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- [00:03]
Vanessa Richardson
Hi Crime House community, it's Vanessa Richardson. Exciting news. Conspiracy theories, cults and crimes is leveling up. Starting the week of January 12th, you'll be getting two episodes every week. Wednesdays we unravel the conspiracy or the cult, and on Fridays we look at a corresponding crime. Every week has a theme. Tech, bioterror, power, paranoia, you name it. Follow conspiracy theories, cults and crimes now on your podcast app because you're about to dive deeper, get weirder and go darker than ever before. This is Crime House. This week in crime history. We're looking at two criminal escapades that changed the city of Boston, Massachusetts forever. On January 18, 1967, 36 year old Albert DeSalvo was sentenced to life in prison for numerous sexual assaults. He confessed to being a notorious serial killer called the Boston Strangler, but was never convicted of any of the Strangler's killings. Then we'll jump back to 1950, when seven armed men forced their way into a secure warehouse in Boston's north end and stole $2.7 million, the largest robbery in American history at the time. Welcome to True Crime this week I'm Vanessa Richardson. Every Sunday we'll be revisiting notorious crimes from the coming week in history. From serial killers to mysterious disappearances or murders. Every episode will explore stories that share a common theme. Each week we'll cover two stories, one one further in the past and one more rooted in the present. Here at Crime House. We know none of this would be possible without you, our community. Please support us by rating, reviewing and following True Crime this week, wherever you get your podcasts and for ad free and early access to True crime this week. Plus exciting bonus content. Subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. This week's theme is Boston Crime Scenes. First, we'll start on January 18th, 1967, when 36 year old Albert DeSalvo was found guilty of armed robbery and sexual assault against four New England women. But DeSalvo had confessed to much more serious crimes than the ones he was on trial for. According to DeSalvo, he was the Boston Strangler, a serial killer who had murdered 13 women. Then we'll look back to January 17, 1950, when seven masked men robbed a vault owned by the Brinks Company in Boston. The bandits escaped with 2.7 new million, the equivalent of over $36 million in today's money. And they almost got away with it too. We'll get into both of these stories coming up.
- [03:19]
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- [03:36]
Vanessa Richardson
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- [03:36]
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- [03:52]
Vanessa Richardson
On January 18, 1967, 35 year old Albert DeSalvo stood inside a Boston courtroom and waited to learn his fate. He was on trial for breaking into multiple women's homes, tying them up and and sexually assaulting them. On the advice of his lawyer, famed defense attorney F. Lee Bailey, DeSalvo had pled not guilty by reason of insanity. As proof, DeSalvo claimed to be responsible for an even more brutal series of crimes. Not long after his arrest, DeSalvo told police he was the Boston Strangler, a mysterious serial killer who had sexually assaulted and killed 13 women over a two year period. According to DeSalvo, it had all started four, five years ago. It was almost 7pm on June 14, 1962 when a man named Uris Slers arrived at a third floor apartment in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood. The unit belonged to his mother, Anna Slers, a 55 year old Latvian immigrant who had settled in Boston over 10 years ago. She worked as a seamstress in the city and lived alone. That night, Uris was picking her up to go to an evening service at her church when but when he knocked on her door, Anna didn't answer. Uris kept knocking and knocking, but still nothing. He was getting worried that his mother was sick or injured. After thinking it over, he began to throw his weight against the door until it finally burst open. What he saw when he entered her apartment was even worse than he could have imagined. Anna was lying on the floor of her bathroom, dead. Her bathrobe was open, exposing her nude body. The cord from the robe was knotted tightly around her neck and her legs were spread apart. Meanwhile, the apartment had been ransacked, but it seemed like nothing valuable had been stolen. Horrified, Uris rushed to call the police. Detectives would later determine that Anna had been strangled with the cord from her robe. An autopsy showed that she'd been sexually assaulted with a foreign object. Police could find no signs of forced entry and no evidence left behind by the killer. It was a brutal and gruesome crime committed against a woman who kept to herself had no enemies and maintained few social connections outside of her church. But in the months to come, crime scenes like this would become disturbingly common because the Boston Stranglers killing spree had just begun. Just over two weeks later, 68 year old Nina Nichols, a retired physiotherapist, was found dead in her apartment. She had lived four miles away from Anna's lezzers and the circumstances were very similar too. Like Anna, Nina was found partially nude with her legs spread and had been sexually assaulted. Her apartment had been ransacked, but again, no valuables were missing and she'd been strangled using two of her stockings and which were knotted in a bow around her neck. As police began processing the crime scene, they got a call about another murdered woman. 