Transcript
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For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet. But not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the Deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the Deck next now, wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.
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And I'm Britt.
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And the story I have for you today reads more like an old film noir than real life. It starts with a mistaken identity and murder in D.C. pivots to small town power politics, spirals into domestic violence, and ends with a town marshal gunned down on his own doorstep in Indiana. And the reason I know about this case is because I actually got a call from Captain Smith with the Indiana State Police, who's known for cracking cold cases and who urged us to cover this story in hopes that someone, somewhere can bring him answers to a question that has haunted the small town of Fremont, Indiana for decades. Who killed Bobby Moore? It's July 13, 1974, in D.C. a time of epic unrest in the capital city. Watergate just broke. Nixon is like a month away from resigning from the presidency. And when this is happening, Metro PD Homicide detective Bobby Moore gets a call that a judge has been shot. He rushes to the hospital and finds Judge Lewis, a sisler, dying in a bed. And some of his final words to the detective are telling him that he had been at his father in law's house. And when he opened the door, he there was a group of people who shot at him as they tried to get into the house. They didn't, but they got him. And shortly after giving that information to the detective, Lewis dies. With only those few facts to go on, Bobby sets out investigating what is now a homicide. So he goes back to the scene of the crime, which, as Lewis told him, was at his father in law's house. Samuel Haines. Samuel's daughter Barbara had married Lewis 23 years before, and they built a life together in northern Indiana where Lewis had been a state judge. They'd left their three adult children and moved to DC For Lewis work because after he retired as a judge, he went to work for a senator on Capitol Hill. And he was also a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association. So for a hot minute, considering the political climate, they probably wondered if Lewis was targeted for his work. Yeah, but the real motive was much different and as it turns out, had nothing to do with politics and at all. Apparently, earlier that night, a young woman who is referred to as Mrs. Brannon in the court records, she was walking home from a neighborhood bar when a guy grabbed her, forced her into a garage, and sexually assaulted her. After the assault, she made it back to her mom's house, told her mother, Mary, what had happened, and right away, Mary went to police to report that assault. Now, I don't know what their response was, but probably not great, because it seems like Mary thought she needed to take matters into her own hands. So she got her grandson and his friends together, and they decided that they were going to go back to that bar she had been at to find this guy themselves. Now, he wasn't there, so they came up with another idea. Mary's daughter identified two garages in the neighborhood that looked like the ones she was assaulted in. But it's not totally clear from the limited records that we were able to get or why she thought that the guy who assaulted her might have owned the garage that she was attacked in. But this is all she has to go on. So they go to one house, and they determine this isn't the right guy. So then they go back to the bar, started a bar fight, and then left, possibly after several drinks. And when they leave, they go to the second home that Mary's daughter had picked out. And that second home is Sam Haines house. So Mary and several others march up to the front door, knock, and. And when Lewis opens the door, the New York Times reported that they said, quote, we're looking for the guy that raped our sister. And Lewis is like, listen, you must have the wrong house. And he tried to close the door. And it was then that two people in the group started shooting through it. The judge gets hit several times, and, as we know, later, dies in the hospital. So once Detective Bobby Moore pieces all of this together, he comes to the conclusion that this must have been a case of mistaken identity. And all the arrests are made according to an appeal document, which was one of the only records we could get for this case. Mary Harris, who is the mother of this woman, she ends up getting convicted of conspiracy to commit assault with a dangerous weapon, felony murder, and attempted first degree burglary while armed. Now, the burglary charge was because someone in the group allegedly tried to push past the judge into the house. And the court suspended, expected it was to commit a burglary. Now, I know two other men were convicted, too. They were the ones police that actually pulled the trigger or triggers. But I don't have as much detail because there weren't any court records for them that we could get.
