Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language, along with references
Speaker 1: to sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: This book is about second shots and second chances. Never
Speaker 2: give up in life.
Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,
Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken
Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,
Speaker 1: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true
Speaker 1: crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both
Speaker 1: good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the
Speaker 1: unpublished details behind their stories. In nineteen seventy one, James
Speaker 1: Tappenhall was gunned down in Maryland as the deputy sheriff
Speaker 1: patrolled the grounds of a country club. The police searched
Speaker 1: for suspects, which included a gang of teens known for
Speaker 1: breaking into Coca Cola machines, but the case went cold
Speaker 1: for half a century until it finally broke But did
Speaker 1: they catch the real killer? Author Michael Weisberg tells me
Speaker 1: the story from his book A Second Shot, The Pursuit
Speaker 1: of Justice in Maryland's oldest cold case murder. You know,
Speaker 1: I've had people bring me cases before about their relatives.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of weight on the writer, I think,
Speaker 1: because you're telling a very very personal story that you're
Speaker 1: invested in but for a finite amount of time, and
Speaker 1: you know you care very much about these people, or
Speaker 1: you grow to care about them. But in Carolyn's case,
Speaker 1: this is, you know, a a massive part of her life.
Speaker 1: So was it difficult for you to wrap your head
Speaker 1: around that. Were you intimidated in any way? Because I
Speaker 1: get intimidated by stuff like that.
Speaker 2: I think I was intimidated by it. Just what you're
Speaker 2: saying is true. But I also found tremendous support from
Speaker 2: Carolyn and her husband and their daughter Carrie that they
Speaker 2: wanted this to be done and anything that they could
Speaker 2: do to help me. They were there and they wanted
Speaker 2: to give me all the information that I needed. They
Speaker 2: wanted to have their family cooperate, They wanted to have
Speaker 2: anybody that had anything to do with it. Ow Sweat,
Speaker 2: who was the original investigator on the story fifty two
Speaker 2: years ago, in the case fifty two years before anybody
Speaker 2: who had anything to do with it. They wanted them
Speaker 2: to help me, and I felt that, although it was
Speaker 2: something I'd never done before, that initially I got into
Speaker 2: it thinking it was going to be open and shut
Speaker 2: as I talked about it in the book, But even
Speaker 2: as I got further into it and realized that it
Speaker 2: was going to take a while and take several years
Speaker 2: to go through and write, I felt like with the
Speaker 2: fa family behind me, I felt more support than I
Speaker 2: did intimidation.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's great. Well, where should we start with this story?
Speaker 1: Do we want to get into James Tappenhall's background? How
Speaker 1: far back do we want to go?
Speaker 2: Okay, well, let's just start with the fact that here's
Speaker 2: a man who was married and had two children and
Speaker 2: doing anything he could to earn a living for the children.
Speaker 2: They'd originally had a home in Silver Spring, Maryland that
Speaker 2: they'd been kicked out of because they couldn't pay the bills,
Speaker 2: So he obviously he'd grown up extremely poor. He had
Speaker 2: a fifth grade education, and he never wanted something like
Speaker 2: that to ever happen again to his family. So he
Speaker 2: had a job where he worked on transmissions for buses.
Speaker 2: That's for his job. He learned how to do it
Speaker 2: and he was excellent. He became the union steward for
Speaker 2: his company and he was very good at doing that.
Speaker 2: But he also was always looking for other ways to
Speaker 2: make money. For example, he bought a store that had
Speaker 2: ice creaming made ice cream, and he would spend hours
Speaker 2: when he wasn't working on the transmissions in that store
Speaker 2: making the ice cream for sale that was called Shirley's
Speaker 2: ice Cream. He decided to work also at the amusement
Speaker 2: park that was near where they lived, and his job
Speaker 2: was to put people into the roller coaster and make
Speaker 2: sure that their seats were secure and that the things
Speaker 2: were over them so that they couldn't fall out of
Speaker 2: the roller coaster. They needed more security at this amusement park,
Speaker 2: and so they told him, Okay, we're going to make
Speaker 2: you security, but you're going to be a deputy sheriff.
Speaker 2: And so that's how he became a deputy sheriff. There
Speaker 2: was no training, no tests to take, nothing. He had
Speaker 2: a little bit of background who's in the military short time,
Speaker 2: but then was discharged because they had flat feet. So
Speaker 2: here he is now a deputy sheriff and also as
Speaker 2: part of the deputy sheriff's duties, they were security guards
Speaker 2: at the Manor Country Club. This was a beautiful country
Speaker 2: club in Rockville, Maryland, and they had a lot of
Speaker 2: breakings and burglaries in that area. They thought mainly commuted
Speaker 2: by teenagers who lived there. They're breaking into the coke
Speaker 2: machines of breaking into the houses, and so they felt
Speaker 2: like they needed a security guard to work there. So JT.
Speaker 2: Hall was on the regular shift of working security. On
Speaker 2: the night of October twenty third, nineteen seventy one, he
Speaker 2: wasn't supposed to work, his family was over. The ship
Speaker 2: started at seven o'clock pm. He got a call at
Speaker 2: six thirty pm and it was a rainy, dark night,
Speaker 2: just terrible rainstorm. A man who was supposed to work,
Speaker 2: Jim Young, said he had a family matter come up
Speaker 2: and couldn't work and could JT work for him. JT
Speaker 2: said sure, He's always willing to do things to make
Speaker 2: extra money to provide for his family, and so he
Speaker 2: drove to the country club and that started to shift
Speaker 2: at seven o'clock.
Speaker 1: How many years had JT been a deputy sheriff in
Speaker 1: Maryland before what happens happens.
Speaker 2: He'd been a deputy sheriff for approximately five years before
Speaker 2: this had happened.
Speaker 1: Well, we know that he is, you know, somebody who's
Speaker 1: committed to getting security for his family and he's doing
Speaker 1: everything he possibly can. What do you think about him
Speaker 1: as a personality, as a person, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: what does Carolyn say about what her dad was like
Speaker 1: as far as.
Speaker 2: His work approach and things like that. He was very
Speaker 2: hard working, always dill legent about doing his job, whatever
Speaker 2: type of work he was involved with. But he was
Speaker 2: a very loving family man. He loved to spend time
Speaker 2: with his children and his grandchildren. He would do anything
Speaker 2: he could for them, and he would go out of
Speaker 2: his way. Like Carolyn related the story when she was
Speaker 2: six years old, her father took her. They were out
Speaker 2: and her father took her out on the dance floor
Speaker 2: to dance, and she said, I don't know how to dance,
Speaker 2: and he just put her feet on top of his
Speaker 2: and moved her around to dance floor. And that's something
Speaker 2: that almost seventy five years later, she still remembered. Well.
Speaker 2: She also remembered how much he used to love to
Speaker 2: play croquet and other games with the kids, and how
Speaker 2: he hated to have his son beat him so that
Speaker 2: he would a cheat it croquet by kicking his ball along.
Speaker 2: He was a devoted man. He only drank alcohol when
Speaker 2: they would go out to go dancing and things like that.
Speaker 2: He was not a religious man in the formal sense,
Speaker 2: but he was certainly a god fearing man in the
Speaker 2: sense that he treated other people the way he would
Speaker 2: want to be treated.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the area a little bit more. Montgomery
Speaker 1: County in general in nineteen seventy one put us in
Speaker 1: time also with the United States. You know, what is
Speaker 1: the general feeling we have about America in this time,
Speaker 1: and then about this area as far as crime or
Speaker 1: politics or anything like that. So we know what we're
Speaker 1: dealing with here.
Speaker 2: This area is about thirty minutes outside of Washington, d C.
Speaker 2: It's a very democratic voting areas, but in that time too,
Speaker 2: about seventy seventy five percent in presidential elections. Just to
Speaker 2: give you an idea near that area. And Prince George
Speaker 2: Maryland is where George Wallace was shot when he was
Speaker 2: running for president. And as a matter of fact, Frank Hall,
Speaker 2: who was the nephew of JT. Hall, served after he
Speaker 2: was shot in the hospital. He was in charge of
Speaker 2: security for George Wallace's wife, So that's in the area.
