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- [00:02]
Host of America's Crime Lab
This is exactly right.
- [00:09]
Kate Winkler Dawson
December 29, 1975, LaGuardia Airport.
- [00:13]
Narrator for Law and Criminal Justice System
The holiday rush. Parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then everything changed.
- [00:22]
Kate Winkler Dawson
There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Just a chaotic, chaotic scene.
- [00:27]
Narrator for Law and Criminal Justice System
In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged. Terrorism. Listen to the new season of law and criminal justice System on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:43]
Andrea Gunning
I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the podcast Betrayal. Police Lieutenant Joel Kern used his badge to fool everyone, most of all, his wife, Caroline.
- [00:53]
Kate Winkler Dawson
He texted, I've ruined our lives. You're going to want to divorce me.
- [00:59]
Andrea Gunning
How far would he go to cover up what he'd done?
- [01:02]
Paul Holes
The fact that you lied is absolutely horrific. And quite frankly, I question how many.
- [01:07]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Other women are out there that may.
- [01:08]
Paul Holes
Bring forward allegations in the future.
- [01:10]
Andrea Gunning
Listen to betrayal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:21]
Lizzy Logan
Liz went from being interested in true crime to living true crime. My husband said, your dad's been killed. This is Hands Tied, a true crime podcast exploring the murder of Jim Melgar.
- [01:35]
Kate Winkler Dawson
I was just completely in shock.
- [01:37]
Lizzy Logan
Liz's father murdered and her mother found locked in a closet, her hands and feet bound.
- [01:43]
Kate Winkler Dawson
It didn't feel real at all.
- [01:45]
Lizzy Logan
More than a decade on, she's still searching for answers.
- [01:49]
Kate Winkler Dawson
We're still fighting.
- [01:51]
Lizzy Logan
Listen to Hands tied on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:03]
Kate Winkler Dawson
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who spent the last 25 years writing about true crime.
- [02:09]
Paul Holes
And I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solved them.
- [02:16]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes.
- [02:21]
Paul Holes
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.
- [02:26]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st century lens.
- [02:34]
Paul Holes
Some are solved and some are cold. Very cold.
- [02:38]
Kate Winkler Dawson
This is buried bones. Hey, Paul.
- [03:02]
Paul Holes
Hi, Kate. How are you?
- [03:03]
Kate Winkler Dawson
I'm doing great. You know, I want to talk about our backgrounds because I've definitely had some people message me and ask about different things in my background, but we've never talked about your background. What's in your background? Is there anything weird or significant?
- [03:17]
Paul Holes
Well, you know, behind me is my bookshelf, and it contains most of the books that I read throughout my career. Some of them are academic texts, some of them are your true crime. You know, a lot of the paperback stuff is. Is the true crime, you know, stories on various cases. And I've been somewhat changing it up and I don't know if anybody's noticed it, but, you know, one of the things, you know, over to my left, I have another little bookshelf and I had hidden away, you know, probably one of the most significant books to my career, which is this one here up to my left. Sexual Homicide Patterns and Motives. And this is the academic text for the Netflix series Mindhunter.
- [04:03]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [04:04]
Paul Holes
So when the FBI was going around interviewing the caught serial killers, they compiled all of that into this book. And my parents actually gave me that book for my 25th birthday. Could you imagine giving your son a book called Sexual Homicide? But one of the things I've been thinking about doing because I decided I wanted to highlight that book because it was so significant to me. And then we recorded a, a little while ago, and you had asked me about rapist typologies. And, you know, one of the books that's again, very significant to me was Bob Keppel's book called Signature Killers, which is this book up here. You could see Ted Bundy's face on it. But Dr. Keppel, who was an investigator with Kings County Sheriff's office during the Ted Bundy investigation, he ended up becoming a profiler. And he wrot this book where he took the gross rapist typologies and put that onto the categories of serial killers. And so that I decided, well, I wanted to highlight that book. And I thought, you know what? This may be something I change from time to time, just like little Easter eggs to see if you or the viewers yet are able to spot different changes. And of course, I've got this little buried bones thing here, so maybe pay attention from time to might change things up on you.
- [05:35]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Okay. I go seasonal.
- [05:38]
Paul Holes
Okay.
- [05:38]
Kate Winkler Dawson
When we first started taping, I had a nutcracker up in one of my top shelves.
- [05:45]
Paul Holes
Okay.
- [05:45]
Kate Winkler Dawson
But now what I do, I mean, nobody notices this stuff but me. But I, I, I started putting like a different animal on. So if you look at my fireplace, I don't know if you can tell what's on there right now.
- [05:57]
Paul Holes
Is it a duck?
- [05:58]
Kate Winkler Dawson
It's a duck. It's so, it's my, It's a sentimental duck. It's my dad's duck. It's a wooden duck that his back flips open and it has paper clips and little odds and ends for a desk. And so I had that. But for a while I had a pig, which was a victory bank pig.
- [06:16]
Paul Holes
Oh, really?
- [06:17]
Kate Winkler Dawson
That was my Mom's growing up.
- [06:19]
Paul Holes
Okay.
- [06:19]
Kate Winkler Dawson
If you look on the bottom of that poor pig, she had chipped it out when she was a kid because there's no opening to it. You just put your coins in and there's no way you're going to get it out without smashing this pig. So she had tried to chip it open and she, her dad probably stopped her. And then I tried to chip it open and finally Quinn got it open about three years ago and all of these coins from like the 1950s came out.
- [06:44]
Paul Holes
Oh, that's cool though. I like that. That's very cool.
- [06:47]
Kate Winkler Dawson
So I try. I also had a mouse there for a while, a little, a little brass mouse that my mom had. That's very, very old. That's a. That's a more difficult one to switch up because it has to fit perfectly. It has to fit on this kind of like round vent that I have there. But I definitely switch up books a lot.
- [07:03]
Paul Holes
Yeah, your books are. I would never be able to tell because they're so far in the background if you've switched something out.
- [07:10]
Kate Winkler Dawson
That's why I do the animals, the pigs. I can switch up my Pendleton blankets that actually Karen and Georgia sent me for Christmas. They're a wonderful quality wool blanket. And so I have that one back there. But I bought a different kind that I might switch things up a little bit, you know. Okay.
- [07:29]
Paul Holes
I'll try to pay attention and call you out on something if I see it switched.
- [07:35]
Kate Winkler Dawson
I hope that these stories aren't boring so that you are paying more attention to the animal than I have. Never. That would never happen.
- [07:45]
Paul Holes
No, not at all.
- [07:46]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Never. Never. Okay. We are going to be in Rhode island today. Love, love, love Rhode Island. My last book was set in Rhode island, time period in the 1800s. And we're going to be back in rhode island in 1843. You're going to learn even more history than you ever thought nor cared to learn about some things that were happening in this time period. So let's go ahead and set the scene. I try to think about these cases and think what is the one liner that I can say to listeners, viewers at the very beginning about what I think this case is? And this is. I know we always kind of talk about this sometimes more than others, but for me, this is a case of what they could prove then and what we can prove now. And just the tragedy of it, seeing all of the tools we have now where we could have solved so many things, so many wrongful convictions and executions happened just because we didn't have the right tools. And so then it makes me hopeful for everything that's going to come in the future. What more are we going to have at our disposal to solve crimes and keep people safe?
- [08:54]
Paul Holes
Well, and we're seeing that today, you know, ever since really the advent of modern DNA technology. You know, people who were convicted, you know, the 1970s, 1980s, or even more recently, how DNA has exonerated, you know, individuals that put decades of their time, of their lives in prison and they were absolutely innocent. So just imagine, you know, what they were working with back in the 1800s, and quite frankly, how many innocent people probably were incarcerated and, or sentenced to death for something they didn't do.
