The Buried Bodies Case

Summary

Radiolab – "The Buried Bodies Case"
WNYC Studios | June 3, 2016
Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich

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Episode Overview

This episode of Radiolab dives deep into the ethical, legal, and emotional complexities of the Buried Bodies Case—a landmark legal ethics case that still reverberates through law schools today. Centered on the story of attorneys Frank Armani and Francis Belge, who, while defending serial killer Robert Garrow, discovered the locations of two missing victims’ bodies but kept that information secret, the episode interrogates questions of legal obligation versus personal morality, confidentiality, and the weight of human suffering.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Crime and Manhunt [03:09–08:43]

• Setting the Scene: In July 1973, four young campers in the Adirondacks are attacked by a man posing as a conservation officer, later revealed as Robert Garrow.
• Details of the Attack: Garrow fatally stabs one camper, Philip Domblewski, and attempts to tie the others to trees. Two campers escape and alert locals.
• Manhunt: This triggers the largest manhunt in New York State history, with hundreds of officers, bloodhounds, and helicopters combing the woods ([06:13] Jim Tracy: “By Monday or Tuesday, they had 200 men on the case…”).
• Capture: After 12 days, Garrow is shot and apprehended. He’s suspected in additional murders.

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2. The Lawyers' Dilemma & Privileged Information [08:43–22:46]

• Enter Frank Armani: Garrow insists only Armani represent him. Armani is reluctant but is appointed as his public defender.
  • [10:03] Frank Armani: “I liked fights, physical fights. I like standing up for the little guy."
• Armani Enlists Francis Belge: Recognizing the case’s scope and seriousness, Armani brings in his friend, top criminal defense attorney Francis Belge.
• Building the Defense: With the prosecution’s case strong, their only plausible defense is insanity.
• Confidentiality: After lengthy meetings, Garrow confesses to killing two missing women, Susan Petz and Alicia Hauck, and reveals their bodies’ locations.
  • [14:35] Lisa Lerman (law professor): "We have Sixth Amendment right to counsel and the Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate oneself."
• Validation of Garrow’s Story: Armani and Belge personally visit the burial sites and confirm Garrow’s confessions, finding bodies at the described locations.
  • [21:13] Frank Armani (upon seeing the body): "I said to myself, the son of a bitch did it."

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3. Ethical and Emotional Turmoil [22:02–29:50]

• Ethical Bind: Armani and Belge face a wrenching decision: break client confidentiality to bring closure to families or adhere to their oath and retain trust in the legal system.
  • [23:00] Robert Krulwich: “Even if the parents… are frightened and waking up, and even if they have hired detectives… if the people are already dead, then the law is–”
  • [23:20] Frank Armani (quietly): “Shh.”
• Moral Conflict: Both lawyers feel the agony of the victims’ families yet are bound by duty.
  • [24:23] Frank Armani: “You have to be an animal not to feel the anguish of the parents of the family. And yet you have your duty as a lawyer. You're caught between the two moral [worlds].”

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4. Failed Plea Bargain & Personal Cost [29:50–36:23]

• Attempting a Plea Deal: They attempt to use the information as leverage, telling prosecutors they will reveal the victims’ locations if Garrow is placed in a mental hospital (insanity plea), not prison.
  • [30:14] Lisa Lerman: “That was the idea. Yeah.”
  • [31:28] Jim Tracy: “…the lawyers were absolutely ludicrous. They thought they had lost their mind.”
• Emotional Fallout: Armani meets Susan Petz’s father but cannot share the secret. The guilt and stress push Armani to his limits.
  • [32:47] Frank Armani: “But I couldn't tell him anything.”
  • [34:43] Frank Armani: “Wake up 2:30 in the morning with sweat running down your back... alone with this secret.”

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5. Trial, Exposure, and Public Backlash [36:23–41:14]

• Bodies Discovered by Chance: Five months later, the victims' bodies are discovered by others.
• Trial & Revelation: At trial, Garrow’s confession (sanctioned under the insanity defense) exposes the lawyers’ secret; public outrage follows.
  • [38:10] Frank Armani: “Is that the one I found?”
  • [38:46] Jad Abumrad: “Bodies used as pawns in a game of law.”
• Threats and Fallout: Armani receives death threats; he's ostracized, suffers financially, and undergoes profound emotional distress.
  • [39:12] Frank Armani: "He started to carry a pistol on my back... kept a shotgun in the house so we could sleep. That was the worst moment of my life."
• Vindication: Ultimately, courts rule that Armani and Belge acted ethically within the law, and the legal community holds up Armani as a model of professional responsibility.
  • [41:14] Lisa Lerman: “My view is Frank Armani is a real life hero.”

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6. Legacy and Unresolved Anguish [42:12–51:15]

• Lasting Impact: The case is taught nationwide in law schools as a “touchstone” of legal ethics.
• Family Perspective: Roberta Petz, Susan's mother, speaks for the first time to the media, expressing horror that the lawyers’ actions are held up as exemplary ethics.
  • [44:42] Roberta Petz: “I'm pretty horrified… I don't think it's ethical at all.”
  • [45:29] Roberta Petz: “Maybe they ought to think not only about the criminal... but what about the victims?”
• Enduring Grief: Roberta Petz shares her ongoing pain and the lack of closure, despite decades passing.
  • [47:43] Roberta Petz: “It's impossible to really communicate in words... It'll never go away as long as I live.”
• Armani’s Reflection: Even decades later, Armani sympathizes deeply with the families’ pain and does not expect their forgiveness, only stating he did what the law demanded.
  • [49:13] Frank Armani: “There's no justification. You couldn't justify it. In my mind, I don't expect them to accept it, but that's the way it is.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Ethical Conflict:
  • Lisa Lerman [02:02]: “It's what my husband and I refer to as a mental magnet… It gets under your skin.”
  • Frank Armani [24:23]: “You have to be an animal not to feel the anguish of the parents… Yet you have your duty as a lawyer."
• On Client Confidentiality:
  • Frank Armani [22:17]: "No, you can't. You just can't. We took an oath to keep the confidences of our client..."
• On Law’s Imperfect Balance:
  • Roberta Petz [44:42]: “I'm pretty horrified to think that this is what is considered to be correct, because I don't think it's ethical at all.”
• Emotional Fallout:
  • Frank Armani [39:12]: “That was the worst moment of my life. I had some horrible thoughts.”
  • Frank Armani [49:13]: “There's no justification. You couldn't justify it. In my mind, I don't expect them to accept it, but that's the way it is.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:09–08:43] The murder, manhunt, and Garrow’s capture
• [09:31–15:12] Armani’s background, appointment, and struggles with the case
• [16:38–21:28] Lawyers confirm the victims’ bodies
• [22:05–24:23] Legal and ethical constraints explained
• [29:50–33:14] Failed plea negotiation and personal cost for Armani
• [36:23–41:14] Discovery, trial exposure, and public outrage
• [42:12–44:42] Law schools teach the case; victim’s mother is horrified
• [44:42–47:57] Roberta Petz details the family’s pain
• [47:57–49:13] Roberta Petz and Armani reflect on enduring grief

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Conclusion: Lasting Questions

The Buried Bodies Case remains a fixture in legal ethics precisely because it forces a confrontation with the limits of law, morality, and basic human compassion. Even as Frank Armani is lauded by his profession, the agony of the victims’ families lingers unresolved, leaving listeners with a harrowing, real-world test of abstract ethical principle.