Speaker 2: There was a lot going on in the area, a
Speaker 2: lot of racial things in the sixties and seventies. The
Speaker 2: amusement park that I talked about where JT. Hawd worked,
Speaker 2: was burned down in a riot at that time. So
Speaker 2: there was a lot of things going on as far
Speaker 2: as politically in that the Rockville and that whole area
Speaker 2: at all. At the time. JT and his family weren't
Speaker 2: involved in politics. His brother was the fire chief for
Speaker 2: the area for Montgomery County, and JT, as I said,
Speaker 2: was just worked as a deputy sheriffs. But mainly what
Speaker 2: it was was more of a just a glorified security guard,
Speaker 2: both at the amusement park and at the Manor Country Club.
Speaker 2: The Montgomery County is one of the wealthiest counties in Maryland.
Speaker 2: It's now the largest, its largest county. It's now become
Speaker 2: a tech quarter. It wasn't, of course at that time.
Speaker 2: When I think about that time and look back into
Speaker 2: the seventies, I see a lot of youth unrest in
Speaker 2: that area. I see a lot of the teenagers getting together,
Speaker 2: and there are places churches that had their churches open
Speaker 2: just to keep the kids off the streets, not realizing
Speaker 2: that what they were doing in a lot of cases
Speaker 2: was allowing these young men to get together, get to
Speaker 2: know each other, in form gangs, to perform mischief, robberies,
Speaker 2: and things like that. So I think that there was
Speaker 2: a lot of unrest, a lot of the teenagers were
Speaker 2: out and about on the town. I think it was
Speaker 2: an environment that was ripe for having things like burglary
Speaker 2: and other types of criminal activities occur.
Speaker 1: So on this night in nineteen seventy one, Jim Young says,
Speaker 1: can you take over this shift for me? And you
Speaker 1: said it was a rainy night, dark night, and now
Speaker 1: let's pick it up from there. What ends up happening?
Speaker 2: So he goes to the country club and there's always
Speaker 2: on Saturday nights, high stake poker games going on. That
Speaker 2: was another reason to have security there. So he would
Speaker 2: make his way around the parking lot where he parked
Speaker 2: his car, and then go in and out into the
Speaker 2: country club itself and check out and make sure that
Speaker 2: everything was okay there. He used his flashlight because it
Speaker 2: was so dark, and he would make multiple trips around
Speaker 2: the parking lot, which was large to make sure that
Speaker 2: everything was okay. The parking lot on one end about
Speaker 2: the country club itself, and then on one side was
Speaker 2: the golf course, so you could see from the parking
Speaker 2: lot into the golf course. And on the golf course
Speaker 2: were a lot of huge trees, and then on all
Speaker 2: around the golf course were built these mansions that people
Speaker 2: had built with large windows looking out on the golf course.
Speaker 2: He does his shift. He's about four and a half
Speaker 2: hours into it, and one of the things he'd loved
Speaker 2: to do while he was in his car loaning away
Speaker 2: from the house was smoke his pipe. He would smoke
Speaker 2: his pipe intermittently. He had just gotten his pipe out
Speaker 2: at ten thirty and all of a sudden, out of
Speaker 2: the corner of his eye, he sees something going on
Speaker 2: in the area of the golf course. Some things moved.
Speaker 2: So he gets out of his car and starts walking
Speaker 2: over there. It's pouring rain, it's dark, there's almost no
Speaker 2: lighting out in the parking lot. He uses his flashlight
Speaker 2: and sees something move and says, what's going on there?
Speaker 2: What are you doing? Flashes this flashlight and he's able
Speaker 2: to see that in the area between the country club
Speaker 2: and the parking lot, there's built up almost a pyramid
Speaker 2: of household items, things like step stools and jack lanterns
Speaker 2: and sheets and all these things are just in a
Speaker 2: big pyramid, big piles right there. And the next thing
Speaker 2: you hear a gun shot, and he's holding his flashlight
Speaker 2: and the shot hits the flashlight and knocks it out
Speaker 2: of his hand. Everything goes dark. He realizes that he's
Speaker 2: being shot at, so he turns around to get out
Speaker 2: of the way and reaches for his gun. Unfortunately, he
Speaker 2: reached got his pipe out, and at the same moment
Speaker 2: that he got his pipe out, he was shot in
Speaker 2: the back of his head. It was one shot that
Speaker 2: entered in the lower left hand inside of his head
Speaker 2: and lodged behind his right eye. He fell to the ground,
Speaker 2: the pipe went skittering away, ended up near a drain
Speaker 2: pipe here where he was lying, and he was left
Speaker 2: there to die. He was found by a couple who
Speaker 2: had been out on a date, Robert Tristgrad and his girlfriend,
Speaker 2: and they were walking by and they saw him, probably
Speaker 2: within about five to ten minutes of it taking place,
Speaker 2: and they went into the country club and had the
Speaker 2: receptionists there call the police and called for an ambulance.
Speaker 2: A few minutes later, a group of boys drove into
Speaker 2: the parking lot. These boys, who are now known as
Speaker 2: the Coke Machine Gang, at the same time as all
Speaker 2: this was going on, had been attempting to break into
Speaker 2: the coke machines on the Manor Country Club to steal
Speaker 2: the quarters from the coke machines. They saw what looked
Speaker 2: like a big bag of garbage in the middle of
Speaker 2: the parking lot, but stopped there. They'd come back to
Speaker 2: the parking lot. They had left because they'd heard sirens,
Speaker 2: which had turned out to be were fire engines going elsewhere.
Speaker 2: Then they'd come back because they realized that they'd left
Speaker 2: one of the tools that they'd used to break into
Speaker 2: the coke machines on the Coke Machines. So they came
Speaker 2: back and saw this big piece of garbage bag in
Speaker 2: the middle of the parking lot, got out and realized
Speaker 2: that it was a Deputy Sheriff JT. Hall. One of them,
Speaker 2: Robert Canavery, turned his head to the side so he
Speaker 2: could breathe, and the rest went in and also contacted
Speaker 2: the receptionist, and they waited until the ambulance came to
Speaker 2: take him to the hospital. He was still breathing but unresponsive.
Speaker 1: Nice gang of petty criminals. I guess, well, that's risky
Speaker 1: for them.
Speaker 2: These were boys fifteen to sixteen years old, the leader
Speaker 2: of whom his father was a police officer. His name
Speaker 2: was Shoemaker. He had been in trouble with the law
Speaker 2: multiple times, and he was actually his father had told
Speaker 2: him afterwards not to talk to the police, and as
Speaker 2: it turns out, he turned out to be the suspect
Speaker 2: that the detectives initially centered on and felt for years
Speaker 2: that he was the one who had shot the deputy sheriff.
Speaker 2: The Coke Machine boys had been driving around. The Coke
Speaker 2: Machine gang had been driving around that night smoking marijuana,
Speaker 2: and previously they'd gone into a laundry place where there
Speaker 2: was laundry machines and they'd broken into those installed the
Speaker 2: quarters from those. Norman Shoemaker was their leader, and he
Speaker 2: drove them over. He was sixteen, so he drove the car.
Speaker 2: He drove them over to the country club and then,
Speaker 2: like I said, they saw the deputy sheriff lying there
Speaker 2: and they called in and one of them, Robert Cannaveri,
Speaker 2: stayed behind to help him breathe.
Speaker 1: Now, remind me who is the son of the cop?
Speaker 1: Which one of those boys, the.
Speaker 2: Son of the cop is Norman Shoemaker. Okay, he'd been
Speaker 2: involved in other activities, criminal activities in the past, but
Speaker 2: the law states said, you cannot interview a juvenile unless
Speaker 2: they're caught in the act of committing a crime or
Speaker 2: their parent gives consent. And his father would never give consent.
Speaker 2: So he had a very bad reputation among law enforcement
Speaker 2: in Montgomery County. And with this episode, he was initially interviewed,
Speaker 2: but when his father found out what was going on,
Speaker 2: he refused to be interviewed anymore, and so he became
Speaker 2: the prime suspect.