65 year old divorcee Helen Blake lived alone in the Boston suburb of Lynn, 15 miles away from Nina Nichols. She too was found nude and likely sexually assaulted, then strangled with her bra. And the killer had strewn her belongings around the house. This time though, two diamond rings were taken from her hands. After realizing their suspect had killed two women on the same day, the authorities were on high alert. The Boston Police Department called all of their officers into work, even those who were on vacation. And they transferred every detective to the homicide division to run through the lists of known sex offenders and violent mental patients. Meanwhile, women throughout Boston were warned to lock their doors and keep an eye out for strangers. The police were doing their best to track down the killer, who would soon be known as the Boston Strangler. But they were out of their element. In 1962, the term serial killer hadn't even been invented yet. Detectives were used to solving murders where the killer was somebody who knew the victim personally. The Boston Strangler's victims didn't socialize much, especially not with men. This suggested that he was a stranger to them. And yet there were no signs of a break in at any of the crime scenes. Which meant that for whatever reason, they let this stranger into their homes before he killed them. As the police tried to make heads or tails of the investigation, the bodies continued to pile up. The Boston Strangler claimed two more victims in August. On the 19th, 75 year old widow Ida Erga was found in her living room, strangled with a pillowcase. The killer had left her nude, with her legs splayed and propped up on two chairs. Detectives believed this was the killer's grim sense of humor at work. The positioning was similar to how a woman would sit with her legs up for a gynecological exam. A day later, 67 year old nurse Jane Sullivan was killed at her apartment in Dorchester. She was found in her bathtub, strangled with her stockings, feet splayed out over the back of the tub. The killer didn't strike again for the next three months, but panic still swept the city. Women who lived alone started taking their safety more seriously. Some took karate lessons or carried hat pins to use as improvised weapons in case of attack. Others installed new locks and set up empty bottles in front of their doors as makeshift alarm systems in case an intruder tried to enter their home. But none of these precautions stopped the Boston Strangler. On December 5, 21 year old medical student Sophie Clark was found dead in her apartment in Boston's Back Bay, just a few blocks away from where Anna Slezzers had lived. Sophie's body was found in the same position as the others, with her tights knotted around her neck. But there were several notable differences. At age 21, Sophie was much younger than all the other victims. She was black, while all the other women killed by the strangler had been white. She didn't live alone. She had roommates discovered her body when they got back from an outing. And most importantly this time there was a witness. When investigators spoke to Sophie's neighbors, one of them, Marcela Lolka, mentioned seeing a strange man on the afternoon of the murder. At around 2:20pm that day, a man knocked on her door and claimed to be a workman sent by the building superintendent to paint her apartment. He was around 30 years old, with blonde hair, wearing a dark jacket and green pants. When she let the man into her apartment, his behavior changed. He looked her over and complimented her figure, then asked if she'd ever thought about modeling. She told the man to keep his voice down because her husband was sleeping in the next room. When she mentioned her husband, the man suddenly claimed that he'd come to the wrong apartment and rushed out the door. As it turned out, the building superintendent hadn't sent anyone to paint that day and police later determined that Sophie Clark was murdered. And sometime after 2:30, just a few minutes after this encounter, someone had finally survived a face to face encounter with the Boston Strangler. But his rampage was far from over. Three weeks later, on December 31, 23 year old Secretary Patricia Bissette didn't show up for work. Concerned, her boss went to her apartment in the Back Bay neighborhood where a janitor led him inside the there they found her dead in bed, strangled with several of her own stockings. The killings continued into the new year. In March, 68 year old Mary Brown was found beaten, strangled and sexually assaulted in her apartment in the Boston suburb of Lawrence. In May, 23 year old graduate student Beverly Sammons missed choir practice and was later found in her apartment. She'd been strangled with one of her stockings and repeatedly stabbed, which hadn't happened to any of the other victims. It seemed like the killer was becoming even more violent. But then the attacks came to an abrupt stop. The reprieve didn't last long though. After a quiet summer, the murderer continued his spree. In September, In Salem, Massachusetts, 20 miles outside Boston, the 58 year old divorcee Evelyn Corbin was found strangled in her apartment. Like many other victims, her apartment had been ransacked, but nothing was stolen. But this time the killer had left a gift behind for the police. On Evelyn's fire escape, investigators found a single fresh doughnut waiting for them. It seemed like the Boston Strangler was taunting them and not even a national tragedy could continue convince him to take a break from his