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For more:
Book: Privileged Information (Frank Armani’s account)
Book: Terror in the Adirondacks (Lawrence Gooley)

Transcript

[Jad Abumrad]

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[Frank Armani]

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[Jim Tracy]

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[Frank Armani]

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[Jad Abumrad]

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[Frank Armani]

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[Jad Abumrad]

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[Frank Armani]

All right. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radiolab Radio from wny.

[Jad Abumrad]

See y. 3, 2, 1. Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Krilwich.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Radiolab, and today we have a. A legal case.

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, it's actually, it's really more than just a legal case.

[Jad Abumrad]

This case.

[Lisa Lerman]

It's what my husband and I refer to as a mental magnet. Once you start thinking about it, it won't go away. It gets under your skin.

[Robert Krulwich]

This is Lisa Lerman.

[Lisa Lerman]

I'm a law professor at Catholic University.

[Robert Krulwich]

At the Columbus School of Law, where she teaches legal ethics. And she sat down not too long ago with me and our producer, Brenna Farrell, who brought us this story and under whose skin it also seems to have gotten.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, it just made me not know whether to side with my head or my heart. And let me just jump in and say this episode contains Some violence and explicit imagery in it. So if you're listening with kids, you just know that going in and you might want to skip this one. So to get the story started, Jim Tracy.

[Jim Tracy]

My name's Jim Tracy and I'm an award winning journalist, former newspaper guy for the Postar in Glens Falls.

[Jad Abumrad]

He's been reporting on this story since about 2000. He's interviewed hundreds of people and I think the reason he's been so focused on it is that it's pretty close to home for him.

[Jim Tracy]

I live in the foothills of the.

[Jad Abumrad]

Adirondacks, which is where this story begins.

[Jim Tracy]

So Saturday night, July 28, 1973, four.

[Jad Abumrad]

Young people, ages 18 to 23, three.

[Jim Tracy]

Men and a woman, go camping in the Adirondacks. Pulled off the road, a side road off Route 30. They made up a makeshift campsite. It was a grass clearing. They set up two tents and went to sleep for the night. And then Sunday they, you know, woke up and about 9am Two of the campers heard somebody walking outside their, their town. And all of a sudden they heard the zipper on the tent go up.

[Jad Abumrad]

And what they saw was this middle aged man peering into the tent who.

[Jim Tracy]

Looked like a conservation officer. He had a fedora with a feather on it, sunglasses, a rifle. He had a buck knife, binoculars around his neck. And very calmly he told them almost politely to step out of their tent, which they did.

[Jad Abumrad]

He got the other two campers, he got all four of them rounded up together and they were kind of standing in a semicircle.

[Jim Tracy]

And then the man cocked the gun and said, listen, I've killed before and I'll kill again. I'm gonna take your gasp, I don't wanna get caught, so I'm gonna tie you to trees.

[Jad Abumrad]

And he started marching the kids off into the woods.

[Jim Tracy]

Took him into the woods near a brook and pairs of two with him behind him. The kids of course were scared out of their wits.

[Jad Abumrad]

He pulled out some ropes.

[Jim Tracy]

Basically he had each of them tie themselves, you know, as he pointed the gun at him and then the last one he tied. So after he had the four people tied, he went back to the first boy, 18 year old Philip Domblewski.

[Jad Abumrad]

And because the other three kids were spread out through the forest, they couldn't really see what was happening, but they.

[Jim Tracy]

Could hear clearly and they heard vomiting sounds. And then they heard Philip's voice get really high and they knew something was happening, something bad was happening to him.

[Jad Abumrad]

What was happening was the man was stabbing Dunbluski with his buck knife. He stabbed him five times in the chest.

[Jim Tracy]

And when this happened, the three of them in their panic were able to break loose and start running. Nick Fiorello ran to his car. Carol Ann Malinowski ran through the woods. But the man caught one of them, David Freeman. He took the boy back to the campsite and he had him lay down in a ditch next to him to.

[Jad Abumrad]

Kind of monitor the situation, I guess.

[Jim Tracy]

So Freeman and the killer laying in the ditch.

[Jad Abumrad]

After about an hour, the men come, men that the other two campers, the ones who had gotten away, had managed.

[Jim Tracy]

To alert locals that knew the area. They came with rifles and all of a sudden they spotted them, the killer and Freeman laying down in the ditch. And when they did, Freeman got up and ran towards the men screaming for help, saying, he's got a gun, he's going to shoot.

[Jad Abumrad]

And the man with a gun just.

[Jim Tracy]

Kind of stood up and calmly and coolly walked into the forest. And thus began what was at the time the largest manhunt in state history. Here this morning at about 11:30, you can see a state police car is parked almost as far up the road. As you can see when the manhunt commenced on Monday morning, many deputies and state police standing by, there was a scene like never been seen before up there today.

[Frank Armani]

We've broken down our manpower into roving.

[Jim Tracy]

Patrols, men armed with all kinds of weapons, rifles, shotguns, bloodhounds that are traveling trails, helicopters. And it's a waiting game right now. By Monday or Tuesday, they had 200 men on the case waiting to flush the fugitive out of the woods.

[Jad Abumrad]

They eventually find the man's car and they're able to run the license plate and it comes back with an ID.

[Jim Tracy]

A 37 year old, Robert Garrow. Robert Francis Garrow Sr. Of Syracuse, New York, the fugitive police are looking forward today. He was an ex convict.

[Jad Abumrad]

He'd been in prison for rape, served seven years.