Speaker 1: So you know, at this moment, you've got the Coke
Speaker 1: Machine Gang who were waiting for the ambulance, and you've
Speaker 1: got JT. Who is still alive and Robert turned his
Speaker 1: head so he could breathe. What else does the Coke
Speaker 1: Machine gang say about this situation, I mean from their
Speaker 1: point of view?
Speaker 2: Interestingly enough, after JT. Hall was taken to the hospital
Speaker 2: and then had to be intubated right away because he
Speaker 2: had agonal respirations and he had a neuros urgent come
Speaker 2: in to see him, examined him, looked at the X
Speaker 2: rays that had been dying, told Robert Filo in Melvin
Speaker 2: Hall that there was no hope for him. After he died.
Speaker 2: On the twenty six, they went back and reinterviewed the
Speaker 2: Coke Machine Boys and the only one who admitted to
Speaker 2: breaking into the Coke machines was Robert Cannavery and he's
Speaker 2: actually the only one that served time in jail for that.
Speaker 2: The rest of them went off scott free. They never
Speaker 2: admitted that they had been there doing that also, so
Speaker 2: Robert Cannavery was put in jail. Shoemaker refused to talk
Speaker 2: any further to the police officers, and the rest of
Speaker 2: the Coke Machine Boys alibied each other out so that
Speaker 2: the police interviewed them multiple times but did not feel
Speaker 2: that they were involved with the murder.
Speaker 1: So Robert Cannavery was he in jail for the break
Speaker 1: in of the Coke Machine correct?
Speaker 2: Okay, it's a short period of time for you know,
Speaker 2: trespassing and for vandalism. But he's the only one that
Speaker 2: had anything come from that episode.
Speaker 1: I know you're not a neurosurgeon, but I'm just curious.
Speaker 1: Did you read through the notes from the neurosurgeon who
Speaker 1: looked at JT. I mean, could he have been saved today?
Speaker 1: I always wonder about stuff like that.
Speaker 2: I think that today there's much more advanced technology to
Speaker 2: determine exactly what's going on, including MRIs machines, CT scans.
Speaker 2: When they said an X ray was done, then it
Speaker 2: was probably just a plain the brain of the head
Speaker 2: skull that showed where the bullet had gone. He probably
Speaker 2: had an exam. You know, I can't tell you for sure,
Speaker 2: because no, I did not have the notes. I actually
Speaker 2: went to the hospital now the Montgomery General Hospital. Now
Speaker 2: it's another iteration from the hospital then that was in
Speaker 2: Actually it's two iterations. There was another hospital that took
Speaker 2: its place in the early two thousands, and now there's
Speaker 2: another hospital, much newer, that's been there for about the
Speaker 2: last seven years. And I went there and I called
Speaker 2: the medical records department and I explained to them what
Speaker 2: I wanted, because no one I first tried to get
Speaker 2: into medical records, no one will let me in. Finally
Speaker 2: got the number there, and the man who answered listened
Speaker 2: to me talking what I wanted, and he says, we
Speaker 2: don't know anything about that, and don't you ever call
Speaker 2: this line again? Black click? So I did not have
Speaker 2: any records to look at. You know, there are certain
Speaker 2: things that when you look at certain like for instance,
Speaker 2: someone has a blown pupil, you know, midline shift in
Speaker 2: the brain. There's certain things that you can look at
Speaker 2: just on exam to tell whether or not someone's gonna
Speaker 2: make it or not if they've already had herdiation of
Speaker 2: the brain. I don't know what was done at that time,
Speaker 2: but you do wonder if something like that happened now
Speaker 2: with what we have now. For example, my hospital that
Speaker 2: I work in is a Level one trauma center and
Speaker 2: we have ninety two neuro intensive carrying of beds. We're
Speaker 2: the largest one in the country. This is in Plano, Texas,
Speaker 2: and they have twenty four hour on site neurosurgeons as
Speaker 2: well as neurological radiologists, and they specialize in things like
Speaker 2: this and taking care of patients like this, and they're
Speaker 2: brought from a two hundred mile radius to our hospital
Speaker 2: to take care of So with modern technology, I wonder
Speaker 2: if he could have been saved, if something could have
Speaker 2: been done.
Speaker 1: So is he declared brain dead or how does his
Speaker 1: life actually end?
Speaker 2: At the hospital, he's declared brain dead. He's on the
Speaker 2: ventilator for three days, and then they basically say there's
Speaker 2: no hope. So Melvin Hall, who's his son, who's also
Speaker 2: a police officer and later works for the CIA, and
Speaker 2: actually the night that his dad was shot, Melvin was
Speaker 2: the chief officer for the CIA headquarters at that time.
Speaker 2: He actually worked at the White House under five different presidents. Also,
Speaker 2: this is JT's son. Don't forget. JT only had a
Speaker 2: fifth grade education and his son went on to get
Speaker 2: his college education and work for the policeman and then
Speaker 2: for the CIA. But Melvin Hall and Robert Filo, the
Speaker 2: son in law, popped the doctor and came in and
Speaker 2: said there's no hope. The doctor suggest we take them
Speaker 2: off the bed. Later they did so, and thirty minutes
Speaker 2: later he stopped breathing and was dead.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit more about I don't know
Speaker 1: much about his wife. I won't even ask what her
Speaker 1: reaction was. I know what her reaction was. I'm sure
Speaker 1: it was just devastating for her. But did you get
Speaker 1: a sense from Carolyn what the stages of grief were,
Speaker 1: because I know they can be very different from when
Speaker 1: you've lost somebody in a violent way to an unknown assailant.
Speaker 1: What was it like for this family?
Speaker 2: I think that for Anna, they had been married for
Speaker 2: about thirty three thirty four years, and who was worked
Speaker 2: for the NIH Nationalis Suits of Health as a technician
Speaker 2: and was educated, very smart woman. I think that she
Speaker 2: never got beyond the stage of anger because she couldn't
Speaker 2: understand why Moore wasn't done to find out who killed
Speaker 2: her husband. There was one incident in nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 2: proxibly years after the murder where since the very beginning
Speaker 2: of the Filo family, instead of taking any money or
Speaker 2: any contributions for flowers and things like that, they'd ask
Speaker 2: people to just donate to a fund to try to
Speaker 2: find the killer. They raised one thousand dollars by doing that,
Speaker 2: and it was matched by a thousand dollars raised by
Speaker 2: the man Or Country Club two thousand dollars. They asked
Speaker 2: the chief of police at that time to advertise that
Speaker 2: there was a reward being offered, but it was never done,
Speaker 2: It was never publicized, it was never done, and about
Speaker 2: two or three weeks later, two dogs were found poisoned
Speaker 2: and murdered in the Potomac River, and the Police of
Speaker 2: Chief said okay, and there was a fifty dollars reward
Speaker 2: being offered, and that was widely publicized. So nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: eight there was a really incredible newspaper front page article
Speaker 2: in the Montgomery County paper where they interviewed Robert Filo.
Speaker 2: He basically said how he was now an attorney and
Speaker 2: one of the things that had really upset him about
Speaker 2: police war about what had happened was that they valued dogs'
Speaker 2: lives over human life. Anna had tremendous anger towards what
Speaker 2: had happened. I will say that later in life that
Speaker 2: she did later remarry, and then when he died, she
Speaker 2: moved to Texas to be with Carolyn and Bob living
Speaker 2: with them. She was always a big baseball fan. She
Speaker 2: became a Texas Rangers fan, and she fell in love
Speaker 2: with Pud Rodriguez, the catcher for the Rangers, and had
Speaker 2: a life sized poster of him and the closet the
Speaker 2: door to her closet. So I think she resigned herself somewhat,
Speaker 2: but I think when it came to her husband to
Speaker 2: j T, she never got over the anger what had happened.
Speaker 1: What is the explanation for the lack of action from
Speaker 1: Montgomery County. Is it because he was just some low
Speaker 1: level you had said, you know, a security guard, not
Speaker 1: really what we would think of as a deputy sheriff.
Speaker 1: What do you think happened.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's what it was. No. I think
Speaker 2: that a couple of things happened. First of all, I
Speaker 2: think that they assigned the case to their top detective.
Speaker 2: His name was O. W. Sweat. I actually interviewed him.
