Main Line Murders /// Part 1 /// 791

Summary

True Crime Garage – Main Line Murders /// Part 1 /// 791

---

Episode Overview

In this episode, Nic and the Captain dive into the infamous Main Line Murders, a case that commanded headlines, watercooler conversation, and public fascination across Pennsylvania in the late 1970s. The hosts revisit the mysterious 1979 murder of schoolteacher Susan Reinert and the simultaneous disappearance of her two children, Karen and Michael. As the investigation unfolds, listeners are introduced to a tangled web of possible motives, conflicting witness accounts, and unsettling evidence. This installment sets the stage for an exploration of obsession, secrets, and tragedy that haunted the Philadelphia Main Line for decades.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Case Introduction and Historical Context

• The Main Line Murders became Pennsylvania’s "largest and longest-running investigation" and captivated the public due to its complex and baffling nature. (05:00)
• On June 25, 1979, Susan Reinert’s nude body was discovered in the trunk of her hatchback at a motel parking lot outside Harrisburg. Her two children were missing. (06:00)
• The investigation’s notoriety was amplified by high-profile book coverage (e.g., Joseph Wambaugh’s "Echoes in the Darkness").

  "This case for many, many years was the subject of dinner conversations, water cooler talk, and weekly newspaper headlines and stories. Many in the area became obsessed..." — Nic [07:00]

2. Discovery of the Body and Launch of the Investigation

• An anonymous male caller—possibly with or faking a Mexican accent—alerts police to a "sick woman" in a parked car at the Host Inn, Swatara Township. (09:30–11:20)
• Police find Susan deceased, "haphazardly thrown" into her own car’s trunk, approximately 100 miles from her Ardmore home. (12:00)
• No immediate trace of her children; investigation quickly shifts to a high-priority missing persons search.

3. Timeline and Key Events Leading Up to the Crime

• Friday, June 22, 1979:
  • Kenneth Reinert (ex-husband) is with son Michael at a softball game. Susan picks up Michael early, then Michael calls Kenneth around 8:30pm to apologize for leaving. (34:21–39:37)
  • Both children and Susan seen by neighbors post–hail storm, collecting hailstones, then leaving in Susan’s hatchback around 9:20pm.

    "Both of these things getting cut short are indicators to me that something unplanned has come up…" — Nic [42:09]

• Saturday, June 23, 1979:
  • Susan was due to drive to Allentown for a Parents Without Partners event with her children, but the last confirmed sighting was the previous night.
• Monday, June 25, 1979:
  • 5:20am – Police are called to Host Inn; Susan’s body is found.
  • Both children are now missing for over 48 hours.

4. Victim Backgrounds

• Susan Reinert (36): Respected English teacher at Upper Marion High School, active in clubs, Parents Without Partners organizer, described as cautious, caring, and devoted mother. (20:08–24:28)
• Children: Karen (age 11) and Michael (age 10), known to be well cared for, last seen alive by neighbors.

  "She was the last person you would think this would happen to. She was always so cautious and careful..." — Neighbor [21:00]

5. Critical Mysteries & Police Theories

• Susan’s car was found far from her home, parked in a motel lot; staff did not recognize her or the children. (52:09)
• Police struggled to determine if the scene was a dump site or a meeting place.
• Investigators found the absence of luggage or suitcases suspicious; neighbors did not see anyone carrying bags (important, as the family intended to travel Saturday). (43:12)
• At home, police later found both children’s suitcases half-packed, clothes folded on the bed—suggesting they left suddenly, contrary to their planned Saturday departure. (63:35–66:00)

6. The Initial List of Suspects

• Ex-Husband: Cleared after months due to solid alibi and his visible distress while identifying Susan’s body.
• Major Focus: Bill Bradfield, chair of the English department, revealed as Susan’s secret (or not-so-secret) romantic partner; his role teased for further examination. (32:24–34:10)

  "They were carrying on a secret relationship for quite some time that was either secret or not so secret at all depending on who you were talking to..." — Nic [32:24]

7. Crime Scene & Physical Evidence

• Susan found nude in her car’s trunk; cause of death undetermined—possible suffocation, asphyxiation, morphine overdose, or a combination. Her body bore signs of being severely drugged (morphine dose "enough to kill her 10 times over") and possibly bound with chains. (56:20–57:44)

  "Whoever gave this to her gave such a large amount that it would kill her regardless if they used another method to attempt to kill her..." — Nic [57:44]

• Missing personal items: clothing, purse, eyeglasses.
• Notable evidence in car includes: random everyday items, a blue comb marked "79th Army Reserve Command, Norristown, PA,” a partial and unidentified fingerprint, fibers, an umbrella, matchbook (from a prior year), fast food wrappers, and a mysterious “part of a blanket.” (61:17)

8. Law Enforcement’s Search & Initial Frustration

• Lead investigator rallies resources and stresses urgency:

  "Search everywhere, question everyone to find these kids. Do whatever the hell you have to do..." — (Paraphrased) [18:09]

• Despite thorough search orders, no immediate leads on the missing children.
• Police are confounded by lack of connections to the motel, contradictory witness reports about Susan’s romantic life, and the incomplete timeline of the family’s final hours.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "This case for many, many years was the subject of dinner conversations, water cooler talk, and weekly newspaper headlines and stories. Many in the area became obsessed..." — Nic [07:00]
• "Well, we got a couple possibilities here. It could be the killer making the call so that the police find the body. Therefore they can have some kind of awareness of the situation. And how many times have we heard these killers?..." — Captain [14:23]
• "She was the last person you would think this would happen to. She was always so cautious and careful about who she was with. She didn't go to bars. She called them freak scenes. … She was a very devoted mom, always driving the kids..." — Neighbor, read by Nic [21:00]
• "Both of these things getting cut short are indicators to me that something unplanned has come up…" — Nic [42:09]
• "Whoever gave this to her gave such a large amount that it would kill her regardless if they used another method... That meaning that you couldn't screw this up. ... I've decided to do this, and now she has to die." — Nic [57:44]

---

Important Timestamps

• 05:00 – Introduction to the case and its significance in PA history
• 06:00 – Discovery of Susan’s body; overview of immediate questions
• 13:00–16:00 – Location/parking lot mystery and initial police theories
• 20:00–24:28 – Victim (Susan) background and social life
• 32:24 – Introduction of Bill Bradfield as a person of interest
• 34:21–43:02 – Detailed timeline of final evening; kids’ last confirmed sighting
• 56:20 – Forensic findings on cause of death; morphine aspect
• 61:17 – Inventory of car contents; blue comb as standout evidence
• 63:35–66:00 – Discovery of uncompleted packing at children’s beds; abrupt departure

---

Tone & Language

• Conversational, thoughtful, and skeptical—Nic and the Captain balance measured seriousness about the crime and its impact with moments of candid banter and hypotheticals.
• Listeners are encouraged to play armchair detective, with hosts often openly speculating, flagging ambiguous points, and inviting reflection on unconfirmed facts.