[Jim Tracy]

Now armed with a 3030 rifle and knife. And the story was on every TV station, CBS, ABC and NBC. So by Tuesday, how do you feel at night when people got panicked?

[Robert Krulwich]

When you're.

[Frank Armani]

Well, when I'm at night, the doors are sure locked.

[Jim Tracy]

People loaded their rifles, they locked their doors for the first time.

[Jad Abumrad]

And we've noticed a lot of people leaving around here.

[Jim Tracy]

People left the area so fast, a.

[Robert Krulwich]

Lot of them cleared out last night.

[Jad Abumrad]

And the day before that.

[Jim Tracy]

They left their tents up, they left barbecue smoldering, they left behind coolers.

[Jad Abumrad]

So as the manhunt dragged on, what.

[Jim Tracy]

Happened was Garrett was able to use those camps and that food and those drinks to survive. Day after day, the manhunt, it's about 400 men now.

[Jad Abumrad]

The police follow a lead that he had stolen a car and he had been sighted, and they. They're kind of closing in on him.

[Jim Tracy]

And then day 12, Thursday, August 9, 1973. Very, very hot day. One of the hottest of the summer.

[Jad Abumrad]

That day, a conservation officer named Hilary LeBlanc spotted Garrow. He said, freeze or drop your gun, something to that effect. And Garrow started running.

[Jim Tracy]

LeBlanc fired four times, got him in.

[Jad Abumrad]

The back, the arm and the foot.

[Jim Tracy]

Garrow went down once, got back up and kept running.

[Jad Abumrad]

They end up, you know, chasing through the forest.

[Jim Tracy]

You know, found a blood trail. And just in a very short time, they saw Garrow and he was laying down in the mud, not moving.

[Jad Abumrad]

And so they thought he might be.

[Jim Tracy]

Dead because he was just laying there. But they, you know, took his pals and everything, and he was certainly alive.

[Jad Abumrad]

So they put him in an ambulance and they rush him to the nearest hospital in Plattsburgh. And according to Jim, a couple of cops go with him. They're grilling him the whole time because they think that he might have been responsible for an additional murder and for a girl who's gone missing. But he wouldn't talk. And it's at this point that the story that I'm interested in really gets started. It's known as as the buried bodies case.

[Lisa Lerman]

And I think one of the things that's so fascinating about this case.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is law professor Lisa Lerman again.

[Lisa Lerman]

Is the conflict between what a good lawyer should do and what a good person should do in this situation.

[Frank Armani]

Okay.

[Jad Abumrad]

And we are recording. So the guy at the center of.

[Lisa Lerman]

This conflict was a man named Frank Armani.

[Jim Tracy]

Frank H. Armony. Hello, I'm Brenna, the lawyer in Syracuse.

[Jad Abumrad]

I never know whether to pronounce it Armani or Armoni. That's Mary Armani, Frank's wife. In our area in Salvi, they use Armony, but it is Armani. A couple of months ago, producer Simon Adler and I went up to visit them. They live right outside of Syracuse, New York. Mr. Armani is now in his 80s. He's retired.

[Frank Armani]

My name is Frank I. Armani, and I was the attorney for Robert Garo.

[Jad Abumrad]

I'd love to have you start wherever you like. How did this whole story start for you? Well, so just to give a bit of background, Mr. Armani told me that when he was a kid, he got picked on for a couple different reasons. And he said he was always the guy that wouldn't walk away.

[Frank Armani]

I was a fighter. I liked fights, physical fights. I like standing up for the little guy.

[Jad Abumrad]

And that's partly why he became an attorney.

[Frank Armani]

When you're fighting a case for a defendant, you're fighting the state and tyranny.

[Jad Abumrad]

And he was doing really well. He was well respected, had a good reputation. But then he met Robert Garrow.

[Frank Armani]

Yeah, black hair, strong man. To take him out, you need a.45. And I just had that feeling that this guy is dangerous and a lot of things are going to happen.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is a year before the manhunt, 1972. Frank remembers he represented him at first on two pretty small things.

[Frank Armani]

One, one, a schoolteacher had assaulted his child. He wanted to sue to school and I talked him out of it. And then he had an automobile accident. I represented him on that.

[Jad Abumrad]

But then pretty quickly it gets dark. Garo was charged with trying to kidnap two college kids. That case got dismissed.

[Frank Armani]

But then we got picked up for molesting some young girl.

[Jad Abumrad]

Kids, two very young girls, age 10 and 11. Garo was released on bail. He skipped his court date and just disappeared. And then we pick up where we left off. The murder, the manhunt. And on August 9th, the Night Garrow got captured, Frank gets a call from.

[Frank Armani]

Garrow's wife telling me that he wanted to talk to me.

[Jad Abumrad]

He wanted Armani to represent him.

[Lisa Lerman]

My impression is that Armani didn't want to do it.

[Frank Armani]

In my mind I'm saying, what the hell do I want to get involved in this, you know, for?

[Lisa Lerman]

He had never handled a murder charge.

[Frank Armani]

Full trial, murder case.

[Lisa Lerman]

No, he didn't know how the problem was. Garrow wouldn't talk to any lawyer except for Armani.

[Frank Armani]

He looked at me as his attorney.

[Jad Abumrad]

So Armani eventually decides to go and talk to the judge who'd been assigned to the case. And the judge is basically like, we have an obligation to provide the counsel that this guy wants. So I mean, unless you have a good reason why you can't do it, I want to appoint you his public defender. And Armani agrees. And so at that point he has to defend Garrow.

[Frank Armani]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

So this is reporter Jim Tracy.

[Jim Tracy]

Again, Armani decides to elicit a man named Francis Balge.

[Frank Armani]

We skied together, his friend, our family's.

[Jim Tracy]

Picnic together, to help him with this case as co counsel because I felt I needed support. Belge was the top criminal defense lawyer in central New York.

[Frank Armani]

I need someone with brains and guts.

[Jad Abumrad]

So Armani goes to talk to Belgy.

[Jim Tracy]

He kind of resembled Mickey Mantle. Blonde hair, blue eyes, good looking.

[Frank Armani]

I told him, I said, I just need backup. That's it.

[Jim Tracy]

He's like, no, it was a lose lose case.

[Frank Armani]

There's no money in it.

[Jim Tracy]

You know, the prosecution had three eyeball witnesses. They had his car at the scene of the crime, and they had his two week. He was guilty.

[Frank Armani]

And I said, come on, I'm not.

[Jad Abumrad]

Going to try to prove he didn't do it.