Speaker 2: Of course, this is fifty some years after the crime,
Speaker 2: and he really was a lot of confused about a
Speaker 2: lot of details that came out. But talking to him,
Speaker 2: he had handled between forty and fifty murder cases in
Speaker 2: his career. He was a go to guy, and this
Speaker 2: was the only one that he didn't. What they call
Speaker 2: clothes close means that you have a resolution, and it
Speaker 2: bothered him tremendously because he worked in the same station
Speaker 2: as Robert Filo, Bob Filo, the son in law, and
Speaker 2: he felt that if any case could have been he
Speaker 2: wanted to close. He did everything he could to get
Speaker 2: this one closed. Now, I think that having said that,
Speaker 2: I think he made the mistake of what we call
Speaker 2: tunnel vision. It has referred to in my book in
Speaker 2: a couple instances, but basically, I let one of the
Speaker 2: nephews of JT. Hall, Frank Hall Junior, whose father was
Speaker 2: a fire chief. He basically talks about policemen will find
Speaker 2: one suspect that they think has got to be the
Speaker 2: one who did it, though narrow they're focus on that
Speaker 2: one suspect and kind of exclude the other things that
Speaker 2: are going on. In this case, the suspect was Norman Shoemaker,
Speaker 2: the young man who was there that night, who was
Speaker 2: driving the car, and who the police felt was just
Speaker 2: a bad apple, And so I think he focused on
Speaker 2: him to the exclusion of other people. When I talked
Speaker 2: to him, he said he interviewed over one hundred people
Speaker 2: involved living in the area, this and that, But I
Speaker 2: think that he never got beyond that initial impression, and
Speaker 2: there was never any physical evidence because of the rain
Speaker 2: and things like that. And also at that time they
Speaker 2: closed off the area where the murder occurred, but they
Speaker 2: really didn't most of the collecting of evidence till the
Speaker 2: next day. The next morning, so a lot of the
Speaker 2: things had washed away. I mean, they found the pipe,
Speaker 2: they found the bullet, that had gone through the flashlight flashlight,
Speaker 2: but they didn't really start to collection until the next day.
Speaker 2: They did an aerial view of the whole area the
Speaker 2: next day with the plane flying over taking pictures that
Speaker 2: they showed at the trial. But I think the fact
Speaker 2: that there was absolutely no physical evidence, no eyewitnesses, which
Speaker 2: it kind of blows your mind. You think about this
Speaker 2: a busy country club, all these poker games going on,
Speaker 2: boys breaking into the soda machines, and no one hears
Speaker 2: or sees anything, no eyewitnesses, no physical evidence. And then
Speaker 2: even later when DNA evidence came, which is the main
Speaker 2: way that cold cases are solved now is with DNA evidence,
Speaker 2: there was absolutely no DNA evidence to look at. So
Speaker 2: I think that the same thing that we have in
Speaker 2: medicine tunnel vision, where you initially you get called by
Speaker 2: the emergency room. We've got one lab abnormal. This is
Speaker 2: what the patient has, ay pancread titis, and you, as
Speaker 2: a physician go in and treat them for pancreaditis, when
Speaker 2: actually when you talk to them and find out more
Speaker 2: about them, they're complaining of this incredible headache and it
Speaker 2: turns out they're having a bleed into their brain. That
Speaker 2: all they had was just one abnormal blood tests. So
Speaker 2: what I'm saying to you is that it happens in
Speaker 2: all different fields. Yeah, you can't just center in on
Speaker 2: one diagnosis on one suspect, and I think that's what
Speaker 2: happened here.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about the evidence again. Now you had
Speaker 1: said that JT would have seen. Was it like a
Speaker 1: pile of stuff? You said it was Halloween decorations? Was
Speaker 1: that part of a theft? Is that what the suspect
Speaker 1: was doing?
Speaker 2: We think yes.
Speaker 1: Did they find out where those were stolen from? I mean,
Speaker 1: were they able to go into the house.
Speaker 2: Absolutely? And I actually spent the day with that couple.
Speaker 2: Roger and Diane Schmidt had just moved into a house
Speaker 2: on Manor Country Club one month before the murder took place.
Speaker 2: That day, they'd gone to the mountains. They had a
Speaker 2: newborn daughter, and when they came back, they realized their
Speaker 2: garage open. It didn't work, but she'd left the window
Speaker 2: to the second floor of her daughter's bedroom open because
Speaker 2: she'd painted it that day. So she borrowed the lighters.
Speaker 2: Dark now after ten o'clock at night, and she borrowed
Speaker 2: a lighter from a neighbor and climbed in through the
Speaker 2: second floor window and found that the entire house had
Speaker 2: been ransacked. Drawers opened things on the floor, so they
Speaker 2: realized that their house had been broken into, and they
Speaker 2: called the police department immediately, and this was approximately ten
Speaker 2: forty for about five to ten minutes after the murder
Speaker 2: had taken place, and the Montgomery County Police Department said,
Speaker 2: we'd love to come out there, but we can't do
Speaker 2: it now. We've got a murder going on. We've got
Speaker 2: someone that was shot, and we've got to go take
Speaker 2: care of that first. So maybe a while within five minutes,
Speaker 2: five patrol cars showed up in their driveway. Because they
Speaker 2: realized there could be a connection between what was found
Speaker 2: all these items and stuff, they took the Schmid's in
Speaker 2: one of the patrol cars over to where the golf
Speaker 2: course met the parking lot, and all the eye that
Speaker 2: were found there this huge pile were from their house.
Speaker 2: Missing was her wedding ring, which was never recovered. Her
Speaker 2: engagement ring was never recovered. However, they did recover most
Speaker 2: of their other things, including their Stirling silver and as
Speaker 2: I said, Jack, a ceramic jack lantern which they still
Speaker 2: have in which they showed me when I spent time
Speaker 2: with them, the steps to which they still have a
Speaker 2: break in had occurred that same night. They were moving
Speaker 2: the different things from the break in across the golf
Speaker 2: course which was dark a tree covered to an area
Speaker 2: where a parking lot was where they had a car
Speaker 2: parked so they could put in the car and take
Speaker 2: it away. And appears as though Sheriff Hall w Sheriff
Speaker 2: Hall came upon this at the wrong time.
Speaker 1: So at the moment you know JT has died, you
Speaker 1: have the you know ow Sweat, that's his name, right, correct.
Speaker 1: O W.
Speaker 2: Sweat was lieutenant. The man in charge of the crime
Speaker 2: scene was named Jerry Boone, but O. W. Sweat was
Speaker 2: the one who was at a to who was given to.
Speaker 1: So Sweat is on the case. And I know Jerry
Speaker 1: Boone also. And they think that Norman Shoemaker, because he's
Speaker 1: a bad seed essentially and was there of course, should
Speaker 1: be their main suspect. Tell me how the investigation goes
Speaker 1: until it stops going, because it does at some point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like it was actually worked for at
Speaker 2: least six months. But another thing that happens in police
Speaker 2: work is that these police officers get promoted, to get
Speaker 2: moved to different places, things like that. And that's another
Speaker 2: definition of a cold case is when the case is
Speaker 2: no longer being worked by the people that are familiar
Speaker 2: with it and that know what's going on. And so
Speaker 2: within the next two years he was moved to a
Speaker 2: different position, and so he was no longer working that case.
Speaker 2: Other people that were working the case really couldn't find
Speaker 2: anything out. Again, interviews talking, they have this burglary, they
Speaker 2: have this coke machine breaking, but other than that, they
Speaker 2: can't put anything together. No one saw anything, They have
Speaker 2: no other evidence. A couple of theories start making the rounds.
Speaker 2: One is that it was a mafia hit gone bad.
Speaker 2: Possibly someone was trying to hit the man who was
Speaker 2: supposed to be working that night, Jim Young, Apparently his
Speaker 2: son had been involved in some malfeasans mafia hit theory
Speaker 2: was first. One of the relatives of the Philo Hall
Speaker 2: family had been told that and been told that they
Speaker 2: were there was actually something gone wrong. The hit man
Speaker 2: was going to kill Deputy Sheriff Young ended up killing
Speaker 2: j T. And because, interestingly enough, there was a mafia
Speaker 2: member who was in the Hall Filo family. His name
Speaker 2: was tutsy because there was a hall Filo family member
Speaker 2: who was in the mafia. It was said that the
Speaker 2: killer was actually murdered himself and his body dumped at
Speaker 2: the bottom of a bridge, so the whole thing had
Speaker 2: ended there. So that was one theory that had gone around.