- [09:34]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Absolutely. I talk about this with my second book, American Sherlock, about the forensic scientist. And, you know, I, I read in his notes where he said somebody asked him in a letter, have you ever had doubts about anything you've done? This is somebody who worked on 2,000 cases in his lifetime, and he said, no, I got them all right. Got them all right. That's wrong. He obviously didn't, you know, and he was using some bad science. And that's worrisome. I think you always have to like the da Very clear. They prosecuted and incarcerated the wrong person who still refused to open up these cases for whatever reason. I, that was alarming when I read that about Oscar Heinrich.
- [10:15]
Paul Holes
Well, I think, you know, that's where, like, I know from my career, everything I did, I felt that I abided by ethics. I did everything, I formed my opinions based off of what I felt was right. But the biggest fear is, did I conclude something that ultimately put the wrong person in prison? You know, that really is a huge fear by anybody who really cares about what they're doing. And so for Heinrich, you know, for him to say, well, I was always right, that's a lot of ego. I would have liked to hear him. I, I did everything to the best of my abilities with the knowledge that I had my expertise, you know, the facts that I had available to me. But, you know, I think if, you know, if you've worked in this field for a long enough period of time, you know, there is going to be that. Oh, you know, I sure hope everything. I concluded over 30 plus years of working in this field, that it was all right. But it's. We're humans, right?
- [11:28]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yeah. And like, I, you know, I had interviewed Daniel Westcott, who is the, the head of the Texas State Anthropology forensic anthropology lab where they have the body farm. I think it's the largest one in The United States. And I said, what is your job? And he said, it is almost always to exclude, never to include. He said, I. Everything that I have, it's basically saying this didn't happen. I can't tell you 100% what did happen, but I can tell you what didn't happen based on what I have. And so I thought that was important, you know.
- [11:58]
Paul Holes
Yeah, that's definitely the proper forensic philosophy. No matter what forensic discipline that you're working in is, you're always looking for that exclusion. You're always looking for something that benefits, whether it be a suspect or benefits the defendant, to exclude them from the crime. But after, you know, you get so far in and you can't exclude, exclude, then now, you know, it's like, well, how strong is the inclusion? You know, and that's where you see with DNA, well, you can't exclude matches across the entire DNA profile. Well, how strong is that inclusion? And that's where you start getting the statistics. So, you know, the trier of fact, whether it be the judge or the jurors, can put weight on the testimony that is being, you know, put in front of them that's pointing at the defendant. I couldn't eliminate them. You know, so this is how. And so that's where, as we've talked in the past, that's where some of the comparative sciences have gotten into trouble. You know, my perspective is there's. There's no doubt that, you know, fingerprint comparisons and ballistics, all, you know, firearms comparisons, these comparative sciences have value. But it's like, okay, what is the strength of the. The finding? You know, and that's where some of them are struggling to kind of give that objective statistic. So the court can. And the jury can go, okay, now I understand, you know, what it is from a factual standpoint, from a scientific standpoint.
- [13:29]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yeah. What do you weigh more? What should we really pay more attention to? Yeah. Okay, well, let's go back to 1843, where I would say forensics is very weak. And we're going to see that. So this is sundown, 4:15pm on New Year's Eve. We just did a story set in early January in New England, in Massachusetts, and cold, cold, cold. So we're in the same situation here. Very, very cold. New Year's Eve, December 31, 1843, 4:15pm and we're in a place called Spragueville, Rhode island, and it's a village that's full of mill factories, boarding houses, schools. Most of them are owned by a family called The Spragues. So this is a very influential family around New England. And I'll tell you a little bit more about them in a little bit. But this is, you know, this is kind of setting the scene here. The family lives in a huge home which has been called Sprague Mansion. And they have a servant named Michael Costello. He's heading home from the mansion. He's west on Cranston Road, and he crosses this swampy area known as Hawkins Hole. And he approaches a footbridge over a river. I'm gonna show you a photo of the footbridge, which is small and the river, which is a really generous term for what this is. It's almost a creek. Essentially, the water in the river, quote unquote, is not yet frozen. So in the middle of the bridge, Michael notices blood and there's a trail. So he follows the bloody trail 15 to 18ft past the other side of the bridge. And he kind of goes below the bridge. But this is, like I said, it's a creek, nothing's very high up. So he kind of crosses over this little creek and he goes down and he finds the bludgeoned body of a middle aged man. So this is a man who's laying face down with his head on his hands, his legs are extended, and there are blood pools around his head. So Michael doesn't touch the body. He races to alert a doctor named Israel Bowen who lives really close by. We've seen in other cases where somebody races to go find the medical examiner and they show up three or four hours later. Bowen comes immediately, apparently, but nobody's turned him over yet, this man. By the time that they return to the crime scene, there is a small crowd that has gathered and they're searching the area. Contaminated crime scene right there. So, you know, you have these curious onlookers who are taking it upon themselves looking for whoever did this to this man. There is a guy who notices scattered blood drops continuing in the snow 60 to 80ft up the footpath. And another guy finds a pistol underneath the northeast corner of this little footbridge a few yards from the body. So you have pedestrians finding these two things. Go ahead and look at the photos that I sent you. Tell me when you got that page up.
- [16:38]
Paul Holes
So I'm looking at the second photo in this document. And so this appears to just be a photo of a trail, just a walking path through a forest.
- [16:53]
Kate Winkler Dawson
This, I believe, is the footpath that the man found. The 60 to 80 drops of blood, like the exit route basically, for whoever did this was what they're thinking, sure.
- [17:04]
Paul Holes
So if that is truly the escape route that the offender took, and you've got dripped blood for 60 to 80ft, he's bleeding himself, he's leaving his own blood behind. Now, if it's just a dripped blood, that could be, you know, from his nose, that could be from a hand, you know, in essence, it's. He's just walking or moving maybe more swiftly along this trail away. Of course, today this is a huge source of evidence that could ultimately be used to identify the offender in 1843. You know, now they're just going, okay, we have to. If we interview any suspects pretty shortly after the crime, we have to look to see if that suspect has an injury that's fresh.
- [17:53]
Kate Winkler Dawson
The reason I really wanted you to see the footpath is the isolation part of it. It's just like if you read a book, a novel, and you're picturing the characters in your head, and then you see what the author used as inspiration, you think, this looks nothing like who I was picturing in my head. I don't know why. I was thinking of a clearing or kind of in town. This looks isolated to me, at least based on the footpath.
- [18:14]
Paul Holes
Well, along this particular stretch, you know, this is reasonably dense vegetation and forest. The footpath kind of curves out of you, so it's not like you can, you know, look right down the path and just see forever. You know, it's. You can only see roughly. You know, I don't know how long that would be. Let's say 50 to 50 to 100ft down this trail before it curves out of sight.
- [18:39]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Now, if you look at page three and page four, you see this footbridge. And I think the fourth one will give you kind of a perspective of this is not a large river at all. This footpath is substantial. But, you know, you tell me what you think. I don't know where he is. I think he's on the other the side that says not the Cranston side, but the other one. But regardless, this is not like pushing somebody off of a big incline or something.
- [19:08]
Paul Holes
No. So, you know, looking at these two photos, you know, this appears to be really more of a primitive. It's hard to even call it a bridge, even though technically it's crossing a body of water. But it's small. The bridge has been composed of stacked rock in addition to what appears to be some wooden planks, maybe is three to four feet above the level of the water. The top of the bridge, this is just a creek, in my opinion.
- [19:43]
Kate Winkler Dawson
I Said that the river is generous.
- [19:46]
Paul Holes
Yeah, yeah, I, that, I mean, it looks like maybe it's, I don't know, 10ft across.
- [19:53]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yeah.
- [19:54]
Paul Holes
And I can see the bottom in this, this one, one photo where this is not deep at all. It's only, you know, 12 inches, maybe 2ft deep at most. So, you know, it is. Yeah. I'm not seeing snow on the ground, but I know this is a time of year in which it would be very cold for sure.
- [20:15]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Also, these are photos that are not from then. It was probably from later maybe when they were demoing it or something. But yeah, you're right. So what does it say? I know we don't know anything about this case yet, but people use this footbridge. Michael's using this footbridge in the afternoon. So whoever killed this guy just sort of left him. Wherever whatever happened, happened, he's not trying to cover him up, he's face down and that's it. In an area literally next to a bridge where people will definitely cross at some point. Whoever did this is not trying to cover this up or hide his body, which seems like could be easy in this area to do. You just drag him somewhere.
