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Soham Murders and Mini Crime Dioramas
51 Plays8 days ago
This week is a Patreon Peek! We opened up the vault to give us some time to recover from some colds that can take down a host for a bit. But we love this episode, two very different takes on forensics, first a crimes solved with some, and then a teaching tool to solve killings with a unique twist.
So Kelsey covers the Soham murders, so-called for the area of the crimes, and trigger warning for child violence. But Forensic science and botany would play a big role in the evidence in this case, key to solving it.
Finally Alanna tells the tale of Frances Lee Glessner, A very smart woman who put her talents into re-creating crime scenes on a small scale for learning and training purposes. Her mini murder and unclassified death sequences were done to the most precise detail and the cases still kept secret for officers to learn from today.
Thanks for your patience and we should be back next week, so Keep it Cryptic! Much love!
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Transcript
Lighthearted Beginnings and Candle Mishaps
00:00:00
Speaker
The End
00:00:46
Speaker
Good to go. Should I light my candle? Let's light my candle, Gordo. As long as he doesn't play with it. It's on the other side of the laptop from him, at least.
00:00:58
Speaker
Yeah. For now. Yeah, I can put my laptop kind of back as far as it would go, so he can't get kind of between me and the behind the laptop really anymore.
00:01:15
Speaker
oh yeah he'd knock over so much stuff over here yeah it's annoying hey buddy give me a real annoying butthead
00:01:28
Speaker
i like the videos where the seals are batting at each other kind of like cats do i was like i didn't even know that really did that yeah oh that sounds like getting i don't think i've ever seen that I like getting seal content. I'm like, this is the algorithm I need.
00:01:46
Speaker
My favorite animals. Okay. Yeah. Good times. Good times. All right. as Well, sitting down
00:01:58
Speaker
Right on time, buddy. Literally, welcome to Patreon where this chaos ensues, always.
00:02:08
Speaker
It just took about 27 minutes before we could actually get the recording to work on my computer.
Technical Glitches and Travel Anecdotes
00:02:17
Speaker
But that's just, it must be mercury and retrograde or something. Who knows? I'm going to blame that.
00:02:23
Speaker
And not take any responsibility. I don't know. ah Well, my computer was like, nope. Computer says no. It's like that old um thing we used to watch in the travel program where like people would be like, can I get a trip to blah, blah, blah. And she would just look down and be like, well, computer says no. Really?
00:02:43
Speaker
yeah It's really stupid, but it's we loved it. Because we wished we could tell clients that all the time, right? Yeah. like just sorry don't feel like it especially when they ask for things that don't exist
00:03:01
Speaker
yeah rooms in vegas with coffee machines in them being one of them hotel rooms like that's not a penthouse suite they're like no fuck you you will walk out for coffee yeah like that's so weird oh vegas it's a special place and anyway We are a day late, a dollar short, and full of tech issues, but we're here for really exciting forensic files, maybe? I don't know, forensic feats?
00:03:34
Speaker
Yeah. I have a forensic first in mine.
00:03:39
Speaker
Oh, that's Mine brought about like some... Some change, some, I guess, is it like, oh, recommendations that happened and maybe some better better reporting or like database histories. Okay, okay.
Seasonal Changes and Cat Antics
00:04:06
Speaker
Because you, yeah, you have like, I think you said yours was murders, which if yours is more of a case, I'm doing more of like a person.
00:04:15
Speaker
yeah so cool yeah it'll be be yeah exciting then it's always good to have some different stuff yeah yeah um yeah we were hoping for the Forensic February alliteration to be part of it, but it's it's obviously coming out a little bit into March if you're listening to this right when it drops and we will put any other bonus content out as soon as we darn well can.
00:04:50
Speaker
We're getting back on track.
00:04:54
Speaker
The days are longer. hopeful. i'm hopeful i yeah I told you about driving with my windows down the other day. That was freeing. i It hasn't quite been warm enough for me to just sit in my house with all the windows open for like a whole day. But I am anticipating that so much. I'm checking the weather every single day to be like, oh, I just need like maybe a plus 14, plus 15. And all this I'll wear a hoodie and Gardo can just hide somewhere.
