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- [00:02]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
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- [00:37]
Kate Winkler Dawson
This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack and hydration sponsor. IQ Bar is the better for you Plant protein based snack made with brain boosting nutrients to refuel, nourish and satisfy hunger without the sugar crash. The Ultimate Sampler Pack is a great way to try all IQ bar products and flavors. You get nine IQ bars, eight IQ mix sticks and four IQ Joe sticks. All IQ bar products are entirely free from gluten, dairy, soy GMOs and artificial sweeteners. With over 20,000 five star reviews and counting, more people than ever are starting their days on the right foot with IQ Bars, Brain and Body Boosting Bars, Hydration mixes and mushroom coffees. I always feel like I have to have something to perk me up in the afternoon. IQ Bars are really convenient and they taste great. And right now IQ Bar is offering our special podcast listeners 20% off all IQ products plus get free shipping. To get your 20% off, just text Bones to 64,000. Text Bones to 64,000. That's B O N E S to 64,000. Message and data rates may apply. See Terms for details. This show is sponsored by Better Help. When life gets overwhelming, who do you turn to? Maybe it's a friend or a family member. Talking helps, but a licensed therapist has the training to help you work through what's weighing on you, not just listen. BetterHelp has over 30,000 therapists and has helped more than 5 million people worldwide, making it the largest online therapy platform out there. And it works with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for a live session based on over 1.7 million client reviews. BetterHelp is convenient too. You can join a session with a therapist at the click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life. Plus switch therapists at any time. Sometimes you need to talk to someone who doesn't have some stake in whatever you're discussing. I think everyone can benefit from therapy. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health Professionals with a diverse variety of expertise find the one with better help. Our listeners get 10% off their first month@betterhelp.com buriedbones that's better. H E L P.com buried bones I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who spent the last 25 years writing about true crime.
- [03:18]
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.
- [03:25]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes.
- [03:30]
Paul Holes
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.
- [03:35]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st century lens.
- [03:43]
Paul Holes
Some are solved and some are cold. Very cold.
- [03:47]
Kate Winkler Dawson
This is Buried Bones. Hey, Paul.
- [04:11]
Paul Holes
Hey, Kate. How are you today?
- [04:13]
Kate Winkler Dawson
I'm doing great. Are you excited about our cruise?
- [04:16]
Paul Holes
No, I am. In fact, you know, for our listeners, Buried Bones is going to be doing the Virgin Voyages True Crime voyage in October, and we're actually going to be doing a live Buried Bones event. Kate, what do you think it's going to be like recording live at sea?
- [04:30]
Kate Winkler Dawson
I think that's going to be Alexis's problem. Just kidding. I think it's gonna be really interesting. I'm excited. Listen, this is Virgin, so it's the best of the best. And I think we're gonna have a great place to present, and I think we're gonna have a lot of really good photos to look at. And I think it's gonna be much easier than cramming myself into my little cottage. If I could do a Buried Bones podcast on a Virgin Voyage cruise every single week, I would do it. And maybe we'll talk to Alexis and see if she could pull something like that off.
- [05:03]
Paul Holes
All right? Come on, Alexis, get on it.
- [05:06]
Kate Winkler Dawson
I wait to give you a history lesson at sea, Paul Holes. It's gonna be so much fun.
- [05:12]
Paul Holes
Kate, you always give me a history lesson.
- [05:15]
Kate Winkler Dawson
I know, I know, but this is. This was extra. This is special for me. So you remember I told you probably about a year ago, I was, you know, in my. My dad's farmhouse. So my stepmother and my dad bought the farm from my grandfather. And my grandfather was the housing secretary for Eisenhower, and he was, you know, big in politics, incredibly influential, and so there was all this political paraphernalia everywhere. So I went looking through and finding all kinds of really cool 1800 stuff and things that was, you know, were personal to me. And I found what I sent you. So open up that document that I sent you and I just wanted to show you this, and we will put this on social media because I just think it's so cool. So I don't know if you're going to be able to read it. Hopefully I did an okay job.
- [06:03]
Paul Holes
Well, it looks. It definitely looks old. So this looks like a paper bill with the number three on it. Like a $3 bill.
- [06:14]
Kate Winkler Dawson
You got it. The deductive reasoning skills never fail you.
- [06:18]
Paul Holes
Paul, but definitely doesn't look anything like something that the federal government put out there that has, you know, Lumberman's bank and, you know, an image in the center, top center of a. Of a ship. You know, sailing ship, couples, you know, multiple sailing ships. So what exactly is this?
- [06:38]
Kate Winkler Dawson
So in the 1800s, we didn't really have a federalized banking system. So we didn't have the Federal Reserve or, you know, anyone churning out money like the money we have today. They were able to allow banks to go into what they called was the free banking system.
- [06:54]
Paul Holes
Okay.
- [06:55]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Which means Wells Fargo, or in this case, Lumberman's bank, which was owned by E.L. fuller, could print their own currency. And so this was a $3 bill from this guy's bank. And it was really kind of regionally limited. This is from Iowa. There's some in Michigan and stuff. And so, you know, it wasn't printed on the beautiful paper, the silken paper, and the really expensive ink it was printed on sometimes like burlap sacks.
- [07:24]
Paul Holes
Oh, jeez.
- [07:24]
Kate Winkler Dawson
And they could get there. This is a nice one that I had. And so when I found this, I thought, oh, my gosh, it's amazing. So it's September 1, 1850, and they're pretty rare. And it was just stuck in some random folder in my grandfather's attic, and I'm sure had been there for, you know, decades and decades.
- [07:43]
Paul Holes
Yeah, well, you know, it's those old attics. It's like a treasure hunt. You're going through them.
- [07:49]
Kate Winkler Dawson
I know.
- [07:50]
Paul Holes
So that's. That's really cool.
- [07:51]
Kate Winkler Dawson
That's how we'll solve Jack the Ripper and Lizzie Borden. In every case that we've talked about, it's somebody's attic, you know?
- [08:00]
Paul Holes
No, for sure. And I will tell you, there's plenty of homicide investigators that have original case files and original evidence in their boxes in their garage. That's just what happens.
- [08:11]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, I love relics. I call them relics. But, you know, I love little antique things like this, just because when I find something like that, it forces me to look, you know, like, I look at it now, and I'm Looking at all the different images, what are these? What do these mean? Like, you mentioned this ship that clearly looks like it's from the 1700s. And so looking all this stuff up, this is not some. Something I would auction. Even though people are auctioning these $3 bills, I just wouldn't sell it. I just think it's so cool. So I'm going to get it framed around the holidays, maybe in one of those dollar things, and put it up around here. It's just so cool.
- [08:45]
Paul Holes
It is. It's neat, you know, and I have a. I inherited, if you want to call it that, a coin collection through my dad and was starting to get into it, just, you know, the history of each coin, you know, and why each coin existed. And I, you know, once I moved to Colorado, I really haven't done anything with it, but I've been tempted to try to, you know, pull it out again and maybe start, you know, building it out.