[Frank Armani]

I wanted to go on an insanity defense.

[Jad Abumrad]

Maybe Garo murdered this kid, but maybe.

[Jim Tracy]

It was because he had temporarily gone insane.

[Jad Abumrad]

Maybe he's crazy.

[Jim Tracy]

He really believes this.

[Frank Armani]

I'm telling you about my theory.

[Jad Abumrad]

And on top of that, Armani tells him.

[Frank Armani]

I says, this is going to be a big case.

[Jad Abumrad]

If we pulled this off, we're made. It would take Belgy a while, but.

[Frank Armani]

Eventually he says, I'm in, Frank.

[Jim Tracy]

Now we're into late August 1973.

[Frank Armani]

So we went up to the hospital.

[Jad Abumrad]

When they got there, they went up to Garrow's room up on the fifth floor of the hospital. Police are standing guard. They walked into the room and I.

[Frank Armani]

Hadn'T seen him in a while. We greeted each other and we talked.

[Jad Abumrad]

And just to picture this, Jim told me that the room they put Garrow in was what he described as a training observation room, which meant that it had a. This big window that ran alongside Garrow's.

[Jim Tracy]

Bed so they could keep an eye on him.

[Jad Abumrad]

And the cops are stationed right outside, just watching. And according to Jim, and I should say I've heard differing accounts about this, but apparently the cops had brought in a lip reader to try to see what Garo was saying. Wait a second.

[Robert Krulwich]

I don't think you can do that.

[Jad Abumrad]

Right?

[Robert Krulwich]

I mean, that's not legal.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, I think that's probably not. Okay, but from the cop's perspective, they think that he's involved in a recent murder and, and a missing girl, and they think that girl could still be alive. So they want to know absolutely anything they can that's going to get them closer to solving that murder and finding that girl. But at the same time, the defendant has to be able to share absolutely everything with the lawyers and know that they're in that safe space of that.

[Lisa Lerman]

Relationship because we have sixth Amendment right to counsel and the fifth Amendment right not to incriminate oneself.

[Frank Armani]

If he can't freely speak as an attorney, then you have no real justice system.

[Jad Abumrad]

And Armony and Belji, they need as much information about what Garro has done as they possibly can get so they can start to build their Defense.

[Frank Armani]

I don't like surprises. I'm the kind that wants to know everything.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wow. So as a lawyer, you're in a strange spot here.

[Robert Krulwich]

Mm.

[Jad Abumrad]

He needed to get from Gero his story, and it needed to be just them. He didn't want the cops in on it yet.

[Frank Armani]

And you don't know if there are taps in the room or what.

[Jim Tracy]

So they turn up the tv, turn up the fans.

[Frank Armani]

But he was playing games, you know.

[Jim Tracy]

He talked basically about anything. But the cases kept saying he couldn't remember, he couldn't remember.

[Jad Abumrad]

And they're, they're trying to convince him, like, you've got to talk to us if you're going to have any shot.

[Frank Armani]

It's like a lynch mob out there.

[Jad Abumrad]

The police pretty much have you cold. There's witnesses. And Garrow knew he could be going to prison. He could be going to prison for.

[Lisa Lerman]

A long time, maybe 25 to life.

[Jad Abumrad]

And a pedophile in prison, you have to be careful. Things can get rough. But they tell him, if you talk to us, maybe we can get you.

[Lisa Lerman]

Not guilty by reason of insanity.

[Frank Armani]

That was our only defense, to help.

[Lisa Lerman]

Get Garrow into a mental hospital instead of a prison. That was the goal.

[Jad Abumrad]

So if you have anything to say, say it now. It took several conversations to get Garrow to this point, but finally Garo poured his soul out. At this point, it was just Belji in the room. And he told him, yes, he had killed Lemblooski and he'd also killed other people, too.

[Lisa Lerman]

And the episodes when Garrow killed people seem to have followed like a pattern. He would get these intense headaches and, you know, become psychotic and do horrible things.

[Jad Abumrad]

When it came to the details, he.

[Lisa Lerman]

Tended to not remember.

[Jad Abumrad]

But then Garrow mentions two particular girls.

[Lisa Lerman]

Who were then missing and whose parents had no idea where they were.

[Jim Tracy]

21 year old Susan Petz and another girl, 16 year old Alicia Haack.

[Jad Abumrad]

Susan Petz was from Chicago. She's the girl I mentioned earlier. Cops were already looking for her, hoping that Garrow might have some information. Earlier that summer, her boyfriend had been found murdered. The two of them had been camping and Susan had been gone ever since. Alicia Hauck, she was a high school girl from Syracuse. She had gone missing just a couple of days before Susan. Everybody thought she might have just run away.

[Lisa Lerman]

But Garrow told the lawyers that he had killed them and where he had left their bodies. One odd thing about Garrow's description of the incidents, he doesn't say, I killed her. He says, she got stabbed with my knife.

[Robert Krulwich]

She got stabbed with my knife.

[Jad Abumrad]

Like it wasn't even him doing the stabbing.

[Lisa Lerman]

Right.

[Robert Krulwich]

Like this is. What do you do?

[Jad Abumrad]

Well, first and foremost, you have to ask yourself, is this true?

[Lisa Lerman]

You know, your client is obviously severely mentally ill. This could be a dream he had, it could be a delusion.

[Jad Abumrad]

If you're going to go and, you know, craft an argument and present a strategy, you need to know what actually happened. Belge walks out the door, he grabs.

[Frank Armani]

Frank and he says, he says, let's go.

[Jad Abumrad]

So they slip outside, they get in the car and we take off to.

[Lisa Lerman]

Go look for the bodies. Garrow told the lawyers that Susan Petz was in an air vent of a closed up mine shaft.

[Frank Armani]

The mine is up in Mineville, about.

[Jad Abumrad]

An hour south of the hospital, up.

[Frank Armani]

In the Adirondacks there.

[Jad Abumrad]

And in that moment, were you scared? Were you excited?

[Frank Armani]

Like both. You're up high, it's a high, but you're scared, you're concerned, you have fear. You're a fool if you don't.

[Jad Abumrad]

In fact, at one point, looking in the rearview mirror, they got a little spooked.

[Frank Armani]

We thought we were being followed by the state police.

[Jad Abumrad]

So eventually they pull over, get out.

[Frank Armani]

Of the car and went into one.

[Lisa Lerman]

Bar where one of Frances Belge's lady.

[Jad Abumrad]

Friends was hanging out for about 30 minutes. Beljy talked to her, then he asked if he could borrow her car.