- [20:54]
Paul Holes
Well, I think that's where, you know, first it's getting into, you know, some of the crime scene aspects. You've got the middle aged male that's face down, he's got a blood pool around his head. You know, part of it is you said he was bludgeoned, but then a pistol had been found nearby. So this is where. Okay, was he actually bludgeoned? Because oftentimes people who are shot in the head and the amount of blood coming out of the head can mat the hair and obscure facial features. And so, you know, it could be a gunshot victim at this point, from my perspective, I'd be looking to see, is there any indication of blood spatter from repeated blows to the victim's head to this is where now victimology comes into play. Is this whoever this victim is, is this somebody that would routinely walk along this path for one reason or another? Is this a victim of opportunity? Was this a robbery gone bad? You know, where you had somebody, an offender that confronted the victim at this location, things went sideways and now the, the offender kills the victim and gets hurt in the process and now escapes along the, the footpath that has the dripped blood? Or was this a meeting point? Was this a prearranged meeting point between, you know, the victim and the offender and things went sideways and, you know, 1843, I doubt it was some drug deal going on, you know, so, yeah, this is where victimology becomes huge in terms of. Okay, what is a. What is going on here?
- [22:34]
Kate Winkler Dawson
December 29, 1975, LaGuardia Airport.
- [22:38]
Narrator for Law and Criminal Justice System
The holiday rush. Parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then everything changed.
- [22:47]
Kate Winkler Dawson
There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Just a chaotic, chaotic scene.
- [22:52]
Narrator for Law and Criminal Justice System
In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged. Terrorism. Listen to the new season of law and criminal justice System on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [23:08]
Andrea Gunning
I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the podcast Betrayal. Police Lieutenant Joel Kern used his badge to fool everyone, most of all, his wife, Caroline.
- [23:18]
Kate Winkler Dawson
He texted, I've ruined our lives. You're going to want to divorce me.
- [23:24]
Andrea Gunning
How far would he go to cover up what he'd done?
- [23:27]
Paul Holes
The fact that you lied is absolutely horrific. And quite frankly, I question how many.
- [23:31]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Other women are out there that may.
- [23:33]
Paul Holes
Bring forward allegations in the future.
- [23:35]
Andrea Gunning
Listen to betrayal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [23:45]
Dana Schwartz
In 1920, a magazine article announced something incredible. Two young girls had photographed real fairies. But even more incredible, that article was written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who invented Sherlock Holmes. How did he fall for that? Hoax is a new podcast from me, Dana Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood, and me, Lizzy Logan. Every episode, we'll explore one of the most audacious and ambitious tricks in history and try to answer the question why we believe what we believe. Listen to Hoax on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [24:25]
Kate Winkler Dawson
When they turn the body over, Dr. Bowen recognizes the victim. So he's 45. His name is Omasa Sprague, as in the town name. He is the richest and most influential man in this town. He was very politically connected, kind of all powerful, anti Catholic, you know, very much kind of a nativist attitude. He was a Whig, which is a political party in the 1800s. He and his brother William had served on the Rhode island legislature. And William was a US Senator and a governor. So very, very powerful. Very, very wealthy. So Michael Costello was apparently his servant at the Sprague Manor.
- [25:10]
Paul Holes
Okay, so here you have a very wealthy individual, and now it gets into. Okay, does this. Look at the crime scene, does it look like a robbery? Because he may have, you know, financial assets on his person that somebody would want to get access to and take those assets by force and in the process, you know, killing Amasa. Is that how you say his name?
- [25:32]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Masa?
- [25:33]
Paul Holes
Yeah, and that's where it would come. Is Amasa routinely walking along this path and is targeted because of who he is, or is there something more devious going on? Maybe there's a business transaction. And why would Amasa go and purposely meet with a business partner or somebody out at this particular location? The victimology of Amasa is important, for sure, but it's not necessarily. That's not the reason he got killed. You know, it's just, again, this could. He could just literally be a victim of opportunity. You had a stranger out there just lying in wait or just happened to coincidentally run across Amasa and pulled a gun and a fight ensued, and Amasa got the bad end of the deal. And maybe his pockets are turned out and, you know, you've got coins or a wallet or whatever Amasa would be carrying back in 1843 that the guy took off. And it's just, again, it started out as a robbery and ended up as a homicide.
- [26:33]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, they find a silk handkerchief, an apple, loose change, and an envelope. The envelope is marked $100, but it only has $60 inside, which is $2,500 today. And he is also wearing a gold watch, a very expensive gold watch.
- [26:49]
Paul Holes
Yeah. So the offender doesn't sound like he took anything away from Amasa.
- [26:54]
Kate Winkler Dawson
It doesn't sound like it. And he was discovered by Michael Costello at 415. But multiple people said they saw Amasa in town up until about 3:35. So there is, what, less than an hour to work with there if everybody's. You have multiple people agreeing on the time.
- [27:14]
Paul Holes
Right. So if he's last seen, like 3:35 in town and his body's found at 4:15, that's 25, that's 40 minutes. And he wasn't killed just maybe a minute before his body's found. He could have been killed 10, 15 minutes prior. So it's a very narrow window. So I don't know how long it would take Amasa to get from the town to this particular location. That has to be factored in. But it sounds like once Amasa is at this location, his death occurred pretty quick.
- [27:48]
Kate Winkler Dawson
And, you know, we were talking about people who might have known his schedule. Is this a normal thing? I don't know that necessarily, but this is New Year's Eve. And I wanted to know, was New Year's Eve a thing in the 1800s? It was a big thing. So this is not a business day for him, most likely. And, you know, this is. If he's going to have an unusual schedule, probably this would be one of those days.
- [28:14]
Paul Holes
So now, in terms of assessing the offender, this is where the autopsy could prove to be important, you know, because right now, you know, I could throw out just the speculation. Did Amasa meet up with some woman at this location and she killed him? You know, I want to know a little bit more about what happened to Amasa.
- [28:34]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Okay, well, let's get onto that. We have a coroner, so we've got the doctor who just happened to be there living nearby, but we have a coroner named Robert Watson. He shows up, but it's starting to get dark at 6:15. The town sergeant is there, and they have empaneled a coroner jury. They all show up and they use a lantern. Back to kind of the weird atmospheric part of the 1800s with no lights. They're examining the wounds that were identified. For Dr. Bowen, it's kind of complicated. So here's what they find. The coroner says that he believes that Amasa died by blunt force trauma, probably the edge of a musket guard to the head. Now, I don't even know what a musket guard is. Do you know what part of the gun that is? Musket guard.
- [29:24]
Paul Holes
I know what a musket is.
- [29:26]
Kate Winkler Dawson
A musket guard is called a flash guard, a safety device used on flintlock muskets to deflect the flash and hot gases produced when the weapon is fired. They are typically small metal plates, often made of brass or iron, that attach to the musket lock, redirecting the flames upward or downward instead of outwards.
- [29:45]
Paul Holes
Yeah. You know, so this. This musket guard, if that is correct, it's right on the rifle or the. The musket. Right where, you know, the hammer basically is. It's sort of in the middle of the. The musket. So that's where I'm a little bit. I think for me to. To have confidence that they can conclude that I need to see what kind of patterned wounds they were seeing to say. Oh, yeah, I. I agree with that. Because that seems like a. It seems like a weird spot on the. Along the length of the musket that is being used to do the bludgeoning. Not necessarily.
- [30:26]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Think if you grab. If it's a musket and you're grabbing the barrel and using it almost like a bat, probably that musket guard would catch the side of the person's head and it's kind of sticking out, right?
- [30:39]
Paul Holes
Possibly. And I can visualize that.
- [30:41]
Kate Winkler Dawson
That's speculating. I don't really know.