- [09:10]
Kate Winkler Dawson
And that part of my family lived in Iowa. So that's what I was thinking when you were talking about the coins was, you know, where did my grandfather get this? And sure. Was it his dad or whoever. I think it's just a great way for you to explore also how that item came into your house. And so. And I guess the older I get, the more interested I get in this kind of stuff. But I had never heard of that before. A $3 bill.
- [09:30]
Paul Holes
No, I hadn't either.
- [09:32]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, this is a very weak connection, but we do have a story set in the 1800s that involves a guy who works in, you know, in lumber and logging and stuff. So that is my transition to our story.
- [09:48]
Paul Holes
It's close enough. That works.
- [09:50]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Listen, I'm always trying, even if I fail. Okay, let's go ahead and set the scene. Okay. First and foremost, you know, I always like to give credit for the journalists who work on this. There is a writer named Beth Cruise who worked a lot on this, and we took some of her research and, you know, put it in here along with other research. And so thank you, Beth Cruise, for this one. We are in Groton, Massachusetts, in a farm town. Good things and bad things happen in farm towns. Nothing bad ever happened in my farm town, thank goodness. But, you know, I love the atmosphere. If we could be out of this city. I don't want to be in Boston. I want to be in a farm for every single episode. Some farm.
- [10:30]
Paul Holes
And then you've got an axe murderer lurking around every corner.
- [10:34]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yeah. With no sheriff around. Or police. Yeah. Just the armed citizens, which is never Good news. So this is 1880, January 17th, after the Civil War. So we're in Groton, Massachusetts. This is definitely working class town. It had a massive soapstone quarry that it sounded like most of the town worked at. And it closed more than a decade earlier. And you know, there had been a lot of workers who came in who were diverse, of different ethnicities, and they stayed even though there wasn't work and created new work. But by the turn of the century, at that point, there was a really strong feeling that was anti immigrant, anti black, anti Catholic prejudices. And it turned this town, Groton, into what's called a sun downtown. Have you heard that phrase before sundown town?
- [11:31]
Paul Holes
No, not at all.
- [11:32]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, it's a phrase and I don't know if we use it very often now, but it's a phrase that means it's not safe for people of color, particularly black people, to be at night by themselves, especially after sundown. Okay, okay. So this is very well known as a sundown town. It's a cold night because it is January 17, very cold in Massachusetts. And we're at a place called Libby Farm. There's a family that lives there. There's a 35 year old named Joseph Crew, and he has a 27 year old wife named Maria. And they're eating lunch on this day. So Joseph is a Teamster. Tell me your understanding of what a Teamster does.
- [12:13]
Paul Holes
Oh, geez. You know, the only, I think the only thing that I really relate to the Teamsters is having been involved as an employee of the county with my local union labor union. You know, there were times where I had to interact with reps from the union. And so when I hear the term Teamster, I'm thinking this is somebody that is a member of a union or is somebody that is actively involved in managing the union's administrative tasks.
- [12:46]
Kate Winkler Dawson
So I was curious too. I had always thought of Teamsters, yes, of course, as the, you know, in the union term. But Teamsters like their actual jobs. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is a large labor union in North America. There are a lot of different workers. It could be freight drivers, it could be truckers is what my understanding had been. You know, warehouse workers. There are a lot of different professions. And the Teamsters have been around since 1903, but when it was 1903, they represented horse drawn carriage drivers. So, you know, it definitely is, it definitely involves transportation and it does in our story too. Okay, so Joseph, they use the term Teamster. Joseph is a teamster. And in 1880, it's somebody who carts goods and equipment and supplies between logging and other types of, you know, camp sites. So it could be from a logging site to a mill. So he's carting stuff around. So that's his job. So that day he eats, he harnesses his horses, and he tells his wife, Maria, I'm gonna go haul logs to Air Junction, which is several miles away. And he said, I'm not gonna be home until late. He says goodbye, he leaves. And then we don't quite know what happens after that because Joseph comes home at about 8:00'. Clock. So you've gotta think maybe lunch was at 11. I think lunch could skew a little early in the 1800s. So he was gone probably eight or nine hours. He gets home at 8 o' clock and he knows that something's wrong immediately. There's no light in the house. It could be gas lamps or oil lamps or candles. So the house is dark. The door and the windows are locked, the curtains are drawn. This is all unusual. And to get into the house, he has to go through the cellar. And I think, you know, aside from people, especially on farms, not locking their doors even at night. I told you my parents did that when we were, you know, on our farm, which today seems so surprising. Maria wouldn't have done that because she knows that Joseph is coming home. So he has to go through the cellar and he lights a lamp comes up and he looks kind of towards the bedroom and he sees a discolored line on the floor in front of the bedroom. He goes into the room and he sees streaks of blood on the floor. And then he finds his wife dead on the floor. So, you know, again, like, you have to think about this. You have a crime scene at night and you will have investigators showing up here in a little. But sometimes I just sit back and I think, what would that have been like? Like when we talk about grid searches in the middle of the night when all they have are gas lamps or light, you know, candles. Think about this guy coming in, his wife's dead on the floor, and all he has is this little oil lamp. And you can't probably tell the color of the streak. I mean, you could see once she's there that it's probably blood, but everything must be discolored for him.
- [15:47]
Paul Holes
Sure. I mean, this. The visibility would be poor. You know, I've been inside dark houses with, you know, modern flashlights. And even with those flashlights, you just can't see what you need to see, you know, and this is where, you know, Today, of course, if we can't, if there isn't enough lighting naturally within, let's say the residence, then we bring in, you know, basically the shop lights and set up shop lights so we can actually see, I mean to, to try to, let's say, process a crime scene at Candlelight. You're just going to miss stuff, you know, that's not going to work at all.
- [16:26]
Kate Winkler Dawson
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- [18:54]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
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- [19:25]
Kate Winkler Dawson
We'll have the medical examiner show up at midnight that night. So that has to be even tougher. And I'll tell you about that in a minute. But I was just thinking atmospherically, you're coming home expecting your wife. Everything's locked up. It is pitch black inside, outside. I use this phrase sometimes. Nothing but starlight and moonlight. There's no gas lamps around here. And then he finds his wife. So this is going to be a mix of what Joseph sees and kind of what the medical examiner concludes. So Maria is lying on her back in the bedroom in what they considered a half pint pool of blood. She had been covered by a mat, like a floor mat, said her her head was splashed with blood and is resting on a chair cushion.
- [20:12]
Paul Holes
Okay.
- [20:12]
Kate Winkler Dawson
And I have a lot of details about wounds and stuff like that. Do you want to talk about the bed cushion and the mat on top of her, or do you want to wait to talk about that?
- [20:24]
Paul Holes
You know, I think I need to know more about her injuries, but those two aspects are very significant.
