Dead Weight PT 2

Summary

Buried Bones – "Dead Weight PT 2"

Podcast: Buried Bones
Hosts: Kate Winkler Dawson & Paul Holes
Date: November 12, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode of Buried Bones, Kate and Paul dissect the infamous 1931 "trunk murders" involving Winnie Ruth Judd, known as the "trunk murderess." The pair revisit the grisly discovery of two bodies in suitcases in Los Angeles, examining the psychological, forensic, and circumstantial evidence surrounding the case. Their discussion blends modern forensic insights with a historical narrative, piecing together the tangled motives and aftermath of one of America’s most sensational women-led crimes.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Recap of the Case and Prior Evidence (02:42 – 08:12)

• In October 1931, two women—Sammy and Ann—are discovered dead in steamer trunks and a suitcase at a Los Angeles train station.
• Winnie Judd, former roommate and friend to both victims, emerged as the main suspect after she and her brother Burton tried to claim the trunks before fleeing (05:36).
• The relationship dynamics between the women and the significance of the Great Depression and the tuberculosis epidemic for independent young women in Phoenix are contextualized.

Quote (Kate):
"This is where it all starts to kind of unravel." (06:51)

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2. Forensics & Psychological Profile (08:13 – 13:11)

• Paul discusses the risk Winnie took in personally transporting the bodies cross-state and her apparent attempts to delay suspicion through elaborate coverups (06:52).
• Backgrounds are fleshed out: Winnie's tumultuous marriage, her battle with tuberculosis, and hints of mental instability, as exemplified by her fantasy life about imaginary children (09:18).

Quote (Paul):
"I have to conclude at this point that in her mind, because she’s a former roommate of the two victims, she would naturally presume that she would become a suspect." (06:52)

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3. Timeline & Investigation (15:30 – 24:18)

• Police trace the suspects: Burton and William (her husband) are cleared through interviews and alibis; Winnie is found to have acted alone.
• Forensic details: Winnie’s apartment is found to contain sedatives, surgical instruments, and shells from the murder weapon. Evidence of self-inflicted injuries is discussed.
• Winnie's confession is read via her attorney, claiming self-defense during a confrontation with her roommates—a claim Paul swiftly doubts based on forensics.

Quote (Paul):
"Yeah, it’s BS." (23:20, responding to Winnie's self-defense claim)

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4. The Trial: Hysteria & Sympathetic Defendant (25:50 – 31:14)

• The 1932 Phoenix trial draws immense media attention, with actual film footage of the packed courtroom.
• Paul notes the challenge for prosecutors when the defendant is an attractive, seemingly demure woman.
• Kate highlights the public’s fascination with the case and the rare video documentation from the era (26:32).

Quote (Paul):
"She’s dressed in a very conservative outfit... She’s looking very demure, trying to pretend to be an innocent defendant. Well, but she’s been coached, you know, it’s to try to get the jurors’ sympathy." (26:32)

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5. Motives, Mental Illness, and Romantic Rivalry (31:14 – 40:08)

• The prosecution argues premeditation and points to self-inflicted wounds as evidence against self-defense.
• The possible mental health elements—schizophrenia, psychopathy with paranoia—are debated, but no consensus emerges among the psychiatrists.
• Introduction of Jack “Happy Jack” Halloran, a wealthy lover, as a potential accomplice, complicating the narrative.

Quote (Paul):
"Fundamentally, I just don’t see any real argument for true insanity here. There may be a mental health concern, but I don’t think it rises to the level where you can’t convict." (39:00)

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6. Confessions Galore: Changing Stories & the Role of Jack Halloran (40:08 – 44:54)

• After conviction and a death sentence, Winnie changes her story, implicating Halloran as an accessory post-murder.
• The grand jury declines to indict Halloran but commutes Winnie’s death sentence to life; she claims burning evidence, moving bodies with Halloran’s help, and throwing body parts out the train window.

Quote (Kate):
"This is like confession-rama... There’s a lot of confessions that happen." (40:08)

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7. Sanity, Legal Maneuvering, and Dodgers of Justice (48:07 – 51:45)

• Days before her scheduled execution, Winnie is declared insane and transferred to a mental asylum.
• She escapes from custody seven times, spending over six years as a fugitive living under an alias in San Francisco—before being recaptured and ultimately pardoned at the age of 65.

Quote (Paul):
"That's because she’s at in a low-level, you know, custodial environment, and she’s smart enough and sane enough to be able to figure out how she can actually get out of this facility." (49:24)

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8. Definitive Confession and Aftermath (51:46 – 59:56)

• In her final confession, found in the Arizona archives, Winnie outlines the crime closely matching the prosecution’s original account:
  • Motive: shame over infidelity, frustration and jealousy towards Ann, psychological instability.
  • Timeline: Attempted murder foiled by emotion, later successful shooting of Ann, fatal fight with Sammy (53:21).
  • Practical details: moving heavy bodies, cleaning, burning evidence, distributing the remains between trunks and suitcases.
• Paul finds this final account credible, noting the alignment with physical evidence (55:58, 56:45).
• Discussion on the likelihood of the bodies remaining undetected if the trunks had been disposed of in the Pacific Ocean; both hosts share practical insights about steam trunks’ buoyancy.

Quote (Kate):
"My maniacal condition gave me superhuman strength." —Winnie, quoted by Kate (54:57)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Reveal and Misdirection

  • "I was trying to not snicker every time you said he, he, he…then you wouldn’t have time to be mad at me when I said, oh, it’s a woman." — Kate (02:50)

• On Forensic Contradictions

  • "This is an absolute fabrication and this is the attorney setting up a self defense case to try to get his client off. But the physical evidence completely contradicts that statement." — Paul (23:31)

• On Winnie's Escapes

  • "Between 1939 and 1962, she escapes from prison seven times." — Kate (49:24)

• Final Reflection

  • "I think she needs to be held or needed to be held responsible for her crimes. I do not believe that she's somebody that should have been subjected to the death penalty…" — Paul (58:33)

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Important Timestamps

• Case and Recap – 02:42–08:12
• Profiling & Mental Health – 08:13–15:43
• Confession & Forensic Dissection – 22:36–25:50
• Trial and Video Footage Discussion – 25:50–31:14
• Changes to Plaintiff’s Story, Accomplice Claims – 40:08–44:54
• Prison, Escapes, and Final Outcomes – 48:07–51:45
• Definitive Confession & Analysis – 51:46–59:56

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Conclusion & Takeaways

This episode exemplifies the ongoing complexity of the Winnie Ruth Judd case—dubbed the “trunk murderess.” The hosts provide a rich, forensic- and psychology-driven breakdown, interrogating Winnie's changing confessions, the evidence of both mental health struggles and premeditation, and the remarkable aftermath owed to her repeated escapes, eventual pardon, and longevity.