- [30:44]
Paul Holes
But for the coroner to come to that conclusion. That tells me that they are looking at a patterned wound.
- [30:50]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Mm.
- [30:51]
Paul Holes
And if he's correct, that either Amasa or the offender brought a musket to this location.
- [30:59]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yep. And they're saying that all of the wounds that they see are one inch, one to one and a half inch, which, you know, looking at the photos, from what we saw, that looks about right. They're about a one and a half inch and they're hard, so, you know, they're of a metal. So you're right. I mean, you know, you say that all the time. You're looking at the person in that time period, and if they know what somebody looks like who have been hit by a train, then you kind of have to go with what they've seen. A lot of that's what they think happened. So let me, let me tell you about the injuries. There's one blow to the left side of his head. It fractured his skull and ruptured his brain membrane. There is brain matter and blood sprayed out of the 1 1/2 inch gash on his forehead. Another blow to the right side of his head, which has fractured his skull. And the coroner says each one of these would have killed him. There are other gashes as well. Two parallel cuts, they think. All of this, I believe, is from the musket. Two parallel cuts, each measuring about an inch on the upper back of a moss's head. A three inch wound reaches from the first gash to about an inch above his ear. There's a contusion that runs from his cheekbone to his temple on the right side. This was terrible. This was an awful fight for him. I mean, that's what I'm getting. His nose is shattered. And then there's some gunshot wounds also I can tell you about.
- [32:24]
Paul Holes
Well, and right now, yes, you got blunt force trauma. And this is. Sounds pretty typical when you see a significant weapon like a musket being used as a blunt force weapon because it's hot and this is a lot of energy. And so, yes, the skull fractures, you know, suggest that these are significant blows. You know, my question would be, is he receiving these blows while he's upright, being confronted by the offender, or these blows being delivered while he is down on the ground? And in essence, the offender is finishing him off.
- [32:57]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, listen to the scenario and the coroner has a theory and you give me your scenario first. So this is what else they find. So, you know, he. The theory was that he was on the bridge and now all of a sudden he's face down off the bridge and dead. He's got all of these contusions all over the place. He also suffered one bullet wound. A shot had entered Amasa's right forearm and traveled 4 inches, breaking the small bone of the arm. And the bullet is still embedded in Amasa's wrist. I guess it sounds like it wasn't a musket, it was a pistol. And I don't think those are interchangeable. Pretty sure those are not interchangeable.
- [33:34]
Paul Holes
No.
- [33:34]
Kate Winkler Dawson
So you tell me what that sounds like and that, you know, that is, of course, not what killed him. But somebody shot him.
- [33:41]
Paul Holes
Well, the shot into his arm sounds like Amasa possibly assumed a defensive posture, recognized that there was a gun pointed at him, put his arms. We see this in shootings, and now hands or forearms are being shot, or sometimes you have sort of a covering, and then the bullet ends up going through the arm. So that's kind of how I'm envisioning what you told me about this shot to his forearm and the bullet ending up in his wrist. Sounds like kind of a weird. He's maybe reflexively kind of covering himself up, and he gets shot, and that bullet lodges in his arm. And they're saying that that's a pistol round that they recover. And we have a pistol that is found at the scene.
- [34:35]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yep. Second weapon, Right?
- [34:37]
Paul Holes
It's a second firearm. Now, 1843. Are people just normally walking around with muskets and pistols, you know, or is this unusual? So, you know, so is this where. I mean, you think about it, you got two guys walking over this bridge in opposite directions, and one gives the other a bad look, and now you got words exchanged and they pull their guns out, and Amasa is a loser. You know, it could be as, you know, basic as that, but his victimology, high profile, wealth, everything else, it seems like there's probably more to the story than just some random crime.
- [35:13]
Kate Winkler Dawson
You're correct, sir. There is a lot more to the story.
- [35:17]
Andrea Gunning
I knew I wanted to obey and submit, but I didn't fully grasp for.
- [35:23]
Narrator for Law and Criminal Justice System
The rest of my life what that.
- [35:25]
Host of America's Crime Lab
Meant for my heart. Podcast and Rococo Punch. This is the Turning River Road. In the woods of Minnesota, a cult leader married himself to 10 girls and forced them into a secret life of abuse. But in 2014, the youngest escaped. Listen to the Turning river road on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [35:48]
Narrator for Law and Criminal Justice System
Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime.
- [35:54]
Host of America's Crime Lab
On the new podcast, America's Crime lab. Every case has a story to tell, and the DNA holds the truth.
- [36:00]
Paul Holes
He never thought he was going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen, I was just like, ah, gotcha. This technology's already solving so many cases.
- [36:11]
Host of America's Crime Lab
Listen to America's Crime Lab on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [36:19]
Lizzy Logan
Liz went from being interested in true crime to living true crime. My husband said, your dad's been killed. This is Hands Tied, a true crime podcast exploring the murder of Jim Melgar.
- [36:33]
Kate Winkler Dawson
I was just completely in shock.
- [36:35]
Lizzy Logan
Liz's father murdered and her mother found locked in a closet, her hands and feet bound.
- [36:41]
Kate Winkler Dawson
It didn't feel real at all.
- [36:43]
Lizzy Logan
More than a decade on, she's still searching for answers.
- [36:47]
Kate Winkler Dawson
We're still fighting.
- [36:49]
Lizzy Logan
Listen to Hands tied on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [36:59]
Kate Winkler Dawson
The coroner thinks that Amasa was confronted on the bridge and bludgeoned from behind, knocked off the bridge, and that the person on the bridge had an accomplice who had that pistol. But then what would that mean? Because the pistol is not what killed him, it's the blunt force trauma. So what, the guy jumped off the bridge and finished him off with this, with this muzzle thing?
- [37:22]
Paul Holes
That's what I'm envisioning, yes. You know, so this confrontation, if the confrontation occurred up on the bridge, Amasa, it sounds like, put up enough of a fight to where at least if there's multiple offenders, one of the offenders got hurt to the point where now is leaving a 60 to 80 foot long, you know, trail of dripped blood, you know, so this is where now, you know, taking a look at Amasa's hands, you know, does this, do his hands suggest, does he have bruising or, you know, like if think about somebody hitting somebody in the mouth, the teeth will cut into the knuckles or you get bruises as somebody is, is fighting torn fingernails. So that's something I would be looking at to go, yes, you know, now you have, you know, basically a physical fight. A mass is shot. He could have been shot right away, but the shot to his arm is not going to capacitate him. He could still physically fight his offenders, but eventually maybe there's a significant blow to his head or he's pushed off the bridge and an offender, or both offender, you know, get down to where his body is and that's where you get the. All the blows being inflicted by the musket.
- [38:31]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, and then let me tell you what happens with this pistol. You know, he's got that one shot that's still in his wrist. The jurors look at the pistol on the scene, and they find signs that it had misfired the percussion. Now, you're going to have to tell me about this. The percussion lock had been snapped, but the gun is still loaded to the muzzle, and the barrel is packed with snow and jammed with a wad of paper. What is the percussion? What does that mean? Percussion lock had been snapped.
- [38:59]
Paul Holes
I don't know what the percussion lock is that. So there would be. With these black powder weapons, you've got the black powder that goes down into the barrel. Then you've got the projectile that is then packed down on top of that black powder. But then you have what I. I think is called a percussion cap. And this is in essence, what the hammer hits that causes. There's a. That force of the hammer hitting the percussion cap is what causes the ignition because it contains material sort of like modern firearms. The primer has. When the. The hammer strikes the firing pin, the firing pin hits the primer, and that's what causes the gunpowder inside the cartridge case to burn, which, you know, the gases force the bullet out. So a percussion guard sounds like it's a mechanism, part of the firing mechanism that somehow protects the percussion cap until the trigger is pulled. That's my guess. But this is where, like, as I always say, I have a little bit of knowledge. This is where I would be reaching out to a firearms expert and go, tell me what you know about this and how do I interpret this particular type of weapon within the circumstances and the evidence of this crime?