- [20:31]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Okay. We've talked about that before, sort of, you know, covering up someone's face because you can't stand them looking at you and all of that. So you will see if that comes up. So she has been shot three times in the face and once in the left chest, according to this autopsy report. And I'll introduce you to the medical examiner soon, who is an actual doctor. So the autopsy report says there is a gunshot wound in each corner of the eye beside the nose. The right wound extends into Maria's throat. The left wound passes through her. And I had to do the. I mean, I feel so silly for having to make sure I have the right pronouncer. So stand by, I'll listen. Medulla oblongata.
- [21:16]
Paul Holes
Medulla oblongata.
- [21:17]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Okay, yeah, yeah. So that's where the left wound. I'm not gonna say it again. That's where the left wound passes through. And there's a Third wound present, that is just above the right eye. And they are certain it's a pistol based on bullets. And the pistol was fired so close to Maria's face that her left eyelashes and the skin on one side of her face were singed by powder. There is a thin quilt partially covering her lower extremities. And this might be the mat. I'm not 100% sure, but she's covered. They said that the lower extremities of the legs are widely extended. Her undergarments are torn open and stained. And two days later, the newspapers report that she had been outraged, which suggests sexual assault. It will be inconclusive, though, I'll tell you that. Everything else that we will be talking about will be blood and where it is in the room. So those are the basics. Shot three times. Oh, gosh. They find one bullet. They found it because they think it bounced off the whale bone of her corset and it landed near the body, so it never penetrated the body. And they find a corresponding shell near her body on the floor. Dr. Harwell, who is our medical examiner who reported that night, does the autopsy the next morning. He finds two.22 caliber bullets from her head. The shot that had entered from the corner of her left eye is embedded in her brain. I talked about that. The shot that had entered above her right eye is embedded in her frontal bone. He extracts one bullet from the muscles of her neck which had entered from the shot to the corner of her right eye. And he said he thinks the shot to the brain killed her instantly. And then, let me see about the chest. And maybe he doesn't say anything about the chest. Why does that make a difference?
- [23:09]
Paul Holes
Well, from my perspective, you know, I'm taking a look at these gunshot wounds to her eyes, in essence very closely spaced. In fact, the tight clustering would have suggested to me that these all three more likely very close range gunshots. And then the singeing and probably stippling that's present indicates that. So in essence, the offender, you know, and I don't know if she's standing up or if she's, you know, laying down at the time these gunshots are inflicted. That's where, you know, observations of blood flows and stuff become important. But the offender is executing her and he's putting 322 caliber bullets into her eyes. Essentially he's purposely aiming for center mass of the head and potentially he's purposefully aiming at the eyes. Considering you've got the way I'm interpreting, you've got two Gunshot wounds in the corners of her eyes, and then there's one that's just above the brow.
- [24:17]
Kate Winkler Dawson
The.
- [24:18]
Paul Holes
The mention of a gunshot wound to the chest would suggest to me that that likely would have been the first shot if that actually happened. You know, the fact that the pathologist is not detailing the chest wound gives me pause as to whether or not that's an accurate detail. But if she does have a gunshot wound to the chest, that may be the initial shot that in essence incapacitates her. And then the offender either comes up and shoots her three times in the face while she's upright, or she's now laying on her back, possibly after a sexual assault. And now she's executed with the three shots to the head, to the face.
- [24:59]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, they have a theory, and you tell me what you think. So Maria was a sewer. And she is wearing a thimble on her right hand finger still. And remember the streak marks, they believe those are drag marks. So this is what they think happen based on blood. The way they describe her body coming up, I've been trying to kind of picture it. Maybe you can paint a better picture than they do. So they think she was shot in the sitting room, which is where she did her sewing, because there's blood on the curtain of a work table and on the right side of the seat, which was her work chair, they think she was dragged on a mat, leaving blood streaks on the floor to the bedroom. In her left hand, she's holding a partially sewn linen wrist cuff. So this is mid job. So here's the body positioning that I'm confused by. Even though her body is found on the ground and her hands are folded over the front of her body, her arms are stiffened in a position that would only be natural if you're in a seated posture. Would that be like your hands on the table? Or what do you think that means?
- [26:11]
Paul Holes
Well, I think, you know, this is where what I'm hearing is, is that she's got rigor in her upper extremities. And it sounds like the rigor, the way that her arms have set in the rigor, is not consistent with the position of her laying on the floor. So that would suggest she was in a different position for a long enough period of time for the rigor to start setting, and then she was moved. Now, is it possible? And again, this is where the blood patterns become hugely significant in terms of reconstructing. But what I'm hearing is it sounds like she potentially was shot while she was at her sewing station. And Maybe collapsed onto that sewing platform, if you will, for a period of time, maybe long enough for the rigor to set. And then the offender chose to move her. And that would tell me the offender was inside this residence for a significant period of time. And, you know, why would the offender move her? Is it possible that she was more visible for, you know, somebody looking in from the outside? And so he's trying to move her away from any windows and that's why he's doing that. And then of course, you know, covering her up maybe to, you know, delay anybody from the outside possibly seeing a body lying motionless on the floor. But there's a cushion underneath her head. Okay, that's for comfort. This is where. And I've got a case like this, a 1966 case, a more modern case, but it tells me something about the offender is even though she's dead, he still wanting to comfort her and he's covering her up. So this is where, you know, behaviorally in the offender's mind, he has some sort of emotional connection to Maria. That's how I'm interpreting things now. Her undergarments being torn, her legs left spread. You know, right now, I don't know, do we truly have sexual assault that occurred or do we have an offender that is trying to stage the crime to make it look like maybe an intruder, a stranger came in, a sex deviant came in and attacked her and, and sexually assaulted her and then killed her? Right now I, I can't form an opinion, but the covering of her and the cushion underneath her head suggests to me at this point in time, there's a strong emotional connection between the offender and Maria.
- [28:52]
Kate Winkler Dawson
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- [30:04]
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- [30:33]
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- [31:34]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Let's talk about the sexual assault part. So our medical examiner is named Benjamin Hartwell and he's got a constable and a bunch of other officers who came to the scene with him. Like I said, midnight when she is discovered. When he does his autopsy, he examines her undergarments so he doesn't do a swab. He examines her undergarments with a 400 power microscope and he sees traces of semen but he can't say whether this was recent or a year ago. So all we know is there's semen on her undergarments.
- [32:09]
Paul Holes
Yeah. So what he's, I mean with, with a microscope like that what he is doing is he's taking either a cutting and putting it on a microscope sl then probably putting like a saline solution or water or oil and then looking at it under this high magnification and would be visualizing sperm. I've never done it that I'VE done a lot of microscopic examinations for sperm. I've never done it that way, so I'm not entirely sure how effective that type of microscopy would be.
- [32:46]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, it is inconclusive whether she's sexually assaulted, according to Dr. Hartwell. He just said, I just know it's there.
- [32:53]
Paul Holes
Yeah.