The podcast underscores both the timelessness of human fallibility in criminal justice and how historical cases can benefit from being reexamined with new tools and perspectives.

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For full case photos, diagrams, and evidence:
Instagram: @buriedbonespod

Transcript

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

This is exactly right.

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[Becky Milligan]

It's 1972. A young British family is attempting to sail around the world when disaster strikes. Their boat is hit by killer whales and it sinks in seconds. All they have left is a life raft and and each other. This is the true story of the Robertson family and their fight to survive, hosted by me, Becky Milligan. Listen to Adrift, an Apple original podcast produced by Blanchard House. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the last 25 years writing about true crime.

[Paul Holes]

And I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated, complicated cases and solve them.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes.

[Paul Holes]

And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st century lens.

[Paul Holes]

Some are solved and some are cold. Very cold.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

This is buried bones.

[Paul Holes]

Hey, Kate. How are you?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I'm doing well. Have you been thinking about this case, Paul?

[Paul Holes]

I've been thinking about it all week. What's going on?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yes, what's going on? I was trying to not snicker every time you said he, he, he, he, he. When we were talking about the offender and I said, I wonder if he's going to get mad at me. Which is why I put the reveal at the very end because then you wouldn't have time to be mad at me when I said, oh, it's a woman.

[Paul Holes]

I am so used to you just leaving me hanging and bamboozling me and all of that. So it's all good.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I know it's my job. I know I've been called a lot of things. I'm not sure a Bamboozler is something ever been called, but I appreciate it. Well, let's get into this because I just. There's a lot of background. So the first half of this was very forensic. Y, you know, talk about wounds and weapons and who the potential offender is. Now we know who the offender is. And now you're going to have to kind of get into the criminal profiling part of this, or the offender profiling, because this is not an open and shut case, as you can tell, a woman who is being accused of murdering her two former roommates, who, as we get into this, were very good friends. So let me go ahead and do the recap and then we'll get right back into it. If you've had any lingering questions or thoughts, you can certainly talk about that after the recap.

[Paul Holes]

Sure.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay. So 1931, a train arrives from Phoenix to Los Angeles. There are a couple of steamer trunks, a small brown suitcase, and a hat box that smell. There are body parts belonging to one woman in various locations in these different things. And then another woman who is curled up in the fetal position. Both are dead. And there has been oozing and smells. There was a woman who showed up with a friend of hers who was college age. His name was Burton. And they claimed the trunks. But then when they thought it seemed a little like maybe somebody was suspicious of them because of the ooze, they said, we don't have the key. And then they took off and they're in the wind. And in the meantime, they've put together all of this information about the two women who were murdered. They are Sammy and Ann. They are roommates in Phoenix. One is a nurse. And we haven't had any red flags, except when they finally figure out because they know who Burton is. Cause I'm assuming they paid him and knew his first and last name. They found out who the other woman is. And the other woman is Winnie Judd. Who. Winnie Ruth Judd is a pretty famous name. When people have pitched this to me, which of course I said was a fantastic idea, it's always as the trunk murderess, which is what she was known for. We kind of get into the world of tuberculosis of independent young women, you know, in Phoenix and, you know, a kind of a manhunt for this mysterious woman.

[Paul Holes]

When Winnie shows up with Burton in the LA train station, they know who he is. He's a local USC student, college age. Does he have any connection to Phoenix at all?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

It doesn't seem like it right now, no. Except this is his sister. She is a woman that passengers start to remember and recognize who was on the train with the hat box and the small suitcase.

[Paul Holes]

Okay, so this explains. So you have the two steamer trunks that are in essence checked, right? So when he brings those to the train out in Phoenix, that goes over to the train staff to, in essence, put them in cars, cargo for transport. But she holds on to the suitcase and the hat box. And so when she gets off and things are not looking right, she leaves those in the bathroom at the train station in la.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Got it abandoned. All of it. If they had not known Burton's name because he had worked for them, you know, as a porter, I guess, a little on a freelance gig over Christmas to earn extra money, then I don't know if they would have identified her because I'm sure she paid cash. And, you know, eventually they would have figured out what the roommates situation. But, yeah, this is. This is where it all starts to kind of unravel.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And.

[Paul Holes]

And I think what's interesting to me is, is why is Winnie and. And I'm presuming Winnie is the one responsible for Sammy and Anne's death, dismemberment and transport to the train station. Imagine the risk that she's taking. You know, she, in essence, is transporting two homicide victims plus the evidence from the crime scene with her out to la. I have to conclude at this point that in her mind, because she's a former roommate of the two victims, that she would naturally presume that she would become a suspect. And so fundamentally, she is trying to hide that a crime has committed inside that condo, at least for as long as possible, so she can set up maybe an alibi or put distance between her and the crime scene in terms of physical distance as well as temporal distance. How much time has passed before authority discover that, you know, these two victims are victims of homicide?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

But it seems so disjointed. So she gets rid of these mattresses. I don't know how she almost gets halfway through cleanup and then changes her mind and then halfway through something else and then changes her mind. I just don't understand what her mindset is, but maybe we will as we go along.

[Paul Holes]