- [40:18]
Kate Winkler Dawson
I guess, really, in some ways, I'm not sure this really matters. If a gun is jammed at a scene, it's fired once. I guess that explains why he wasn't shot again. Is that kind of the takeaway you have?
- [40:31]
Paul Holes
Well, it could be. You know, and we run with modern weapons. We run into this all the time. Especially. Especially when somebody's got a pistol today and they get into a physical fight and they try to pull the trigger, but they're not supporting that gun. And so the gun doesn't cycle the normal way. And so now you can get jams and misfires, if you will, with these older weapons with snow being packed up into the pistol. You know, is this where Amasa and the offender are fighting over this gun? That gun gets driven down into the. The snow on the ground. You know, I don't know enough to be able to say, well, that in and of itself, that packed snow would prevent that Pistol from firing. Probably could. But you mentioned that there's this wad of paper that's stuffed up in there that might be something that is normally packed into these types of weapons.
- [41:28]
Kate Winkler Dawson
So let me tell you about the rumors, because now they're trying to look at motive. Who is this person? There's no evidence of any of this, but they wonder, was Amasa having an affair, had his mistress's husband discovered it and killed him in revenge? There was a disgruntled worker at the family mills, a guy named Big Peter Dolan at the mill who had just been fired for destroying a loom that had torn his nephew's fingers off. So this all seems to be on the table, and they're obviously gonna look at the family. The person who probably gains the most is his brother William, who's this powerful senator. And, you know, he was a governor. And so there's. There's a lot going on with this man and their servants, too.
- [42:12]
Paul Holes
Yeah. Well, right now, this is wide open. Like in our. One of our previous episodes that we just talked about, I talked about how you can interpret offender behaviors at the crime scene to get a sense as to who the offender might be. Right now, there is not enough information because there really isn't a lot of offender behavior being expressed at this crime scene. This is where now the victimology, you know, starts to become so much more important.
- [42:36]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Okay, well, let's get into this. The villagers. There are some villagers who think all of that is stupid. They think this was a political assassination. So this is a sign of the time. So get ready for a history lesson. I've never. This is a big one. Okay. And you've probably not heard of this man in particular, but he's very famous. So two months before Amasa was murdered, there is a well known political reformer who's actually popped up in a couple of my books. His name is Thomas Dorr, and he was arrested for treason. So the Spragues do play a part in all of this. In 1841, Thomas Dorr wanted more Rhode Islanders to be allowed to vote. So at that point, only native born, meaning born in the United States, property owning white males had voting rights. This is what the Spragues believed in, and this is what they campaigned on, both of these brothers. So Thomas Dorr wanted to establish what was called universal white male suffrage. After one year of residency, then you could vote. So that meant, you know, that immigrants could vote. That meant that Catholics could vote because many of the immigrants were Catholics. And this is not what the majority of White men wanted in Rhode island, you know, and this was a time period where nobody trusted the Catholics. Everybody thought Catholicism was very odd. And, you know, Christ's blood and everything else. The mistrust was there very much. And so nobody wanted this to happen. So the Sprague's kind of kept getting in the way of Thomas Dorr in Rhode island, but now he is arrested for treason and he's imprisoned. But it's the politicians like the Spragues in Rhode island who did it. So he himself was in prison, Thomas Dorr. But there were an awful lot of supporters who hated the Spragues and the white male nativists just like them. And there were a lot of Irish Catholics in Rhode Island. So as I said, Dorr is in state prison. He will not stay there forever. He'll be out within a few years. But people do want to know if he hired somebody, like an Irish Catholic group to murder Amasa Sprague. So this sets the stage for the murder to be pinned on three Irish Catholic, Nicholas, John and William Gordon. So let me tell you about these guys. Nicholas Gordon came first, and he's a little bit of the center of the story. He arrived in Providence, Rhode island, in the mid-1830s, so just a decade earlier. Unlike a lot of immigrants, he didn't work in the mill. He opened a general store and sold garbage, groceries and candies. Nicholas's general store was undercutting the prices of the mill shops that all of the Spragues owned. And Nicholas made a huge profit. Then he opened up a tavern, and it was incredibly popular. And all of the mill workers would go to the tavern. The money that he made was enough to bring over the two brothers who I had mentioned, who were John and William and his mother from Ireland. They came just a couple of months before the murder. But the city council started to target Nicholas at the request of Amasa Sprague and his brother. And they ended up revoking the tavern's liquor license. And the excuse was, well, Nicholas Gordon is getting these guys drunk and sending them back to the mills where they're getting their hands ripped off and everything else. If I were Nicholas, I'd be pissed. And this sounds like a great motive to me. He had his liquor license and it shut down the whole tavern.
- [46:18]
Paul Holes
Sounds like he has direct motive versus being hired by Thomas Dore.
- [46:23]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yep, it could be a bonus. I hate that guy. Anyway, I'm willing to do it, and it would help Thomas Dorr, but we'll see. Okay, so New Year's Day, the Next day, there's a town meeting and there's a reward of $1,000 to anyone with information about the murder. $1,000 was about $43,000 today.
- [46:43]
Paul Holes
Yeah, well, it's a significant amount of money now that, you know, the experience that we've seen in law enforcement with rewards, particularly if they're pretty big rewards, is you get a lot of false tips coming in because people are just rolling the dice, hoping they stumble across something in order to get that money. So it can be very distracting to the investigation.
- [47:05]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, you're right on the nose because a lot of villagers came forward to say that they had seen animosity between Amasa and Nicholas over the tavern, which doesn't sound like something that would be disputed, but you do have an awful lot of people who want that money. And there is a lot of anti immigrant, anti Catholic tension in this town. There is no piece of physical evidence linking Nicholas to this crime. It's, you know, a motive of, well, he was really mad and plus he's, you know, an immigrant, and so that would have been the motive. So at 6 o' clock that night, the next day, after this man is found, Nicholas and his brother John are arrested on suspicion of murder. And for John, he just has a bruise on his chin and that's it. But with the coroner, you know, saying there was two men, they focus in on these two brothers and, you know, the next day the sheriff, who was a guy named High Sheriff Potter, I'll just say Sheriff Potter searched the Gordon's shop and upstairs apartment. And they find a tin box and a canister that contained powder, as in gunpowder. Dirty clothes. There is a wet blue coat, a wet pair of pants, wet boots. The elbow of one shirt is stained with what appears to be blood. In its pocket is a grocery bill. In the pocket of a dark stained vest. The party discovers caps and flint and six pistol balls and powder wrapped, wrapped in brown paper. And a few drops of blood are present on the under sheet of the bed near the head. Now, let me say this. About 1844, they could tell whether this stuff was blood. They could not tell if it was human blood or, you know, dog blood or anything, but they would have been able to identify blood. Twenty years later, they will know how to identify the difference between human blood and animal blood. They did not test any of this, so we don't know if this stuff was blood or whose blood it was, but this is what they find. They also, in the attic, find a bayonet and a sword. Quite frankly, I mean, this is a laundry list of what pretty much any family in the 1840s probably would have had in their house. And I know the insinuation is, you know, the clothes are wet and he must have gotten into the quote unquote river. But again, I mean, it's snow on the ground. That's what they have.
- [49:26]
Paul Holes
Yes, but I think it's unimpressive in terms of trying to tie any of that evidence back to the crime scene. I mean, that's ultimately what you have to do, is you're trying to make associations to connect, you know, these suspects to the crime scene, to the victim, et cetera. And these items right now, this were the interviews of Nicholas and John. You know, it's like, well, do they have an explanation for the blood, the blood staining on the elbow of the clothing, Is that a wound that they can see, a fresh wound on either of the suspects? Does that wound appear to be something that could bleed enough to leave a 60 to 80 foot long trail of dripped blood? You know, so there's a lot more digging that needs to be done to figure out if anything that they found during the search has any relevance to the crime.
- [50:22]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, let me ask you, let's just say there is an injury and it's an elbow injury, but that's the only injury one of these guys has. Let's say Nicholas, is there enough blood in that area of your arm to actually drip 60 to 80 drops up a trail that's visible?