00:05:27
Speaker
and we live in the northern yeah hemisphere and the northern climate because we're always like talking about weather and crap and then like i saw this thing today that said in like norway or finland shit i want to say finland they say something like ah instead of saying like hey how you doing or or like yeah if someone's like how are you a common response is like um I'm up and not crying.
00:05:54
Speaker
Basically. That sounds like terribly bleak, but also like, hey man, that's one thing you can say. And like, on a day like today, when I was like, I think I saw that today i was scrolling Instagram. I was just like so tired.
00:06:10
Speaker
ah Like, from the night before and stuff. Well, I'm not dead. I was like, yeah, I can make it through this work day and and then recording it was like okay damn yeah um but anyway yeah the weather's been nicer but still not so much an super warm yeah sorry she's got her mug with her yes I don't know I guess it's kind of valentine's-y it says love all over it and it's got hearts
00:06:48
Speaker
Oh, nice. Yeah, that's smart. I should have grabbed a tea or something. I'm just drinking plain old juice that'll probably make me phlegmy. So there you go. That was stupid. Oh, I have hot apple cider that I put an extra cinnamon stick in.
00:07:05
Speaker
i'm love apple cider. this is This is like an instant one. Like, just the powder. Yeah. I never even have that in the house. I don't know why.
00:07:17
Speaker
put ah Put a cinnamon stick in it. My mom started doing that. Oh, it's so good. By the time you get to the bottom, it's just straight, like, liquid cinnamon. I'm obsessed with, like, the bottom of it.
00:07:30
Speaker
The original cinnamon challenge. Sorry. Yeah. Couldn't help myself. Ugh.
00:07:37
Speaker
What did you say? the original? Or wait. Oh my god. No, that's what you said.
00:07:46
Speaker
Help me now. Oh my god. We'll be okay. We'll be okay. um yeah the episode the other episode finally out so everything will be fine it's fine we're fine okay well gordo can you please stop licking li but he's licking his butthole and then he's like cleaning in between his toes i'm like i don't not his chocolate donut yeah
00:08:17
Speaker
Gordo. You rarely groom yourself. Like, why are you choosing to do this right now? I was trying to read this article that was locked by Nat Geo and it was like, we're learning how what your cat's meow say to you. trying to unlock I know, because I was reading this other article about whether or not dogs, they did a study in Ontario whether dogs are affected by daylight saving stuff.
00:08:46
Speaker
Turns out oh only so much as if they're humans are like, huh? Like they'll in the, I think they studied the fall one and like some dog like this. Sometimes the dogs would just like want their food. They're just a little hungrier. Right. Cause they're used to getting fed like an hour early.
00:09:04
Speaker
So it wasn't anything groundbreaking. I'll have to watch and see what happens with Gordo. He probably will. Yeah. Um, Yeah, because he knows.
00:09:18
Speaker
He knows, like, what hour he gets fed in. Yeah, I heard most cats are pretty particular about that. When it gets like, 15, 20 minutes before he just, that's when he really starts, and he's, like, hitting um and anything. It's, like, really?
00:09:39
Speaker
yeah So annoying. Yeah. Yeah. No, it makes sense. And then it's like, if we start to get up earlier, well, then they're going to get up earlier with us because we're getting up.
00:09:51
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and then Pat always says that the dog, like, he's pretty on schedule too for his his daily 10 a.m.
00:10:03
Speaker
walkie walkies. ah Yeah. yeah Yep. Control yourself. Well,
00:10:13
Speaker
You're gonna get kicked out.
00:10:17
Speaker
I want to scream the tagline and they say on Small Town Murder. Shut up and give me murder. yeah I'm saying it to Gordo. He looks so mad right now.
00:10:32
Speaker
Pardon me. He's like all puffed up, but he's like pulled his chin in, so he's just like... I just saw his tail flick best. yeah Yeah.
00:10:46
Speaker
Buddy, you look so upset. you wish the internet people could see how how mad you are? you had some somebody there like, oh poor baby.