Speaker 2: The other thing was theory that gone around was he
Speaker 2: had all these incredibly wealthy people living in that area,
Speaker 2: the Manor country Club area, who had all these teenagers,
Speaker 2: a lot of whom were involved in mishift and in
Speaker 2: crimes and things like that. And so the other theory
Speaker 2: was that the murder had been done by one of
Speaker 2: these teenagers we don't know who what, and that their
Speaker 2: parents had paid for there to be silence, that nothing
Speaker 2: further was done, that the investigation basically round to a halt.
Speaker 2: Both of those seemed far fetched to me, but those
Speaker 2: were the two other theories, alternative theories that were going
Speaker 2: on as to why a murder of this caliber. And
Speaker 2: you said before by the Deputy sheriff, believe me, after
Speaker 2: going to several of these yearly Montgomery County Memorial weeks
Speaker 2: that they have and going to the ceremonies, the candlelying ceremonies,
Speaker 2: I have the way they honor each of these men
Speaker 2: and women that were killed in the line of duty.
Speaker 2: It's of utmost importance that they solved this. They considered
Speaker 2: these people anyone that's died in the line of duty.
Speaker 2: It's just been a terrible tragedy and there has to
Speaker 2: be resolution.
Speaker 1: But you know, Sweat and Boone run into a brick wall.
Speaker 1: They can't make a case against Norman Shoemaker, and you know,
Speaker 1: after six months, it goes cold, it just gets put
Speaker 1: away in a file. And that is that for fifty years.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not going to say for fifty years, because
Speaker 2: what I'm going to say is that in nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: five was the other major case of Montgomery County that's
Speaker 2: known for the abduction, rape, and murder of the Lion's Sisters,
Speaker 2: Lyo and Sisters. Yeah, these were two girls ten or
Speaker 2: twelve years old who were went to the Wheaton Plaza Mall,
Speaker 2: which was a open mall at that time in Montgomery County,
Speaker 2: and both of them were seen there. It was Sheila
Speaker 2: and Kate Lyon. They were abducted, apparently in plain sight,
Speaker 2: and they were then raped repeatedly, apparently murdered Audies burned
Speaker 2: and thought to have been taken and buried in Virginia
Speaker 2: in that case had been called for forty years, but
Speaker 2: in twenty twelve that case was reopened and it's the
Speaker 2: subject of the book by Mark Bowden, who also wrote
Speaker 2: Black Hawk Down. He wrote a book about this entitled
Speaker 2: The Last Stone, and in Balden's excellent book, he talks
Speaker 2: about how this group of cold case detectives is put
Speaker 2: together to solve this case. It was done by a
Speaker 2: man named Chris Homrock HM Rck and home Rock, and
Speaker 2: these detectives are basically go back through the case figure
Speaker 2: out the things that had been missed and were able
Speaker 2: to after a couple of years of working, were able
Speaker 2: to get a confession from the man who has tried
Speaker 2: and convicted of the rape and murder of these two girls.
Speaker 2: So I think that was on the fortieth anniversary twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: So I think because of that there was some impetus
Speaker 2: when the fiftieth anniversary of this case came up to say, hey,
Speaker 2: if we're going to find anything, we got to do
Speaker 2: it now before everybody who's involved in the case is dead.
Speaker 2: And so they turned again to Chris Homrock to form
Speaker 2: a Cold Case Team and on the original team that
Speaker 2: sawved the Lion murder case. Blincester's murder case was Katie Leggett,
Speaker 2: and Katie had been in the Child Primes program. That's
Speaker 2: where she made her bones, was dealing with people who
Speaker 2: had abuse children, sexual abuse and things like that. And
Speaker 2: for the next ten years that's all she did was
Speaker 2: she was on the cold case detective team. So she
Speaker 2: was selected to be part of the cold case team
Speaker 2: to try to solve this case. At the time that
Speaker 2: this was going on, there were a lot of active
Speaker 2: murder investigations that were shorthanded. But a patrol officer who
Speaker 2: had been doing plain clothes patrol, Lisa Killing, had asked
Speaker 2: for transfer to cold case team because she was interested
Speaker 2: in knowing what it was like to work a cold case.
Speaker 2: So they put her. She was an excellent outstanding officer
Speaker 2: in the outstanding record. They put her on this case.
Speaker 2: And then they picked a woman from the Homicide Division,
Speaker 2: Sarah White, and she made out that three of them
Speaker 2: made the cold case team to solve this and so
Speaker 2: that was in twenty twenty one and they got to.
Speaker 1: Work what do they have to work with? Because didn't
Speaker 1: you say the things they collected didn't have DNA, that's correct.
Speaker 2: Everything they had to work with was in one cardboard
Speaker 2: box and that cardboard box was plunked down on Lisa's
Speaker 2: Lisa Killen's desk, and she was told by Katy Leggett,
Speaker 2: go through it. Put it into a way that you
Speaker 2: can interpret it and you can work with it. And
Speaker 2: so she went started going through all the evidence particulously
Speaker 2: and really nothing was showing up. There are some things
Speaker 2: that they investigated, but nothing was shown up until she
Speaker 2: came to a real to real tape that was labeled
Speaker 2: interview with Richard Hobart hoba Rt. Richard had been a
Speaker 2: young man who also had involved in some different things
Speaker 2: around that area. And it was interesting because his name
Speaker 2: and the license plate number of his parents' car was
Speaker 2: found in the notebook that JT. Hall always carried with
Speaker 2: him when he was on patrol.
Speaker 1: Oh, so he saw the car, so he saw.
Speaker 2: The So he saw a car and had that in him.
Speaker 2: So Lisa Killen decided she needed to get that first.
Speaker 2: She didn't even know what a real real tape was,
Speaker 2: but when she finally got figured it out, she needed
Speaker 2: to get it digitalized into a form that she and
Speaker 2: her co detectives could look at and so they spent
Speaker 2: quite a time doing that, and then finally it had
Speaker 2: to be done by the FBI. They were the only
Speaker 2: ones that had the technology to do that. And when
Speaker 2: they got the tape and sat and listened down listened
Speaker 2: to it, it was about a three hour interview with
Speaker 2: a man named Larry Becker. And Larry Becker in that
Speaker 2: interview had been put in jail in nineteen seventy two
Speaker 2: for robbie a townhouse in Glenmont, which is a community
Speaker 2: near Rockville, Maryland. And he had been put in jail
Speaker 2: in seventy two and then, while serving time in kind
Speaker 2: of a lower level prison, had escaped from jail, and
Speaker 2: then when he was caught and brought back, they added
Speaker 2: extra time to a sentence. So he came in in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy two and said, Okay, I have information about
Speaker 2: the murder that occurred of Deputy Sheriff JT. Hall, and
Speaker 2: I'm willing to give you that information exchange for leniency
Speaker 2: or reduction in my sentences.
Speaker 1: That's interesting, Okay, keep going.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he just showed up and said that. So he
Speaker 2: shows up and they interviewed him for three hours and
Speaker 2: the men that interview him had nothing to do with
Speaker 2: the original case and really didn't have a really good
Speaker 2: idea of what had happened. But what he did in
Speaker 2: that interview, he said that he was an eyewitness to
Speaker 2: what had happened. He was the first person that was
Speaker 2: a witness, and he said he had seen seven to
Speaker 2: eight boys on the coke machines and they were trying
Speaker 2: to break into the coke machines. He had identified the
Speaker 2: four of them that he knew, and he said that
Speaker 2: it was a clear, beautiful night. Visibility was great, but
Speaker 2: he was in an area where they couldn't see him,
Speaker 2: but he could see them. And then he saw someone
Speaker 2: come out who was dressed in normal sheriff's clothing, not
Speaker 2: the yellow raincoat that JT. Hall was wearing that night
Speaker 2: in which he was founding. When he was found down
Speaker 2: on the park lot, bat Man said to the boys, hey,
Speaker 2: what are you doing. One of the boys, who identified
Speaker 2: as someone named Greg schwar crouched down and shot twice.