---

Summary for Next Episode Prep:
Part 1 sets up the relational, forensic, and timeline puzzles at the heart of the Main Line Murders. Major questions—Who committed the brutal crime? Why were the children never found? Why did Susan and the kids leave suddenly? What roles might ex-husband Kenneth Reinert or colleague Bill Bradfield play?—are established for deeper exploration. The narrative is left on a cliffhanger primed for further investigation into motive, opportunity, and the chilling days that followed the last confirmed sighting of Susan, Karen, and Michael Reinert.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

Transcript

[Nick]

Picture this. It's the end of a long week. You're unwinding in the tub, listening to your favorite true crime podcast and then chronic hives come back again in the middle of the episode. What a wet blanket looks like another spell of itchy, swollen, red or skin colored hives. If you have chronic spontaneous urticaria or csu, there may be a different treatment option. Worried about your chronic hives interrupting our next episode? Learn [e-mail] Garage Here's a recommendation for you. It's a limited series podcast that I loved. It's called Empire on Blood. It goes deep inside a case like few other podcasts. The reporter spent seven years getting to the bottom of a case about a guy who was sent away to prison for two murders and that he claims he didn't do. One thing I love is that Empire on Blood takes us deep inside the belly of the beast. It's the criminal justice system in the Bronx, which is even wilder than I expected. The prosecutor goes by the name Turtleman. The detective calls himself Father Frank because he gets confessions. And then there's a black magic practicing drug dealer who is waging a campaign for freedom from a prison payphone. Oh, and by the way, in this pod, they actually solved the case. Empire on Blood was number one when first released a few years ago. Now it's back with new bonus episodes. That's Empire on Blood Season 2 on the burden feed. Listen on Apple or wherever you get your podcast. You can find the link in the show notes and on our recommended page.

[Captain]

SA.

[Nick]

Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host, Nick, and with me, as always, is a man who does not sleep. He dreams.

[Captain]

Here is the Captain and I'll be dreaming of you. It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend.

[Nick]

We chose this week's beer with our hearts with heavy hearts. One of our favorite brewing companies and one of the best around is Highland Brewing. Running strong now for 30 years in beautiful Asheville, North Carolina. Unfortunately, Asheville, like so many other parts of this great country, have been devastated and tragically affected by tropical storms and Hurricane Helena. Our hearts, our thoughts and our prayers go out to the hardworking folks at Highland Brewing, the good folks of Asheville, and folks everywhere who have been affected by this devastating weather event. If able offer some support for these folks that could use a hand. So today we are featuring Wishing Star Cold IPA by the brilliant brewers at Highland. Wishing Star is available year round. It's brilliant and complex. ABV 6.8% garage grade, four and a half bottle caps out of five. And let's give some thanks and praise to our good friends who helped us fill up the old garage fridge for this week's set of shows. First up, a shout out to Matt McIntyre from Midland, Texas and a big

[Captain]

shout out to the magical and mystical Karen who brought us beers at Crimecon uk. You are a gem.

[Nick]

Delicious beers. Next up we have Jocelyn from Pittsburgh

[Captain]

and a big shout to Tiana Wilson from Bisbang, Australia.

[Nick]

And last but certainly not least we have a double fisted cheers going out to Laney and Brian from Nashville, Tennessee. Everyone we mentioned they went to true crimegarage.com clicked on the pint glass and helped us out with this week's beer. Funded for that. Well we thank you.

[Captain]

Yeah BWR you and Beer Run. If you're not subscribed to us on Patreon or Apple podcast, do so now please and thank you and Colonel, that's enough of the business.

[Nick]

All right everybody gather round. Grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some True Crime.

[Captain]

Foreign.

[Nick]