depravity. On November 23, 1963, the people of Boston were grieving President John F. Kennedy, a Boston native who'd been assassinated in Dallas, Texas. That same day, 23 year old industrial designer Joanne Graff was found dead in her apartment in Lawrence on the outskirts of Boston. Two nylon stockings were tied around her neck in an elaborate bow. When police interviewed Joanne's neighbors, they learned that a strange man had been casing the building. Just minutes before the murder, a college student who lived upstairs from Joanne had heard someone wandering around the hallway outside. When he opened the door, he came face to face with a man who looked to be about 30 years old. He had slicked back hair and was wearing green slacks and a dark jacket. The man asked the student if Joanne Graff lived in the building. The student told him that Joanne lived one floor down. With that, the man was off. And moments later, the student heard the sound of Joanne's door opening and closing from downstairs. It would be the last thing Joanne ever did. But even then, the strangler wasn't satisfied. On January 4, 1964, two women returned to their apartment in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood and were horrified to find their new roommate and 19 year old Mary Sullivan dead in her bed. Like every other victim, she was partially nude and had been sexually assaulted. She'd been strangled with a stocking and several of her colorful scarves had been knotted into a large bow under her chin. Once again, the killer had left a gift. Propped up against one of her splayed out feet was a brightly colored holiday card. With the words Happy New Year printed on it. Mary Sullivan would be the Boston Strangler's final victim. A few weeks after her body was discovered, Edward Brooke was sworn in as Massachusetts newly elected Attorney General. Brooke had a lot to prove. Not only had he won office as a Republican in a strongly Democratic state, but he was also the first black man to be elected as Attorney General and anywhere in America. So he decided to start his tenure as Massachusetts top law enforcement official by tackling the state's biggest case. Brooke announced that his department would be taking over the Boston Strangler case from the Boston pd and he was determined to catch the killer by any means necessary.
- [15:48]
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- [16:36]
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- [17:37]
Vanessa Richardson
Between 1962 and 1964, the boss Boston Strangler murdered 13 women in their apartments. The victims ranged in age from 19 to 75 years old and they had all been sexually assaulted, strangled with an article of clothing such as a stocking, and left partially nude. The Boston PD had been widely Criticized for failing to catch the killer. So In January of 1964, newly elected Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke established a task force to nab him once, once and for all. The task force, which came to be known as the Strangler Bureau, had their work cut out for them. The Boston Strangler had murdered women in five different towns in the greater Boston area. And the various police departments had refused to share information with each other. One of the first things the Strangler Bureau did was gather more than 37,000 pages of records from the different jurisdictions. Then they had a team of criminologists and medical experts try and develop a psychological profile of their killer. Although serial killers had not been widely studied in 1964, experts still knew that they often targeted one specific type of victim. At first, the Boston Strangler had followed a similar pattern, targeting five white women between the ages of 55 and 75. But his sixth victim, 20 year old black nursing student Sophie Clark, broke the pattern. He would go on to kill four more women under the age of 25 and two more women over the age of 55, all of them white. It was hard to make sense of, but experts came to believe the killer was a loner who had bad relationships with the women in his life, particularly his mother. And based on the two witness descriptions, he was probably a blonde man close to 30 years old. Throughout 1964, the 50 detectives assigned to the Strangler Bureau investigated nearly 5,000 people and never found a suspect. Instead, the suspect found them. Around 1960, two, years before the first known strangler killing, female college students living in the Cambridge area began receiving strange visits from a charming dark haired young man in his late 20s. The man would knock on their doors and introduce himself as Mr. Johnson, a talent scout from a modeling agency. Then he would ask to take the women's measurements so the agency could recommend her for jobs. In reality, there was no modeling agency and the stranger was just looking for an excuse to touch women as he sized them up with his measuring tape. When they never heard from any modeling agency, some of the women called the police. Investigators dubbed the creepy visitor measuring man and kept an eye out for men who matched his description. Soon, a suspect landed in their laps. On March 17, 1961, 29 year old Albert DeSalvo was arrested trying to break into a house in Cambridge. Desalvo, a former soldier who worked in a rubber factory, had already been arrested, arrested several times for petty burglaries. But at the police station, he confessed to an even bigger crime. He told officers that he was Measuring Man. He explained that he got a sexual thrill from tricking upper crust Harvard students into letting him inside their