I think she got in over her head. That's what happened, you know, And. And that's. That's. She's now taking shortcuts just to get out of Dodge.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay, well, let's get into this. Winnie and Burton, they're both the children of a minister from Indiana. Winnie moved to Phoenix from Mexico. She had been in Mexico in 1930, so just a year before. Winnie is also a lunger, so she had tuberculosis. So everybody's coming to Phoenix. So she's there for about a year and she becomes friends with Ann. Ann and Winnie work at the same clinic. Remember I told you? Ann's a nurse and she's an X ray technician and Winnie is a medical secretary. They become friends and Winnie moves in to this duplex. And over a game of cards, you know, they listen to. I can just sort of picture this as so 1930s, so they play bridge all the time and they all like to listen to the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which was a radio show. And they have late night parties and hang out with, you know, well to do Phoenix men. They're all attractive. Things get very complicated. They become good friends, but then their love lives start happening. There's nobody's had luck in this whole apartment. With love. Anne had been married. I told you that Winnie had not been very lucky in love either. Her husband is a guy named Dr. William Judd, and he is 23 years older than her. He is addicted to narcotics and he had trouble holding a job. And they got married when she was only 19 and she had two miscarriages. Her family was giving the detectives in LA some background on her. And eventually they would talk to William, her husband, and they would say, you know, what is she like? And they said that she would sometimes fantasize about what life would have been like if she had given birth to a baby named Moses, Caesar or Napoleon. She would talk to William about the baby's milestones and their adventures. She was making up these stories. He thought it was silly, but I think upon reflection, he wonders if there was some sort of psychosis going on. Frequent moves and financial struggles isolated William and Winnie. And she eventually had hoped that she would just stay in Phoenix and that they would stay married. But in 1931 he was again out of a job and he took off and went to LA to look for work. And she was there, you know, now living with these women. By June of 1931, all three of them had tuberculosis at that point. So Ann took off and went to Portland for the summer to be with her family. And Winnie and Sammy are now together.

[Paul Holes]

So when you say Winnie and Sammy are together, is there more than just a friendship?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Not that I know of, no. But I think they were trying to support each other. I mean, Tuberculosis is not. You take a pill and it's over with. It's very long disease. And so I think they were trying to help each other out. So Anne left in June, Annette left, Sammy and Winnie together just to kind of support each other. In August, Ann comes back. All three of them living together, they were friends, but this is also now the Great Depression. So there's just a self preservation happening here. They're very low wages. Pretty soon this is a small place. Remember there's one bedroom and eventually they kind of separate so that Winnie moves out into a one bedroom apartment on Brill street in early October. And it's close enough where she can walk to work if she wants to. There didn't seem to be major fights. According to the detectives, what they found, she just, you know, moved out and moved not too far away. Within weeks though, these two women are dead.

[Paul Holes]

You know, the detectives observation are talking to Dr. William Judd and he's talking about how Winnie is kind of constructing some sort of fantasy life between her and an unborn child. And you know, these names, Napoleon, Moses and the other name I think, is it Caesar? Caesar. I mean obviously these are significant historic figures. I also start to think, okay, something there is a mental health aspect going on with, with Winnie now. If she's creating a construct with this fantasy life with, with a child that she does not have, how is she perceiving Sammy and Anne? You know, is there potential misperception on Winnie's part just because she's got some. I don't know if I want to use the term psychotic, but she's definitely sort of mental illness that's causing her to maybe read into certain things that Anne and Sammy have done or said that she's now feeling slighted by.

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[Becky Milligan]

It's 1972. A young British family is attempting to sail around the world when disaster strikes. Their boat is hit by killer whales and it sinks in seconds. All they have left is a life raft and each other. This is the true story of the Robertson family and their fight to survive, hosted by me, Becky Milligan. Listen to Adrift, an Apple original podcast produced by Blanchard House. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I don't know how long you know, any of these women had had tuberculosis. I wonder if tuberculosis would, you know, make things worse if she did have a mental health struggle or would have caused something to begin with. I don't know anything about it though, in that way.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah, I definitely don't. But it also brings up not only the disease, but what medications are they being given, you know, and maybe, maybe Winnie's having, you know, a bad trip, so to speak, from whatever medication was being used for TB back in the 1930s.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Again, somebody within with mental health struggles. When your husband is in work, out of work and he's an addict, an active addict, you know, she was probably on her back heels the whole time just trying to figure out what's up and what's down, you know. The police in California and Arizona start searching, of course, immediately. This is a three or four day long search trying to find Burton and his sister Winnie. Eventually they find Burton and they find William, the husband, and they talk to the Phoenix neighbors, co workers at the clinic. During Burton and Williams interrogations, the police say it's clear that they had not been involved with the crime. They were very open. They had alibis to attest that neither had been in Phoenix during that month when it happened. So what Burton says is that he first heard about all of this with the trunks. When Winnie appeared at USC's campus around 11am on the day that she arrived in LA, so that October 19th. So if we believe this, she did all of this herself. The trunks go on the train, she goes to la. You know, she kind of abandons the trunks and immediately goes to USC and finds her brother. And he said that she said to him, you need to come with me. You need to get these trunks. We're going to sink them in the Pacific Ocean. She doesn't explain why. He tried not to pry, but then when the station agents started interrogating them, he turned to her after they left and said, did you kill someone? And finally she said that she could justify everything that happened is exactly what she said. And then she took off and that was it. And then Burton is the reason why that she's kind of been caught this early. So we've got William, who's been taken off the table as an accomplice, we've got Burton, who's been taken off the table by the police. Then they go to Winnie's apartment. Remember she has that one bedroom apartment. They find surgical instruments in a satchel. There are also bottles of. Tell me if this is right. There are bottles of luminol, which is a non narcotic sedative. Is that luminol?

[Paul Holes]

Luminol, I'm presuming. So now I'm not. I'm not familiar with luminol being used in a medical sense, but it wouldn't surprise me. You know, when we use luminol for visualizing latent blood stains at a crime scene, it's mixed with sodium hydroxide. You know, it's got a buffer. Okay, but the luminol I think would be drug that they would be using.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Fenobarbitual, used as a sedative and to control seizures, calming effect and induces drowsiness. So what? That's what they found, Luminol. They also found one suitcase that had men's clothing, a man's surgical shirt, and an article of women's lingerie. There's another suitcase. I mean, boy, she just packed all of these. In another suitcase that had some blankets, a small caliber shell which had been fired, we presume of a.25 caliber shell. And a photo album of the family with friends, the Judd family. In the southwest corner of the bedroom, under a chair, they find another shell. The shell matches the shells and the bullet in the trunk. They said that there were nine tablets of poison that were typically in William Judd's medicine cabinet. So he must have lived there. Off and on. The researcher, Allie, said she couldn't find out what kind of poison. It was. But the first wife of William died of an accidental morphine poisoning. So if that's what he's addicted to and that's what he had on hand, the poison could have been morphine. I suppose.