00:10:58
Speaker
Yes, with our patron with your generous Patreon funds, we'll have to buy a cat cam if we can. Wow, say that three times fast. I will. just start setting up my my phone and be like, this is the live Gordo feed while we record.
00:11:14
Speaker
i know, right? We should definitely... I'm always like, I'm going to use my pet to make me Instagram famous and then the ah podcast page will go. I'll set up a separate email address um and it'll be Gordo's email.
00:11:29
Speaker
And then when we're recording, we can invite Gordo to...
The Soham Murders Investigation
00:11:35
Speaker
And he can just be no audio, video only and he it can just be the Gordo feeds You can see what he's doing putting forth all the time How he's reacting As you read your story sometimes and Oh yes yes yes Not just a regular pet cam or whatever Because yeah people will definitely watch their Pets doing ridiculous things Yeah oh Nice Another pipe dream Just kidding Yeah
00:12:04
Speaker
well That's a goal. Anyway. Getting into our cases.
00:12:16
Speaker
I'm jotting it down. Cat cam. Yeah. Get something.
00:12:25
Speaker
He's ready. Okay.
00:12:28
Speaker
ah I chose for mine a case that's known as the Soham murders which I think I had told you about. Yeah.
00:12:40
Speaker
I don't know.
00:12:44
Speaker
Don't think I knew it.
00:12:47
Speaker
I hadn't heard of this before ah but it came up it has to do with oh my god i can't remember now.
00:12:57
Speaker
is it and entomology the ant uh bugs uh yes i mean i believe so yeah yeah oh that's a good way to read the one the one that sounds more like ant that's a good way to remember it i guess okay sorry um i guess this one isn't really bug sorry it's plants but uh Yeah, like that kind of thing. That's how it plays into like the forensic evidence that they used.
00:13:29
Speaker
It's kind of interesting. so Cool. ah This was the bodies. It's really sad. It's two kids that were found.
00:13:43
Speaker
Yeah, really young. They're 10 years old. ah The bodies of Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells. Yeah. That's young.
00:13:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:58
Speaker
Yeah, this one really rocked the Cambridgeshire village in, where is this? It's in England.
00:14:09
Speaker
Oh, God. One of those, yeah, shire, sheer places. Cambridgeshire? Yeah. I don't know. Okay. And their bodies were found on August 17, 2002.
00:14:22
Speaker
And again, the girls were only 10 years old. And they had been obviously like school students. And the girls at this point had been missing for two weeks when their bodies were finally found in an irrigation ditch that was near an air base in Lakenheath, Suffolk, which was about 10 miles east of Soham.
00:14:47
Speaker
and what What year was it again? I've already. Sorry. 2002. Okay. Yeah. That's rough. ah okay vettten so yeah
00:15:00
Speaker
rough
00:15:02
Speaker
Yeah, and they're like there's such sweet girls. if you I'll tell you when to look at the picture. Not yet. Okay.
00:15:15
Speaker
Because it's going to be pretty like sad, I guess. The picture is most commonly used. It kind of has sad like um context for it, I guess.
00:15:33
Speaker
um It's all sounding pretty sad so far. I'm not gonna lie. It's just sad on sad on sad. It's a sad sandwich. ah Yeah, just like not even missing girls. They're already, bam, dead. i was like, oh, okay. Yeah, I'm just gonna, I was like, oh, I can't start with like you learning about the girls and then I kill them. No, they they got me dead from the beginning.
00:15:57
Speaker
I'm sorry. I gotta lead with them. I gotta lead with them being dead already. Oh. That's tough. Like, wow. Do they just go missing after school one day though? Or do we know?
00:16:10
Speaker
ah We know this one, thankfully, not unsolved. ah We know i know who did it. Forensics. Yeah, because of the forensics.
00:16:20
Speaker
Well, on Forensics Files, they always get their man. Forensic Files. Yeah, I don't know if this one was ever on Forensic Files. I don't remember it, but i I haven't seen all the episodes, so maybe Oh, yeah, there's so many.