- [50:39]
Paul Holes
Well, it's not just 60, 80 drop, it's dripped blood that goes for 60 to 80ft along the trail. So, you know, of course you can have an injury to the elbow that can bleed significantly. You know, now dripped blood, this is where we have no information in terms of really how much blood is present in this dripped trail. You know, but generally when you see dripped blood, oftentimes you'll, you'll have blood. Let's say there's an elbow injury and now it's as you're walking that bleeding is flowing down your arms and dripping off of your hand. You know, so that's, that's a possibility to create that type of trail. Does one of these suspects actually have, you know, a recent wound? Because they're being arrested within a day, right? Two days, you know, it's, they're going to have a fresh wound and then what is their explanation for the blood inside the residence? You know, and it could be, yeah, you know, I was working in the yard and I hit my elbow and I was bleeding, you know, so so right now this is just all very superficial. There needs to be more.
- [51:52]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, let's keep going. There is a group of concerned citizens. We've talked about these people. They never do any good. Almost ever. They go to the crime scene and they're tromping around, the snow is melting. But there's a guy named Walter Beatty, he's the head of this vigilante, I don't know what to call them, group. They're able to see shoe tracks and paw prints. Like a dog. They follow the tracks from the bridge across Dyer Pond through the swamp and to the Gordon's apartment. And the length of the tracks matches the sole of the boots that they find in the apartment. Except the width of the tracks are about an eighth of an inch wider. But still, they think this is proof positive that the Gordons are the ones who did this. Can you really track things through a swamp? I mean, melted snow, a swamp, across the bridge, through a pond?
- [52:46]
Paul Holes
Yeah, that seems a little convenient, I guess is the way to put it. When you can most certainly have, let's say at the crime scene, you have a shoe impression and you can see how as you follow the direction of that, you know, the trail of shoe impressions, there will be moments in time in which there are surfaces that that person was walking across. It doesn't leave any impression. And then you can pick up that trail on the other side of it. That's where, looking at the swamp, what were they really seeing in order to try to track something through that? Is there a lot of just impressions in mud without having any details of, let's say, the sole pattern of this particular boot? And then from my guess is that today, of course, we have all sorts of different types of outsole designs. Right? All sorts versus back in 1843, I bet most people probably had the same boots, you know, with the same types of sole patterns. So that's where now the veracity of the tracking aspect, you know, gets questioned. From my perspective.
- [54:01]
Kate Winkler Dawson
What if Nicholas had walked there, you know, the day before, earlier, you know, who knows? Okay, this is what I need to remind you of. So when we talked about that elbow bleeding, it was a shirt that they saw was stained with what appeared to be blood. While they're tromping through this citizens group and they're trying to follow these tracks, they find two significant pieces of evidence. In the thicket on the east side of the swamp, they find a short, well worn blue coat. There appears to be dried blood on the worn out right elbow. It's exposed lining and on the breast of the coat. So if they're right and no one's lying and trying to set up this Irish Catholic guy, then that is the jacket that matches the bloody elbowed shirt at Nicholas's house. And then let me tell you this. There is wax and black hair stuck to it. On one of the coat pockets, there contains a box of powder, which has to be shooting powder.
- [55:07]
Paul Holes
Obviously, if you find bloody clothing along the escape route of the offender, I mean, that's significant. The location of the blood staining on the blue coat being consistent with the apparent blood staining on the shirt found within the Gordon's residence. I mean, maybe the frustrating part for me, of course, is, well, this would be easy to answer. Let's just do DNA on it, right? You know, but back then, it's like, well, it's consistent, but you still. Even the blue coat, you can't say that that blue coat was worn by the killer or the killers of Amasa. You still have to connect it back to the actual homicide. And this is where I'd be going. Okay, So I know that Amasa was bludgeoned multiple times in the head. And based off of what you described, the doctors saying, where you have blood and brain matter that is being exposed, and you're probably having blood and potentially brain matter being spattered, does this coat show that type of blood pattern, if you will, some spatter pattern, as this is the offender that is yielding, let's say, the musket while he's giving these blows to the offender. So the blood on the blue coat, the blood on the shirt from the Gordon residence, it's something, but it's still not connecting back to the actual homicide. Not yet.
- [56:41]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, here's another place where DNA would be supremely helpful. Just a little bit further past the coat, they find a gun, which is the musket broken off at the breach. The barrel is bent and it's not loaded, and the lock is gone and covered with blood.
- [56:58]
Paul Holes
Well, now you got the murder weapon. So it's the close association with the murder weapon to the blue coat definitely raises the. The association of the blue coat to the homicide. So now it's a matter of whose coat is this, whose musket is this, and how do they prove that in 1843?
- [57:18]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, let's move along and let me tell you about what happens at the end of the day. William Gordon is arrested. So he's the third brother. So you have Nicholas and John arrested, the third brother arrested, the mother Ellen arrested, and another brother named Robert arrested. I'm gonna try not to laugh at this. The dog is arrested.
- [57:43]
Paul Holes
What?
- [57:44]
Kate Winkler Dawson
And I looked this up. It happened in the 1800s and the 1700s. They put animals on trial, like, actual trials.
- [57:50]
Paul Holes
The paw prints in snow by the bridge?
- [57:53]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yes.
- [57:53]
Paul Holes
Good God.
- [57:54]
Kate Winkler Dawson
I mean, I know I pulled this whole thing up for you. I'll be brief. And actually, you know, it turns from. To me, I thought was amusing at first, but, you know, they would be executed for things they did. It could have been, you know, hurting a sheep or something. But in the early 1800s, you know, there was a different understanding of the law and animals. They could be charged with murder, property damage, even being a nuisance. And they actually had human witnesses. They had human witnesses, and they had attorneys and judges, you know, and they could face execution, like hanging or being burned alive or exiled. So, you know, this went out the door eventually. But in this case, the dog is put under arrest also.
- [58:41]
Paul Holes
That's just stupid. It's. Come on. So, I mean, it really underscores just how silly, you know, some of these laws were. So was the dog standing guard while Amasa was killed? And now the dog is an accessory to the murder? I mean, it's. It's like, I'd like to see, you know, the investigators affidavit supporting probable cause to a robot arrest this canine. I know that's laughable.
- [59:10]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Silly to you. Laughable to you. Not to the dog.
- [59:14]
Paul Holes
No.
- [59:14]
Kate Winkler Dawson
So they arrest. And one of Nicholas's friends, man, they just round up all of the Irish kids in this town, and Ellen and Robert are let go later on, and so is the friend. And then my question was, what about the freaking dog? Did the dog get out? I'm assuming the dog's okay, but they had arrested the dog.
- [59:33]
Paul Holes
So basically, they arrested an entire family.
- [59:36]
Kate Winkler Dawson
And a friend and a dog. Correct. So this gets serious, especially because William Sprague iii, who is Amasa's brother, resigns from the Senate. US Senate. He resigns to watch over the family business and over the investigation. John and William are indicted for murder, and they're scheduled to be tried together in the Rhode Island Supreme Court. Nicholas is considered the mastermind, and he's indicted as an accessory before the fact and scheduled to be tried after John and William. So what is that? That means they think John and William were the ones who did the killing, but that Nicholas is an accessory because he was the planner only.
- [60:20]
Paul Holes
Yeah, that's what it sounds like to me. You know, if they're indicting John and William, I think they're putting John and William out there on the bridge with Amasa. And obviously Nicholas had motive with, you know, this whole business conflict that he had with Amasa. So that is what it sounds like to me.