[Paul Holes]

It sounds like Winnie was looking at a variety of different ways to kill Sammy and Ann. Poison possibly being one of the first ways that she thought about. And then the expended cartridge cases, the shells, the.25 caliber shells found at Winnie's place. You know, I kind of wonder, did she maybe she had no firearms experience and so these were test shots so she could figure out how a gun works. You know, I don't know if they found any, you know, bullet impacts inside her apartment or she could have gone outside and shot at a tree, you know, who knows? But you know, the fact that she would be bringing the cartridge cases back inside seems remote, but maybe not.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

The mystery expands here. She ends up surrendering on kind of the fourth day of this search. Okay. She turns herself in in LA to the police. A plea from her husband and his assurance that, you know, they would hire the best lawyers is what got her in there. So he had been interviewed by newspapers saying, turn yourself in, this isn't going to end well. I will take care of you, I promise. So she turned herself in. She had been hiding at La Vina Sanitarium where she had been previously treated for tuberculosis. She had also been hiding in a Broadway department store where she had once been a clerk. Okay, so she's turning herself in.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah, I think what will be interesting to me, you know, she's bringing Burton out to the train station. I mean, he's a patsy. He has no idea, at least when she initially reaches out to him and he shows up at the train station that this is a homicide case that she's asking him to participate in. So she's needing his help to move these steamer trunks, the suitcases, etc, and it may just be she needs to do that in a quick kind of non suspicious manner, having her brother with her. But what's going on out in Phoenix? I mean, she's having to get all of these items out of the apartment plus two mattresses. There's obviously a vehicle involved. Is it her vehicle she's driving, disposing of these mattresses. One is found, one isn't. But she has to get to the train station and get those items up onto the train. Is her vehicle parked at the Phoenix train station? And if it's not, then I would say somebody transported her there and that could be Your accessory on the. On the. The front end.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay, we have a confession, which I know seems odd because we're definitely not at the end of this episode. But let me tell you what she says. She gets in, she starts to talk to the police. William did get her a good attorney. Her attorney reads a prepared confession. Now, I don't have a note about whether or not this is to the police or to the press or what is happening, but.

[Paul Holes]

But it's also filtered through her attorney.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

You're right. Okay, so this is what she says through her attorney. I had gone to the girl's home to confront Ms. Samuelson, which is Sammy, for some nasty things she had said about Mrs. Leroy. Who is Ann? Ms. Samuelson got a hold of a gun and she shot me in the left hand. I struggled with her and the gun fell. Ms. Leroy grabbed an ironing board and started to strike me over the head with it. In the struggle, I got hold of the gun and Sammy got shot. Mrs. Leroy was still coming at me with the ironing board and I had to shoot her. Then I ran away from the place. And her hand does have a bullet lodged in it.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah, it's bs.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

You can act professional about this. Paul, you're so funny. Your face changed in the middle of that statement.

[Paul Holes]

Okay, so think about this. Let's talk about Ann. This is your prototypical husband accidentally shoots wife. And she's got a contact gunshot wound to her left temple and has a contact gunshot wound to her left temple. This is a gun that has been placed hard against her head and the trigger was pulled. This is not a self defense scenario where now in the process of defending herself, Winnie shoots. And this is an absolute fabrication. And this is the attorney setting up a self defense case to try to get his client off. But the physical evidence completely contradicts that statement.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I think self defense is. Is on the table for sure. Her left hand, just so you know, is completely bandaged. She also has a blackish wound between the fourth and fifth fingers on her right hand because it is looking like it's developing into gangrene. Winnie is escorted to the Georgia street receiving hospital. They extract a.25 caliber bullet from the base of her middle finger close to the point where it joined with the fractured index finger. There were contusions over much of Winnie's body. So that's going to be part of the self defense part. Obviously we know, but self defense, when the victim is fighting back to try to save their own life does not count.

[Paul Holes]

Well, and we've got an expended cartridge case or shell in Winnie's own apartment. You know, this is you going back to that. This is, you know, you see these offenders when they're trying to stage a crime scene. She's shooting herself in the hand. She's not shooting herself someplace where it might be fatal. You know, so this all speaks to. She's pre planning, you know, her self defense by injuring herself both with the gun as well as maybe she's, you know, throwing herself up against walls and pieces of furniture inside her apartment, realizing, oh, they found out they've got the steamer trunks and now I've got to figure out how I'm going to get out of this. And I'm drawing that conclusion just based off of how ridiculous her statement is relative to the physical evidence.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, we'll see what the prosecution says. They're now putting together a case and they're trying to do it quickly because it's already October 29th when she is extradited to Phoenix to stand trial on first degree murder charges for Ann. They'll have a separate trial for Sammy. So her case involving Ann starts in January. So she's sitting in jail for November and December and most of January. And it's in downtown Phoenix. And it is a media shit show is probably the only way I can describe it. And this is a Barry Bones first. I just thought you'd think this was fun. We have actual video footage from the trial because this was such a big deal, this trial. So I sent you a video file.

[Paul Holes]

So it opens up showing who I'm assuming are the attorneys or the DA involved in the case. And then it's showing a packed courtroom. And then now it looks like the defendant, Winnie Judge, has sat down. She's dressed in a very conservative outfit. She's looking very demure, trying to pretend to be an innocent defendant. Well, but she's been coached, you know, it's. Try to get the jurors sympathy.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah.

[Paul Holes]

And then that's it. So you know what stood out to me? Like you had mentioned earlier that Ann, Sammy and Winnie were all three reasonably attractive women. Winnie is an attractive woman for sure. You know, and so you could see where, you know, the, the jury could find her as a very sympathetic figure. And so the prosecution, you know, does have a little bit of a hurdle to cross to say that this woman, attractive woman who's sitting there looking innocent, you know, shot and killed two women in Phoenix, cut one of them up and transported their bodies halfway across the United States. Yeah, I mean, it's. It sounds unbelievable. But. But, you know, obviously there's no question she's involved.

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[Kate Winkler Dawson]

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[Paul Holes]

Sort of the why. Why did she do this? How does this play out in a legal sense, you know, particularly in Arizona? And what are their insanity statutes? You know, from. From my perspective, you know, she may have some sort of mental illness going on, but take A look at the level, the extent that she went through to try to cover up the crime, that is showing she knows right from wrong. And generally when can show that within somebody, there isn't that insanity aspect to them, there may be arguments mostly maybe on the sentencing side in terms of, you know, how severe the punishment is going to be because of some sort of diminished capacity situation. But in terms of guilt or not guilt, you know, she. She knew right from wrong, and she knew what she was doing when she did it, that this was a crime. I mean, it's a horrific crime. She killed two women.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, let's continue on because there are two sides to this. And I understand what you're saying, but, you know, I'm not ready to end the podcast right now, Paul, so just bear with me. I'm ready to go to dinner. Kate, let's wrap up.