apartments, then assaulting them. DeSalvo was a family man with two small children and in court he begged the judge to give him a light sentence so he could provide for his family. In the end, he was sentenced to just 18 months in prison for multiple counts of assault with good behavior. DeSalvo was released in April of 1962, just two months before the Boston Strangler claimed his first victim. Both measuring man and the Boston Strangler were sex criminals who bluffed their way into victims homes. Was it possible they were the same person? After his release from prison in 1962, DeSalvo wasn't arrested again until late 1964, after the strangler's killing spree ended. This time he was brought in for a much more violent crime than his Measuring man assaults. On the morning of October 27, 1964, a 20 year old woman in Cambridge was assaulted asleep in bed after her husband left for work. She woke up to find a strange man in the bedroom with her brandishing a knife. He tied her up and sexually assaulted her, then apologized and fled the scene. She described her attacker to a police sketch artist. Detectives immediately recognized him as Albert DeSalvo and brought him in for questioning. Then they put him in a police lineup where the woman identified DeSalvo. After that, investigators shared DeSalvo's mugshot with police departments in neighboring states. Soon they learned DeSalvo was wanted in connection with a series of break ins and sexual assaults in Connecticut in the early 1960s. There he was known as the Green man for the green work pants he wore during all of his assaults. Not only that, but destroyed. DeSalvo's wife told police that he was obsessed with sex, often demanding she have sex with him multiple times a day. DeSalvo himself was very open with the police about his exploits. He claimed to have assaulted more than 300 women across four states. But investigators didn't take that at face value. Detectives who'd interacted with DeSalvo back in the Measuring man days knew he liked to exaggerate and tell tall tales to make himself look more impressive. Even if he hadn't assaulted 300 women, DeSalvo was still clearly a dangerous criminal. So while he awaited trial, police had him sent to Bridgewater State Hospital, A high security mental hospital where he could be evaluated by psychiatrists. His time at the asylum would prove to be life changing. In March of 1965, a few months after DeSalvo arrived at Bridgewater, and his wife received a phone call from a lawyer named F. Lee Bailey. Bailey explained that he was DeSalvo's new defense attorney, and he had some news. Her husband had confessed to being The Boston Strangler. DeSalvo's wife couldn't believe it. None of his friends or family could either. Yes, DeSalvo was a violent criminal, but nobody who knew him thought he was capable of murder, let alone 12 murders. And it turned out, maybe he wasn't. Shortly before he was sent to Bridgewater, DeSalvo had asked his old lawyer, John Ashkerson, what would happen if he confessed to the Boston Strangler killings. DeSalvo seemed to think that if he confessed, he could make a lot of money selling the rights to his life story, money that would help his family survive while he was locked in. Up. Ashkerson was confused by the conversation and urged his client not to confess to anything. But DeSalvo wasn't convinced. Shortly after this chat, DeSalvo left for Bridgewater, where his cellmate was a double murderer named George Nassar. Unlike DeSalvo's lawyer, Nassar thought the confession was a great idea. If DeSalvo confessed to him, Nassar could report the confession to police and receive the reward money. He promised to split it with DeSalvo. To help their plan go smoothly. Nasser put DeSalvo in touch with his lawyer, F. Lee Bailey. Bailey was a defense attorney who was well known for helping to free an innocent man who had been convicted of his wife's murder, and he told DeSalvo he was happy to assist with his confession. Bailey confirmed what DeSalvo already knew. As a serial rapist, he was certain to spend the rest of his life behind bars and in a state prison. He would most likely be a target for violence from the other inmates. However, if he was the Boston strangler, Bailey assured DeSalvo he could get him locked up in a mental hospital instead. Relatively speaking, it would be a much nicer place to spend the rest of his life. Bailey also agreed to help DeSalvo sell the the rights to adapt his life story as a movie. It was music to DeSalvo's ears. He hired Bailey as his new lawyer, and In March of 1965, Bailey came to visit him at Bridgewater with a tape recorder in tow. During that visit, DeSalvo explained in great detail how he committed all of the Boston Strangler murders. Bayley Bailey played his tapes from members of the Strangler Bureau, and Detectives later visited DeSalvo to question him themselves. The investigators were shocked by the depth of DeSalvo's knowledge of the killings and the crime scenes. He explained how he bluffed his way into the apartment of his fourth victim, Ida Urga, by claiming to be a repairman. He talked about purple colored pillows on Sophie Clark's couch and described the notes notebook hidden under Beverly Salmon's bed. He even drew detailed floor plans of every victim's apartment. After police finished their interviews with DeSalvo, they were certain he was their killer. Not only did he seem incredibly familiar with the crime scenes, but he'd also been known as the Green man for wearing green work pants during his Connecticut attacks. Just like the fake maintenance man who witnesses noticed before