- [60:39]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Okay, well, you know, I guess they didn't do their research because William, one of the two so called murderers, had an alibi. The best alibi ever. He was in Mass when this all happened. He was in a Catholic Mass in Providence. A gazillion witnesses, including priests, saw him. Even though William does have an alibi, he's still going to go on trial. Unfortunately, his brother John does not have a good alibi. So John goes it alone and Nicholas will go it alone in his own trial. Before we talk about the evidence, which there's some really good interesting evidence here, let me just kind of set up the politics of this. So one more history list and probably not just one more, but one more. So we've got a defense team of two and we've got prosecutors who are political opponents. And they take this very personally because these prosecutors and these defense attorneys ran against each other for Attorney General and only one of them won one of the prosecutors. So the defense attorneys hate the prosecutors. The prosecutors are Whigs, which is a political party who is fervently against Thomas Dorr, who, you know, wants immigrants to have rights too. The immigrants who are fighting for voting rights and for the respect of the Catholics. The Whigs don't want any of this. So Amasa's brother is calling the shots over these prosecutors to a point where he appoints essentially the prosecutors because he's a senator of Rhode Island. The defense is led by Thomas Dorr supporters. And you know, this is probably not good news just in general, the political fight that happens between all of these four men. So the judge presiding over the case is Chief Justice Jobe Durfee. Durfee shows up in my book and the center's all about, because the Durfees were very famous in Tiverton, Rhode island, which is now Fall River, Massachusetts. And Durfee was anti doer, anti immigrant. He was a Whig. And he said, listen to this, Paul. He encourages the jury, which includes no Irish or Catholic men, to give greater credence to testimonies from the native born witnesses than from the immigrants. Judges did that.
- [62:54]
Paul Holes
There's no prejudice there.
- [62:56]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yeah, in my book that was set in 1953 about the great Smog, when the serial killer I profiled went on trial. Afterwards, in closing statements, the. The judge essentially said, you need to believe the prosecutor, not the defense attorney gave You a terrible case. Go do the right thing. So, of course, it was, predictably, a very short deliberation with this jury.
- [63:18]
Paul Holes
Yes.
- [63:19]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Okay. Murder trial starts April. The brothers say they are not guilty. They plead not guilty. The prosecution argues that Nicholas pressured John and William to murder Amasa because of the liquor license. So nobody, at this point is acknowledging the possibility that Thomas Dorr sent these three brothers out to be hitmen to take out a political rival. And, you know, a lot of this is based on dubious witness testimony. But I think the most damning argument here is that when the investigators go to the store, the brothers own the store, the general store, and then they live above it, the whole family, when they go, they're searching for a gun. And now both guns are present at the scene, it sounds like. But Nicholas says, I have a. Missing. My gun is missing. And so they immediately say, if your gun is gone, then your gun is the one that we found under the bridge or the musket, one of those. What actually happened is one of the other brothers got scared, and they hid Nicholas's gun under the floorboards. And nobody would cop to it. Nobody would say, oh, yeah, we hit his gun. They were just scared, is what. What. That's what they say.
- [64:27]
Paul Holes
Okay.
- [64:27]
Kate Winkler Dawson
The prosecutor produces witnesses that testify that they had seen John two days before the murder with this gun. Now the gun is missing. It must be missing, according to the prosecutors, because the Gordons couldn't admit that it had shattered. I guess they're talking about the musket had shattered while they were bludgeoning Amasa. And you know what's interesting? William doesn't disclose that the brother. He doesn't disclose that he had hidden the weapon or that the weapon was available. I don't know why, but he doesn't.
- [65:00]
Paul Holes
My thought is. Is that these guns probably are not. They're not registered. There's no serial numbers associated with them. So you almost have to rely upon other people saying, I recognize that gun. That's Nicholas's gun or William's gun, versus having some paperwork proving what. What gun they had.
- [65:19]
Kate Winkler Dawson
So I'll tell you a funny story. So just to get this out of the way, the serial numbers on guns were not mandatory until 1968, and it was sporadic. There were. Before that, there were. You know, Colt and Winchester would put serial numbers on guns, but it wasn't law, so not everybody did it. And that's why the. The defense said, you cannot prove that that gun belonged to any of the Gordons because you can't trace it to Them. There's no serial number on it in American Sherlock. Heinrich was investigating the case of there was a train robbery and he had a gun that had been recovered and the robbers had scratched off the serial number so you could identify it. He knew. Heinrich knew that this Colt weapon in particular because it had been used in robberies in the past. Colt started printing another serial number on the inside of the barrel so he could look and identify and find the real serial number inside the barrel.
- [66:16]
Paul Holes
I've actually done serial number restorations early on in my career where you have stolen guns in which the serial numbers have been defaced in a variety of different ways. And there's a variety of chemicals, typically acids, that will preferentially react where the serial number had been stamped into the gun. And so by utilizing a process of both polishing as well as this chemical etching, you can sometimes bring up the serial number even though it's been completely defaced from the firearm. It's a very, very common service that crime labs do across the nation.
- [67:01]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, that's super interesting because, you know, I have heard that so many times, scraping off the serial number and how it works, it doesn't work. And so. So they are not able to definitively say that the Gordons own this gun. William, for some reason, is not saying I hid the gun because I think they had a lot of guns. You know, they found a bayonet, there's all this stuff, but I guess there's a particular musket that they're focusing in on. It sounds like the bloody coat does not. That was found in the woods does not belong to the Gordons. I call this an O.J. simpson moment. The defense asked John to put on the coat, and it's too big for him. It's way too big for him. And I think it sounded like the shirt belonged to John. Nobody had bloody elbows from what I could tell. No scraped up elbows.
- [67:47]
Paul Holes
Okay.
- [67:48]
Kate Winkler Dawson
You know, of course they didn't analyze the blood, so it's a very confusing scenario.
- [67:52]
Paul Holes
Well, and that's what's critical, is you need to have evidence that matches with the actual homicide scene. And, you know, you have somebody on the escape route that is dripping blood. You know, unless the dog is dripping blood. You know, it's. These guys were arrested so quickly that you're going to see wounds that you could go, yeah, that, that could be the source of this type of blood trail at this crime scene. And they don't have that.
- [68:21]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, and I'll tell you what else that somebody brings up A great point. Remember, nothing's tested. As I said, there was. The defense calls witnesses who take the stand who work with John. John works at a print factory, and they use something called Matters dye, which is a red dye used in printing calico cloth, and it stains clothes. And these witnesses said, we all have red stains all over our clothes because we use that dye and because they didn't test it to determine which they could have whether this was blood. There you go. The defense says you can't prove this.
- [68:55]
Paul Holes
Well, and that's where, I mean, I can. And I've talked about this before. I've looked at. Got so many pieces of evidence that had red stains on them, and to my eye, I go, yeah, that looks like blood. And then I test it with presumptive blood, testing chemicals, and it's like it's not blood. You can easily be fooled. That's why you have to do the testing. You can't just conclude based off of a visual appearance. You need to do the testing. Because in this particular case, it sounds like it's very possible that this. This bloody elbow on the shirt that was found in the Gordon residence is from the Occupation.
- [69:33]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yeah.
- [69:33]
Paul Holes
That he's involved with. It's not blood.
- [69:36]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, the defense is doing the best it can. Of course, they are discounting the. The shoe prints, the track marks, the poor dog paw prints, and saying, you know, there's just a way. You can't say that, considering how many people use that footbridge, that. That these guys, first of all, that the tracks even go to their apartment, but that these were made that day. And the defense had said that there were witnesses that said there were two men who had been in the vicinity of the murder scene 15 minutes before the gunshots were heard. They were carrying a gun they claimed to be hunting. And one man was shorter, not wearing a coat, even though it was cold. Now, do they ever identify these guys? No, no, but people said they saw them and they didn't know who they were. And they would have known Nicholas and the Gordon brothers.
- [70:24]
Paul Holes
Well, if it's not the Gordon brothers, then who is it? Who killed Amasa?