Speaker 2: There were two shots, and he also said that the
Speaker 2: policeman had shined a flashlight directly at them, and so
Speaker 2: he identified both there being a flashlight and the fact
Speaker 2: that there were two shots. He then said after the
Speaker 2: shots were fired, he ran away. He ran to a
Speaker 2: place called Maggie's, which was the Church of Mary Magdalene,
Speaker 2: which is where they had a youth center for these
Speaker 2: teenage boys and girls to gather, and that later on
Speaker 2: the murderer, Greg Swar had shown up there. Also, Larry
Speaker 2: said that he hadn't come forward sooner because he was
Speaker 2: afraid of the consequences of it, because everybody would know
Speaker 2: that he was a snitch and that some of these
Speaker 2: boys had older brothers that would get him and could
Speaker 2: possibly hurt him. But now he felt like he was
Speaker 2: going to serve his time in jail, leave Maryland and
Speaker 2: never come back to Maryland again. So he was willing
Speaker 2: to talk to them and lay out the whole scene
Speaker 2: that night.
Speaker 1: And so, I mean, I was just looking down. I
Speaker 1: don't have a note about Greg. Out of all of
Speaker 1: these boys you were talking about, I mean, I see Robert,
Speaker 1: I see Norman, I see a couple of other folks.
Speaker 1: What are the cold case detectives thinking about that when
Speaker 1: they hear that reel to reel? Are they're now looking
Speaker 1: for Greg's information? I'm assuming so Greg was very easily.
Speaker 2: He quickly alibied out, Oh okay, so he was not
Speaker 2: there that night, had nothing, and he had alibi the show.
Speaker 2: And none of the four boys that he mentioned out
Speaker 2: of the seven or eight that he said were there,
Speaker 2: were there. They were all alibied out.
Speaker 1: How old was Larry when this happened? I just am
Speaker 1: trying to set.
Speaker 2: That Larry at this time was in his early twenties.
Speaker 2: He was twenty when the deputy sheriff of shots, and
Speaker 2: we would have been about twenty one twenty two. He
Speaker 2: was thirty when he left finished his sentence, because the
Speaker 2: three policemen talked to him, looked at the evidence, looked
Speaker 2: at where he said the body was, where he was shot,
Speaker 2: where the confrontation had taken place, looked at the weather
Speaker 2: that night which was different from what he said, looked
Speaker 2: at what the policeman was wearing, which was when he
Speaker 2: said yeah. And they basically said, this gentleman is lying
Speaker 2: to try to gain reduction of a sentence. They disregarded it.
Speaker 2: They kept the tape, mislabeled the tape and put it
Speaker 2: back in the box.
Speaker 1: Now you've got this group of cold case detectives and
Speaker 1: they're listening to that interview, and I'm wondering if they
Speaker 1: pick up on anything that had a grain of truth,
Speaker 1: or why they would even be interested in Larry if
Speaker 1: he was a big liar.
Speaker 2: In police work, with these cases, there's very often the
Speaker 2: hold back. In the Lion's Sister murder case, the hold
Speaker 2: back was to clothes the girls were wearing. It was
Speaker 2: never identify what they were wearing. And when they finally
Speaker 2: got Lloyd Welch to talk, he was able to identify
Speaker 2: exactly what they were wearing. The hole back in the
Speaker 2: Deputy Sheriff JT. Hall case, there were two whole backs.
Speaker 2: One no one ever said what the number of shots were,
Speaker 2: and there were two shots that were fired, and he
Speaker 2: identified two shots. And then number two, no one ever
Speaker 2: said anything about a flashlight, and he identified the flashlight
Speaker 2: as being there and being shot so by table shot
Speaker 2: out of his hands, but did identify that the flashlight
Speaker 2: was there. So that by saying those two things, and
Speaker 2: he actually put himself at the scene of the murder,
Speaker 2: the detectives felt that he was someone worthwhile pursuing.
Speaker 1: Well, and I mean, and he's fingering a boy who
Speaker 1: you say has a very clear alibi. So somebody's lying,
Speaker 1: it's obviously him if he's saying the kid's there, and
Speaker 1: the police can prove that he wasn't there.
Speaker 2: The two things he said were right, but he got wrong.
Speaker 2: So many things he got wrong. What the policeman was wearing,
Speaker 2: what the weather was that night, where the policeman was found.
Speaker 2: He said that he'd been shot twice from the front. Well,
Speaker 2: he had this gunshot wound was in the back of
Speaker 2: the head. The kill shot was from the back of
Speaker 2: the head. And he said he was facing Greg's squire
Speaker 2: when he was shot. So he'd gotten so many things
Speaker 2: wrong that they did not feel he was there, and
Speaker 2: they did. They disregarded sets money, and they made him
Speaker 2: sort of his entire eight years.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, what happens when you know, we flashed forward
Speaker 1: and this group of women, these cold case detectives, realize
Speaker 1: that he got a couple things right, and that whoever
Speaker 1: initially interviewed him had dismissed him far too quickly.
Speaker 2: They couldn't find him. He was gone, he was lost.
Speaker 2: They looked everywhere for Larry Becker, nowhere. So he had
Speaker 2: a brother named Leslie Becker, And they looked back and
Speaker 2: they saw that back in nineteen seventy two that Leslie
Speaker 2: Becker had made a statement of the police saying that
Speaker 2: his brother Larry might know something about the murder of
Speaker 2: the deputy sheriff. So they decided. Lisa decided to look
Speaker 2: for Leslie Becker, but he was dead, but in his
Speaker 2: obituary it said that he had a surviving brother, Larry Smith,
Speaker 2: and so she went on a deep dive into Larry Smith.
Speaker 2: Larry Becker was originally born Larry Smith, as was Leslie Becker.
Speaker 2: They were born in Little Falls, New York, the second
Speaker 2: smallest city in the state of New York. There were
Speaker 2: four children and they had a father who was never
Speaker 2: home he was a truck driver, and a mother who
Speaker 2: he was an alcoholic, so that they were taken from
Speaker 2: that household, four children put into foster homes until when
Speaker 2: Larry was seven, mister Becker came by and his wife.
Speaker 2: They had just adopted a little boy and they wanted
Speaker 2: a sister to go with him. They couldn't have their
Speaker 2: own children. Larry had an older sister and they wanted
Speaker 2: to adopt just the older sister, but Larry's birth mother said, no,
Speaker 2: if you're going to adopt anybody, you have to adopt
Speaker 2: all four kids. So these people, the Beckers, adopted all
Speaker 2: four kids and eventually moved them to Rockville, Maryland, where
Speaker 2: he was working at an excellent job. And so Larry,
Speaker 2: what he had done in the interim was just as
Speaker 2: he'd said. He'd left Maryland after serving his time, changed
Speaker 2: his name back to his original name, Larry Smith, and
Speaker 2: moved to Little Falls, New York, where he started a
Speaker 2: new life. Never been in trouble with the law. He
Speaker 2: got married, he had three children. Interesting enough, he had
Speaker 2: several jobs, including a job as a security guard, which
Speaker 2: was the last job that he held. He had to
Speaker 2: stop working and get on disability in his fifties due
Speaker 2: to medical conditions. At different times in his life. He'd
Speaker 2: smoked up to three packs a day. It was an
Speaker 2: incredibly heavy smoker, had heart disease, had heart attacks, had
Speaker 2: constructive pulmonary disease. But he'd been living quietly in Little Falls,
Speaker 2: New York for forty years. Wow.
Speaker 1: So they finally find him, and you know, this is
Speaker 1: not enough evidence. Obviously, they need to talk to him
Speaker 1: and they need to see what if there's any kind
Speaker 1: of physical evidence or anything that ties him to this.
Speaker 1: So I assume that the cold case detectives approach him
Speaker 1: and say, we need to interview you.
Speaker 2: First of all they did was they made two control
Speaker 2: calls using someone named John Rizzo. When Larry had said
Speaker 2: that night that he was an eye witness, he said
Speaker 2: that he'd originally been with John Rizzo and then he'd
Speaker 2: left John Rizzo and walked down to the country club.