Murders was the largest and longest running investigation ever conducted by the Pennsylvania State Police. Portions of the following were taken from the famous cop turned author Joseph Wambaugh's book Echoes in the Darkness, one of three books about the mainline murders. On June 25, 1979, the naked corpse of school teacher Susan Reinert was found wedged into her hatchback car in a hotel parking lot near Philadelphia's Main Line. Her two children had vanished. The massive FBI and state police investigation ultimately centered on two men. The Mainline Murders remains one of Philadelphia's most intriguing murder cases. This is True Crime Garage. Today we are going all the way back to 1979 to take a hard look at this case that is regularly referred to as the Mainline Murders. This case did make the news on a national level, but for the folks in Philadelphia, Harrisburg and other parts of Pennsylvania, this case for many, many years was the subject of dinner conversations, water cooler talk, and weekly newspaper headlines and stories. Many in the area became obsessed with with this case, and I think many will see why as this true crime story unfolds. So let's go back to the morning of June 25, 1979, which is a Monday, which could be a key element to this case. We go to the area known as the Mainline. The Philadelphia Mainline, known simply as the Mainline, is an informally delineated historical and social region of suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, lying along the former Pennsylvania Railroad's once prestigious mainline. It runs northwest from Center City Philadelphia, parallel to Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike, also known as US Route 30. There seems to be some debate about what areas or parts of town should be included or excluded as part of the mainline area. The captain and I are not from this area, so we cannot offer our $0.02 or really any cents at all on the matter. But for what it's worth, this case starts in a location that many have called the main line. On this Monday Morning in June of 79, a phone call came into police dispatchers in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The caller did not give a name. Instead, the caller went right into the reason for the call. The male caller was notifying police about a vehicle in a motel parking lot in Swatera Township. According to the caller in the car located in the parking lot of the Host Inn, he found a woman in the back of the vehicle who, as he put it, was quote, sick. Now, I don't know who is responding to the scene, but we know that police were sent out to this location to have a look see. State police will run point on this investigation. So given that and the location, it may have been state police or highway patrol responding to the call. Police arrived at the Host End motel parking lot just after 5:30am the sick woman in the back of the car call that they responded to turned out to be a dead woman in the trunk of a car. Authorities believed that the woman had been dead for approximately 24 hours and her nude body, which had been haphazardly thrown into the trunk of this abandoned Plymouth vehicle. Over the next several hours, police would set out to identify this woman. By the end of the day, police sorted out that the woman was a mother who along with her two children had gone missing sometime earlier that weekend. In fact, went missing sometime the weekend before that early Monday morning call to police about a sick woman in the car. So of course a huge part of this mystery right from Jump street is where are these kids? Here we go, Captain. This is the report from the Lancaster New era newspaper, circa June 1979. The headline, her two children missing teacher's body found in car trunk near Harrisburg. My slightly summarized version of this article reads, the nude body of a high school teacher whose two children are missing has been found in the trunk of a car parked at a nearby motel. Police said they found the body of Susan Reinert, age 36, early Monday at the Host End parking lot in nearby Swatera Township after receiving a telephone tip from a male caller. State police said that she had been criminally assaulted, but they would not say whether she had been sexually molested. The county coroner said she died from suffocation. Trooper John Holtz said the woman's children, Karen, age 11, and Michael, age 10, were with her Friday evening when she was last known to have been alive. Quote, we're hoping that the children will be at a friend's house. We doubt it very much, but we are hoping for that, said the trooper. Mrs. Reinert, who was divorced, taught English at Upper Marion High School in Philadelphia suburbs. A neighbor said she was devoted to her children and was active in Parents Without Partners, a group focusing on divorced parents. Mrs. Reinert's husband, Kenneth said he last talked to the children Friday night. Kenneth Reinert went with police to Harrisburg to identify the body. Quote, no one we talked to yet can give us a reason as to why she was in Harrisburg. And along with this news story, there is a picture of Susan Reiner, the dead mother, and the two missing kids, Karen and Michael Reiner.

[Captain]

So we have teacher and mother Suzanne. She has two kids, Karen and Michael. They're last seen on Friday. They're reported missing over the weekend. Then her body is discovered at this hotel parking lot. Do you know who reported her missing?

[Nick]

Well, that's a good question because that part of the story is a little ambiguous. Okay. So yeah, what I think has happened here is at some point it didn't go unnoticed that she was missing. Like it went noticed that she wasn't where she was supposed to be. But I don't know that that call actually made it to police. I don't think they were officially reported missing. I think what happened here, Captain, is once they determine the identification of the nude woman found in the back of this car, they start reaching out to people. And right away the feedback they're getting is, oh, yeah, she, we've been wondering where she was or we've been wondering where the kids were.

[Captain]

So it's possible that she was missing but not reported missing.

[Nick]

Exactly. And I think that's exactly how this played out. So she's found on a Monday morning in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and we've already got two missing kids. We got two missing and one murdered for this investigation. That's how this thing, sadly, is going to kick off for investigators. Now first I want to talk about this car. It's key here to know that the car that Susan Reinert's body is found in, this is her own vehicle. She owns this vehicle. This is Susan's orange red Plymouth Horizon hatchback. So it's a hatchback vehicle. And you'll hear Me bounce back and forth between Susan and Sue. Most people called her Sue. So the vehicle, as I understand it, Captain, was backed into a parking spot. The report states that it was located three rows from the main entrance to the motel lobby, slash check in area. So I don't know if that means three rows to the left or to the right or if it was a bigger parking lot. And it's three rows in front or behind what would be considered the main entrance to this motel lobby, slash check in area. And as said, it was a hatchback. The hatchback. So these are typically smaller cars. And the hatchback was left open, or at least open when the police arrive on the scene. No one knows for certain who the caller was that phoned this in. Unfortunately, the recording of that call was erased or lost. But the police dispatch was interviewed, and the takeaway from that interview was that the dispatcher believed that the caller sounded rushed or hurried, very brief, very vague. And the opinion was that the caller sounded and communicated in a way that was suggestive that they wanted to end the call or get off of the phone.

[Captain]

Well, we got a couple possibilities here. It could be the killer making the call so that the police find the body. Therefore they can have some kind of awareness of the situation. And how many times have we heard these killers? Once I killed the person, I thought the cops would be on me in seconds. And so this could be a move out of fear or desperation, or it could just simply be a passerby that is saying that this, this individual is sick, but clearly she's found, like you said, in the nude. So this could just be a disturbing scene, and some people just don't want to get involved.

[Nick]

The caller was male and may have had a Mexican accent or at least pretended to sound Mexican. This again, according to the reports. Now, no one seemed to have a clue as to why the vehicle, Sue's vehicle, would be found here at this location. This is a little more than, let's say it's approximately 100 miles from the home where Susan and her two kids lived. So it's a good distance away from her home, Susan. Some reports say over 90 miles, some say over 100. This motel no longer exists. So it gets a little difficult to pinpoint exactly the distance between her home and this location. But based off of those reports, I think we can say with all confidence approximately 100 miles from her home. So the key here, though, but a couple things.

[Captain]

By creating a distance, let's say she was murdered somewhere else, and then this is just a dumping ground. It would take longer for law enforcement to figure out who this victim was. But also, by placing the body in a motel parking lot, it then leads you to believe it's possible that she was meeting somebody. And did she meet somebody at the hotel?

[Nick]

Yeah, that's what I want to wonder. That's what I am asking myself and everybody else out there, because I get what you're saying. The distance would complicate identification of the victim. However, it's her car. You. Right, you know, as a police officer, you're going to open up the passenger door, open up the glove box, check the registration, and go, oh, it's registered to a woman. I have a hunch here that the victim's name might be who the vehicle's registered to. And so that being the case, now we have to go, all right, did she. What's the scenario here that puts her where we found her? So either she drove the car to this location or to this general area and something happens there, or something happened prior to. And then the car with Susan inside was delivered to this location. So we see how these mysteries start to unfold in front of the investigators. First, who is this woman? Okay, we've sorted that part out. Where the hell are the kids? We have no clue. And now it's. You almost feel like you're back at square one. Yes, we've identified the woman, but how the hell. And why the hell is her car found in this location?

