Transcript
A (0:00)
Hey everyone, Kylie Lowe here. And if you're captivated by the cases and heartfelt stories I share here on Dark Down East, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll enjoy, the Deck. Every week, host Ashley Flowers shines a light on cold cases you've likely never heard about, giving voices to the victims and their loved ones who deserve justice. And what makes the Deck so unique is that Ashley draws these stories from actual playing cards, from cold case decks created by law enforcement to bring attention to unsolved homicides in missing persons cases. Each episode unravels a mystery as Ashley's team of investigative reporters dive deep into the lives behind the cases and the impact they've had on their communities. So if you're looking for more compelling stories of unsolved mysteries and forgotten victims, listen to the Deck now. Wherever you're listening, you never know what's ahead. Today you're dancing to a new record in your living room. Oh wow. I love this song. And then before you know it, you're flying to see the band live at Credit One Bank. We're here for what's ahead. That's why you can get points on eligible travel purchases, including flights. Credit One bank for what's Ahead terms apply. Visit creditonebanktravel.com for more details. Dark down east is proudly sponsored by Amica Insurance. They say if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. When you go with Amica, you're getting coverage from a mutual insurer that's built for their customers, so they'll help look after what's important to you. Auto, home life and more. Amica has you covered at Amika. They'll help protect what matters most to you. Visit amica.com and get a quote. Today.
B (2:01)
Your home should show off who you are, telling your story in every detail, meeting you where you are. Ashley has styles that balance timeless appeal and modern trends to bring your personal look home. Pairing eye catching design with features like stain resistant performance fabric, Ashley offers well crafted, affordable pieces built to stand up to real life. Plus they provide fast, reliable white glove delivery right to your door. Visit your local Ashley store or head to Ashley.com to find your style.
A (2:34)
From the moment investigators stepped foot into the home of Leslie and Charlie Buck in the spring of 2002 following a 911 call, there was something off about the circumstances of Leslie's untimely death. Leslie had just survived a violent kidnapping two days earlier and autopsy findings left the manner of her death anything but clear. Cut. This episode is a continuation of Leslie's story, so I recommend starting with the episode immediately before this one. Before listening here, I'm going to take you through the investigative findings and the evidence that amounted to probable cause for an arrest, as well as the bombshell report and supporting experts testimony that attributed Leslie's death to something that had nothing to do with the prime suspect. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of Leslie Buck. Part two on Dark Down East. In the final days of 57 year old Leslie Buck's life, she survived the unimaginable. A man once considered a friend of the Buck family, Russell Kirby, attacked Leslie as she got out of her car on the night of May 2, 2002, incapacitating her with a stun gun and violently assaulting her before he tied her limbs and kidnapped her in her own car. Leslie's own quick thinking and courage are to thank for her escape that night. When Russell loosened the restraints for a brief moment and stepped out of the car to check on some car trouble, she used a spare key to speed away from her assailant and to what she believed would be the safety of her own home. But Leslie's home was not the sanctuary it should have been. Whether by accident or by someone else's hand or some other unexplained cause, Leslie died less than 48 hours after her kidnapping. The wounds on her head were indicative of some kind of blunt trauma. But lacking evidence on the stairwell where she was found, Dr. Melkashaw could not conclusively determine a manner of death. As the investigation into Leslie's death got underway, a jury found Russell Kirby guilty of kidnapping and assault. But the verdict did not clear up why he attacked Leslie Buck. The motivation behind Russell's attack on Leslie remained a major question mark. And answering that question might shed light on the true nature of Leslie's subsequent death. Was Russell's attack on Leslie the misunderstanding Russell claimed it to be? Did he truly act in self defense? Or did he do it for money? Did he plan to hold her ransom? Or did someone offer him money to frighten Leslie or worse? As of Russell's conviction and sentencing, Leslie's manner of death was still undetermined and it remained under investigation for years. And her husband, Charlie Buck, remained under tremendous suspicion for Leslie's death. The undetermined ruling of Leslie's manner of death presented the biggest hurdles for investigators. Without a determination whether it was an accident or homicide, they really couldn't progress the case to a point of an arrest or closure. So investigators sought New opinions from experts out of state to see what they thought about the autopsy and evidence at the scene of Leslie's death. On July 15, 2004, Dr. Michael Baden reviewed Leslie's autopsy report and photos of Leslie's body, the crime scene, and videos from inside the Buck home. Dr. Baden was the director of Medical Legal Investigations Unit for the New York State Police. Now, in his professional opinion, Leslie's manner of death was homicide, but not blunt force trauma. Dr. Baden was, quote, unquote, concerned about the minimal brain injuries despite Leslie's skull fracture. And he believed that the injuries to Leslie's neck were due to asphyxiation. In his view, that's what ultimately caused her death. This new opinion from an outside expert didn't push the case in one direction or another. So by May of 2006, four years after Lesley's