Speaker 2: John Rizzo at the time was in the military in California,
Speaker 2: so there's no way he could have been with him.
Speaker 2: But what they did was they got John Rizzo to
Speaker 2: call him.
Speaker 1: Can I pause for a second. I mean, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: He is awful. He's not picking the right you know, alibis,
Speaker 1: he's not picking the right weather. It's just silly mistakes.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I can't never understand criminals sometimes.
Speaker 2: Well, this is a gentleman who when he was tested
Speaker 2: IQ both when he was with the Becker family down
Speaker 2: in Maryland, he was sent away to a boys institute
Speaker 2: placed like almost like a military school to try to
Speaker 2: get him straightened out, and they tested his IQ then
Speaker 2: in IQ of eighty seven. When it was retested later
Speaker 2: on in life, when he was in his seventies, was
Speaker 2: eighty three. He's a street wise person because at the
Speaker 2: age of sixteen, the Becker family, the father threw him
Speaker 2: out of the house onto the streets, and for the
Speaker 2: next four years Larry lived on the streets of Montgomery
Speaker 2: County in Rockville, Maryland. He did not have a home.
Speaker 2: He either slept at Maggie's or there was a pet
Speaker 2: cemetery where people would bury their pets right next to Maggie's,
Speaker 2: which had open places where he could lie down and sleep.
Speaker 2: So that's where this gentleman slept. So I think that
Speaker 2: you're right in some ways. He's not real sharp, but
Speaker 2: like I said, street wise and survival wise, he seems
Speaker 2: to you know, he did a pretty good job.
Speaker 1: Okay. So John Rizzo calls him and what's that? What
Speaker 1: are these control calls?
Speaker 2: Like? So control call means that the police are listening
Speaker 2: in on the entire situation, and John says to him,
Speaker 2: the police are after me because they say that you
Speaker 2: name me. You and I both were there night the
Speaker 2: deputy sheriff was killed. Now they've come after me, saying
Speaker 2: that I'm the killer, and they don't know anything about
Speaker 2: you because he changed your name. It took me so
Speaker 2: long to find you this and that, and he said,
Speaker 2: you better. You need to give me something that I
Speaker 2: can tell the police so that they will get off
Speaker 2: my back and leave me alone. In the first call,
Speaker 2: Larry becker Smith denies being that person, denies ever living there,
Speaker 2: denies knowing this person, and they eventually hangs up on him.
Speaker 2: He then does Larry does things where he gets on
Speaker 2: the internet and does different things to find out about
Speaker 2: what's going on, tries to and he actually makes two
Speaker 2: further calls back to John Rizzo, which John's instructed by
Speaker 2: the police not to answer so that they can do
Speaker 2: another control call. The second control call, Larry becker Smith
Speaker 2: admits that he was that teenager who grew up in
Speaker 2: that area. He denies having anything to do with the
Speaker 2: murder of police officer. Can't even imagine why he's being
Speaker 2: called about it. All he talks about is that he
Speaker 2: was arrested for the burglary that was done in Glenmont
Speaker 2: and the townhouse. And he said that he thinks that
Speaker 2: the police are just pulling Brizil's leg not don't have
Speaker 2: really anything on him, and that he can tell him
Speaker 2: whatever he wants, it's not going to affect him. But
Speaker 2: to just leave him alone, and they kind of leave
Speaker 2: it in an adversarial way, but he at least they
Speaker 2: got him to admit that he had lived in that
Speaker 2: area and that Larry Smith or Larry Becker who they
Speaker 2: were searching for, was now actually Larry Smith.
Speaker 1: Wow, what happens next?
Speaker 2: So the two police main people on the cold case team,
Speaker 2: Katie Leggett and Lisa Killen, go up to that area,
Speaker 2: take a trip up to that area and could do
Speaker 2: some reconnaissance and they find that Larry Smith is now
Speaker 2: living in a home for seniors. He's on the eighth
Speaker 2: floor in this apartment and he has his own apartment,
Speaker 2: and they kind of figure out. They make contact with
Speaker 2: the police force in that area and they tell them,
Speaker 2: you know what's going on, and then they decide a
Speaker 2: couple months later, they've tapped they haven't tapped his phone,
Speaker 2: but they've been able to see on his phone who
Speaker 2: he's called. For instance, they saw he had called back
Speaker 2: to Rizzo that side, make calls to his daughter who
Speaker 2: was taking care of him and who lived in the area.
Speaker 2: And so they go back a couple months later with
Speaker 2: the intention of interviewing him to find out what he
Speaker 2: really knew about the crime. They had no other leads,
Speaker 2: nothing else had turned up. Because he'd identified himself as
Speaker 2: being there that night, and because he'd gotten two of
Speaker 2: the holebacks wrecked, they decided to go up there and
Speaker 2: to interview him. So they go to the police station,
Speaker 2: get two officers with them, go to this place where
Speaker 2: he's living, which has someone sitting there in the entrance
Speaker 2: and has to let you in. They go up to
Speaker 2: his apartment and he basically says, you know, I thought
Speaker 2: you'd becoming because of what he talked to about Rizzo
Speaker 2: and stuff. And they just say, hey, we're here to
Speaker 2: talk to you. We want more information, and he agrees
Speaker 2: to go with them to the police headquarters in great
Speaker 2: Fall and to be interviewed.
Speaker 1: What ends up happening, Does he confess and he goes
Speaker 1: on trial.
Speaker 2: It's the most amazing thing. It's a three and a
Speaker 2: half hour discussion and you see Katie Leggett use her
Speaker 2: incredible interrogation methods minimalization which she learned when she took
Speaker 2: care of when people were child abusing, pedophiles and things
Speaker 2: like that. You have to minimize the crime that they've done.
Speaker 2: So will say, it's really not that bad. She also
Speaker 2: said some things, you know, how built this gentleman up,
Speaker 2: how great he was, how he turned his life around
Speaker 2: this that the bottom line is he ends up confessing wow,
Speaker 2: not only to them, but then within the next two days,
Speaker 2: he calls his daughter and his son, who are separately
Speaker 2: and tells each of them that, you know, he didn't
Speaker 2: want to tell them this, but he'd murdered someone fifty
Speaker 2: years before and he's now going to be going to
Speaker 2: jail for it.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, did he say that this is just
Speaker 1: something that he's been thinking about? It was he racked
Speaker 1: with guilt? It sounds like it. If he confessed quickly.
Speaker 2: It was an incredible thing to watch. You have to
Speaker 2: see them, and they're in a tiny room that's closed in,
Speaker 2: no windows, one door, and he's sitting within a couple
Speaker 2: of feet of each of these women detectives, and so
Speaker 2: it's an incredible thing to watch. But they had said
Speaker 2: to him that planted the idea. They had said to
Speaker 2: him that this is you know, you're getting this. You
Speaker 2: feel better now getting this off your chest, And he
Speaker 2: said yes, And he kind of used that same phraseology
Speaker 2: when he talked to his children.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, So does he take a plea deal while
Speaker 1: not a plea deal.
Speaker 2: What happens, so he's why his extradition. He's guilty, and
Speaker 2: he's taken back to Maryland to stay in trial, and
Speaker 2: then on the way there, once he gets there, he
Speaker 2: changes his mind. He refused to ever talk to me,
Speaker 2: but talking to his lawyers and other people and all,
Speaker 2: he just basically decided that he didn't actually do it.
Speaker 2: He'd been talked into doing it and instead of he
Speaker 2: was initially assigned the public defender, but when they realized
Speaker 2: the resources that would be needed to try this case
Speaker 2: and defend this man, they turned it over to Comington
Speaker 2: and Berlin, which is one of the largest law firms
Speaker 2: in the world and has an incredible reputation. It's top
Speaker 2: for pro bonal work. It's been ten times top law
Speaker 2: firm in the country. And they assigned a lawyer, one
Speaker 2: of their top lawyers, Kevin Collins, and a team of
Speaker 2: three younger lawyers to defend him. I went up for
Speaker 2: the trial. The first trial, it lasted five days. The
Speaker 2: verdict came back that they were able. They were trying
Speaker 2: him for a first murder, which is premeditated murder, and
Speaker 2: the jury came back not guilty on that or they
Speaker 2: said it was not guilty but on the charges of
Speaker 2: felony murder, which is murder while you're committing a felony,
Speaker 2: which would be the robbery, and also in the charges
Speaker 2: of felony burglary. They were deadlocked. It was either eleven
Speaker 2: to one or or tend to two to convict, so
Speaker 2: it was called a hung jury. They said they were
Speaker 2: hopelessly deadlocked. The judge said, We're going to retry this
Speaker 2: case because I'm not happy with this. I feel like
Speaker 2: it has to have a resolution, So they retried it.