[Captain]

And it's 1979. So the news breaks that there's a murdered school teacher and her two kids are missing. This is going to make the community and the public on high alert. And this is probably also one of the reasons why we're still talking about this case today.

[Nick]

Yeah. And it's. It's all hands on deck as far as searching for these kids. I really liked some information that I found on this case, and I wish that I knew the police officer who was in charge of the search for the kids, because from the way that it was described, Captain, he pretty much calls a. A meeting, gets everybody who. Who has any clout, anybody in. In upper management with the state police. And he says, search everywhere. Search every car, every truck, every building, every basement, every house, every movie theater, every shopping mall, every school. Search everywhere, question everyone to find these kids. Do whatever the hell you have to do to find these kids. And one of the. The officers says, but what about. What about these people's rights? You know, the.

[Captain]

The.

[Nick]

The places we're going to be searching, the people we're going to Be questioning what about their rights? And he says their rights. Find these kids. I love to hear that passion. I love to hear this man leading the charge and rallying the troops and telling them, do whatever you got to do to find these kids. They're. They're 10 and 11 years old. Now we'll circle back to the crime scene, Captain, but let's do a little background on the three victims, because right now, as said, we got two very difficult investigations going on. And thankfully, you have the resources of the state police on this from the beginning, but you are simultaneously and with different teams, you are investigating a homicide. But more importantly, you are also trying to find children's children ages 10 and 11.

[Captain]

So we now need to figure out who the mother Suzanne is and who these children, Karen and Michael are.

[Nick]

Yes. So what we learn is Suzanne Reiner is 36 years old. She was employed in the fall of 1971 as an English teacher at Upper Marion High School. Now, she's involved in a lot of the clubs there. You know, these high schools have a lot of different clubs for the kids, and she's involved in some of these clubs. So she's not just a teacher. She's very active. She was also co advisor for the school yearbook. She was active in other activities, including Parents without partners. In 1977, she was education director. She was a cinema buff and taught a film course at the high school as well. All the students and staff loved her. From what we could find, she was very dedicated to the school, to her students, and to her career. Her neighbors say, quote, sue was the last person you would think this would happen to. She was always so cautious and careful about who she was with. She didn't go to bars. She called them freak scenes. She was a very devoted mom, always driving the kids to gymnastics and or baseball. She was divorced. So at college, sue met Kenneth Reinert. He was attending school as well, and he was also in the Air Force. The two got married right after college and then moved around for a while. Because of his Air Force gig, Sue began her teaching career during that time while they were still moving around. They lived in several different states over the years. Eventually, they ended up back in Pennsylvania, settling down in the greater Philly area. The two simply, from what everybody's saying here, Captain, the two simply got married too young. They split up and divorced when the kids were still little. By all accounts, it was a mutual and amicable split. It was shared custody of the kids and no alimony or child support. But the kids did stay with Sue. The Majority of the time, Ken got Karen and Michael mostly on weekends and holidays. After the divorce, sue and the kids settled into a tidy two and a half story twin house on Woodcrest Avenue and Ardmore, a section of Haverford Township. And as said at the time of the disappearance, Karen was 11, born in September of 1967 and Michael was 10, born in June of 69. We mentioned the Parents Without Partners program that sue was a part of. And in fact she was a rather big part of her local chapter of Parents Without Partners. This group was sort of a thing back in the day with chapters throughout the country. This club is a support group for those who need it, but very much a social group as well. So some people join more for the social aspect and, and may support others during their time there. Susan played a leadership role. Sometimes she would help facilitate group meetings and she would also help to organize events when they had them. Because Susan spent so much of her time with work and with her two kids, I think that that might be why we get some conflicting observations about her social or more importantly, romantic life.

[Captain]

What are the conflicting reports?

[Nick]

Well, she was a very private person as well. So some people who knew her likely simply were not informed as to the details of her private life. Some say that she was not seeing anyone and others say she absolutely was seeing someone. Spent a whole lot of time with someone. Well, what time she could with with this individual and the relationship, given how busy she was with her career and with her kids. So there are some people that are saying that she didn't see anybody at all. And there are other people that are saying she was not only very much involved with somebody and had been for a long period of time, but that relationship was serious enough that it was headed toward marriage.

[Captain]

Well, that seems like polar opposites, right? She wasn't seeing anybody. Oh, no. She was seeing somebody. And. And guess what? They're going to get married.

[Nick]

Yeah. And again it. You're canvassing and talking to everybody that knew this woman. So it's not crazy to think that you are going to have those conflicting observations because that's all they are, is people that are making assumptions based off of their interactions with her. How limited those may be, we don't know in some cases. And they're what they're seeing and what they're observing with her and her kids. Look, if she's not home a lot, if she's busy with work and busy running around with the kids and not home a lot, maybe the neighbors weren't so aware of somebody that she may have been involved with. But when you get to talking to people that she worked with and her family, they're telling a different story. Yeah, she was involved with somebody. And that person, his name is William Sidney Bradfield. He went by Bill Bradfield. He was the chair of the English Department at Upper Maran High School. So with this revelation found by police, this is where the plot thickens.

[Captain]

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Have you ever avoided a difficult conversation or minimized how you felt? Or just waited too long to talk to somebody? When life gets heavy, the stigma is real. It's something I'm trying to change. It needs to be commonplace to talk about our mental health. Even in 2026, stigma can get in the way of a lot of things, like getting support for your mental health. Maybe you've encouraged friends to consider therapy while you're avoiding taking the first steps yourself because you're busy, worried about what other people will think, or telling yourself you should handle it alone. But therapy with better help the world's largest online therapy platform can be a space to slow down and talk through what's been building before it feels unmanageable. Just take a short questionnaire to identify your needs and Preferences and BetterHelp will handle the initial therapist matching work for you. Their industry leading match fulfillment rate means BetterHelp typically gets it right the first time. Feel confident knowing BetterHelp therapists work according to strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the US don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with better help. Sign up and get 10% [e-mail] Garage that's Better H lp.com Garage this show is proudly sponsored by BetterHelp.