[Frank Armani]

And then we went out the back.

[Lisa Lerman]

Door and took off driving the lady.

[Frank Armani]

Friend'S car to try to lose any tails.

[Jad Abumrad]

And so they got back on the highway and they drove through the Adirondacks until finally they get here.

[Frank Armani]

This may be as far as we're going to go.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay, we can walk. Yeah, up to this old abandoned mine.

[Frank Armani]

I'm going to have to back out.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, I went out there last February with reporter Laura McKinstry and the town supervisor of Mariah, Tom Scozafava. So is this a road that goes to the mines or what is.

[Frank Armani]

Yeah, to the mines.

[Jad Abumrad]

It was this sort of hilly area off the side of the road. Is this a trail that we're on or you're just very icy that day.

[Jim Tracy]

This here, this used to be an old roadway.

[Jad Abumrad]

We're walking up a very wooded hill. It was fairly steep, there were no leaves and all the trees were black and very skeletal.

[Jim Tracy]

We're walking right in the same area that Armenia and this is the only.

[Jad Abumrad]

Way they could have came in here.

[Frank Armani]

So right up this hill, here we are in our Sunday suits and here we go trudging through the forest Looking for the cave. And we spent a lot of hours looking around. And then. We found this air vent.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wow.

[Frank Armani]

You see the air shaft here?

[Jad Abumrad]

They find this air shaft, which is just a hole in the ground a couple feet across that shoots up from down in the depths of the mine. Be careful. This is giving me such. Yeah, you don't want to slide down in there.

[Lisa Lerman]

And so they couldn't see anything down the hole. So Frank Armani lay down on the ground at the edge of the mine shaft.

[Jad Abumrad]

He's got a flashlight that he takes out.

[Frank Armani]

And then Belgie held my feet and left me down in there.

[Lisa Lerman]

And as Frank got lowered down into.

[Frank Armani]

The hole, I could see her sneak a blue shoe.

[Jad Abumrad]

A blue sneaker.

[Frank Armani]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

And a leg.

[Frank Armani]

I said to myself, the son of a bitch did it.

[Jad Abumrad]

And he yells back up to Belgy.

[Frank Armani]

Get me out of here. Pull me back up.

[Jad Abumrad]

Eventually, Belji found the other body, Alicia Hauk's body. She was in a cemetery where Garrow had said he'd left her. But Armani wasn't there when Belji found her.

[Lisa Lerman]

So what ensued was a very long struggle where the lawyers tried to figure out what to do with the information about the bodies of these girls.

[Jad Abumrad]

So let's. Yeah, let's play that out. What are your options?

[Lisa Lerman]

Sure. So option one, We've got to call the police. We've got to tell the prosecutor. These are missing kids. We're the only ones who know. You know, shouldn't we just call the police?

[Jad Abumrad]

Right.

[Frank Armani]

No, you can't. You just can't. We took a note to keep the confidences of our client under the current.

[Lisa Lerman]

Rules, which have developed quite a bit since the time this happened. Anything that is related to the representation of a client is under the confidentiality umbrella. So you're not supposed to tell anybody except to prevent reasonably certain death or substantial bodily harm.

[Robert Krulwich]

That will be. That can be or will be.

[Lisa Lerman]

Okay, Right. So in this situation, the two girls are dead. Then there's no future crime. It's over. It's done.

[Robert Krulwich]

And even if the parents of the missing girls in question are frightened and waking up, and even if they have hired detectives, and even if the local police are combing the woods and the taxpayers are paying for that, but there's no. If the people are already dead, then the law is.

[Frank Armani]

Shh.

[Lisa Lerman]

That's right.

[Jad Abumrad]

It's a really tough job to be a defense lawyer. You have a very particular part to play. You have a role, and that role isn't what you think as a person is good and right. And what you would do for your friend or your family member in that situation, what your role is, is to play this part of a system in which you're the one who stands up for the guy that everybody else hates. Even if everybody hates you, even if maybe you hate yourself a little bit, you have to do your job. And that job is to be in the role of the person that fights as hard as they can for their client.

[Lisa Lerman]

The lawyer is the agent of his client only.

[Robert Krulwich]

Only the agent of the client, or also a citizen and a member of the. And part of the justice system. And there's a. There's a double murder here and families seeking to find out what happened. He now knows what happens.

[Lisa Lerman]

Right.

[Robert Krulwich]

Isn't there a weight here building on the side of tell. Just tell tell.

[Frank Armani]

Of course, yes. And I knew Mr. Hawk from bowling because his other daughter and my daughter were in the same class, and I knew him from church. And you have to be an animal not to feel the anguish of the parents of the family. And yet you have your duty as a lawyer. You're caught between the two moral.

[Robert Krulwich]

So now what does he do?

[Jad Abumrad]

Coming up, that hard spot gets even harder.

[Robert Krulwich]

We'll be right back.

[Jad Abumrad]

Hi, this is Lizzy from Arlington, Texas. Radiolab is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about [e-mail]. radiolab is supported by BILT. Nobody wants to pay rent. But if you have to, BILT works to make it more worthwhile. By paying rent. Through Bilt, you can earn flexible points that can be redeemed toward hundreds of hotels and airlines, a future rent payment, your next Lyft ride, and more. But it doesn't stop there. You can dine out at your favorite local restaurants and earn additional points, get VIP treatment at certain fitness studios, and enjoy exclusive experiences just for BILT members. Every month, earn points on rent and around your neighborhood, wherever you call home, by going to joinbuilt.com Radiolab that's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T.com Radiolab Hey, I'm Molly Webster, and this is an ad by BetterHelp. So it happens every year. The seasons are changing, the days are getting shorter, and basically, once it becomes dark outside of my window, I feel like the rest of the world disappears and I'm just alone and there's nothing left to do but watch television. This November, BetterHelp is asking everyone to reach out to our people. That could be your family, your friends, your neighbors and to resist this call of the cocoon. And yeah, reaching out can take some courage. I've got text messages from January I haven't responded to and you know what? I'm gonna write em back right now. Hi, sorry I've been missing. How are you? Why don't we all do this sooner? Therapy is the same way. BetterHelp makes it easier to take that first step. You just fill out a short questionnaire and they find a license therapist who they think you'll like. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com Radiolab that's betterhelp.com Radiolab.

[Molly Webster]

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[Jad Abumrad]

Okay. Hey, I'm Janamrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Krulwich.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Radiolab. And we should get back to our story from producer Brenna Farrell. And when we left it, they were aware they were stuck, right? They knew this thing.