Speaker 2: That was in January. They retried it in July. Between then,
Speaker 2: I'd had my heart surgery and all the different things
Speaker 2: were involved with that, so I couldn't go back up
Speaker 2: for the case. I heard everything through the filos, and
Speaker 2: things had changed. The defense now had focused in on
Speaker 2: looking at each part of the confession and whether or
Speaker 2: not it was his own words, or whether or not
Speaker 2: it had been fed to him by the detectives. They
Speaker 2: had wanted to introduce two false confession experts to the trial,
Speaker 2: but the judge just allowed that. They said that twenty
Speaker 2: two percent of people who had been convicted on the
Speaker 2: basis that their confession turned out to have DNA was
Speaker 2: and everything else that exonerated them. But just on the
Speaker 2: basis of their confession, they were convicted. That's how powerful
Speaker 2: confession is. Jurrys hold that even higher than they do evidence.
Speaker 2: So the defense took each part of his confession and
Speaker 2: showed how prior to him saying something, it had been
Speaker 2: fed to him by Katie Leggett, that the things that
Speaker 2: he said were not his original ideas, and that when
Speaker 2: he was talking out during the confession was mainly the
Speaker 2: robbery that a KI had done at Glenmont, where no
Speaker 2: weapons were no one was killed, and they were able
Speaker 2: to convince the jury that he was innocent and that
Speaker 2: had been fed to him. The prosecution changed in that
Speaker 2: they presented things in a more cohesive fashion, and they also,
Speaker 2: instead of just the charges of that I mentioned previously,
Speaker 2: they also introduced the charges of conspiracy murder first degree
Speaker 2: and conspiracy burgerer first degree, saying that there was someone
Speaker 2: else who was nicknamed the Raven, and this was Billy
Speaker 2: Ray Edwards, and this was his best friend, that he
Speaker 2: had also been there that night because in the confession,
Speaker 2: when he had confessed to the detectives up in Little Falls.
Speaker 2: He brought in the name of the raven that he
Speaker 2: had been there also and originally said he had shot him,
Speaker 2: that it wasn't him. But the raven was six feet tall.
Speaker 2: Larry was five foot three, and when they asked him
Speaker 2: about told him about the directory of the bullet, how
Speaker 2: it gone from the back of the head, lodged behind
Speaker 2: the right eye. They said it couldn't have been some
Speaker 2: of the size of the raven, so he took that back.
Speaker 2: But anyway, because of them having those charges against the
Speaker 2: raven at the conspiracy, the raven did not appear as
Speaker 2: a witness in the second trial, and the first trial
Speaker 2: is his best friend, he said he knew Larry, he
Speaker 2: knew nothing about the murder. Larry knew nothing about the murder,
Speaker 2: and so he was taken out of this whole second trial.
Speaker 2: And after the second trial the jury came back not
Speaker 2: guilty on all charges, and Larry Becker Smith was a
Speaker 2: free man.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, at what age? How old was he?
Speaker 2: Seventy two? Carolyn Filo was eighty two, Bob's eighty two.
Speaker 2: They were crushed. So when I talked earlier about my
Speaker 2: relationship with them after that, and I, as I said,
Speaker 2: was writing the whole time. I had three hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty pages of this book written before the second trial,
Speaker 2: you know, because I was needed something to do to
Speaker 2: recover and get my mind off my recovery. But when
Speaker 2: I looked at everything and went back, I looked back
Speaker 2: and at the second trial. The one piece of evidence
Speaker 2: that came out that wasn't at the first trial was
Speaker 2: when he went in in nineteen seventy two to try
Speaker 2: to gain a lesser sentence. The second day that he
Speaker 2: was there interviewed with them, they introduced brought to a
Speaker 2: police officer named ow Sweat. This was nowhere introduced nowhere
Speaker 2: in the first trial, but ow Sweat actually took him
Speaker 2: out to the Manor Country Club parking lot and had
Speaker 2: him explain everything that he saw and what had happened.
Speaker 2: And ow Sweat said, this man didn't have eyeballs on it.
Speaker 2: So the man who had the most to gain, who
Speaker 2: had a spotless record of solving murders, and who knew
Speaker 2: the most about the crime. It was within a year,
Speaker 2: about eighteen months after the murder had occurred, didn't come
Speaker 2: out till the second trial that he actually on the
Speaker 2: second day in a not recorded portion, just none of
Speaker 2: that was recorded, but he had actually been there and
Speaker 2: said he did not have eyeballs on that. So when
Speaker 2: I wrote the book and I got that information when
Speaker 2: it came to the very end, rather than leaving everybody
Speaker 2: say well, I don't know what happened to I basically said,
Speaker 2: there's both sides presenting tremendous cases. There's evidence for evidence against.
Speaker 2: But the thing that makes me feel that he was
Speaker 2: innocent was that the original detective ow Sweat did have
Speaker 2: the opportunity to go back with him through everything and
Speaker 2: said he wasn't there. So the Philo Hall family wasn't
Speaker 2: real happy. I think that I'd reached a different conclusion
Speaker 2: for anything even started a trial. We had been talking
Speaker 2: about how this guy had murdered her father and how
Speaker 2: he had confessed, and how the case was now wrapped
Speaker 2: up and the family had resolution and things like that.
Speaker 2: And so I look back and Robert Filo, who's an
Speaker 2: excellent writer, he's in the attorney, he asked me if
Speaker 2: he could write a chapter giving the family's feelings as
Speaker 2: to what had happened and include that in the book,
Speaker 2: and I said yes. He sent me the chapter and
Speaker 2: what he'd written and with his wife and daughter, and
Speaker 2: so I included that as the last chapter in the book.
Speaker 2: And they still feel that Larry was the murderer, and
Speaker 2: they feel that ultimately God will be the one to judge.
Speaker 1: Is Larry still alive.
Speaker 2: Larry is still alive. He's back to living his quiet
Speaker 2: life in Little Falls in New York. The Pilos have
Speaker 2: since moved to Houston to be near their daughter and
Speaker 2: grandchildren and son who all live in Houston. But I've
Speaker 2: seen them since then. I'm still her doctor, and so
Speaker 2: I've seen her and I still talk to them, and
Speaker 2: they're doing well. I think. I think that the fact
Speaker 2: the fact that they've been able to talk to people
Speaker 2: about the book, have neighbors and people come up to
Speaker 2: them and sign the book, and I think that they
Speaker 2: feel I think, does she if you talk to her
Speaker 2: and ask her, I think that she does. She says
Speaker 2: she doesn't really know what you know closure is. You know,
Speaker 2: you want closure for people, You want a family to
Speaker 2: have closure. She doesn't know what closure is, but I
Speaker 2: think she feels like she has closure.
Speaker 1: Is Melvin still alive.
Speaker 2: Melvin is still alive. He's not in good health at all.
Speaker 2: He still lives in Virginia. His son Brian is retired
Speaker 2: police officer from Virginia and he lives close to him.
Speaker 2: His wife Judy is still alive. Incredible life story from
Speaker 2: Melvin and what he's done and what he's accomplished in
Speaker 2: his life.
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Sinners, All About the
Speaker 1: Ghost Club, All that Is Wicked, and American Sherlock, and
Speaker 1: Don't Forget. There are twelve seasons of my historical true
Speaker 1: crime podcast, tenfold More Wicked right here in this podcast feed,
Speaker 1: scroll back and give them a listen if you haven't already.
Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer
Speaker 1: is Alexis M. Morosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.
Speaker 1: This episodisode was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is
Speaker 1: our composer, artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark,
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