[Nick]

So many people are focused on where their money is today. Acorns is the financial wellness app that cares about where your money is going tomorrow and with the Acorns potential screen you can find out what your money is capable of. Acorns is easy. You can sign up in minutes and start automatically investing your spare money even if all you've got is spare change. Sign up now and Acorns will boost your new account with a $5 bonus investment. Join the over 14 million all time customers who have already saved and invested over $27 billion with Acorns. Head to acorns.com garage or download the Acorns app to get started. Paid non client endorsement compensation provides incentive to Positively promote Acorns Tier 2 compensation provided potential subject to various factors such as customers, accounts, age and investment settings. Does not include acorns fees. Results do not predict or represent the performance of any ACORNS portfolio. Investment results will vary. Investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors LLC and SEC Registered Investment Advisor. View important [e-mail] Garage Chime is banking built for you, not the 1% they have thousands of fee free ATMs because why pay to get your own money? Plus, with a Chime card, get travel perks like airport lounge access and 5% cash back on things like gas or groceries. Upgrade to America's number one choice for banking with a Chime checking account. Chime is not just smarter banking. It's the most rewarding way to bank. Join the millions who are already banking fee free today. Head to chime.comgarage that is chime.comgarage. it only takes a few minutes to sign up. Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Banking services for Chime Card provided by Chime's Bank Partners. Optional products and services may have fees or charges. Stated cash back for Chime prime only. No minimum balance required. Checking account ranking based on a J.D. power survey published October 20, 2025. For more information on travel perks, go to Chime.com disclosures One thing about summer is that everything just feels easy. It's the season for comfortable go anywhere pieces that make getting dressed simple. That's what makes Quince such a great fit for the season. They focus on well made essentials that you'll actually live in all summer long. Quince's 100% European linen pants and shirts are breathable, easy to throw on and the summer upgrade your rotation needs. And their tees are soft enough to live in all day. And the lightweight cotton sweaters are exactly what you want when summer nights cool down. I love quints. I love [e-mail] for all of my clothing needs. It's how I fill my wardrobe and my closet. And I didn't make up the statement that their tees are soft enough to live in all day. They absolutely are. I love their tees. I love their socks. Especially for summertime. Tees from Quints can live in all day long. What does that mean? I wear them to the pool. I wear them when I go out to the restaurants and I have several that I've reserved as pajama tops because they are that comfortable, they are that breathable and they are so super soft they make you want to relax. The clothing on quints.com is super high quality with great looks, great fashion and very affordable. Plus the checkout and shipping experience is always a good one. Make your summer wardrobe easier. Go to quints.com garage for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Qu I n c e.com garage for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com garage.

[Captain]

All right, we are back. Cheers me mateys.

[Nick]

And cheers to you Col. Yeah, cheers to you, Captain. Cheers to all the people over the pond, all the great people that we met at CrimeCon UK and cheers to future Crimecon people. Don't forget we got Denver coming up next year and we already have tickets that are on sale for that. Use our promo code to save a little bit of cash and that promo code is tcg. If you want to get crime con tickets for next September in Denver. When we left off, we introduced Bill Bradfield to the beautiful listeners and he worked at the high school with Susan and had worked there with her for quite some time. We're talking several years now. She, one of her jobs there was working as an English teacher. He was in charge of the English department as, as I understand it. And he's, she's 36. At the time he was in his, he would have been in his 40s, I believe, early 40s. So he's a little bit older than her. So they work together. Again, we talked about conflicting observations here, but they worked together and they were carrying on a secret relationship for quite some time that was either secret or not so secret at all depending on who you were talking to. Another person that we will hear a lot about in this true crime story is Dr. J. Charles Smith. He was the one time principal of Upper Marion High School. So he was running the show over there. He was the boss of both Bill Bradfield and Susan Reinert. He was the principal at the school for 12 years but not at the time of Susan's death.

[Captain]

So we have eyewitnesses that saw Susan with her two children on Friday. But let's go into the events leading up to finding her body in the hotel parking lot.

[Nick]

Yeah, because the events leading up to this one, there's a, there's a, quite a gap through the course of this weekend of unknown whereabouts for Suzanne and the kids. But there's some very questionable behavior going on even starting on that Friday when we know that the three were alive and well. The three had plans for the weekend. We had mentioned that, that Kenneth or Ken, their father would often have them on weekends, but not on this weekend. So this weekend Susan was going to be a part of a Parents Without Partners event that was taking place out of town. So this event was going on in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Remember, she's in the Greater Philadelphia area and she not only was planning to attend, but she had already made arrangements to bring the kids with her. Now that wasn't going to take place until Saturday morning. They were not going to leave to go out of town until sometime on Saturday morning. And we know that based off of arrangements that she made, she had to book a place to stay Saturday night. And she was open and had told plenty of people about her plans for that weekend. But before we get to Saturday morning, we're going to start off with what I think are some confusing happenings that go on on Friday, June 22, 1979. So Kenneth Reiner, the ex husband and father, he was with his son that Friday. So this would have been late afternoon, early evening. He's with his son at a father son softball game. His son played baseball. So this is just kind of a natural thing. Father son softball game. Something weird happens before the game is over. It's near the end of the game, but Suzanne shows up and she picks up her son before the, the game is over. So her son, he have, he has to kind of leave abruptly. And from my understanding, Captain, I have some conflicting times that are reported on this, but I think it's pretty safe to say that this takes place close to 8pm late in the 7 o' clock hour or close to 8pm so it would be getting kind of dark and a little late by this time. Anyway, Kenneth gets a phone call from his son Michael around 8:30. Michael is calling to tell his father, like, hey, I'm sorry that, that I didn't get to stay to the end of the game, but I had to go with mom and you know, dad saying all the right things. Yeah, I understand. It's not a big deal. What are you doing this weekend? And later, Kenneth would tell police that when he spoke with Michael, everything was fine. Like there was nothing weird going on. And he didn't even, frankly, he didn't even find it weird that, that Michael didn't stay to finish the baseball game. It was, it was near the end of the game anyway. And he says that Michael sounded excited and was talking excitedly about the weekend plants. So he's going to be tagging along. Both kids are going to be tagging along for this Parents Without Partners event with mom. But there's, this is Parents Without Partners. So a lot of the, the parents are bringing children with them.

[Captain]

Yeah.

[Nick]

So it's kind of exciting, right? You're a young kid, you're going to meet other young kids and they have kid fun events scheduled for the weekend.