some of the Strangler killings. The police were convinced. But the woman who'd actually come face to face with the Boston Strangler wasn't so sure. Marcela Lolka was Sophie Clark's neighbor. The one who had encountered a stranger claiming to be a maintenance man shortly before Sophie was killed. When police first interviewed her, she described a man with honey colored hair wearing a dark jacket and green pants. But when she was brought to Bridgewater hospital to identify DeSalvo in person, she told police he wasn't the person she'd talked to that day. His face looked completely different and his hair was dark. However, during the same visit, she happened to catch a glimpse of DeSalvo's cellmate, George Nassar. According to Lolka, Nasser looked like the man who'd come to her door on the day Sophie was murdered. The only difference was his hair color. But Lolka suggested that he may have dyed his hair before the killing. It could make sense. Nasser hadn't been in jail during the Strangler murders. Maybe he was the Strangler and had encouraged his cellmate to take the fall for the crimes. But police dismissed Lolka's concerns. They just didn't think it was possible. Besides, how else would DeSalvo know so much about the attacks? As it turned out, they may have underestimated Albert DeSalvo. While evaluating DeSalvo at Bridgewater, doctors learned he had a photographic memory. DeSalvo's old lawyer, John Ashkerson, agreed. DeSalvo had an uncanny ability to remember the most minute details of things he'd only seen or read once. Well, during the Boston Stranglers killing spree, newspapers reported on the crime scenes and the conditions of the victims bodies. If DeSalvo read those details, he probably remembered them and recited them back to detectives. It's possible that he also had help remembering Some other key details that hadn't been made public. By 1965, there was enormous political pressure to solve the Boston Strangler killings. Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke was gearing up to run for Senate, and he wanted to be able to claim credit for putting the Boston Strangler behind bars. Some evidence suggests that detectives from the Strangler Bureau coached DeSalvo on what to say to close the case. Whatever the truth was, the police had made up their minds. But there was a problem. Because of legal issues, DeSalvo's lengthy confession would be inadmissible as evidence in court. So on January 10, 1967, after extensive wrangling between F. Lee Bailey and state prosecutors, DeSalvo went on trial for the four sexual assaults he'd committed as the Green Man. At the start of the trial, he entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. In court, bailey admitted that DeSalvo was guilty of the sexual assaults. But he tried to persuade the jury that his client was insane. And he pointed to DeSalvo's widely publicized confession of being the Boston Strangler as proof. Bailey argued that only an insane, depraved individual could commit those crimes. And he assured jurors that if they found DeSalvo criminally insane, he'd spend the rest of his life in a mental hospital where his brain could be studied to help protect society from future generations of maniacs like him. It was a risky move, and it failed. On January 18, 1967, the jury took just four hours to find DeSalvo guilty of the Green Man's sexual assaults. He was sentenced to life in prison, not a mental hospital like he'd wanted. And although he and his old cellmate, George Nassar had been hoping to collect the reward money for catching the Boston Strangler, that didn't pan out either. The reward award would only be paid out if the suspect was convicted of the Boston Strangler killings. Since DeSalvo was convicted on unrelated charges, neither man saw the money. Two people came out ahead from the whole ordeal. One was Attorney General Edward Brooke, who campaigned on capturing the Boston Strangler. He went on to become the first black man elected to the United States Senate. The other was F. Lee Bailey, who gained nationwide fame as a defense attorney from his widely publicized role in the Boston Strangler trial. He would spend the rest of his career representing high profile defendants, including Patty Hurst and O.J. simpson. Albert DeSalvo, on the other hand, wound up in the one place he didn't want to be. Walpole State Prison. A maximum security facility of about an hour outside Boston. In prison, he recanted his confession to the Boston Strangler killings. Later, he wrote a poem about himself which suggested there might be more to the story of the Boston Strangler. Its final lines read. Today he sits in a prison cell. Deep inside only a secret he can tell. People everywhere are still in doubt. Is the Strangler in prison or roaming about? In November of 1973, six years into his life sentence, DeSalvo checked himself into the prison infirmary under heavy guard. From there, he called a reporter and a prison psychologist, begging them to meet with him the following day. He sounded frightened and claimed that he was going to tell them who the real Boston strangler was. But DeSalvo never made it to the meeting. The following morning, he was found stabbed to death in his bed. Whoever had killed him somehow made it past six different security checkpoints to get into the secured infirmary. Then they slipped back out unnoticed after the deed was done. To this day, we don't know who killed DeSalvo or why. But whoever it was, they made sure that whatever secrets he knew about the Boston Strangler died with him. Up next, the story of another legendary Boston crime.