- [32:54]
Kate Winkler Dawson
So let's talk about kind of the scene, the police with a constable. And we're just gonna go with investigators because there were really great, competent constables in the 1800s. The constables don't have a lot to go on. They don't find a murder weapon, so they don't find that. 22. There doesn't appear to be. According to. There doesn't appear to be anything missing from the crew house. And Maria's got a gold ring on, and that's not missing either. She's wearing the gold ring. There's no struggle in the house. And during the search of the surrounding area, they find shoe prints in the snow. These will become important.
- [33:32]
Paul Holes
Okay.
- [33:33]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Maria doesn't have any enemies in town. To which I kept thinking, you know, okay, well, what farm woman would? But they do. And so she seems like a very likable person. No controversy. They suspect Joseph for a little bit. He has an alibi. He has a lot of people who know that he's logging and see him, eyes are on him. So he seems to have an alibi. He's also only a couple miles away, though. So they start looking for a, I'm telling you, quote, unquote, tramp is the word they use. And of course, that's a go to for police in the 1800s. Do you think that in some ways that's still a go to? What happens when the police run out of options in the person's inner circle or even outer circle? What do they do next? Are they kind of looking for the sex offenders in the neighborhood and all of that?
- [34:25]
Paul Holes
Absolutely. That is just part of investigating a case, Especially when you suspect that there is a sexual assault. We would go, in addition to looking at the social circle, most investigations you start with the victim and you start building out, you know, the closest circle around the victim to the next circle, etc. In terms of. Of figuring out who potentially could have been involved with the. The case. But there's also. The idea is, well, there's no connection between the victim and the offender. And this is where you go, okay, who do we know that's in our area that has a propensity for committing these types of crimes? And of course, you know, sex offender, registered sex Offenders in the area is one of the first go tos that in any investigation like this that we would do. So these constables looking at tramps, which I guess that's sort of a, like a, I guess a transient type person.
- [35:25]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Kind of a wanderer, but I would say tramps. So transient, I think back then didn't have the connotation that maybe it does have now. I mean a transient then would have, you know, been somebody who just was hopping from job to job because there were so many short term jobs around. They work on a railroad or they would work in lumber or something. It didn't necessarily mean someone who was, you know, homeless or a petty criminal. But I would say tramp is closer to that.
- [35:52]
Paul Holes
So yeah, so more of you know, as what we use the registered sex offender list today, you're looking at people who you think have or they thought had the propensity to commit this type of crime.
- [36:05]
Kate Winkler Dawson
So let's talk about somebody who they focus on and you tell me what you think. The neighbors report seeing a strange man in the town on the day of the murder. So this is how they describe him. 40 years old. Ish. He's about 5 foot 7. He's described as having a thin yellowish face, a mustache and a scruffy beard. So the yellowish face is indicative of somebody who is of mixed race. That's kind of the phrase they might use. I mean, there is a slur that I'm not repeating on here for it, but this is what they're saying. It's a man of mixed race. Now just that description, 45 foot seven, somebody of mixed race, mustache, scruffy beard. Is that enough for somebody to go on in a town that seems moderately diverse at the time?
- [36:56]
Paul Holes
No, that would be tough. You know, you'd want to also have description of clothing. You know, and typically like when there is in this day and age when a crime has recently been committed, now you have patrol broadcasting a description which may indicate these types of characteristics. In addition, look for somebody who has these identifiers, if you will. Looking forward to have having the facial hair, yellowish face, but also what kind of clothes do they have on? Because that's, that's going to stick out more than some of these other aspects. Five foot seven, that'd be really tough to pick somebody out like that.
- [37:34]
Kate Winkler Dawson
We have some witnesses. So tell me what you think about the viability of these witnesses. One is a guy named Henry Heughan. He's 21, he's a neighbor of the Cruz. He says around 2:30pm so probably three hours after Joseph left, he had seen a man fitting the description of this guy at Maria's house. Maria was in the dining room talking to him. And what Henry says he was kind of picking up on is this is someone who was interested in buying a farm. So maybe he was there kind of just doing some reconnaissance, looking in the area, what might be good, what might not be good. But I don't know much about Henry or his relationship with the Cruz. But this is what he says. Oh yes. This is a guy that I saw with Maria.
- [38:22]
Paul Holes
Okay. And it sounds like Henry is close enough to overhear the conversation.
- [38:25]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yes. So he, maybe it was in passing and then he saw her in the, in the dining room, through the window. We don't know.
- [38:32]
Paul Holes
Sure. But that's three hours after Joseph left. And we have, I'm going to say nine hours of, of a window in which Maria is killed. So now this shortens the window if Henry's right and that Maria is still alive and talking to a man. So now you have six hours left in which Maria was killed. One of the, the concerns that I have is this rigor in her, in her arms.
- [38:57]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yeah.
- [38:57]
Paul Holes
You know, because that's going to take some time. And so that's where it's like, oh, that, that window starting to get almost too short considering how cold the temperatures are. Because that's going to delay onset of rigor.
- [39:12]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Right.
- [39:12]
Paul Holes
So this is where it's like. Okay, what's going on here? I can't conclude anything, but I'm thinking there might be an inconsistency here with the physical evidence, the state of Maria's body and what this wit is going on.
- [39:26]
Kate Winkler Dawson
I was gonna ask you about the rigor because, you know, she's gripping cloth in one hand and she's got this, you know, I mean, she's got her hands in a position which I can picture kind of being set up parallel, maybe like she's getting ready to sew. And so I was wondering how long that would take if we take Joseph's statement. Because Joseph, I don't have his side of what her arms looked like and everything, you know, when he arrived, I just know what Dr. Hartwell said that she had stiffened. And let's say that's 11pm so is that a 12 hour thing for people? And I know that the weather makes a difference. And one more point, Paul, when he says pitch black, nobody indicates that there's a fire happening in the fireplace which would been their only heating source. So there's no fire I mean, we are probably talking about, you know, below freezing temperatures that night.
- [40:17]
Paul Holes
So as far as the rigor that it's so, so variable. That's one of the, you know, it's something that is documented and observed. But to be able to say it's going to take so many hours to see rigor in the various parts of the body is tough. It's just an indicator of passage of time since death. With Maria holding on, you know, like the. What is it? The thimble in one hand and something.
- [40:43]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Else she had like a, she had a fabric for a wrist.
- [40:46]
Paul Holes
Okay.
- [40:46]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Covering in the other. Yeah.
- [40:48]
Paul Holes
So rigor will start in the smaller muscles before it goes to the larger muscles of the arms. And so you can see where, you know, she's collapsed for a period of time and had these objects in her hands. Now you could see where her hands have riggered up and then she's moved and the hands are holding on to the, these items due to the, you know, the rigor. There is a phenomenon, it's called cadaveric spasm, where sometimes when somebody, let's say, is shot in the head, you know, they will end up gripping onto an object. You know, you see that with suicide. Sometimes when somebody shoots themselves in the head, they're shooting hand kind of grips and spasms around the gun. And as they kind of hold on to it, it really does seem that Maria is shot at her sewing station and is there in some sort of position that causes maybe her hands to rig her up, to hold onto these items, her arms to rig her up. So she's there for a period of time. And I'm just trying to rectify in my head what Henry is saying. Like, you know, six hours before Maria's found, she's alive talking to a man that matches this description of a yellow faced guy sitting at the dining room table. It seems like, well, that seems too short of a time for the amount of rigorous that is being observed with Maria.