[Paul Holes]

You're gonna try to convince me she's innocent, and that's going to be a big hurdle.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I want to present both sides of this case as the objective journalist that I am. So let me show you what I've got. Okay. The prosecution says that Winnie had acted with premeditation. We've already talked about that. She shot herself is what they believe. And here is the mystery figure that I told you we need to mention. There is a romantic rivalry between her husband and a lover that she has become involved with. He is a wealthy Phoenix lumber baron. I don't get to say Barron very much with these sorts of stories. His name is Jack. Happy Jack. I put quotes around that. Happy Jack Hallorann. We'll go with Jack. And they had been having an affair since December of 1930. So nine or ten months or so until this happened. So the doctors in Phoenix had told the police that a month before the murder, Winnie had taken a pregnancy test because she thought she was pregnant. She was not, it sounds like. Also the DA presents what they call the drainpipe letter. So this is, to me, really interesting. So one day, after Winnie turned herself in, there was a plumber who was called to that store, that department store where she worked. The owner said, something's lodged into. I think it was the toilet. It was a wad of telegraph sheets that had been torn up and flushed. Winnie had been, of course, hiding in this space until she turned herself in. It sounds like, addressed to her husband, not signed, but it's a confession. And this is. Well, so let's see how different this is. According to the letter, on the morning of October 17, these three women fought over whether they should alert Mr. H. Who is, you know, Jack Halloran, to the fact that Winnie had introduced him to a woman who had syphilis. And I don't know if that was the intention for them to sleep together. That's what it sounds like. And this isn't a letter to her husband. So Winnie says, is defending herself. And she says, I did not set him up with some bad woman because Winnie said she's undergoing treatment for syphilis, so she's not contagious. Do not tell him this information. And said, no, that's awful. I'm going to tell him myself. That Winnie is associated with people who have syphilis and they won't have a thing to do with you is what Anne told Winnie. If we think Winnie's the one who wrote this letter, which I'm sure we do. Sammy pointed a gun at Winnie is what Winnie says to her husband in this letter. In fear for her life, Winnie covered the gun's muzzle with her hand, grabbed a bread knife, and after Sammy shot her hand, Winnie disarmed her and retaliated. Believing that Anne had plotted to blackmail her, she shot her too. The letter ends with a writer reasserting that she had killed in self defense. She said, I am essentially dead at this point. Forgive me, not forget me. She says, it was as much a battle as Germany and the US I killed in self defense. So she was at war.

[Paul Holes]

She was saying, and again, this is bs.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I don't understand the dynamic between Hallorann and Winnie here, but I'm gonna see if we hear him. What do you think about that?

[Paul Holes]

Let me just address, you know, straight up, you know, this confession to her estranged husband, William.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yep.

[Paul Holes]

You know, she's saying in this confession that Sammy produced the.25 caliber pistol. And so Winnie, of course, covers the pistol up with her hand, arms herself with the knife, and that's presumably how she gets her injury to her. Her hand is during this struggle. Yet she has expended cartridge cases from that pistol in her apartment all the way out in LA that ballistics showed came from that pistol. It matches the bullets out in Phoenix. So again, this doesn't make any sense. Why is Sammy out of Phoenix producing the murder weapon? And then why is Winnie taking this pistol? And in fact, she doesn't take the pistol. The pistol is found inside. I think it was a hat box. I mean, she's in the process of transporting the pistol back. It never makes it back to her apartment. So she had that pistol ahead of time. And then it gets taken out to Phoenix where She shoots Ann and Sammy. Again. The physical evidence doesn't match the confession. So this is a letter to her estranged husband that is self serving. And I'm not entirely sure the reason for this whole syphilis aspect that may just be it's such an outrageous act to set somebody up that, you know, has such, what could potentially be a disfiguring and deadly disease that there's a reason why Winnie had to act the way she did and kill Sammy and Anne. I think she's just trying to come up with a mechanism as to why she acted out in self defense. So it's completely self serving. It doesn't match up with the physical evidence.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And the defense is sort of behind everything to begin with. The judge is ruling against them for bringing on certain kinds of experts. And nobody's talking about this bloody fingerprint, which I thought was interesting. It was a thumbprint actually on the window shade. So we don't hear anything about that. We hear in the defense from two psychiatrists who say she was faking insanity.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Oh, also one interesting note. So there were witnesses who did see Winnie at the duplex. Cause she didn't live there anymore. And it was Friday night, so 10:30pm I just thought you'd be interested in the sequence of events. So 10:30pm Friday night she kills them and then she takes the Sunday night train to Los Angeles. So she takes all day Saturday and most of the day Sunday to get this taken care of. Do you feel like she needed an accomplice or no? I know we've kind of touched on this before.

[Paul Holes]

I don't think she necessarily needed an accomplice, you know, and when you take a look, I did see that photo of the hallway in Anne and Sammy's apartment where you have the scratches on the floor. It's obvious those, those scratches are from those metal protective corners on the, the heavy steamer trunk. And it's being drug. So that suggests to me one person is dragging that trunk, at least over that section of, of the exposed floor. It is a lot of work for one person to do. Everything that happened, you know, in terms of the dismemberment, the cleanup, the packaging, getting into a vehicle, disposing the mattresses, getting everything out to the train. And that's where I, you know, from an investigative standpoint is like, well, where's her vehicle? Is her vehicle at the Phoenix train station? If it's not, then I have questions. And then, oh, maybe there is an accomplishment and it may be another patsy where she called up and said, hey, you know, I've got some heavy luggage. Can you help pick this up? And, oh, by the way, a couple mattresses. You know, bring a truck and just ignore the fact that one mattress has a bunch of blood on it.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah, it's. It's pretty. You'd have to have a pretty big patsy for that. You're right.

[Paul Holes]

Yes.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay. The defense does something interesting. She had said it was self defense. The defense says she's insane. So they enter a plea of insanity. They have psychiatrist who. And her parents who all take the stand. There's no consensus between the psychiatrist as to her mental state. Two think that she has schizophrenia. The third one thinks she has a psychopathic personality with a paranoiac strain. Is that a thing? Paranoid strain.