death, her family decided to take the only action afforded to them in this situation. They filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Charlie. According to reporting by Elaine Griffin for the Hartford Courant and Ethan Ruin for the day, Leslie's estate argued that Charlie was having an extramarital affair at the time of Leslie's death and that he solicited someone, that someone being Russell Kirby, to take Leslie's life. A forensic pathologist named Dr. Barbara C. Wolf, who was employed as a medical examiner in the state of Florida. She provided another opinion of Leslie's death as part of this civil wrongful death suit. Fun fact. Dr. Wolf was part of the defense team that helped secure an acquittal for O.J. simpson. Dr. Wolf stated in an affidavit that in her professional opinion and in terms of a reasonable degree of medical certainty, Leslie's injuries were not consistent with an accidental fall in the staircase where she was found. Dr. Wolf found that there was no existing condition or prior injury that contributed to Leslie's death, and her death was in fact caused by blunt head trauma and asphyxia due to neck compression. The manner of death, in Dr. Wolf's opinion, was homicide. The civil wrongful death suit now wasn't the only case making its way through the court system in 2006. While the investigation into Lesley's suspicious death continued, Russell Kirby managed to successfully get his conviction thrown out. The Connecticut Supreme Court overturned Russell Kirby's conviction in October of 2006, finding that Leslie's statements identifying Russell as her attacker that she made to a dispatcher and an officer should not have been admitted into evidence because it violated his constitutional right to confront the witness against him. Those were some of the precise Statements Russell tried to have thrown out pretrial, but they were eventually allowed by the trial judge. The other statements that Leslie made to medical personnel would remain as evidence, as would Russell's own statements to police about kidnapping Leslie for money. In January of 2007, the state announced their intention to seek a new trial for Russell Kirby. But later that year, they also offered a plea deal. 12 years in prison if he entered a guilty plea. He'd already served five years of his previous sentence before the conviction was overturned. Russell rejected the plea deal and opted to go to trial. By this time, Leslie's suspicious death case had changed hands and now had the eyes of the Chief State's Attorney's Office Cold Case unit. Though her case was not technically considered cold, the unit simply had more resources and would bring a fresh perspective to the evidence. Maybe that team of detectives and prosecutors could make sense of the conflicting opinions and inconclusive evidence. It didn't happen overnight, but it seems that the fresh perspective was exactly what the case needed after all. Because on January 22, 2009, Charlie Buck was pulling up to the Tim Hortons in downtown mystic, as he did every day when police intercepted his morning coffee run and put him in handcuffs. He was arrested and charged with the murder of his wife. The office of the Chief Medical examiner still had not changed the ruling about how Leslie sustained the head injuries that caused her death. Her death was not and had not ever been ruled a homicide at that point. Yet the investigation had uncovered enough probable cause to secure his arrest. The evidence against Charlie was largely circumstantial. He made several inconsistent statements regarding his whereabouts on the day of her death. May 4, 2002. You'll remember there was that piece of wire that could have been similar to a possible murder weapon. And Charlie's comments to witnesses about using such a wire to hit someone in the head. Not least of all was Charlie's relationship with Carol Perez. In denial of such a relationship, that looked a lot like motive to want his wife gone. Let's dig into Charlie's alleged inconsistent statements because they are central to the case the state had built against him. So in late April of 2006, police had executed a search warrant at the buck residence at 77 Mason's Island Road in Mystic and at Charlie's business, Buck Electric, at 126 Elm St. According to reporting by Joe Voitas for the Hartford Courant, police seized financial records, but bank deposit slips, checks, ledgers, and an employee tax return. Remember, Charlie told officers that on the day of Leslie's death, He had gone to his office to do some paperwork. The item seized during the search might be able to confirm if he was telling the truth about his activities that day. As officers made stacks of files for further investigation, Charlie stood outside with another officer, talking freely about his wife and the day he found her dead at the bottom of the stairs. A few details during that voluntary conversation differed from his original statement and first interview back in 2002. In 2006, Charlie told the officer that he stopped at the fire department on the way to his office on May 4, 2002 and spoke to a fellow firefighter while he was there. But in his original statement, Charlie he stopped into the fire department on his way home. Investigators spoke to the firefighter and he said that Charlie stopped into the station between 3:15 and 3:30pm he was gone by the time the fire department was toned out at 4:06pm for a search and rescue. Coincidentally, the call was near Charlie's street. It was unrelated to Leslie, but the firefighter found it odd that Charlie did not respond to the call, especially since he lived in the area. Another inconsistency. In one statement, Charlie said he went straight to his office after leaving home the day of Leslie's death. But in a second interview, he said he made a stop at the Drawbridge Inn before making it to his office. Carol Perez worked at the Drawbridge Inn. Charlie had also previously told police that he and Leslie returned home from visiting Leslie's mother on the day of her death. Around 