- [42:18]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Let's talk that through. She's at her table, somebody comes in, shoots her three times and then he has to leave her there for a long time. Right. And then he puts her on this mat that they're talking about. She's bleeding still. He drags her into the bedroom, covers her lower extremities up. I mean, is the idea. Then he sexually assaults her. If this even is a sexual assault at all.
- [42:44]
Paul Holes
It could go either way. You know, like I mentioned, I mean, this very well could be where, you know, first. Why would Maria just be shot at the sewing table. If this was intended to be a sexual assault.
- [42:57]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Right.
- [42:57]
Paul Holes
And it's not to say that you don't see victims killed right away and then offenders will sexually assault this, the dead victim, that does happen. But to shoot Maria and leave her there for, for a significant period of time and then drag her to another room to sexually assault. I mean, I guess it's possible, but it seems inconsistent with sort of the timing of everything.
- [43:22]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, let's move on to another witness who corroborates Henry. Her name is Jenny Carr. She's 16 and she says that she had seen what she thinks is this same guy at Maria's house. She went over there to borrow a cup of molasses. Around 3 o', clock, the guy answers the door. He said to Jenny, Maria went into town to go pick up some stuff. Jenny says this is sketchy. And she also notices that the curtains of the front of the house have been drawn, which is unusual. And before the strange man had answered the door when she was knocking, she heard a noise like somebody being dragged. But she was, wasn't sure. And of course now that she knows what happens to Maria, she's putting those sounds together. So that is a, that is. Those are kind of our only two witnesses other than people generally saying there's this guy of mixed race, we don't know who he is. He's a stranger in our town that day.
- [44:20]
Paul Holes
Okay, well this, you know, obviously with the, this guy that does not live at the residence, if he's the one that's answering the door. This sounds like Maria's already dead at this point when Jenny comes to, to borrow the molasses.
- [44:35]
Kate Winkler Dawson
So between 2, 2:30 and 3: O'. Clock, I mean if Henry, if they're both right on these times, within a half an hour, this happens.
- [44:41]
Paul Holes
Right. And, and, and Maria's body is found by Joseph at, at 9:00'.
- [44:45]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Clock.
- [44:46]
Paul Holes
So again we have, you know, basically this six hour window, but it's no longer, I mean it's. It. This is really putting Maria dead at 2:30 to 3:00 clock in the afternoon. So now it could be pushing it out to, well, maybe, maybe she was dead for seven hours. But you have this, the two witnesses who are one, Henry is very familiar with Maria and then Jenny obviously must be very familiar with Maria being a neighbor and going over to borrow molasses and they see this man and the description is consistent. So you know, yeah, I'm putting a fair amount of veracity on these two witnesses in terms of, okay, this guy matching this description is going to be suspect number one. Now who is he and what is his relationship with Maria? Was he just a random that knocked on the door saying, hey, I see your farm is for sale. Can, can we chat? Or does he have some sort of prior, maybe business relationship with Joseph and Maria? Or maybe, you know, maybe Maria's having an affair and, you know, Joseph is, is gone and, and she invites this man over.
- [45:51]
Kate Winkler Dawson
I have one question for you. So Jenny says that right before the guy opens the door or a minute before, she hears dragging. Now, she might have misinterpreted what that was, but didn't we say that in order for the rigor that the medical examiner described, At 3 o' clock when she's knocking, should Maria still be sitting at the desk? I mean, she also could have been wrong. Who knows?
- [46:18]
Paul Holes
This is where it's kind of tough to say for sure, you know, what the sequence is. If, you know, Henry sees Maria alive. Jenny appears to arrive at the house shortly after Henry. And there's an ear witness, in essence, hearing movements inside the house that would suggest Maria is now dead. And this is where that seems inconsistent with the state of Maria. If I'm interpreting how Maria's arms through, it's just a verbal description that her arms are riggered up and she's been moved from a, you know, her, her sewing station to this other room. Something is inconsistent. And that's just what gives me pause right now as to what exactly is going on. And with this man, with Jenny hearing this man dragging Maria before opening the door, I'm wondering now, is he doing an oh, shit, somebody is knocking at the door. And if I open the door, is it possible that they want to come in and see Maria dead at the sewing station and now he's, you know, scrambling to hide the body before he opens up the door to Jenny.
- [47:29]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, and I have another question. Let's say before we get to a suspect, let's say that Maria maybe is having an affair with this guy. Well, let's say first that he is a stranger and she is at her sewing desk and she's got her fabric in one hand and she's got her thimble in another hand. Her front door's open and clearly she's not in defensive mode at all. She's literally sewing. I don't even know if they surprised her, but, you know, I think if they surprised somebody, surprised her, she would have her hands in a different position. I mean, they were very clear that it looked like she had her arms were like she had been sitting somewhere sneaking up on someone. As a person who has lived in an 1800s house, sneaking up on someone in a house with authentic 1800 floors that are wooden planks would be really difficult. They are squeaky. It's awful. It's awful. You can breathe. And somebody might disagree with me, but our farmhouse was straight out. I mean, we had not changed out that wood. And, you know, there's no way you could get even 50ft without making a squeak. So I'm just saying the affair thing seems a little more kind of like somebody who was maybe invited in and she knew her husband was going to be gone for a long time. But. But I don't know.
- [48:46]
Paul Holes
Well, I think the, the, the covering of her body, the cushion underneath her head would suggest that there's potentially a close relationship between the offender and Maria. So the affair aspect I, I think is in play. Also, just from a sequence standpoint, if we take Henry's account at face value, and he's seeing Maria talking to this man, and that's at the, I think you said the dining room table.
- [49:07]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Table.
- [49:07]
Paul Holes
Maria then goes to her sewing station. Has this man left? And now Maria goes to do her sewing. Or is she comfortable enough with this person? It's like, hey, I got some, you know, sewing I need to do. So let's continue our conversation. That would suggest, well, this is more than a stranger that's just dropping in for a business transaction or a stranger entirely that's forced his way into the house because Maria's not going to be comfortable enough to go sew. So that also suggests that, no, there's potentially a, A, some. Something on the level of at least a friendship between Maria and this man and maybe more.