- [70:31]
Kate Winkler Dawson
I know, and that's what I think is what's the most confounding thing about this case, Let me tell you. Kind of where we go. So after a nine day trial, which is long for this time period, the jury announces its verdict. William is acquitted. He was the one in mass with the great alibi. Okay. John's found guilty. After a series of denied petitions for retrial, he is sentenced to hang. And he does hang for this. And Nicholas, Nicholas goes on trial in October of 1844 and then again in April of 45. So John is hanged in between these two trials. They were both hung juries. You know, John didn't recant his innocence even when he took his last rites, which would have been a big deal. And Nicholas dies on October 22. He never went to prison. There were two hung juries. He never goes to prison. So he dies. I don't know of what. I don't know if this was, you know, taking his own life or natural causes or whatever. But here's just another. I mean this family, Nicholas had debt. And in the 1700s and the 1800s, if you had debt and you died, your nearest family member was responsible for that debt. And that is how a lot of people got into trouble. I think Thomas Jefferson had to pay off his father in law's debt. And it was terrible. So if you're a family member, you have to repay that debt. And William was the one tapped to repay Nicholas's debt and he couldn't do it. So he went to prison. And he dies in an asylum after he was battling alcoholism. And so then they transferred to an asylum and then he died in the asylum.
- [72:14]
Paul Holes
Now did they ever establish a connection with the Gordon family to Thomas Dore?
- [72:20]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Nope.
- [72:21]
Paul Holes
So fundamentally it's Nicholas was done wrong by Amasa over the business conflict and, and the whole family conspired to kill Amasa to get back at him. That's where we're at.
- [72:35]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yes. Let me tell you kind of a further down conclusion. So in 1852, seven years after that happened, the state abolished capital punishment and there is less anti Irish sentiment. And the people in the town and in the state start to acknowledge there was a miscarriage of justice in the trial. And then there is a trial 150 years later. There's a play called the Murder Trial of John Gordon. And there's a state representative of Newport who in 2011 sponsors a resolution to exonerate John posthumously, of course, and it's successful. So he's officially pardoned the one brother who, I mean, I don't know. I just feel like he was screwed over by various people. I have no idea why William didn't say that he had hidden the brother's gun. I actually don't think that would have made a difference. I think they would have, you know, figured it out. Either way, as you said, if the brothers didn't do it, who did kill him?
- [73:36]
Paul Holes
I can't say whether The Gordons were involved or not? You know, I don't. I definitely don't think that they had a case against the Gordons. Maybe because of the. The motive that Nicholas was. That business conflict with Amasa. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you could. You could say motive, but there's plenty of people, particularly with Amasa's pedigree, there's probably plenty of people in his past that could have motive.
- [74:00]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yeah.
- [74:00]
Paul Holes
You have to prove a case, and I just don't think they've. They've proven the case. And. And with your history lesson, if you will, with Thomas Door and this, you know, immigrants having, you know, voting rights and Amasa being on the opposite side, you know, was this a hit and did the assassins get away with it? I mean, I think that's just as. As reasonable a possibility as the Gordons at this point.
- [74:26]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Right. And my thought was, you know, Nicholas Gordon, he was not Sprague wealthy. He had money from his two businesses. But if your 50% of your business has just closed down because of these asshole spragues, wouldn't you take that money? You know, the watch, you probably wouldn't be able to sell, but, you know, thousands of dollars, a couple thousand dollars, wouldn't you just take the money? It would help making it look a little bit more like a robbery. And I'll tell you, Paul, it's been floated that Amasa's brother might have done it, too, because he was the one who had the most to gain because he inherited everything after that.
- [75:03]
Paul Holes
No, we see plenty of homicides that occur between family members because of that very thing.
- [75:10]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yeah.
- [75:10]
Paul Holes
This would be a very easy case to solve today.
- [75:14]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yeah.
- [75:15]
Paul Holes
You know, with the evidence left behind.
- [75:17]
Kate Winkler Dawson
That's why I started this episode like that. This is an example of what. What we couldn't do in the 1840s and what we can do now.
- [75:25]
Paul Holes
Well, it's interesting that as recently as 2011, you know, now you're getting John kind of exonerated, if you will. Yeah, that. So obviously, this is a case that kind of resonated within the.
- [75:42]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yes, absolutely. And I think I told you in the case in Rhode island also from the 1600s, about a son who was accused of murdering his mother to get all of the property that was left to her, and she died in a fire, you know, and a lot of people, including me, believed he actually didn't do it, that she most likely had a heart attack and kind of, you know, died with the fire around her. The family contacted me. This is from the 1630s. And they emailed me and said, we heard the podcast. We have written two or three letters to King Charles in England and said, we believe that he was innocent. Please, posthumously, you know, exonerate him. And it hasn't happened yet. But that was a lesson for me. When I talk to people about why this matters for a family. For 500 years ago almost, you know, to reach out like that and continue to want that. It's a stain on their family, and they want it removed. And so people care about their families. It says something about who you are and what you've become.
- [76:48]
Paul Holes
You know, I didn't realize that that had happened. That's amazing, actually.
- [76:52]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, I hope they get it, because I do believe it was Thomas Cornell's story, and I do believe that. That he was innocent. He got railroaded. This is the one. I don't know if you remember this story, but you and I didn't go through it. His wife saw a dog, you know, a black dog, leap towards the woman, and it wasn't a real dog. And that was like, the sign of a poltergeist and witches. And it was a very, like, fearful time. And it was also where I learned that they would, in that time period, have the murder suspect put their hands on the murder victim. And if the victim bled, that was the victim indicating who their murderer was. So that's where. That's what I was dealing with in that case.
- [77:36]
Paul Holes
Oh, good God.
- [77:37]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yes, I know. I'm gonna make you do one of those cases just to see what you say. Murderous black dogs is a bad omen and all kinds of stuff, but I hope that everybody turned out okay, especially the dog. The dog literally did nothing wrong. And I shocked that they would arrest animals, but there you go. Different time.
- [77:59]
Paul Holes
All right, well, once again, you know, this was a fascinating case and some interesting, quirky things going on in it.
- [78:07]
Kate Winkler Dawson
That's the goal. Murder, mayhem, an interesting conclusion and quirky things. That's it. Okay, I'll see you next week with more of the same, I'm pretty sure.
- [78:17]
Paul Holes
All right, sounds good, Kate.
- [78:22]
Kate Winkler Dawson
This has been an exactly right production.
- [78:25]
Paul Holes
For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com buriedbones sources.
- [78:30]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Our senior producer is Alexis Emorosi.
- [78:33]
Paul Holes
Research by Alison Trouble and Kate Winkler Dawson.
- [78:36]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
- [78:39]
Paul Holes
Our theme song is by Tom Breivogel.
- [78:41]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
- [78:44]
Paul Holes
Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.
- [78:48]
Kate Winkler Dawson
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook.
- [78:51]
Paul Holes
Buriedbonespod Kate's most recent book, all that Is A Gilded Age Story of Murder and the Race to Decode the Criminal Mind, is available now, and Paul's best.
- [79:01]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Selling memoir, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, is also available now.
- [79:07]
Paul Holes
Listen to Barry bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [79:22]
Andrea Gunning
I knew I wanted to obey and submit, but I didn't fully grasp for.
- [79:28]
Kate Winkler Dawson
The rest of my life what that.
- [79:29]
Host of America's Crime Lab
Meant for my heart. Podcasts and Rococo Punch this is the Turning River Road in the woods of Minnesota, a cult leader married himself to 10 girls and forced them into a secret life of abuse. But in 2014, the youngest escaped. Listen to the Turning river road on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [79:52]
Dana Schwartz
In 1920, a magazine article announced something incredible. Two young girls had photographed real fairies. But even more incredible, that article was written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who invented Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes. How did he fall for that? Hoax is a new podcast from me, Dana Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood, and me, Lizzy Logan. Every episode we'll explore one of the most audacious and ambitious tricks in history and try to answer the question why we believe what we believe. Listen to Hoax on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [80:31]
Narrator for Law and Criminal Justice System
Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime.
- [80:37]
Host of America's Crime Lab
On the new podcast, America's Crime Lab. Every case has a story to tell and the DNA holds the truth.
- [80:44]
Paul Holes
He never thought he was going to get caught and I just looked at my computer screen, I was just like, ah, gotcha. This technology is already solving so many cases.
- [80:54]
Host of America's Crime Lab
Listen to America's Crime Lab on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.