[Paul Holes]

They're putting an additional characteristic onto the psychopathy diagnosis. They're indicating. Yeah, there's a level of paranoia. And of course, with schizophrenia, you can see where you have your paranoid schizophrenic. And now they're literally in this world where something is after them. They're paranoid about whatever it is. And so this particular psychologist is going, well, no, no, she's not schizophrenic. She's psychopathic. But she's got a paranoid aspect to her, you know, and that may be where, you know, she's assessing Ann and Sammy and their behaviors and statements and everything else and are completely misinterpreting what they are saying as being somehow harmful to her. And there may be that paranoid filter that she is processing that type of information through. But, you know, fundamentally, I just don't see any real argument for true insanity here. You know, there may be a mental health concern, you know, but I don't think it rises to the level where you can't convict.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, let's see. We have a verdict coming up. After everybody rests. And she is convicted of first degree murder, she is sentenced to death, which is supposed to happen in February of 1933. This does not happen because Winnie Judd will not go away. This just keeps going and going, and it's really interesting. This is like confession. Rama, I guess, is what I would call it. There's a lot of confessions that happen. Okay, so the attorneys demand a retrial. They said there's some kind of jury bias. Doesn't work. Convictions upheld. There are petitions sent to the governor on her behalf, and she hires new attorneys who file for a hearing before the state supreme Court a little less than a month before she's scheduled to hang. Okay, so nothing is working for her. She requests a private conference with her attorney and law enforcement officers and reporter, she confesses in front of all of these people. She claims self defense, but she fingers an accomplice who is Jack Halloran. She says that after she shot and killed Ann and Sammy, that he helped her move the bodies and get rid of the evidence. He carried Sammy from the kitchen to Ann's bed and then he mopped up the kitchen. He wanted to call a doctor. While drawing the shade to make the phone call, he left behind a bloody fingerprint. Thumbprint is, I think, what it meant. He pulled Sammy's large packing trunk from the garage, placed Ann's body in it, and told Winnie he would dispose of it in the desert. He told her that Sammy had been operated on is what he said. Okay, so she's saying he dismembered Sammy. At this point, Winnie wanted to just go see William. She felt safe with William. So she went to la. She wanted him to remove the bullet. So she and Jack devised a plan where she would take the trunks with her to LA on the Saturday night train and he would arrange for someone to meet her at the Los Angeles depot to dump the trunk. But she ran into trouble when the deliveryman who went to bring the trunk from the duplex to the train station said no, because the trunk, this one trunk, was too heavy and there was blood leaking from the trunk. Although Winnie was panicked, she decided to move ahead with the plan. She told the delivery service to transport the trunk to her apartment. Because she was at Ann and Sammy's apartment the next day, she transferred part of Sammy's dismembered body into the small suitcase. By Monday night, she was on the train.

[Paul Holes]

The first thing I want to know is the bloody thumbprint, was that actually matched to Jack?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

No.

[Paul Holes]

Okay. So at this point right now, without that physical evidence, I can't say whether it's more feasible or not. You know, when you were first reading that, I was like, oh, okay, so Jack was there. Now I can't say that. And she's still claiming self defense, and I still have a massive issue with that, particularly with Ann. Because of the contact gunshot wound to the left temple.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yep.

[Paul Holes]

My suspicion is, is that as she has gone through the trial process, seen testimony, heard, you know, evidence and everything else, she is now coming up with another scenario that better fits the information that she knows that the prosecutors have, but it still is way off base from what actually happened.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay, well, the saga continues. The Arizona Supreme Court says no to this rehearing, but Maricopa county is considering indicting Jack because This all sounds sort of reasonable to the DA there. I mean, she's not saying I didn't do it, she's just saying I got help. So they try to indict Jack and she testifies in front of a grand jury. She reiterates the details of the confession. She convinced the grand jury that she had in fact killed Ann and Sammy in self defense. And it sounds like the jurymen petitioned for her death sentence to be commuted to life in prison, which is what happened. So she got out of the death penalty. Jack is not indicted, but there is another hearing. So they petitioned for it. But then there has to be. God, there's a lot of hearings in this story. There has to be a hearing to figure out whether or not she will be executed or given life in prison. The hearing to determine if Winnie's sentence is to be commuted to life in prison happens in March of 33. They introduced new witnesses. Someone who is testifying to have smelled burning something coming from the vacant lot to the south of North Second street duplex on the night of October 17th. I don't know if they think that's where the mop happened, but that was a, you know, new detail.

[Paul Holes]

The mop itself, even though there was evidence that had it had been burned, was, you know, the handle was found in, in the actual victim's apartment.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Right.

[Paul Holes]

So probably the working end of the mop, the one that got bloody, is what is being burned along with a mattress. A bloody mattress.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah. And this is not. This person did not explore what that was. So he didn't get out, he could just smell it.

[Paul Holes]

Sure.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

The Phoenix sheriff said that when he escorted her from LA back to Phoenix when she was in his jail. Well, she admitted that while she was repacking the bodies in two separate trunks, some of Sammy's. Well, the bladder and the intestines fell out onto the floor of her apartment. She wrapped the organs in towels and then threw them out the window of the train. So she carried them on to the train in her suitcase, I think, and then tossed them out the window. There was a lot of blood in the breakfast room, in the kitchen is what he's testifying to. And then Jack takes the stand. You have a. I can only express as a skeptical look about the tossing the bladder and the intest intestines out the window of a train.

[Paul Holes]

Well, I, I think I primarily have a problem, you know that the intestines and the bladder just fell out. You know, they are somewhat attached to the body. They need to be removed. Now the intestines you know, it's not just some, you know, wound up tube inside the body that, you know, you get cut open and it's just. They just go everywhere. I mean, the loops of the intestine are actually interconnected. You got the, this momentum. There's structure to it now. Yes, it. When you bisect a body, all of a sudden you've got this intestinal mass. But for the bladder just to fall out, it has to be removed. It literally needs to be cut out in order to, you know, package it. Could she have taken it on the train? Maybe. But, you know, why do that? I can't dispute what she's saying there outside of the fact, oh, they just fell out. So I had to do something. There's something else going on there.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay, well, let's keep going because this is the story that never ends. Jack takes a stand. He says, this is bananas. I was just sleeping with this woman. And that's it. And they believe him. William, her husband says she is not a woman of sound reason. She still is going to hang. The Arizona Board of Pardons and Paroles says we're keeping the hanging. So she's set to hang April 21st of 1933. So this is a full two years after this is going on. But ten days before her execution, the warden of the Arizona State Prison in Florence requests and is granted a sanity trial for Winnie. So there are 10 days of expert testimony. The verdict is in. She is found insane. She has narrowly escaped execution for the second time, and she's transferred to the Arizona State Asylum for the mentally insane on April 24th. I don't have details on what people said. It just was enough to convince, you know, I guess this would have been an insanity trial. That would have been. Would that have been a judge or who. That wouldn't have been a jury. Right.