- [49:46]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, let's move on to the investigation. The constable in charge takes these descriptions and he launches an investigation into a man who fits this description very well. His name is Stearns Kendall Abbott. Abbott is 41. He is a wood carver. He is of mixed race and he came to the town on January 16, which is the day before Maria's murder. Let me give you his background and you tell me if there's anything that's alarming to you. He's a petty criminal is the way I would describe him. Alison, who is our wonderful researcher, gave me a really great detailed description of everything that he's done. And I've sort of condensed it in that he had been arrested for breaking and entering, starting from when he was. And he also once stole a United States Postal Service mailbag. He stole a Horse at one point, a horse and buggy. There's some minor, what I would consider embezzlement. Nothing violent. But Abbott has been in and out of jail for most of his life since he was a kid. So then I can kind of. We can go back to the scene and where Abbott was that day. But you tell me, what do you think about kind of the petty criminal aspect of. Of it?
- [50:59]
Paul Holes
Just because he has these minor offenses doesn't. It's not an indicator of the level of violence that's being exhibited in Maria's homicide. Yeah, Maria is targeted, you know, she is killed at her sewing station by what it sounds like prior to being moved and prior to any maybe sexual assault that's occurring now. This doesn't mean that Abbott could not. Just because his previous, you know, petty offenses don't add up to this level of violence doesn't mean that he's not capable of that level of violence. But it's not really anything that's popping out at me like, oh God, this guy is somebody that we really need to look at. I also have concerns if he's just arriving in town the day before. That doesn't seem like from the. And it's somewhat speculative, educated speculation about Maria potentially having a closer relationship to this offender that than just being a stranger. I mean, Abbott's going to be a stranger to Maria. That's, you know, if he's just arriving the day before into town, unless there's a previous connection and he's coming back in town and right now you haven't said anything that they have a longer term relationship than just that single day?
- [52:15]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Not that we know of. And I would think that if they did that these neighbors would have certainly noticed and probably alerted Joseph to some strange man, particularly a man of color, showing up at his wife's house. It's hard to sneak around even in the countryside, you know, so. But let's continue on because the constable is really, you know, focusing in on Abbott. So the constable goes from door to door and he asks local residents to identify the guy who they saw wandering around. Not Ginny and Henry necessarily, they do talk to those two, but just the people who said there's a stranger in town. And so he shows them six or seven Pict of noted rogues. So noted, you know, like a gallery of rogues was very common. And actually the photography in the 1880s, they would have committed photography, even though it was expensive to rogues in that time period just to be able to identify these people. So they all say this is Abbott, but he's nowhere to be found. And we have the two witnesses, Jenny and Henry, the neighbors who saw him the most. And they say this is the same guy. We've got people saying he was the stranger that we saw, but they're not implicating him in anything. And then you've got Jenny and Henry who say, this is the guy who was with Maria.
- [53:37]
Paul Holes
All right, you know, so we have to track down Abbott.
- [53:41]
Kate Winkler Dawson
There you go. That's what the constable does. January 28th. January 28th. So this whole thing starts on the 17. So I don't know why I'll do this to myself with all the mathing. 11 days. 11 days later, the constable gets a tip from a farmer in New Hampshire that he had been there. So this is about 40 miles north of Groton, Massachusetts. So Abbott has been spotted there. He's looking for work. The constable tracks him down and he's arrested. And he returns to Massachusetts. Massachusetts. And he's arraigned in February. So he says, I don't know what you're talking about. I mean, he really is saying, this is not. He's got, you know, court appointed defense attorneys. He pleads not guilty. He says that this is impossible because he had boarded a train for Boston at littleton station before the crime was committed that same day. But there's no one, nobody knew him, so nobody there could identify him. So he's saying, I have an alibi. And, you know, moving forward through this trial, the prosecutor is going to say, not really. You really don't.
- [54:52]
Paul Holes
Well, and in many ways, though, now it's Abbott's word versus Jenny and Henry. You know, the witnesses that are placing them at Maria's house right around the time of her homicide, it seems like they moved pretty fast to arrest Abbott. So it's like, did they recover the gun? Do they have any clothing from Abbott's that has blood staining on it? So that's okay. What kind of case did they make against Abbott? Or are they just relying upon Jenny and Henry's statements?
- [55:24]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, I'll tell you what the defense says first, and then we'll talk about the prosecutors. So the defense says that the medical examiner could not conclude there was a sexual assault. So. So let's just say rape is out the window. We don't know if that's true or not, but that's their point. If they're talking about why would he even do this? So they're saying, we don't know that he sexually assaulted her. There's no proof and nothing was stolen. So what is the motive of this guy going in and murdering a perfect stranger? And then the judge tosses out a bunch of stuff from the defense. There is evidence that shows that there was another man who had been at that house on the day of the murder. And you know, I don't know anything about it because it didn't end up in any of the court hearings, but they said that there was somebody else around there. The judge says, you can't have that in, so we're not going to let you have that in. And then they aren't allowed to challenge Ginny, the 16 year old's testimony that she saw Abbott in the house by impeaching her character. So what they want to say is she has a questionable reputation, the 16 year old. And the defense wants to get her on the stand and dismantle her character. Which of course I said, great, I'm glad that that didn't happen. You know, I don't really care what her reputation was unless she's a professional liar. That shouldn't happen. But the defense is kind of throwing up their hands and going, what are we supposed to do? The only witnesses don't know who he is. He doesn't have a ticket for a train. So. So this is not looking really good. And the prosecutor is saying he came in, he sexually assaulted her, he killed her, and that was that. I don't think there was a nitty gritty about the rigor or the positions of the body or anything. It was very simple open and shut case for them.
- [57:10]
Paul Holes
It really doesn't sound like a strong case at all. You know, I think it's. There's suspicion on Abbott, but I, you know, you still have to build the case out. And. And right now they've jumped the gun. They just have witnesses that are fingering him, but they don't have any evidence against him.
- [57:30]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, more evidence that they wanted to introduce that the judge said no to is interesting. They had evidence that Joseph had a history of domestic violence.
- [57:42]
Paul Holes
Okay.
- [57:42]
Kate Winkler Dawson
There was a story that he had confronted Maria and a male visitor. And I have no idea what was happening with this male visitor six years earlier with an ax and he chased the guy off. I don't know anything else. If there was physical violence, which wouldn't surprise me, but the judge said no to that also. But there is nothing connecting Abbott to the murder. And since the crew family hadn't been robbed, there's no motive in the sexual assault. So the prosecutor is building it. Case totally on. Like I said, circumstantial evidence. They think that Abbott and Maria knew each other in the past and they revived some old quarrel and Abbott killed her in a fit of rage. Because I think the prosecutor has given up on the rape allegation. Also. There's no proof of any of this. But they're just trying to think, how do we place this guy there when he hasn't sexually assaulted her and he hasn't stolen anything.
- [58:37]
Paul Holes
From a theory standpoint, I like the theory that. That there potentially was a prior relationship between Abbott and Maria and some quarrel happened when Abbott is inside that house and he pulls out a gun and shoots Maria and then he leaves her at the sewing table for a period of time and then ends up moving her. Maybe because of the knock on the door by Jenny. And that would account for the covering of Maria's body, the cushion underneath her head, because of, you know, know he's now got that emotional connection to Maria and is now recognizing he's done something horrible. So I'm. I'm on board with that. It's just that, well, you've got to have a case against Abbott and right now they don't have anything.