00:16:34
Speaker
Yeah, hundreds. From Guardian website, ah they had really... cool actually it was an interview with the botanist that was really important to the case ah her name is Patricia Wiltshire this is all like quotes and everything sorry a lot of shires she's talking about the case and this was like a Guardian article it said that she used her knowledge of stinging nettles to help the police in the case Wiltshire
00:17:16
Speaker
I have no... Oh boy. I don't... can't. I'll pull an expert. All I can think of is paleontologist now. Yeah, it's like paleynologist.
00:17:31
Speaker
Paleynologist. But a pollen expert. Oh, weird. Weird. Yeah, she described her interest as ah finally finding her niche when she...
00:17:47
Speaker
I guess maybe she had a hard time like finding something she was interested in or good at. So she felt like she really settled into this.
00:17:59
Speaker
Super niche. like I love Paul. I was like, oh, she she probably definitely doesn't have asthma. Right. All the allergies. Yeah.
00:18:12
Speaker
Yeah. She explained that in some cases, a small amount of evidence such as trace, so or such as a trace of pollen can help lead to the identification of the types of plants that grow in that area.
00:18:26
Speaker
um i had heard of that before. they use that to like determine like bodies of water that a victim might have come from or that kind of stuff.
00:18:41
Speaker
It's crazy what they can find from like trace... amounts of things on the clothing and whatnot yeah yeah uh the article continued saying that this information can help you work out the climate and geology and enable you to eliminate places where the crime could have taken place or where it may not have like taken place yeah she said quote very often when you're looking for bodies for example i'll say to the police it's this sort of place but it's in the north of england and then the local ecologist will say i know that like i know a place like that um so it helps like narrow down uh sometimes the areas that they need to search yes sorry yeah
00:19:32
Speaker
a she said other cases you're observing the scene um so like you know the scene of the crime and you're looking there for clues um these ones she says like the perpetrator someone who has committed a crime has left their mark on that place and it may be very very subtle so you're looking for little impressions impressions in leaves or little broken twigs right that makes sense yeah In the case of Chapman and Wells, Wiltshire was consulted to help helped determine the path that was taken by the murderer, because the ditch that the girls were found in ah was just covered in stinging nettles and other vegetation, and the police couldn't actually even really get at the bodies, I guess, like,
00:20:23
Speaker
I think something saw it was almost waist high, like the plants and everything and like sharp plants and tangled and their bodies were like shoved through it. So yeah, they didn't really know how they would have gotten in there or how best to get at them or where they had been like placed from because it was a huge ditch.
00:20:50
Speaker
so Yeah, and like stinging nettles don't sound good. Yeah, I don't really know anything about them, but yeah, based on their name, i don't think they're fun. Right?
00:21:01
Speaker
It's just like, and then they're found in a pile of poison ivy. You're like, oh, okay, cool. So that must have got on someone. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, literally, it's my next sentence where she says, quote, it was decided that when the girls were found, I would be the first to go into the ditch because I'd be looking for these little clues and that the nettles were chest high.
00:21:23
Speaker
like, that's really deep. Wow. Yeah.
00:21:30
Speaker
I wouldn't want to do it. She noted. wouldn't. Like, in my head, I kept picturing, you know, the fishermen who kind of go in the Oh, the waders?
00:21:42
Speaker
Yeah, the ones that have those crazy overalls that just come up super high. It's all waterproof. And you just see them like walking through the water and they're like, I'm fishing. And you're like, okay.
00:21:54
Speaker
and I'd be like, give something like that. Something protective. I mean, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. It's like every horror movie, don't go in the tall grass! I mean, it's just a given. It's a scary place. And then all that crap too, like, no thanks.
00:22:17
Speaker
Yeah. So Wilt Chire noted that the nettles appeared to have been trodden on and had then regrown since the murder had been there.
00:22:28
Speaker
Like, the bodies had been disposed of. Right, makes sense. and Also a good word, trodden. Yeah. I should say that more in Canada.
00:22:40
Speaker
Yeah. ah The disruption allowed her to deduce how long it had been since the girls' bodies had been left there. What the deduce?
00:22:53
Speaker
Sorry. What the deduce? I was like, ooh, Sherlock Holmes word. I deduce. Oh, yeah. Yeah. ah So she knew a lot about nettles.