[Captain]

Well, if you're around 10 years old and your parents tell you you're going to stay a day or so at a hotel, if there's a pool here, you're super excited. Even if there's not a pool, you're just excited because it's something different.

[Nick]

Yeah. What about an elevator? Have you seen kids how nuts kids will go with an elevator that hits multiple floors?

[Captain]

You should see how I react in an elevator.

[Nick]

One event that Michael was excited about was they were going to be doing some bowling over the course of the weekend. I don't know. I don't have the layout of the Parents Without Partners events scheduled for that Saturday or even that Sunday. But that was one thing that he had mentioned to his father. He was excited about going bowling and excited, excited about the weekend. Now, before this call can end, we kind of get a repeat of the softball game where mom kind of cuts in and she's like, hey, Michael, we got to get going. Dad says to Michael, well, where, where are you guys going? You know, he can hear his ex wife in the background saying, hey, Michael, you know, time to get off the phone. We got to get going in a little bit. And the report that has remained to this day, we're talking about a rather old case, right. 45 years ago. So these old cases are very intriguing for many reasons. One problem I have with older cases is I worry that we at times can be talking about situations that are very much like a game of telephone, right, where somebody has said something or one report has been this way and then it morphs slightly over the years into something a little bit different.

[Captain]

And all we can do with the older cases is to report it to the best of our ability and to report the information that has been given.

[Nick]

Yes, and the great thing about this case, opposed to some other cases that we've reviewed in the past, is some of these statements are a matter of, of record, of state record. But for this particular item, I don't know that it is. But regardless, what we do know that takes place is according to Kenneth, the call ended sooner than he had expected with Michael saying he had to get off the phone. He says to his son, are you going or where are you guys off to? Something very casual like that. And he says that he could hear his ex wife in the background say, because I think the boy asked mom, where are we going? And she Said something like, well, tell. Tell your father we're going to Parents Without Partners. We're going to the Parents Without Partners event, which is not untrue. But again, we're trying to dissect this conversation. And. And we're probably missing some of the details here because they. We know that they were planning to go to that on Saturday morning. We just don't know the. The back and forth and exactly how it played out. Because that could be. She could be giving an honest statement, not understanding the question. Because to me, when I hear this conversation, Captain, I. My mind goes to. Dad is asking, well, where are you going right now that you got to get off of the phone? Not where are you going this weekend?

[Captain]

Yeah. And the difficult thing with these cases is, look, we. We have a murdered mother in a hotel, motel, Holiday Inn parking lot, whatever. Whatever it is. I've seen it reported as a hotel, motel. I don't even know the difference. Now, you have this guy. Again, they were married, okay, so it didn't work out, but he probably gives a shit about her, and he definitely gives a shit about his kids. And so after you have this tragedy, you go back and you're going to dissect every little thing. And to me, I. I find it to be a little strange that you leave the sporting event early because it doesn't seem like you're in this huge rush to leave, but that, to me, is indication that you're in a huge rush to leave. And then this cutting short of the phone call to the father seems like you're also in a huge rush to leave.

[Nick]

I think he nailed it here, Captain, because they're not planning to leave for this event until the following morning. Both. Both of these things getting cut short are indicators to me that something unplanned has come up and that this seems like it's something unplanned that moment has been made, has been made aware of. And maybe the kids don't need to be so much in the know. Right. It seems like mom is steering the ship here. And she had to cut short the softball game, which likely wasn't planned. And now she's cutting short this phone call. And we do know that they leave. We do know that mom and the kids leave that Friday night from their home, and everything appears to be a okay at the time. Maybe they're rushing out of there. But other than rushing out of there, everything from people that see them that evening, everything appears to be a okay.

[Captain]

Well, question, Dwight Schrute. Is she the one that is rushing things along or is somebody making her rush things along?

[Nick]

Well, that's what I mean. I, I think something has come up that she's been made aware of and now she's got to rush around with the kids. They're 10 and 11. She's not going to leave him at home. She can't just leave the son at the softball game. It appears to me that she has got something going on that, that they are unaware of. So let's go forward a little bit. So this phone call is at approximately 8:30pm with the father. Now, most reports out there say shortly after 9. A little more detailed reports will say about 9:20pm is the last known sighting of Susan Reiner and her children. This is where we get this huge gap of what the hell happened between 9:20pm on that Friday and 5:20pm or sorry, 5:20am on Monday when somebody phones into police that there's a sick person in the, in a back of a car in a motel parking lot, that there's a big gap there. And so we can surmise from that that likely the only person or people to see Suzanne and the kids during that time, and we don't know what time that is, are likely the killer and, or killers and abductors of the children. So at 9:20pm what we have here is we, the kids were playing outside for a portion of that evening. Now, it can't be for too long because Michael was at the softball game. And we know that they leave a little after 9pm that night there was also a hail storm. You know, you get those summer storms where they just kind of come rushing in and you get weird hail shooting out of the sky on a summer night. That was one of those situations. And shortly after the storm, the kids are seen by neighbors. They come outside and they're running around looking at the hailstones and collecting, picking them up and, and things of that nature. So more than one neighbor sees the kids. So there's no question about that. We have two individuals independently of one another giving about the same statement to police. I saw the kids outside. I saw her car in the driveway. And then her car leaves. So the kids hop in the car, mom drives off. And remember, this is Suzanne's orange slash red, depending on which report you read. Plymouth Horizon hatchback. It's a 1978 hatchback. This is the one that will be later found in that motel parking lot. We do get one neighbor that will be able to provide a description of what the children are wearing at the time that they were last seen by the neighbors. And this could play a key role in the case later. Of course, it makes so much sense though, because police at the time, right from Jump street are trying to find these kids. And so they need, they know what the kids look like. They need a description of what they were wearing when they were last seen. And so this is provided to them by at least one of the neighbors. However, we should point out that none of the neighbors that saw the kids or saw Susan that night, none of them are saying that they saw Suzanne with a, with a suitcase or the kids with suitcases. And keep in mind, the plan always was for them to leave for that trip Saturday morning. Also an event that takes place that evening. Captain is. And I, I think this to me plays a big part in how I can try to perceive or the perception that I start to build of the key people in this case. Suzanne spoke with her in laws via telephone that evening. The Parents Without Partners event was in Allentown, Pennsylvania. This is kind of, we kind of have to have to give a bit of a history lesson here to the listeners too, so everybody can kind of understand the situation. In the late 70s there was a bit of a, I hate to use the word crisis, especially with all the things going on today. It seems very trite to use that word. But at the time it was referred to by some as a gas crisis. Gasoline prices were, were very high, the supply was very scarce. And so Suzanne maintained a good relationship with her in laws. And I think this goes to show us that she likely maintained a good relationship with her ex husband as well. So she's on the phone with her in laws and she ask her father in law, ex father in law, hey, my gas tank is reading here. You know, you got, you got E for empty. You got, you got full tank. Here's what my gas gauge is saying. Do you think I got plenty of gas to get to and from Allentown, where we know that she was intending to go to that weekend? And he says, yeah, I think you're going to be perfectly fine. You won't have to stop for gas on the way. So not only do we have the, the neighbors telling us that everybody's alive and well that Friday evening, we have the in laws saying the same thing as well that we spoke with Suzanne on the phone. Then we don't find, we, we never see the kids. No report of the kids ever again after that. And as said now we go to Monday morning, June 25, 1979 at 5:20am is when that call comes in. Police are on the scene by 5:30, Suzanne's nude bodies found in the trunk of her own car, which is parked at that Host in parking lot. Some reports say 90 miles, a little more than 90 miles, some say 100 miles from her home. The other report that we do get here, Captain, is the Host Inn is three miles from the Pennsylvania Turnpikes in Harrisburg Exchange. Now, we know that a man telephoned and reported about a sick woman in the trunk of the car. Of course, police arrive on the scene and find a situation much different than what's phoned into them. Here is what's interesting, too, about this scenario. The first people they're obviously going to talk to are the people working at the motel. So the clerks at the Host Inn said that they first noticed this vehicle in the parking lot a few hours before the arrival of the police, but were unsure of exactly when it had arrived.