- [59:25]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, the jury disagrees. Of course they deliberate. Of course they deliberate for two hours. And it's a guilty verdict. There is a appeal that is denied and he is sentenced to be hanged that following year.
- [59:40]
Paul Holes
Justice was swift back in the 1880s.
- [59:43]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yes, and the color of his skin was not helpful, you know, I'm sure. So here are some updates. So hang on to your hat, Paul Holes. This taught me a lesson about witnesses. And I know it's already a lesson, kind of both of us. Well, you definitely know, but I need to be reminded. So because he is given the death penalty, it hasn't happened yet, but the rumor mill churns that Jenny lied. Because word on the street that is soon proven to be true is that Jenny had a baby with Joseph. Okay, yeah, you know, we don't know that until we hear from the locals after the trial. Thanks a lot, locals.
- [60:23]
Paul Holes
Yeah. You know, now this. This circles back to Joseph, you know, really? How strong is his alibi? Does Maria confront Joseph? Does she find out about Jenny and does she confront Joseph or is Joseph just going, well, I got to get rid of my wife because I have a Future with this 16 year old girl who's now pregnant with my child.
- [60:46]
Kate Winkler Dawson
She had that baby at the time.
- [60:48]
Paul Holes
So the baby was born by the time of.
- [60:50]
Kate Winkler Dawson
I believe so.
- [60:51]
Paul Holes
So is Jenny actually putting herself? You know, she's pointing the finger at Abbott Maybe trying to protect Joseph. But is she also putting herself at the crime scene at some point during this. This homicide? And she has to come up with an excuse. And her excuse is why I went over to borrow molasses. And here's this unknown man answering the door. Something's going on. So now, has Abbott been hungry?
- [61:19]
Kate Winkler Dawson
No.
- [61:19]
Paul Holes
Okay, so how does this rectify?
- [61:22]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Okay, okay. You're being impatient.
- [61:25]
Paul Holes
Yes, I am.
- [61:26]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Now, you mentioned a long time ago, the alibi. So Joseph had been hauling logs all day, except he was not seen for about an hour. So he's unaccounted for for an hour in the afternoon. It could be even earlier. And he's only one or two miles away from the house.
- [61:43]
Paul Holes
All right, so here's the thing. Theory. He goes from hauling the logs because he's purposely setting up an alibi. Don't know why he's killing Maria just yet, but he goes. He shoots Maria while she's at the sewing table. He goes back to work, and then he, of course, is the one that finds Maria. So he potentially, at this point, is moving Maria from the sewing table into the back bedroom. And this is where the rigger has already set in. So that's consistent. And then he does have an emotional connection to Maria, even though he's killed her. But that emotional connection is exhibited through this behavior of covering her as well as putting the chair cushion underneath her head.
- [62:27]
Kate Winkler Dawson
So the moral of the story is Joseph doesn't understand the way rigor mortis works, obviously, because he would have moved her immediately. Right. Instead, she's sort of sitting at a desk. Permanently.
- [62:37]
Paul Holes
Well, yeah. You know, it's. Unless you've got a lot of experience with dead bodies and you see how the lividity settles and how it sets. How rigor sets in. He probably isn't even thinking about, oh, if I let her just stay in that position for a period of time and then move her, well, it's going to be obvious she's been moved, and it's going to be obvious that there's been a significant amount of time from the time she died to the time she was moved. And who has access to Maria over that period of time?
- [63:10]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, and what I was wondering. I was thinking two things. One, he shoots her in the chest. She's, I'm sure, screaming. And he shoots her trying to get to the head. And that's how the two eyes get hit. Do you think?
- [63:20]
Paul Holes
Well, he's putting the gun right up, you know, within. You know, we'd have to do a distance determination. But if she's got singeing, she's probably got what we call stippling. The gunpowder being, you know, embedded into the skin around these gunshot wounds. He is coming up close, close and is purposefully shooting her. So it would suggest, you know, as I mentioned before, the shot to the chest is likely the first shot. And then she's, you know, whether she kind of collapses in the sewing thing at that point, or she's now going, what? And he comes up and then very close range, shoots her three times in the face, in the eye area. And now she, in essence assumes whatever position she assumes and dies in that position at the sewing station. He leaves and then comes back hours later and then now moves her body. And that all just adds up from the sequence information, you know, in terms of how this shooting would have occurred. The physical characteristics of Maria's body when found, the blood stain patterns, the streaks on the floor of her being moved, the offender's personal connection to Maria, the covering up of the body, the cushion underneath the head, that all just makes sense now. Now the question is, okay, what caused the homicide to occur? Sounds like the relationship with Jenny is critical to that. But was this where Maria's telling him, I'm done, you're having an affair, a relationship with the 16 year old neighbor, or was there something else going on here? Was this where Jenny's pressing Joseph, going, hey, I've got your baby, you need to take care of me, you need to end your relationship to Maria? I mean, there's many different, I guess, permutations of what would cause Joseph to feel that he has to go and kill his wife.
- [65:16]
Kate Winkler Dawson
I have one more rigor question. So we've talked about the arms, how it looked like her arms were. She had to have been seated to have her arms in this position, kind of, I guess, hanging in the air, her legs. So they said that the extremities, lower extremities were widened. So if she's at a machine, she's probably got her legs spread, Right. And feet on the ground. Would the rigor have taken effect by then? My question would be, is that a natural position so that it looks like maybe she has been sexually assaulted? And when he dragged her, everything is stiffened at that point or because the leg muscles are bigger, Was there some play in there where he could put her in whatever position, her legs at least that he wanted?
- [66:00]
Paul Holes
Right. You know, so yes, you know, the legs being much larger muscles than the arms, maybe the complete rigor that they would eventually assume has not completely set in like maybe the arms have. But you can break rigor, you know, so that's where, you know, we'll get to. Where like if. When we have the deceased person at the morgue, we have to take fingerprints, you know, and their hands are all crumpled up and their forearms are stiff, their arms are stiff. You have to sit there and manipulate and you can eventually work that through. So this is where looking at, well, what really is the position of her legs. Did the offender. Did Joseph purposely spread her legs to make it look like a sexual assault? Her undergarments were torn. Right. So that sounds like. Okay, this sounds like staging.
- [66:50]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Okay.
- [66:51]
Paul Holes
So he's now coming back to the house after she's been dead at the sewing stage. He moves her and now he's trying to make it look like something it's not. He's trying to misdirect the investigators to a tramp.
- [67:06]
Kate Winkler Dawson
And, you know, if we go back to witnesses. So Jenny, obviously everything she said is out the window. I don't read anything about Henry. And if he had a reason to lie, so it is possible he did see somebody, he could have seen Abbott, a petty criminal there. I have no idea. Not killing, not the result of a murder. But I don't know how Henry fits into this. But I have not read anything about him, you know, being impeached or anything like his testimony. His testimony being inaccurate.