[Robert Krulwich]

They knew the client was very guilty.

[Jad Abumrad]

Of something they had found of these two girls.

[Robert Krulwich]

And now, Brenda, what's their next move?

[Jad Abumrad]

Well, so they decide to plea bargain. Plea bargain?

[Lisa Lerman]

To take this information to the prosecutor.

[Jad Abumrad]

And say, I have information that will help you solve some cases.

[Robert Krulwich]

Some cases, yes.

[Lisa Lerman]

And in exchange, I want you to.

[Jad Abumrad]

Give me a better deal for my.

[Lisa Lerman]

Client to get Garrow into a mental hospital instead of a prison.

[Robert Krulwich]

Oh, so right away they're going to use this as leverage.

[Lisa Lerman]

That was the idea, yeah.

[Frank Armani]

You're gonna give a little and you're gonna take a little.

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, that's kind of gross. No.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, he's trying to get a better deal for this murderer. But, I mean, if you think about it from Frank's perspective, he's got this information as a person. He doesn't want to have to keep that secret. So if he plea bargains, then that's a way for him to get some closure for the family, because he can give the information to the prosecution, but he's also not selling out his client. So, reporter Jim Tracy again.

[Jim Tracy]

They called a meeting with Henry McCabe.

[Jad Abumrad]

Investigator from the state police, Detective McCabe.

[Jim Tracy]

And the district attorney at Armony's office. And when they met, Armony and Belgy search the briefcases of the DA and the investigator, make sure they weren't wearing.

[Jad Abumrad]

A bug, because they're paranoid there's gonna be a wiretap or some sort of bug. And then Belge presents the deal. He says, listen, I've got information on two bodies. I want you to agree to put my client in a mental institution instead of sending him off to prison. And the prosecutor apparently very quickly puts two and two together and immediately thought, holy shit, are you talking about Susan and Alicia? Like, these are the two girls that we are most concerned about. We think they're alive. And Beljee said, I'm not telling you anything unless we have a deal.

[Jim Tracy]

Both the DA and the investigator thought that the lawyers were absolutely ludicrous. They thought they had lost their mind.

[Jad Abumrad]

Like, are you kidding me? Like, are you trying to get a better sentence for a murderer by offering his murder victims? Are you seriously bargaining with people's lives?

[Lisa Lerman]

Yeah, but also, I'm sure that the prosecutor knew that this was doubtless the highest profile case that would ever come to him.

[Jad Abumrad]

And so, as the prosecutor, you're not going to look so good if you give a deal to this reprehensible man.

[Lisa Lerman]

No.

[Frank Armani]

Well, what the hell's the difference? He's going to get life no matter what. How many times you want to give him life?

[Jim Tracy]

But the meeting only lasted like five minutes.

[Frank Armani]

We went nowhere.

[Jad Abumrad]

The deal collapses completely.

[Jim Tracy]

And to back up a little ways.

[Jad Abumrad]

When that deal fell apart, that was actually. That was particularly devastating for Armani because.

[Jim Tracy]

Just the day before, Susan Petz's father.

[Jad Abumrad]

Had flown in from Chicago to syracuse.

[Frank Armani]

I remember Mr. Pets coming to my.

[Jim Tracy]

Office and he said, could I meet with you and talk to you and arm. And he agreed to it.

[Jad Abumrad]

So he comes in, takes a seat.

[Jim Tracy]

And he asked him, father to father.

[Jad Abumrad]

Is there anything you can tell me about my daughter? I mean, the papers think that Garrow probably has something to do with her disappearance. Is there anything at all that he's told you that can help me?

[Frank Armani]

But I couldn't tell him anything.

[Jad Abumrad]

And Hermoni just. He says, no, I can't tell you. There's nothing I can tell you.

[Frank Armani]

But I remember trying to assure him that, look, I've got a meeting set up.

[Jad Abumrad]

All I can say is it's with state investigators and the prosecutor on the case.

[Frank Armani]

They could have some information for you. Trying to give him hope that we would bring it to a conclusion. I thought we would, but we didn't.

[Jad Abumrad]

So then when Mr. Petz leaves Mr. Armani, he loses it. He threw a bunch of books.

[Frank Armani]

I think I threw the phone.

[Jad Abumrad]

Basically just, you know, destroyed his office.

[Frank Armani]

Just trying to relieve my. That I couldn't help the man because.

[Jad Abumrad]

He'S looking right at this man knowing exactly, well, imagining what he's going through. Like, Armani had lost a brother.

[Frank Armani]

Yes. Was much younger. He's four years younger than me.

[Jad Abumrad]

He was an Air force pilot, had three kids. And in 1962, his plane went down and he was lost at sea. So after that, Armani said his mother, she'd be up at night crying. She would, like, go to bed at.

[Frank Armani]

Night, and my mother would wake up screaming, the fish are eating him. You know, she couldn't ever recover from.

[Jad Abumrad]

It because you can't, you know, you just. You don't really know. But, you know, it's.

[Frank Armani]

I can understand it.

[Jad Abumrad]

And that's, you know, that's partly why this was so hard for Armani. Because when that plea deal fell apart, that was his chance to try to get this information to the families. When the plea fell through, he didn't have any other options for sharing that information. He was stuck. What, so what happens next? So they have to go to trial. And that means that Armani and Belgy have to knuckle down to try to present an insanity defense. Meanwhile, Armani, he said he couldn't sleep. He was having nightmares.

[Frank Armani]

Wake up 2:30 in the morning with sweat running down your back.

[Jad Abumrad]

Go sit at the kitchen table drinking coffee and just waiting for the morning paper to come because he was just alone with it. He was alone with this secret. And he knew at that moment that police are trying to find these girls. He knows that the parents are holding out hope that they might still be alive.

[Frank Armani]

You, you're questioning yourself very. You're hurting people. So you begin to wonder, am I in the right profession? You know, you're looking for. You're looking for a way to get the information out. You know, we'll make an anonymous call.

[Jad Abumrad]

Did you ever think of that?

[Frank Armani]

Sure.

[Jad Abumrad]

And why didn't you?

[Frank Armani]

Well, if I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it openly, you know, I don't know.

[Robert Krulwich]

Did he ever. Did he ever break?

[Jad Abumrad]

No. According to him, no.

[Frank Armani]

You know, in my mind I was doing what I thought was the proper, ethical, legal, moral, moral thing to do.