[Captain]

Well, when you're at a hotel, motel, Holiday Inn, there's a lot of moving pieces and parts. So I wouldn't assume that we're going to get that great. Of any eyewitness accounts from employees.

[Nick]

Right. Well, and on top of that, what I'm, what I'm hearing too, is they know for certain that it was there a few hours before police arrived on the scene. Okay. So that's key. But now you can't tell me when it arrived, how long did it sit there? Right. Was it, was it there on Saturday, on Sunday? What, what, when did it show up?

[Captain]

Well, like you were saying, from Friday. Last seen on Friday to Monday. That's a big gap. And one of the things that we, we've been doing for the last almost 10 years is when we're looking at a case, we want to shorten that gap. We, we want to know what happened in between and get a better definitive timeline.

[Nick]

Well, and if the hatchback is found open, your. That car would have been noticed had the hatchback been open prior. Now that's one thing. That's one statement we don't have from the clerks. When you did notice the hours prior, was the hatchback open or not? We don't have that statement. What we do have is speculation from the investigators who would later say that they think that Sue's body might have been in that vehicle sitting in the parking lot for the better part of a day, with the killer likely disposing of the car and the body sometime that Sunday. Now, that's speculation, but it's coming from the individuals that investigated this case. So it's, it's a very good Educated guess, you hope.

[Captain]

Well, if you're law enforcement and she's not meeting somebody at that location and this is just a dumping ground, then if you're law enforcement, you have to be thinking, well, this killer then needs a way out of that location. So did anybody see anything of that nature?

[Nick]

It's also 90 to 100 miles away from her home.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

So of course they're going to check with the motel staff. And what do they discover? They neither sue nor the children stayed there at any time during that weekend, and nobody on the staff recognized any of them. When shown pictures of, of the three.

[Captain]

If you're law enforcement, this is a very confusing situation.

[Nick]

They would go on to, they being law enforcement, would go on to clear Kenneth Reiner, the ex husband, at some point, but not right out of the gate. In fact, it would be several months before they would remove him from possible suspect list. But another really tragic and very sad part of the story is he gets a call early Monday morning. They found his ex wife in her car in that parking lot. He has to hop in his vehicle. Now, to bring everybody up to speed, they've been divorced for several years by this time. And he's, he's a successful banker. He's been remarried. In fact, he had just had a, he's got a newborn child at home, an infant. And so that Monday morning, per phone calls from detectives, he's hopping into a vehicle and driving miles and miles away from his own home. He lived in a different suburb of Philadelphia and drives out there and he's going to go to the, the morgue to identify his ex wife's body. And from everything, there were three detectives that were with him during the course of that evening. So he goes to the morgue, he identifies his ex wife's body, and then they take him to a restaurant or diner or something that night and they interview him there because it's a weird scenario for detectives, right? You have this person who should be high on your suspect list because he's the ex husband, but also somebody that you are consoling a little bit. So they, they interview him at a diner. And all three detectives walked away that night with the same, One of them drove him home at some point because he was physically unable to, to drive himself home. He was that distraught. He was that wrecked from the situation. And I mean, they said he broke down when he identified his ex wife's body, but he really lost it when he looked at detectives and said, where, where are my kids? So they didn't have, they didn't have a, a gut feeling that he was involved early on based off of his reactions. But eventually they will clear him based off of a very solid alibi. I mean, he's, he's at home with his new wife, and other people had seen him that Friday, Saturday, Sunday. He's accounted for that that whole weekend. To complicate things even further, we get the cause of death here. We get two different determinations of cause of death. The coroner at the time determined that Susan had been suffocated or asphyxiation. They, they weren't quite sure, but those two things are quite similar. They did determine that she had been beaten right away. They, they had a good idea that she was probably drugged before her murder, and it, and it had appeared that she had been bound at some point. My mind goes to being tied up, but most reports that I've seen, Captain, say that based off of injuries to the body, they believe that chains may have been used instead of ropes, rope, ligatures. But what complicates this is the time period. So it's 1979. Right. And remember there they have reason to believe that maybe she had been drugged prior to being killed. Well, they have to send off for test, and it takes a long time back in those days for the results to come back. I think in her case it was like three or four months.

[Captain]

But just to be clear, what you're saying about the, the binding and the ligatures, they're. They're not left.

[Nick]

No. That's why they're guessing of what.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

They're guessing what may have been used, saying that she, she had been bound beforehand, and the reports say likely with a chain. Now, when those using change.