- [67:34]
Paul Holes
Right. And Abbott has completely denied being at Maria's house. He's just going, I was not there.
- [67:40]
Kate Winkler Dawson
He has.
- [67:40]
Paul Holes
Okay.
- [67:41]
Kate Winkler Dawson
But we also know about cross racial misidentification.
- [67:44]
Paul Holes
Sure.
- [67:45]
Kate Winkler Dawson
And I don't know how far away Henry was. So, you know, it could have been a lot of different things, but Jenny lied for sure. So here's what happens. We've got two new developments. Number one is that when this comes to light, when all these rumors turn around, initially Ginny says we don't have a romantic relationship. I mean, she's 16 and he's. I think it's 37. I don't have a romantic relationship with him. There is a well known social reformer in the area named Wendell Phillips and he campaigns on Abbott's behalf. They delay the execution. And there's a counsel appointed to reinvestigate this whole case. They bring Jenny's doctor and have him testify. And he said, this is Joseph's kid. And Jenny breaks down and admits it. She doesn't say anything else. But the governor commutes Abbott's sentence to life in prison and they close the case.
- [68:36]
Paul Holes
Oh, good God.
- [68:38]
Kate Winkler Dawson
So now this poor guy knows that one of the main, probably the most important witness against him lies and was having an affair with the guy who probably killed his own wife. And he's still sitting in prison, you know, so this was probably about 1882 or so in 1885. Joseph is on his deathbed. Now. I have no idea why he would be. He would only be in his 40s. I don't know what happened. But he's on his deathbed, and he allegedly confesses to murdering Maria to his doctor. The issue is, is that reporters are trying to confirm this, and nobody knows which doctor that he talked about when he died. So, you know, they go to Maria's, to the normal doctor for the crew family, and he says, I don't know, you know, what you're talking about. So that is the rumor. I don't know if that's true. But with all this talk of this mysterious doctor receiving a confession from Joseph on his deathbed, Abbott's defense team comes forward and says, well, we actually got a letter shortly after Abbott was arrested, and it was a confession from someone. And we tossed it out because we thought it was from a crank and it would just be distracting. We don't know if that's real or not. I'm sure that happened all the time in these kinds of cases. But it's interesting when you pair that with Joseph supposed confession. We don't know. We have a doctor who might not be real, and we have a confession letter who might be from a crank. So that's what makes this case mysterious.
- [70:15]
Paul Holes
Sure. And it's too bad that they got rid of that letter, because I would be interested. Well, what details did the writer of that letter put in about how the crime was committed, and were those details accurate and not known to the general public at that point in time? The letter was written. Written. You know, that's frustrating because that potentially right there could. I'm not even sure what's happened to Abbott at this point. He's life in prison, as last you told me. But, you know, could that letter have been used to free Abbott?
- [70:45]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Let me tell you the end of this. So Abbott is in prison again from 1885 until finally in 1911. So 26 years after this letter, after the supposed confession, all of this stuff, he's still there for 26 years. Years. The governor of Massachusetts pardons him.
- [71:07]
Paul Holes
Okay.
- [71:08]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Abbott is 71 at this point. He went in at 41, and he spends his final years in Vermont with relatives. And this is an unsolved case.
- [71:18]
Paul Holes
It is, but it isn't.
- [71:20]
Kate Winkler Dawson
It isn't yeah. You know, there was some sort of justice, I guess, for Joseph, dying younger, in his 40s. I have no idea what happened, but sure. Oh, what an awful case. Case, you know, you. Well, it's.
- [71:35]
Paul Holes
I think, you know, what I just want to emphasize is how evaluating what the offender is doing at the crime scene to the victim can be very insightful as to who the offender is.
- [71:50]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yeah.
- [71:50]
Paul Holes
And that's where, you know, Abbott just never made sense to me based on what you told me, what happened at the crime scene and happened to Maria and how she was riggered up. But it also just shows you once kind of the train is put in motion against a suspect, you can see how it's very hard to get that train to stop.
- [72:14]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yeah, absolutely. And the alibis. And every time we hear of a spouse, a man or a woman who has an alibi, I always think they could have hired somebody or, you know, there's a myriad of things they could have paid off. People know. And now, you see, logging all day long sometimes doesn't mean logging all day long. So. So that this one, I think you really lit up with this case, which you don't always. With 1800 cases. And you didn't even require photos, which I think is great.
- [72:44]
Paul Holes
Well, the photos would have been helpful, but no, you did a great job describing what's going on. So it gave me enough to. To go on. And it comes down to, you know, the. The primary reasons people kill and what we see in this case, you know, this. This whole lovers, if you want to call it a lover's triangle, you know, with Jenny, the 16 year old.
- [73:04]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Yeah.
- [73:05]
Paul Holes
So I have no doubt what happened. Joseph was Maria's killer. And, you know, just. Again, it was a fascinating case with a little twist there at the end that you. You put on me.
- [73:16]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Well, if I didn't think that I could auction off this $3 lumber bill for a million dollars, I would send it to you as a prize for all that rigor stuff. I mean, I think I'm going to use that in a book someday. I really like that. I like learning about that stuff. I don't know if I've talked about rigor as much as we did on that case. So. I love the 1800 so much that I predict we're going to be back in the 1800s very, very, very soon with a very different case, I'm sure.
- [73:41]
Paul Holes
Sounds good. I'm looking forward to it.
- [73:43]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Go back to your. Is it your dad's coin collection? That's what your assignment is. Over the next week.
- [73:49]
Paul Holes
I you know what? I have it right down to to the left of me. I need to bring it out and kind of remember what I've got.
- [73:56]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Okay, we will see you next week.
- [73:58]
Paul Holes
Sounds good. Thanks Kate.
- [74:04]
Kate Winkler Dawson
This has been an exactly right production.
- [74:06]
Paul Holes
For our sources and show notes go to exactlyrightmedia.com buriedbones sources our senior producer is Alexis Amorosi, research by Alison Trouble and Kate Winkler Dawson.
- [74:18]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
- [74:20]
Paul Holes
Our theme Our theme song is by Tom Breyfogel.
- [74:23]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac, executive.
- [74:25]
Paul Holes
Produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.
- [74:29]
Kate Winkler Dawson
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook@ buriedbonespod.
- [74:34]
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 and Paul's bestselling.
- [74:43]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Memoir, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases is also available now.
- [74:48]
Paul Holes
Listen to Barry bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an ad by BetterHelp. We've all had that epic rideshare experience halfway through. You're best friends and they know your aspirations to go find yourself in Portugal. It's human. We're all looking for someone to listen, but not everyone is equipped to help with over a decade of experience. BetterHelp matches you with the right therapist. See why they have a 4.9 rating out of 1.7 million client session reviews? Visit betterhelp.com for 10% off your first month.
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