[Jad Abumrad]

And then In December of 1973, five months after the girls disappear, their bodies happen to be discovered within two weeks of each other. Susan's body is discovered by two kids who are playing up in the mines. Alicia, I guess, I think a student from Syracuse University, which is right next door to the cemetery, is walking through and stumbles upon her. And so she's discovered then too. And then six months later, in the.

[Jim Tracy]

Summer of 1974, opening day of the.

[Jad Abumrad]

Trial might be one of the most significant. Even though Robert Garrow's trial for the.

[Jim Tracy]

Murder of Philip Domblewski begins, Robert Garrow's.

[Jad Abumrad]

Primary line of defense will apparently be.

[Roberta Petz]

Not guilty by reason of insanity.

[Jad Abumrad]

So in order to make that case, what they decide to do is to put Garrow on the stand.

[Frank Armani]

They just get the facts.

[Jim Tracy]

And Garrow would tell his whole life.

[Frank Armani]

Story to shock the jury's mind, including.

[Jim Tracy]

All these murders and all these rapes.

[Frank Armani]

To see the he. At the time, he was nuts.

[Jad Abumrad]

Sharon Smith, Channel 6 News, in Lake Pleasant. So the trial opens, the courtroom is jam packed. Prosecution starts. They have a really good case. They've got a good lawyer from Syracuse that joined to help the guy from Hamilton County. And then it's the time for the defense to start their case. So Belge stands Up and he calls his first witness, Robert Garrow to the stand. Garrow gets on stand and he starts telling his life story and it's horrible. Severe beatings and abuse by his parents, very little education. He basically gets sent off to a farm to work, like as an indentured servant when he's seven, you know, slaughtering bulls when he's eight years old, weird stuff like that. He starts like drinking blood, having sex with the animals and then he starts admitting to a series of rapes throughout his adult life. And he admits to killing Alicia and Susan. And what happens next? Nobody's quite sure if it was a slip up or if maybe it was on purpose, but when Garrow's talking about Susan pets, Belji says, is that the one I found?

[Frank Armani]

Is that the one I found?

[Jim Tracy]

So the cat was out of the bag. Then.

[Jad Abumrad]

The next day, Belgian Armani hold a press conference to try to explain why they hadn't told anyone. Today, in a surprise announcement, Robert Garo's defense attorneys, because they had this duty to protect their client's secrets, that they.

[Frank Armani]

Knew the body was here and they had seen it.

[Jad Abumrad]

But everyone is disgusted.

[Jim Tracy]

There was columns written, editorials written letters to the editor.

[Robert Krulwich]

There is just no way in the.

[Jad Abumrad]

World you are going to convince your.

[Jim Tracy]

Average non lawyer, everybody turned against him.

[Robert Krulwich]

That this is anything short of shabby subversion of the law and of justice.

[Jad Abumrad]

Pretty soon one of the prosecutors let out that Armani and Belgy had actually tried to use these dead girls as leverage for Garrow.

[Jim Tracy]

The headlines in the Syracuse papers would say, bodies used as pawns in a game of law.

[Frank Armani]

It was bedlam.

[Jad Abumrad]

Armani was getting death threats in the mail.

[Frank Armani]

Then I'd get these crazy phone calls.

[Jad Abumrad]

People calling, saying stuff like, how can you live with yourself? I'm gonna kill you.

[Frank Armani]

We're gonna get you.

[Jad Abumrad]

At one point, he finds a dead fish in his car. His wife finds an unlit Molotov cocktail in the backyard.

[Frank Armani]

He started to carry a pistol on my back.

[Jad Abumrad]

He kept a shotgun in the car. He kept one in the house so we could sleep.

[Frank Armani]

That was the worst moment of my life. I had some horrible thoughts. I had some horrible thoughts.

[Jad Abumrad]

June 27, Robert Garrow is convicted for the murder of Philip Domblewski. He's given the maximum sentence. He's given 25 years to life in a maximum security prison. How did that feel?

[Frank Armani]

Were you relief? You know, it's over with.

[Jad Abumrad]

But then it is up to the grand jury itself in their investigation to determine which charges they should bring against the two attorneys. Pretty soon after the verdict, Armani and Belgie learned that they could be facing criminal charges. No one's really sure exactly what those might be, but it could be something like tampering with evidence, obstruction of justice, or the state's public health law. And the provision that says that a body must be given a quick and decent burial. And on top of that, one of the touching questions and the one that has raised the greatest amount of controversy.

[Roberta Petz]

Is the one over the attorney flying privilege.

[Jad Abumrad]

There was an ethical complaint filed against Armani in Belgy. So basically, they were then facing disbarment and the investigation into the ethical complaint that would drag on several years.

[Jim Tracy]

Beljee started drinking heavily, abandoned his law practice, and moved to Florida. Armani toughed it out, but he suffered.

[Jad Abumrad]

No one wanted him as a lawyer anymore.

[Frank Armani]

I was thinking about, what else can I do to make a living?

[Jad Abumrad]

He was just barely getting by for a little while.

[Frank Armani]

I think all the distress and pressure, you know, takes its toll.

[Jad Abumrad]

In fact, he has a heart attack while this is all going on. But eventually the criminal charges are dropped and the ethical complaint is dismissed. And the reason, in the opinion of the court and the state bar, is that what Belgian Armani did was right. What they did was good, exactly according to the law.

[Lisa Lerman]

And my view is Frank Armani is a real life hero. I always say people so admire Atticus Finch. And the difference between Atticus Finch and Frank Armani is that Armani is a real person.

[Jad Abumrad]

And Lisa told me about this panel she organized back in 2007. It was for the American Bar Association, a big conference on professional responsibility.

[Lisa Lerman]

And There were about 400 people in.

[Jad Abumrad]

The room, most of them lawyers. And they were there to watch on stage the featured speaker, Frank Armani.

[Lisa Lerman]

And it was a love feast.

[Jad Abumrad]

What does that feel like? And did you ever think you'd get to that point when you were in the midst of the hardest parts?

[Frank Armani]

No, never dreamed that. I don't think I was a hero. I just was a lawyer that did his job. I mean, I was a good lawyer. At least I thought so.

[Roberta Petz]

All right, everybody.

[Jad Abumrad]

And now, you know, over 40 years later, this case. Let's talk about and what Armani and Belji did. The dead bodies case, it's taught in law schools across the country.

[Lisa Lerman]

Everybody teaches the case. It's like a touchstone.

