2: has to come into play as to whether or not
Speaker 2: the blood patterns on this overcoat are even consistent with
Speaker 2: the crime scene. You know, so, I mean this could
Speaker 2: very well just be mocked up evidence. At this point.
Speaker 2: There was absolutely no chain of custody. It's not being documented.
Speaker 2: It doesn't sound like as to where it was collected from,
Speaker 2: you know, who's had possession of it, documenting that the knife,
Speaker 2: the trombone music, you know, the blood was all there
Speaker 2: when that overcoat was first found. So, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: very skeptical about this evidence at least right now. You know,
Speaker 2: it just seems like this seems too I'm going to
Speaker 2: use the term staged again. I mean, come on, trombone
Speaker 2: music inside the pocket.
Speaker 1: Well, listen to this. Louise's dad is the one who
Speaker 1: found it. You didn't even take a sip of your drink,
Speaker 1: you put it right back down.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well yeah, but is the dad trying to put
Speaker 2: the suspicion on J. H. Klecker? You know, my daughter's innocent.
Speaker 2: He's the killer. You know, this is where and there's
Speaker 2: questions about the veracity of the evidence right off the bat,
Speaker 2: and that's where, you know, definitely investigation into this evidence,
Speaker 2: forensic testing into this evidence has to be done in
Speaker 2: order to even determine does it have relevance to this case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things is
Speaker 1: that he found it. He said he found it in
Speaker 1: the neighborhood, rolled up under a fern plant. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of the issues that the police say is that.
Speaker 1: And then he turned it over to the defense attorney.
Speaker 1: The police say, listen, how long do you think this
Speaker 1: has been here? And of course the dad's like, well,
Speaker 1: obviously the killer deposited it there and hid it there
Speaker 1: after the killing, which was four weeks earlier. It had
Speaker 1: rained numerous times and there was no sign of rain
Speaker 1: water washing out this blood. And the sheet music was
Speaker 1: yeah perfect. I mean, I'm surprised they didn't ask Klecker
Speaker 1: to perform whatever the song was that was in his
Speaker 1: pocket at the time.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, the complexity is this is now being
Speaker 2: produced by the defense in court, so there isn't an
Speaker 2: opportunity to really scrutinize this evidence. And this is where
Speaker 2: you know, the prosecutor I think, would be very much
Speaker 2: in the right to be able to object to relevancy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, without you know, further scrutiny of that evidence,
Speaker 2: not just the dad getting on the stand and saying
Speaker 2: I found it here. There needs to be a deep
Speaker 2: dive into this evidence. Do you determine whether or not
Speaker 2: you know, it is what the defense claims it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, none of that happens. I mean, they can't
Speaker 1: get it thrown out. The jury has heard it, the
Speaker 1: judge is allowing it to be heard. This is the
Speaker 1: life asked major murder trial in Oregon to have an
Speaker 1: all male jury. They deliberate for thirty minutes, that's it,
Speaker 1: half an hour, and they come back with a verdict.
Speaker 1: Her life is on the line. This is a capital case.
Speaker 1: What do you think, Paul Holes, they came up with
Speaker 1: guilty or not guilty?
Speaker 2: Well, there's what I think they should have come up with,
Speaker 2: based on the case against Louise. But my fear is
Speaker 2: is that with such a short deliberation, all male jury,
Speaker 2: this Perry Mason moment with the overcoat, I have a
Speaker 2: feeling that they convicted Louise.
Speaker 1: No, they acquitted her. Oh wow, I think that there
Speaker 1: was enough. There was you know, witnesses who were saying, well,
Speaker 1: the coat could have been there, and they were him
Speaker 1: and Haun. I don't think anybody liked Klecker because he
Speaker 1: came off as leezy. And I still think in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty one, there was absolutely the belief that a woman
Speaker 1: couldn't have done this. She didn't testify, and that was
Speaker 1: that they never found out or never convicted anybody of
Speaker 1: murdering Harry and Louise and the two kids, the boy
Speaker 1: and the girl leave town and she dies in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty six at the age of ninety one.