[Captain]

You're not messing around.

[Nick]

When the reports come back, the toxicology reports, to put it in its simplest form, there was an extreme amount of morphine in her system, and it was so much so that they believed that it would have OD'd or killed a person her size 10 times over. Meaning that it was administered to her with the purpose of. Meaning that whoever gave this to her gave such a large amount that it would kill her regardless if they used another method to attempt to kill her. That meaning that you couldn't screw this up? I, I'm, I'm going to do this and I'm going to make sure that it's done that. I, I'm not going to botch this thing. I've decided to do this, and now she has to die.

[Captain]

So possibly she was bound, or most likely she was bound at some Point, she was somebody administered this drug that was going to kill her 10 times over and still either strangled her or used some other method to kill her.

[Nick]

Here's why I say this complicates the situation because depending on what report you read, you get three different causes of death. However, all three things likely would have killed her. And I think that that's why it's, it's difficult to say this one thing is exactly what did it. So the, the, the drugs could have killed her. Suffocation could have killed her. Asphyxiation could have killed her. Part of that too, Captain, was, you know, she could have been suffocated or it could have been as simple as there was a mistake because they did find tape that had been placed over her mouth, and they determined that this was placed over her mouth before she passed. So that could have played a part in her murder, likely depriving her of necessary oxygen. Now, the reason why I, I hate the complication of not knowing the exact cause of death is that I think that if you can say that they couldn't determine that, then what confidence do you have in this next part of their report? So Dr. Bush concluded that Susan had been deceased for approximately 24 hours when her body was found in the host in parking lot. So that's putting speculation that her time of death had come. And this is from their report, sometime between 12:15am and 6:15am the day prior on Sunday, June 24. So this would be like at least 27 hours after she had driven away from her home all of those miles away. This creates this large window of darkness and mystery for the investigators to try to fill in the blanks.

[Captain]

Yeah. The case just gets more confusing for law enforcement.

[Nick]

And furthermore, you wonder if, if we could sit down with the detectives and ask them, why did you speculate that her body and the vehicle may have sat there in that parking lot and been there since sometime on Sunday? Why, why is that speculation? What was your indicators to. To make you come to that possible conclusion? Was it simply the time of death given to you by the doctor, or was there other factors that played a part into coming to that. That possibility as a likelihood? And here's some of the even more troubling things about this whole scene and the early stages of the investigation. So it's troubling enough, though. Well, yeah, but we have two missing children.

[Captain]

Yeah.

[Nick]

Now, police can find no trace of several of Suzanne's belongings. So this includes her clothing. Remember, she's found newt. They can't find her purse and if you look, if you look up pictures of Susan Reiner, I've not seen a single picture of her not wearing glasses. She wore eyeglasses regularly. She required them. So those eyeglasses are not found as well. What is found inside the car is referred to many times as random pieces as of possible evidence. But a lot of these items, Captain, don't really seem relevant to the investigation. I mean, people have things in their car and leave things in their vehicle. So what they find is an umbrella, a matchbook cover from a motel. You would think that that would be a good piece of evidence. But this motel is from Gettysburg, and it was confirmed that sue had stayed there about a year prior for a conference.

[Captain]

So is a souvenir.

[Nick]

Yeah, this appears to be just something that was placed in the car at some point, never removed. They found fast food wrappers, an empty Coca Cola bottle, part of a blanket, which is a weird thing to say. I would love to know more about what part of a blanket is and means. They found a towel and they found a blue combination. Now this blue comb will become a huge part of this investigation. The blue comb, in some reports, not all, but some reports state that it was found underneath her body in the trunk of that car. The blue comb, it's one of these mass produced combs, but it had a printing on it. Right. So the printing on it was 79th Army Reserve Command from Norristown, Pennsylvania. So this is going to be a lead for the investigators here. Now they only find a partial fingerprint, an unidentified partial fingerprint. But other than. And there, I guess there were some fibers that were found as well. But again, with partial fingerprints and some fibers, it's hard to sit there and look at it on day one and know is this evidence or just stuff that we should be finding in the car? So police really working out of the gate here, Captain, find not a whole lot of stuff in the, in the vehicle that could link them to the potential killer or killers or even where the kids may be.

[Captain]

If I'm law enforcement. 1979, I'm confused as hell. Why the hell is Susan in this motel parking lot? Why is she dead? Where is her children? I'm going to talk to the ex husband. We get some answers from him, but really we just get more confusion. Then we do the toxicology report. That makes it to me even more confusing. We have almost three methods of death. In a sense, we're looking, we're still looking for these children. So they're going to go look at Susan's house and if they don't find the children there, hopefully there's some sort of evidence to answer any of these questions.

[Nick]

Well, what they're going to get I think Captain, is more of a mystery. But one, one thing that they can sort out is the statements from the neighbors will prove to be true. Because remember the neighbors, some of them able to describe what the kids were wearing, saying that everybody's alive and well. The kids were outside playing. The family of three eventually leaves in the 9 o' clock hour to go to parts unknown. Where they're going, nobody seems to know. But remember they were not supposed to be leaving until Saturday morning for their out of town trip. And neighbors say none of them report seeing them carrying suitcases to the car. Well, and to me this is very eerie. Like I, this, this makes the, the hair on my, my arms stand up. The first thing that police notice at the v inside the the family's home is they go into the children's bedrooms. In the kids bedrooms they find suitcases open on the bed with clothing folded and stacked neatly next to each of the kids suitcase. Almost like preparing to the way that I packed yet. Yeah. And the, the way that I picture this and the way that I think that it played out is kids are outside playing. You know, at some point when you're a teenager you start packing your own bag. But they're 10 and 11. Mom is very likely starting the packing process. They're going to leave early Saturday morning. From all accounts, she had booked a hotel room for Saturday night. Nothing was booked for Friday night. So it looks to me like mom's busy inside packing and preparing for tomorrow morning. Kids are outside playing. And then something must have happened to put a stop to that because those kids were going to sleep in those beds that night. Right. She would have finished the packing job before the end of the night. But something must have happened to cause the three of them to hop in a car and take off.

[Captain]

I want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage. Stay tuned until tomorrow. So much more to get to.

[Nick]

Until then, be good, be kind and don't live. Sa.