- [33:44]
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- [34:16]
Vanessa Richardson
Seventeen years before Albert DeSalvo went on trial, another historic crime shocked the city of Boston. At 7pm on January 17, 1950, employees at the Brinks facility in Boston's North End were getting ready to close up shop for the day. The Brinks company is one of America's best known cash handling companies. Since 1859, major businesses, banks and governments have contracted with Brinks to transport and store large quantities of cash and valuables. And Brinks goes to great lengths to keep that cargo safe, maintaining a fleet of armored cars, thousands of armed guards, and high security vaults in facilities across the country. But on that chilly evening in 1950, all those security measures failed. The five employees at the Brinks facility that night were all working inside, inside a large vault, counting and organizing cash from several local corporations. Payrolls as the employees prepared to leave, the vault door opened, and seven men armed with revolvers rushed inside. The new arrivals were all wearing matching overcoats, gloves, chauffeur's caps, and children's Halloween masks to hide their identities. Acting quickly, the men bound and gagged the employees. The leaving them face down on the floor. Then they turned their attention to the cash. The robbers spent the next 20 minutes dumping cash, checks, money orders, and bearer bonds into dozens of bags, which they stacked near the exit. The men moved quickly and efficiently, as though they'd been training for this moment. Eventually, they rushed out the door to a waiting truck. A few minutes later, one of the Brink's employees was able to wriggle free and call the police. When the authorities finally took stock of what was missing, they determined the robbers had made off with $1.2 million in cash and another $1.5 million in checks, money orders, and other valuables. The $2.7 million haul was the equivalent of roughly $36 million in today's money. At the time, it was the largest robbery in US History. Newspapers called it the crime of the century, which meant the investigators tasked with catching these criminals had a difficult task ahead of them. Within hours of the robbery, FBI agents were on the scene to assist the Boston police as they searched for evidence. But the bandits hadn't left many clues behind. Aside from the ropes they used to tie up the guards and a chauffeur's cap that one of them dropped during their escape, they'd left no trace. Investigators couldn't even figure out how the robbers had gotten into the vault. They'd had to pass through five locked doors to get inside, but none of the locks were damaged. The FBI began canvassing the neighborhood around the facility, looking for anybody who had seen the getaway car. Eventually, agents learned that a green 1949 Ford cargo truck had been parked outside the Brinks building at the time of the robbery. Police across the state were put on the lookout for the truck, and on March 4th, they finally found it. The robbers had used a blowtorch to cut the vehicle into pieces, which were hidden in canvas bags and left at a garbage dump 20 miles outside the city. Clearly, these were professional criminals who'd gone out of their way to cover their tracks. Growing desperate, the FBI began reaching out to resorts, racetracks, and casinos all over the country. They asked if any shady characters had shown up recently with a lot of money to spend. But the robbers were clever. Even though they'd stolen more money than anybody else in U. S. History. None of them were spending it. At least not yet. So without any leads or clues to work with, the FBI started shaking the down every career criminal they knew. In the months after the heist, well known criminals throughout the US Were brought in for questioning. But in interviews, professional robbers and thieves all insisted that they didn't know who'd done the Brinks job. And many of them made it clear that even if they did know, they wouldn't rat them out to the FBI. Still, investigators managed to narrow down their pool of suspects. At the top of the list were a pair of notorious Boston area crooks. Anthony Pino, an expert burglar, and Joseph McInnes, a criminal mastermind who'd been in and out of jail for robbery throughout his life. If anybody in Boston was going to dream up the crime of the century, it would be these two. But when the FBI questioned Pino and McGinnis, they had an airtight alibi. At 7:00 clock on the night of the robbery, both men had been hanging out at the liquor store McGinnis owned and having a conversation with a Boston police officer who confirmed that they'd both been there. In fact, the men's alibi was almost too good. Two of Boston's most notorious robbers had made a point of hanging out with a cop at the exact time the biggest robbery in US History was happening just a couple miles away. Investigators were certain this wasn't a coincidence. While Pino and McGinnis hadn't been on the scene of the robbery, the two career criminals must have been involved with planning the heist. So the FBI narrowed their search to Pino and McGinnis Associates. This led agents to one of Anthony Pino's frequent collaborators. A Boston thug named James o'. Keefe. O' Keefe was a well known figure in the Boston underworld. He was a bold and fearless criminal who'd reportedly robbed several underground poker games and sports betting operations at gunpoint. In addition to being a friend of Anthony Pino, he also didn't have an alibi for the night of the robbery. And he had relatives who lived a few miles away from the garbage dump where the remains of the getaway truck were found. The FBI interviewed o' Keefe several times, pressing him to talk about the Brinks robbery. But o' Keefe wouldn't crack. He insisted that he didn't know anything about the heist. And without any evidence tying him to the robbery, the FBI couldn't prove that he did. So instead, investigators pulled back, kept an eye on o' Keefe and waited for him to make a