Speaker 2: Oh Wow.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's the end of that story. I mean,
Speaker 1: what do you think.
Speaker 2: I don't have a problem with Louise being acquitted, though
Speaker 2: I'm still think that she is potentially Harry's killer. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think the prosecution jumped the gun on charging her,
Speaker 2: didn't build up a good enough case. Nor am I
Speaker 2: convinced about this J. H. Klecker not having any involvement.
Speaker 2: I think this investigation got up to a point where
Speaker 2: two suspects were developed and they could have acted independently
Speaker 2: or they could have acted in concert, and they didn't
Speaker 2: do enough to incriminate or exonerate either one of these suspects.
Speaker 2: Further investigation was needed before the before or anybody was charged.
Speaker 2: And you know, now, unfortunately, you know it's over one
Speaker 2: hundred years later. You know, Harry's death is there is
Speaker 2: no justice, there's no answer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, two kids with no dad. Yeah, boy, what a story.
Speaker 1: And I think that it was it really did come
Speaker 1: down to that he said, she said, and planted evidence,
Speaker 1: weird evidence, sleazy trombone teachers. I just think this was
Speaker 1: a complicated case.
Speaker 2: Well, and I know the way that I would be
Speaker 2: looking at this case if I was with the investigating
Speaker 2: agency is okay, one of the suspects has been acquitted,
Speaker 2: can't go after Louise anymore due to double jeopardy. However,
Speaker 2: j Je Klecker is still in play, and that now
Speaker 2: let's really try to determine was he involved or not,
Speaker 2: And there could be all sorts of investigative tactics used
Speaker 2: in order to try to you know, wean that out,
Speaker 2: including potentially gaining cooperation from Louise because she now could
Speaker 2: turn stace witness and said, yeah, I hired Klecker to
Speaker 2: kill my husband, but you can't do anything about it
Speaker 2: because I've been acquitted, you know, But she could say
Speaker 2: he's he was the man in the overcoat. You know,
Speaker 2: there's all sorts of things that could have happened if
Speaker 2: they decided to pursue the case. But you know, I've
Speaker 2: seen sort of the philosophy with prosecutors is that, well,
Speaker 2: we knew we had the right person, they just got acquitted,
Speaker 2: and therefore we're not going to pursue the case any furthers.
Speaker 2: I've got a woman in the early seventies dumped, had
Speaker 2: been raped seemen evidence. Vaginally they charged a guy and
Speaker 2: he was acquitted of her murder. You know, many decades before,
Speaker 2: and I was like, well, I'm convinced that he is
Speaker 2: her killer, where's the DNA? And the prosecutor was like,
Speaker 2: what doesn't matter. It's like, it's an unsolved case. If
Speaker 2: it's an acquittal, it's an unsolved case. We now have
Speaker 2: the technology, you know, prove whether or not the person
Speaker 2: acquitted was the actual killer, or maybe we would actually
Speaker 2: find the real killer and be able to arrest and
Speaker 2: charge that person, you know. So it sounds like in
Speaker 2: Harry's homicide. You know, once Louise is acquitted, then you know,
Speaker 2: the investigating agency in the prosecutor's office just drop pursuing
Speaker 2: it because they were convinced that Louise was Harry's killer.
Speaker 1: They put all their eggs in one basket, and then
Speaker 1: that basket got acquitted in left Town. So there you go. Well,
Speaker 1: next week we will not have this type of case.
Speaker 1: I'm going to stay away from both straight razors, which
Speaker 1: scare me, and also having knives, and we'll be going
Speaker 1: for a different weapon. I can tell you that already.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, as always, I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: All right, see you next week.
Speaker 2: All right, Thanks Kith.
Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 2: For our sources and show notes go to exactly Rightmedia
Speaker 2: dot com slash Buried Bones Sources.
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Alexis Emirosi.
Speaker 2: Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1: Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 2: Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1: Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2: Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark, and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 1: You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Speaker 1: Barry Bones Pod.
Speaker 2: Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
Speaker 2: Age story of murder and the race to decote the
Speaker 2: criminal mind, is available now, and
Speaker 1: Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's Cold
Speaker 1: Cases is also available now