[Paul Holes]

With what I'm hearing, they're not overturning her conviction.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Right.

[Paul Holes]

They are now saying at this point, two years later, she now has a true medical illness issue that requires more specialized medical care than what the prison can do. And it sounds like they must convene some sort of panel, if you will, that hears testimony and then says, yes, she does have mental issues and needs to go to this other facility. So she still is under conviction, but because now she is in this other facility and has been deemed insane at that point in time, right before her execution, the state cannot execute an insane person. So in essence, she has escaped the execution as a result of her current medical situation. It's not her mental Situation at the time the crime was committed.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay, well, she is transferred to the Arizona State Asylum for the Mentally Insane. Okay, Paul, here we go. This is Winnie's life over the next 12 years. Between 1939 and 1962, she escapes from prison seven times.

[Paul Holes]

That's because she's at in a low level, you know, custodial environment, you know, and she's smart enough and sane enough to be able to figure out how she can actually get out of this facility, you know, so I bet she was feigning this insanity aspect, you know, in order to avoid the death sentence.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Listen to this lady. In 1962, she outpaces the police for six and a half years.

[Paul Holes]

She's out of custody for six and a half years?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yes, six and a half years. From 62 until 68, she is living under the name Marian Lane and she's in San Francisco. I mean, I don't mean to laugh at this because she did dismember somebody and murder two people. But in 69, Arizona medical experts say, okay, she's sane. We don't want her anymore. And they turn her back over to the state penitentiary in Florence. Is this story over yet? No, sir.

[Paul Holes]

Okay, so she ultimately gets caught in.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

San Francisco after six and a half years. Yes.

[Paul Holes]

So that's between 62 and 68. Or 69.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And then when they get her back in 69, they say, clearly this woman is sane enough to stay, you know, away and elude us for that long. Stop smiling, Paul.

[Paul Holes]

Well, I'm now starting to wonder, are there any dismembered women in the Bay Area? Unsolved cases. Right.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I was thinking about that. I mean, sometimes I say allowed with people, you know, there's no record of them doing anything while they were on the lam. But with this case, I'm not quite sure. So then listen to this. So she's back in prison from 69. In the end of the year 1971, the governor of Arizona, who is a guy named Jack Williams, signs a pardon and she is free. He said, you can never tell your story. That was her only stipulation.

[Paul Holes]

So, yeah. Who is bending the governor's ear? There must be somebody pretty powerful that for whatever reason is within Winnie's, you know, circle or is sympathetic to Winnie. You know, that is bizarre.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

She's 65 when this happens. So I wonder if he thinks she's not going to dismember that many people at 65. I don't know what he was thinking.

[Paul Holes]

Well, now. Now she's out in the public Domain again.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yep. So she's out. You know, I keep thinking people like this are going to die quickly after she does not. She dies in 98 at the age of 93.

[Paul Holes]

Oh, wow.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

She dies in her sleep, peacefully. But her story continues because when she was on death row in 33, she wrote her first and only confession. Real confession is what she says happened. So now this is the last. This is the definitive confession. It was located, and it's now in the state archives in Arizona. So the confession basically confirms the majority of what the prosecutor said during the first trial. She was ashamed of her infidelity, and she was frustrated by Ann because she said that Ann was trying to get money out of Jack. I don't know what's happening with Jack and these women. I don't know what the relationship is. But in this confession, Winnie says that Ann was always. Ann was always asking for money from Jack, and he was giving it to her. Winnie says that Ann would kind of taunt her about stuff, and she became consumed by wild ideas. She said, I knew my nerves were breaking. I could feel it. She said she acted on impulse. She got the gun. She drove over to Ann's. On the first murder attempt, she writes, I waited next door. I was trying to shoot through the window. I started crying so hard, I turned and went home. But then she tried again. About a week later, maybe she tried again on Friday, October 16th. She went there, seemingly driven by psychosis, to Ann's duplex. This is according to Winnie. She said, my brain was whirling. I was so excited. I was panting for breath. Never did I have the slightest dream of hurting Sammy. She simply never entered my mind. I expected to get Ann, stop those taunts so I could sleep. Nothing more did I think of. I took the gun and a knife. How I would do it, I was not sure. I hid in the house next door. After they retired, I went to the back door, laid the knife and my shoes outside the door, then crept into the unlocked front door. That insane desire, that power, led me on, and I started for Ann. So she describes approaching the bedroom, retreating, falling back, back asleep on the girl's couch. Finally, in the morning, I crept past the bathroom door, shot Ann. It was a low shot is what she called it. Sammy came rushing out of the bathroom and easily disarmed Winnie. She said, sammy, I am crazy. I have lost my mind. Give me that gun, and I will blow my brains out right here on this door. Sammy did not give her the gun smartly. So Winnie ran outside to get the knife As I grabbed the gun, I stabbed her in the shoulder. The fight continued and Winnie got shot through the hand, with Winnie getting shot through the hand until Sammy was dead. Essentially. She dragged Sammy's body into the bathroom, cleaned up the kitchen floor, went to the garage to get the trunk and the bedroom. She slid Ann from the bed onto the trunk. Around 9 or 9:30, she went to work, leaving Sammy on the bathroom floor. She put the knife and the gun and the bloody pajamas in Ann's locker at the clinic until the end of the day. She fed the cat. Cat. She returned to the duplex. She broke in through the bathroom window. At that point, Sammy's body was heavy and stiff. She took two cheap knives from the kitchen and severed her body into portions that she says I could not lift. I was hours doing this and then inch by inch pulling the trunk back into the living room. That trunk weighed 420 pounds. Yet my maniacal condition gave me superhuman strength. She said she tried to destroy the evidence at the duplex. She turned the hose on the front porch, went into the house, got the blood soaked mattress and carried it over to the vacant lot at the corner of 3rd and Pinchon, where I struck perhaps about five matches onto it Sunday morning. The next day at her apartment, she divided the women's corpses between two trunks. She washed the gun, accidentally discharging it under the water and put it in the handbox. Toward the end of her confession, she writes, from here on, I think most everything has already been known. At the end of the letter, Winnie forbids her attorney from ever divulging this information. The end.