1:45pm However, a witness spotted Charlie driving his MG convertible with Leslie in the passenger seat at 1:50pm heading in the direction of their home. It was just a five minute discrepancy, sure, but this witness also said that she waved at the box like she always did. But they didn't wave back and Charlie looked angry. Based on this witness account, the Investigation determined that 1:50pm is the last time Leslie could be accounted for alive, and she was with Charlie at the time. One of the key elements of Charlie's story was that he went to his office on the afternoon of May 4, 2002 to do paperwork. Specifically, he said he entered checks into a ledger book made out of deposit slip, paid bills, completed a 941coupon for federal withholding, made out a check to take to the bank, and several other entries that would have been dated in documents. However, during that search In April of 2006, investigators seized the ledger book and deposit slips and other statements from May of 2002, and there were no entries for May 4th. A check with the bank determined there were no transactions on the business account on the 4th. A deposit slip was made out for the 6th, but not the 4th. It wasn't hard proof that Charlie didn't actually do any paperwork on the date of his wife's death. He could have predated things if we're looking for an explanation, but it was a strong suggestion that he wasn't doing what he claimed to be doing that afternoon. The arrest warrant affidavit listed other evidence too. Charlie was seen crying in his van sometime before Leslie's death, saying that if he tried to leave his wife, she'd take half of his money. Other witnesses said that Leslie approached them in the days preceding her death to ask about divorce and domestic violence. The full scope of evidence against Charlie Buck wasn't listed out in the arrest warrant. But by the time the probable cause hearing rolled around, more details of the case were made public. Carol Perez, who had a new last name at the time of Charlie's arrest, she was a primary witness for the prosecution. She testified at the probable cause hearing that her relationship with Charlie was never sexual. She was clear that they were friends and he may have hugged her one time when she was upset, but nothing else. Must have been a really good friend though, because Carol also testified that Charlie bought her a house on top of giving her all those other gifts and cash for expenses. Carol said that after Leslie died, Charlie even proposed and gave her a two or three carat diamond ring. She didn't say during the probable cause hearing if she accepted the proposal or not. But Carol did testify that that she later pawned the ring for several thousand dollars. Carol's testimony was convincing. Proof of a relationship of some kind, sure, but not of murder. Carol was adamant that Charlie never admitted to killing Leslie and she believed him. She never told police otherwise. After hearing testimony from Carol and other witnesses, a judge determined there was probable cause for Charlie to be tried on the murder charge. It would be several months before he actually faced trial, though. In the meantime, the second kidnapping trial for Charlie's former friend Russell Kirby began. The case against Russell was largely the same the second time around, sans the evidence that the state supreme Court previously found was inadmissible. And once again the defense attorney wanted to call Charlie Buck as a witness. But because he'd already shown he had every intention of invoking his fifth Amendment right against self incrimination and putting him on the stand might prejudice potential jurors in his own forthcoming murder trial, it was decided that Charlie didn't have to appear and his lawyer could invoke the fifth Amendment right on Charlie's behalf. Now, one thing that was different in the second trial was Russell's testimony in his own defense. It got more elaborate. Russell claimed that the Tasers found in Leslie's car were part of an experiment he was part of with a quote, unquote private individual to test the use of Tasers to get more mileage out of cars. He also said that he actually used one of the Tasers on the night of May 2nd in an attempt to jump start his car that had broken down, which was the whole reason why he was in the Buck's garage to begin with. But Russell also testified that he didn't just use the stun gun on his vehicle. He admitted that he used the stun gun on Leslie because, quote, she just sort of exploded when she saw him and she was in a violent mood. End quote. Russell's version of events failed to convince a second jury he was telling the truth. In February of 2010, he was convicted for a second time of second degree kidnapping and third degree assault. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison with credit for the eight he'd already served. Now, finally, it was almost full steam ahead to the trial of Charlie Buck, with jury selection set to begin in September of 2010. That is until a new report raised even more questions about who, or rather what, could have killed Leslie Buck. Fall is in full swing and it's the perfect time to refresh your wardrobe with pieces that feel as good as they look. Luckily, Quince makes it easy to look polished, stay warm and save big without compromising on quality. Quince has all the elevated essentials for fall, like 100% Mongolian cashmere from $50, washable silk tops and skirts and perfectly tailored denim, all at prices that feel too good to be true. By partnering directly with ethical top tier factories, Quince cuts out the middlemen to deliver luxury quality pieces at half the price of similar brands. Fall in New England means it's warm during the day and chilly at night. So my Quince leather moto jacket is back in full rotation. Keep it classic and cozy this fall with long lasting staples from quince. Go to quince.com downeast for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com downeast to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com downeast.