mistake. And less than six months after the robbery, he did. On June 2, O' Keefe and a fellow criminal, Stanley Gucciora, left on a road trip, supposedly to visit o' Keefe's family in Missouri. Along the way, they committed a string of burglaries at sporting goods stores and other businesses on their route. Ten days into their trip on June 12, local police in Towanda, Pennsylvania, pulled the pair over and found that their car was full of stolen and merchandise. Both men were arrested, and on September 8th, O' Keefe was sentenced to three years in the county jail. During that time, the FBI repeatedly visited O', Keefe, hoping his time behind bars had encouraged him to talk. O' Keefe continued to give agents the cold shoulder, but the FBI noticed that he was spending a lot on legal fees, pricey defense lawyers, and numerous appeals to try and get his sentence reduced. Investigators learned from their informants that since being locked up, o' Keefe had been in regular contact with a number of Boston area criminals, including Pino and McGinnis, the supposed masterminds of the Brinks job. Reportedly, O' Keefe was asking them for money to help cover his legal expenses. If they ever hesitated, he threatened to tell the FBI what he knew about the big job they'd all taken part in a few years earlier. It was clear that o' Keefe was the weak link in the criminals gang. The FBI knew it, and so did the other robbers. So after o' Keefe got out of jail, the remaining Brinks robbers decided to get rid of him before he could spoil their clean getaway. 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Vanessa Richardson
I buy my groceries. There's a better way. Make it easy with Stitch Fix. Just share your size, style, budget and done. Your personal stylist sends pieces picked just for you. That was easy. Stitch Fix online Personal styling for everyone. Free shipping and returns. No subscription required. Get started today@stitch fix.com On January 17, 1950, a team of robbers entered a Brinks Co. Vault in Boston, tied up the guards, and made off with $2.7 million. At the time, it was the biggest heist in US history. The FBI felt certain the crime had been masterminded by local kingpins Anthony pino and Joseph McGinnis. But they couldn't prove it. Their one promising lead was James o', Keefe, a suspected member of the gang who wound up in jail a few months later on an unrelated charge. During his time behind bars, O' Keefe regularly hit up Pino and McGinnis for money to help with his defense and threatened to rat them out to the FBI if they didn't wouldn't pay up. Not long after his release, O' Keeffe would pay for his disloyalty. After three years in a Pennsylvania jail, O' Keefe was released in March of 1954 and made his return to Boston not long after. He was only in the city for a couple of months before trouble came looking for him. On the morning of June 5, O' Keefe was sitting at an intersection when another car sped up and came to a stop beside him. Luckily, o' Keefe had enough street smarts to duck down in his seat right as a gunman in the other car started firing, shattering the windows of o' Keefe's car. O' Keefe stepped on the gas and managed to get away unscathed. But now he knew his old partners had it out for him. Nine days later, on June 14, O' Keefe and one of his friends paid a visit to Henry Baker in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood. Baker was one of the criminals o' Keefe had asked for money while he was in jail. The FBI also suspected that Baker was another one of the Brinks robbers. The meeting didn't go well. Not long after they sat down to talk, Baker got agitated and pulled a gun on o'. Keefe. But o' Keefe and his friend were also armed and a brief shootout ensued. None of the shots hit anybody, and Baker was able to to escape before o' Keefe could settle the score. But with Baker still out there, O' Keefe wasn't out of the woods just yet. Two days later, on June 16, O' Keefe was lying low at a housing project in Boston when he was ambushed by a hired hitman named Elmer Trigger Burke. For more than half an hour, Burke, armed with a submachine gun, chased o' Keefe through the halls of the column complex, firing more than 30 shots at him. Finally, a couple of Burke's bullets hit their target. O' Keefe collapsed and Burke fled the scene, leaving his target for dead. But when police arrived a few minutes later, all they found was a pool of blood, a dropped handgun and O' Keefe's shattered wristwatch. O' Keefe had cheated death for a third time. The FBI finally caught up with O' Keefe several weeks later, on August 1, as he recovered from his wounds in the nearby town of Leicester. Now that his former partners in crime had tried to kill him three times over. O' Keefe had changed his mind about talking to the police. Over the course of several months, o' Keefe told FBI agents the full story of the Brink's heist. As investigators had seen suspected, the heist was masterminded by Anthony pino and Joseph McGinnis, and they'd been thinking about it for a while. They'd started planning for the daring robbery in 1947, three years before the break in occurred. During that time, Pino and McGinnis recruited O' Keefe and nine other men to take part in the heist, Including Okeefes friend Stanley Gusciora. At first, the plant was was to hijack an armored truck full of cash as it left the Brinks facility. But then, in December 1948, Brinks moved from its location in Boston's financial district to the warehouse in the north end. The new location meant the robbers had to scrap their plans, but it also created new opportunities. For months, robbers staked out the rooftops of surrounding buildings, Watching the facility through binoculars and noting guards schedules and routines. After that, they started checking out the inside of the building. In 1949, members of the gang broke in for the first time. To get inside, they used specialized tools to remove the lock cylinder from the exterior door. Then they took the cylinder to a nearby locksmith who was in on the scheme. Working