[Jad Abumrad]

What do people think? What is people think? So I went to a couple of classes. I went to one legal ethics class, and I also went to a criminal defense class here in New York that was being taught at Fordham. Why don't you stand up. I agree.

[Roberta Petz]

His duty is to his client.

[Jad Abumrad]

He represents his client's best interest. If he. And in sitting in on these classes and in talking to law professors, I think one of the reasons that this case is taught so widely is because professors can point to it. They can point to a real human being at the center of a really tough legal situation, and they can say, in this situation, this is what a lawyer should do. This is what a lawyer should, should be. So from from the moment I started thinking about this story, I always wanted to talk to the families involved, which proved really difficult. I wrote letters to both families, and I made a bunch of phone calls, and understandably, no one wanted to talk to me. But eventually, I did start corresponding with a family member of one of the victims, and she initially didn't want to go on the record. But we emailed, and after a few phone calls, she ended up changing her mind and decided that she did want to go on the record.

[Roberta Petz]

Okay. All right.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah. So. So with me on a phone call, would you mind just telling us who you are, your name, and. Okay.

[Roberta Petz]

I'm Roberta Petz, and I'm Susan's mother.

[Jad Abumrad]

Susan was the girl from Chicago. She was a college student who'd gone missing while she was camping with her boyfriend, and she's who Armani and Belji found in the mine. You know, as I've explained before, my interest, really, in this story has to do with the fact that it seems that it's become sort of a key part of how a lot of legal ethics classes talk about the concept of confidentiality. And so I sort of wanted to just start with that idea to ask if that's something that you knew that law schools were teaching and if you had any feelings or thoughts about that.

[Roberta Petz]

I had no idea that this was being taught in law schools. And I'm pretty horrified to think that this is what is considered to be correct, because I don't think it's ethical at all. And to think it's being taught as the right way to do things in an ethical class is totally incomprehensible to me.

[Jad Abumrad]

And was the first that you'd heard that it was being taught when I reached out to you? Yes, it was.

[Roberta Petz]

Yes.

[Jad Abumrad]

You were.

[Roberta Petz]

Only in talking to you, did I know that. Yes. Maybe they ought to think not only about the criminal who they are trying to defend, but. But what about the victims? And I think that that should at least be an equal thought in their mind, if not a greater consideration.

[Jad Abumrad]

Did you have a Feeling that you really weren't taken into consideration as all of this was happening?

[Roberta Petz]

Yes. And only my husband and I, when we first heard that she was missing, we flew immediately and went to the police station. And when we were there sitting with the policeman, they received. The policeman at the time that we were with, received the phone call that Danny, my daughter's boyfriend, his body was found. And that's all we knew. And we never really had many updates, and nobody told us what was going on. And obviously there was no closure. And it was just getting worse and worse. And then the only other time we were contacted by the police was. Or of some authority, I can't even remember who was. When her body. My daughter's body was found, like five months later. And in the meantime, of course, we were all going crazy. My father, as a matter of fact, even went so far as to contact a psychic. That's how. How important it was and how it was our entire lives during that period. And as far as visiting the lawyer, which my husband did, it was a totally lie. The lawyer, maybe he considered it to be ethical, but what he was doing was lying to my husband and causing us more months of horror. And this is what is being taught in law schools. So, anyway, just to try to be.

[Jad Abumrad]

Fair to everyone involved, as far as I've encountered anyone, law professors, law students, when they approach this, it's with a lot of sensitivity, and they are struggling with the pain. I think the instinct is to side with the families and to imagine what they went through. But my feeling is that how could any of us possibly imagine that if we hadn't come through it? And so I guess that's why I was hoping to talk to you, to kind of let you have a chance to communicate some of that experience.

[Roberta Petz]

Yeah, well, it's impossible to really communicate in words. I mean, 40 years later, I'm still. It's still a struggle to discuss this because it'll never go away as long as I live.

[Jad Abumrad]

So, I don't know. I guess I'm wondering. We've been talking a lot of sad stuff. I'm wondering if there's anything you would like to say about Susan that doesn't have to do with any of this, that you would want people to know, that you'd want to share. You don't have to, but.

[Roberta Petz]

Well, what can I say? She did receive her degree posthumously. We didn't go and pick it up at Boston University. It was too difficult for us. And Danny, who was her boyfriend, had been just that summer, and he had A full scholarship to Harvard. And he had graduated just the year before. And so two lives. And I'm sure the other two children had great futures ahead of them, too. And it's just a horrible tragedy.

[Frank Armani]

It's. It's horrible, you know, to be in their place, position to have to live through that. I mean, how do you relate losing your daughter, you know, what excuse is there for it to protecting the person that killed her? There's no justification. You couldn't justify it. In my mind, I don't expect them to accept it, but that's the way it is.

[Jad Abumrad]

I'm gonna get just a minute of silence up here, if that's okay.

[Frank Armani]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay. You can hear the echoes of dogs down the mountain. Things tend to travel up the. Up the hill and kind of bounce around. That water, I think it's from deeper down in there. Dripping. I can't tell where it's dripping. Everything up here is frozen solid. So I'm not sure what that is, but I think I'm gonna turn back around now. I sort of wish I'd brought some flowers or something.

[Frank Armani]

All. Right, it.

[Robert Krulwich]

Thanks to our producers Brenna Farrell and Matt Kilty, and to Jim Tracy, who's currently writing a book about all this. The working title is Twisted Soul. Thanks also to Tom Alabrandi, author of Privileged Information with Frank Armani. Also to Lawrence Gooley, author of Terror in the Adirondacks, Cheryl Bader and the the students at Fordham University, Leslie Levin and the students at the University of Connecticut School of Law, Clark D. Cunningham at Georgia State University's College of Law, Deborah Armani, Brian Farrell, Jennifer Brumbach, Nick Capodice, and archive researcher Stephanie Jenkins.

[Roberta Petz]

Start of message.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Beatrice Bastido from Toronto, Canada, calling to read the credits. Radiolab is produced by Jad Abumrad. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Soren Wheeler is senior editor. Jamie York is our senior producer. Her staff includes Simon Alter, Brenna Farrell, David Gebel, Matt Keldy, Rob Krulwich, Annie McEwen, Andy Mills, Lateef Nassar, Melissa O', Donnell, Kelsey Padgett, Arian Wack and Molly Webster, with help from Alexander Lee Young, Stephanie Tam and Mikhail Lohengar. Our fact checkers are Eva Dasher and Michelle Harris.

[Frank Armani]

Thanks.

[Jad Abumrad]

End of message.