00:23:07
Speaker
In the article, she said, i can i keep nettles in the garden for butterflies. And I looked at the little side shoots and I thought this has taken about two weeks to grow or like regrow since it was walked on.
00:23:22
Speaker
Okay. Which seems like cool tracking skills. Yeah. Yeah. i was just going to say, isn't that what trackers do? They can kind of like notice the break off patterns in plants and then be like, oh, that didn't occur naturally. And then they'll be like, oh, there's drops of blood.
00:23:38
Speaker
And it's like, that's so tiny. How did you see that in the whole forest of everything? Right. And it's just so cool to being able to know like your, and your actual environment, your environment.
00:23:51
Speaker
like what ah my green witch book telling me to know what plants are like grow in your area. And i was reading something with the, it was the first female winner of alone. And she was like, like, i don't even like the word survivalist, but you know, it's good to like, she loves being able to teach this and share her knowledge and stuff. And it was really cool. I was like, Oh, that's nice.
00:24:13
Speaker
Yeah. Like just having the the knowledge. Yeah. Of the nature. Yeah.
00:24:23
Speaker
So with this knowledge, like seeing where the plants had been broken off and that it had been taken about about two weeks to regrow. This allowed her to lead police exactly to where the suspect would have entered the ditch, which allowed them to be more focused in their search for evidence instead of just having to through the entire ditch. They could really be like, yeah this is our starting point. This is where we need to focus our energy first.
00:24:52
Speaker
be trampling. Because this will be the most important. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because they could be destroying evidence if they say like started from one side and just worked their way down or something. They're going be trodding all over everything.
00:25:05
Speaker
Trodding all over the place.
00:25:10
Speaker
Wilt Shire even found some of Jessica's hair on a twig there, which was catalogued. down I think the last quote I have from Wilt Shire, the and botanist was saying quote there's a satisfaction that you've solved a puzzle she said and i wanted to mention that uh she has her own experience of losing her daughter think this would be like sian as a toddler and she said that this allows her to feel more
00:25:47
Speaker
connected and really empathize with the families in a unique way when she's like helping police especially i think involving cases with kids i i don't think her daughter was killed or anything like that i think she just passed away from something but yeah still has like that empathy when you're seeing parents that like you're now having to tell them that like they've lost a child now too Going through the worst the one the worst thing a pair can
Community and Police Efforts in the Soham Case
00:26:19
Speaker
go through. Yeah.
00:26:21
Speaker
Yeah, I think it gives you a different type of motivation to help investigate. Damn. um So going back to the case itself um the girls were described as best friends and they had gone missing after attending a barbecue at the well uh holly wells home okay must have been like a huge like neighborhood barbecue or something i don't really know much about that but at about 6 15 they had
00:27:00
Speaker
or Yeah, about 6 or 6.15, they had gone upstairs andered playing and playing in Holly's bedroom. And then they, at some point, quickly after that, had decided to leave the house.
00:27:16
Speaker
And they wanted to go get some sweets. And, like, candy. And kind of the closest place, I guess, to do that would be a vending machine at a local sports center.
00:27:30
Speaker
um So I don't know if they did this, like, often. But... They didn't end up telling anybody that they were leaving.
00:27:41
Speaker
And their parents believed that they were still playing together in Holly's bedroom. Oh, no. Because they were, I guess, outside, still, like, with the barbecue and everybody else.
00:27:56
Speaker
um And it was only when their parents went to check in on them at about 8 o'clock or so that they realized, like, that the girls were missing. And they didn't know where they were. my God.
00:28:09
Speaker
Yeah. Devastating. Right. Local police were immediately notified. Like, I think it was... um what the wells family that realized first because it's their house um when the chapmans like went to leave and were like oh yeah like we'll just get jessica and we'll go and then it was like oh like okay well they're just in the room playing and then they go to go upstairs and it's like well they're not there so
00:28:41
Speaker
Dang. Yeah. Once they figure out they're not at either of the girls' houses, the police are notified and the town of Soham came together to help really try searching for them like immediately.