[Paul Holes]

I think things are adding up there. Okay, I'd like to know more details. When she says she shot Ann, you know, I want to see. Does she actually indicate she put the gun up against Ann's head and pulled the trigger? Because that's what the evidence shows. Shows. The one thing that I kind of keyed in on was the stabbing of Sammy in the left shoulder, which the autopsy isn't showing that. And I'm looking at, you know, Sammy's photos now, and she has a couple of marks on her left shoulder.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Maybe they were nicks. Let me look at the autopsy report too. There's a superficial puncture, but that's in her neck. You would think if he had noted that, wouldn't he have noted a stab wound even if it was like a nick?

[Paul Holes]

Yeah, that's routine. They need to record all the injuries, whether superficial or actually significant injuries during their autopsy. But fundamentally, that last confession seems to line up Best with the evidence. I didn't realize the vacant lot where the mattress was found was so close that she could carry a mattress there, which is. You see somebody carrying two mattresses.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

It depends. I wonder if, I mean, I can look this up. I don't think mattresses in the 1930s are the kind of mattresses we think of now. I don't think they're, I mean, and this, and these are twins. I mean, I'm not saying true. I don't know whether that's possible or not, but I don't think they are quite as. I mean, I can't hardly lift up a full size mattress on my own, but I don't think they were like that. So.

[Paul Holes]

That's a good point. So her telling about the, the emotional turmoil that she's experiencing, that sounds real to me. Now she, she's putting blame on Anne. Ann is taunting her. Ann is using her lover Jack for money. Money. I think that there's more of a jealousy aspect going on there, that maybe she's suspecting that Anne and Jack were having their own relationship, sexual relationship. And Winnie is jealous about that.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah. Because there's no talk about syphilis or this other woman. There's none of that. So ultimately, do you feel like. I think it's clear that she, at least she had some mental health struggles, but that's different than somebody who is triggered and then works really hard to cover everything up, which is what she did.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah, I think there is a mental health component. It does not rise up to the level of legal insanity, in my opinion. I think she needs to be held or needed to be held responsible for her crimes. I do not believe that she's somebody that should have been subjected to the death penalty penalty, life in prison. Sure. The extent that she went through, I mean this is, this is, what's just stunning to me is, I mean you, you literally are cleaning up a double homicide, the victims and crime scene and all, and shipping the victims and the crime scene out to LA to pick them up there. You know, that's just, that's crazy from my perspective. You know, that's just really, I, I think it just underscores sometimes these offenders think too hard. That was Winnie's downfall. You know, she didn't think about, oh, these bodies are going to leak and they're going to smell and people are going to notice. And that's ultimately, at least you had somebody who was observant enough at the LA train station going, hold on, steamer trunks. That's probably problem.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Would it have worked. If she had dumped both of those like she wanted Burton to do, would those trunks have just floated and somebody would have discovered those bodies, both of them floating in the Pacific Ocean?

[Paul Holes]

It's possible that aspects whether the trunks themselves would have floated. I think with Ann, I mean, she's bloated inside the trunk. So in essence you have a balloon inside that trunk, at least for a period of time. Eventually Ann is going to, to burst. Fundamentally she's going to leak that. And so the buoyancy aspect may not be there. And I don't know, you know, what the buoyancy of these trunks are. Do they sink naturally or do they float? That would be a hard thing to try to surmise as to the trunks themselves, Sammy, with no gases due to the dismemberment, that trunk may have just floated. And there's no way that that because of. Well, I actually can't say that because I've got bodies again in that Helzer case that were much more dismembered than what we're seeing with Sammy. And they were, you know, put in multiple duffel bags, weighed down with walking pavers and stones and they floated, they came back up and that's how that case got, got, got solved, you know. But it depends on how far you go out off the coast. Even if they do float, do they wash up on shore or do they just go out into the middle of the ocean and they're a never never land?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I mean, I'll put a photo on social media of this trunk. I think I've done that before. The trunk, much like her trunk, looks imposing. It's not. It's really light. The problem we had with it was the leather straps had broken off of it. But it had wheels, little tiny caster wheels. Wheels. And it's tin in the wood that is in there is so lightweight. I'm pretty sure this would float, no problem. And it's a huge trunk. It's math. I mean I. All of the equipment that I use in here, lights, all of everything, it goes in that trunk and it fits perfectly in that trunk. So that's a two body. I would call that a two body trunk. The one I have. So it would have floated for sure. I mean, these are meant. Even though they're big and sturdy and they look like they take a beating, they're meant to be carried around by a woman. Anybody can carry these.

[Paul Holes]

But I actually have a case with a body in a steamer truck.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

You do?

[Paul Holes]

I do. Had nothing to do with a train or being thrown in the water. But it was a. I won't go into the details because it's a really horrific crime, but it was an elderly woman, you know, petite woman who was put in this, her own steamer trunk. I had to deal with processing both the body as well as the steamer trunk. And once the body was out, that trunk was fairly light.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah, I mean, it's meant for being transported on ships and everything else. So anyway, when I was reading about this case, I was thinking, I cannot believe one person. And I caught myself saying one woman could do this. And then I thought, I mean, she did it, and she's saying she did it with no help whatsoever. So I thought that was really interesting. And again, I did get a little bit of a kick out of you. Kept saying hee hee hee, as the offender. And I just thought, what's he gonna do when he finds out this. This starlet looking woman is the one who does it? So anyway, we will for sure have another compelling case next week. It will not involve a trunk. And I don't know about the female killer part of it, but I like bringing you stories, especially with the these sort. You know, we've dug into a lot of history stuff. There's. There are things in history with this story that, you know, we were able to learn. So I was glad to be able to do that.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah, well, you introduced me to, I guess, what is a face historical case. So. Thank you, Kate.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And that you can use luminol, the ingredient, as a sedative. Who knew? Don't do it at home. We're not advocating for anything, but who knew? All right, I'll see you next week.

[Paul Holes]

Sounds good.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

This has been an exactly right production.

[Paul Holes]

For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Our senior producer is Alexis.

[Paul Holes]

Amorosi, research by Alison Trouble and Kate Winkler Dawson.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.

[Paul Holes]

Our theme song is by Tom Breyfogle.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac, executive.

[Paul Holes]

Produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook @ buriedbonespod.

[Paul Holes]

Kate's most recent book, all that Is Wicked, A Gilded Age Story of Murder and the Race to Decode the Criminal Mind is available now.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And Paul's best selling memoir, Unmasked My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, is also available now.

[Paul Holes]

Listen to Buried bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Kate Winkler Dawson]

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