through the night, the locksmith made the right robbers a key to fit the lock. After that, the robbers carefully replaced the lock in the door. When employees returned to the building in the morning, Nothing seemed to be out of place, and they were unaware that the robbers now had a key to the building. Throughout the rest of the year, the robbers used their key to re enter the building four more times for each of the additional locked doors between the entrance and the vault. On each trip, they'd remove a new lock cylinder and have one robber rush it to the locksmith to have a key made while the rest of the crew waited in the building. By the end of the year, the robbers had a key to open every locked door in the building. But there were still a few details to sort out. It seemed like after hours, the cash in the Brinks vault was stored in hundreds of of locked boxes, which the robbers apparently couldn't get keys to. That meant they'd have to pull off their robbery during work hours when employees were in the vault handling the cash. So the team planned to strike late in the day when the fewest number of people would be working. And they spent weeks rehearsing their movements to ensure they could swiftly incapacitate the guards before any of them tripped an alarm. The thoughtful planning extended to the getaway vehicle too. They needed a big truck that was in pristine condition. No dents or scratches that witnesses could use to identify it. And an engine they could trust to run properly throughout the getaway. So In November of 1949, the robbers stole a brand new truck off the lot at a dealership and carefully mapped out an escape route. By the beginning of 1950, every single detail of the plan had been accounted for. Now they just had to wait for the perfect time to strike. On January 17, conditions were perfect. Pino and McGinnis gave the go ahead and their crew committed the crime of the century. Immediately after the robbery, the crew took their truck full of cash to one of the robbers parents homes where they unloaded the money and disposed of the truck. The robbers divided up the record breaking haul among themselves, agreeing not to spend any of the money until the heat died down. That night, O' Keefe drove home with $200,000 cash in the trunk of his car, which is over $2.5 million in today's money. But once the FBI started sniffing around, he handed off the cash to a friend for safety keeping. Not long after, he was arrested in Pennsylvania and his so called friend took off with his share of the loot. That was why o' Keefe had to keep leaning on his fellow robbers to fund his legal defense. Based on okeefe's testimony, the FBI began building cases and securing indictments against the other 10 men involved in the robbery. Starting on January 12, 1956, just five days before the statute of limitations was set to expire, police swooped in and arrested all the other members of the gang. When the group went to trial In October of 1956, O' Keefe testified against the men who had tried repeatedly to have him killed. All of the other participants were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison for cooperating with authorities. 48 year old O' Keefe received a lesser sentence and entered witness protection. After his release in 1966, James O' Keefe had answered many questions about the crime of the century. But even after all the guilty parties were locked up, one question remained. Where was the money? The FBI wasn't able to find it in any of the robbers homes. And none of the perpetrators ever said where they'd hidden it. In the summer of 1956, the FBI recovered $57,000 of the stolen cash which had been hidden in the wall of a Baltimore construction office, but that was all they ever found. The remainder of the $2.7 million remains missing to this day. The men who broke into the vault that night in January of 1950 thought they were committing the perfect crime. Even though they were caught, they did create the perfect mystery. Looking back on this Week in Crime history, we can see the power of a well timed confession. Albert DeSalvo's confession to the Boston Strangler killings helped launch F. Lee Bailey's legal career. Even if DeSalvo wasn't the real killer, James O' Keefe's confession about the Brinks robbery helped him get revenge on the crooks who tried to have him killed. It goes to show that in a tough town like Boston, words can carry a lot of weight. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Vanessa Richardson and this is True Crime this Week. True Crime this Week is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios and Crime House. We want to express our gratitude to you, our community, for making this possible. Please support us by rating, reviewing and following True Crime this Week. Wherever you get your podcasts, your feedback truly matters. And for ad free and early access to True Crime this Week, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. We'll be back next Sunday. True Crime this Week is hosted by me, Vanessa Richardson, and is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the True Crime this Week team, Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Natalie Pertzovsky, Lori Marinelli, Sarah Camp, Truman Capps, Sheila Patterson and Michael Langsner. Thank you for listening.
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Vanessa Richardson
50% off regular price for new customers. Upfront payment required $45 for 3 months, $90 for 6 month or $180 for 12 month plan taxes and fees. Extra speeds may slow after 50 gigabytes per month when network is busy. See terms Looking for your next listen? Hi, it's Vanessa Richardson and I have exciting news. Conspiracy theories, cults and crimes is leveling up starting the week of January 12th. You'll be getting two episodes every week. Wednesdays we unravel the conspiracy or the cult and on Fridays we look at at a corresponding crime. Follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes now on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you listen.