00:28:56
Speaker
um There ended up being over 400 police officers assigned full-time the case to search for the girls. And they started kind of canvassing all the houses ah canvassing the neighborhood, going house to house, conducting like a search all across the town.
00:29:24
Speaker
That is crazy. That is such a crime of opportunity if they just left, up and left, and nobody even knew. yeah
00:29:36
Speaker
That part's a little confusing. Like, i i don't really know. There's a few different versions of what happened, but honestly, all of them are just as likely as the other. i I don't know if we'll ever for sure know.
00:29:54
Speaker
Right. But um hundreds of local volunteers also joined the search along with like 400 police officers. And later there ended up even being some ah local American Air Force personnel who were stationed nearby that assisted as well. Wow.
00:30:14
Speaker
They went all out. Yeah, I mean, they're two, like, 10-year-old girls. right That's so sad.
00:30:25
Speaker
So, um this comes to the the picture that's most associated with the case because a photograph of the girl's taken just two hours before they disappeared after they had changed into matching Manchester United football shirts um was released along with their along with their descriptions um yeah it's not so often you have a pitcher so so soon to when they would go missing and wearing the exact same clothes and everything so that's the the pitcher on the drive um
00:31:05
Speaker
And, yeah. I don't, okay. It's gonna break my heart.
00:31:12
Speaker
But I'll look at it. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I think it's like a little Polaroid or something, but maybe a digital camera.
00:31:27
Speaker
Uh... The parents of both of the girls stated that their daughters ah had been wary of talking to strangers and had always been warned not to trust people they didn't know from an early childhood.
00:31:39
Speaker
But I don't know how big of a, how big like SOHAM is. So, I mean, if you've kind of still grown up with almost everybody, you kind of inherently trust everybody.
00:31:52
Speaker
Don't really know how. helpful that is saying like don't talk to strangers or don't talk to people you haven't known your whole life because they can still do stuff to you yeah a better one I've heard people say recently um to young kids is that um something about like you know adults will never need your help like that's a good one yeah I think because then even someone they know but they're like You know, trying to ask them for help, like, in a weird way that's going to lure them. I don't know. it could That could be helpful.
00:32:29
Speaker
That is a really good distinction, actually. Yeah, I think I heard them say it on Sinisterhood. lost my dog. Can you help me find my dog? Well, course you're going to say yes.
00:32:43
Speaker
Yeah, it seems innocent. It's a dog. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, exactly. An adult is never going to need a child's help finding something. we're doing Yeah, there's always a better solution. So it's ah it's ah it's a red flag, I guess. Yeah.
00:32:58
Speaker
Yeah, so I like that one. I should maybe say it on the on the main pod more often. But we don't talk about a lot of kids' cases because they're horribly hard to cover.
00:33:10
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. um
00:33:16
Speaker
As I think happens in almost any time something's involving a child... ah Police also begin investigating every registered sex offender or pedophile in the surrounding areas and towns.
00:33:29
Speaker
had the Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. I think I ran across something saying that they had like investigated and then ruled out 260 pedophiles. And I was like, oh my god, what's going on, England?
00:33:46
Speaker
ah uh depends how they classify them yeah yeah and it was like how much of the surrounding area was it like how far did they go but i was like that just seemed shockingly high but i don't know the population of soham or whatever and were they on the list because of like they peed in public and got indecent exposure or because they actually like molested a child or something yeah yeah there's definitely different levels Yeah, but so um not Sinister Head.
00:34:18
Speaker
This is why Rain told me the other day, drink every time mom mentions a new podcast. No. ah Different podcasts. But you're wrong about, they have a good episode about ah yeah the, yeah, I don't know, what do you call it? the Not the pedophilia one.
00:34:38
Speaker
But you know, like the where you you could put on the list, the sexual... offender registry or whatever like yeah talks all about it and how it's kind of fucked up and he's like I'm not saying like you know mean it's like it's not obviously not advocating for anyone to be a pedo but it's like apparently it's you know how you know it's the states it's their jail system and it's fucked up well even here like My brother, i don't know if he still works with the guy, but he got listed as a sex offender um because him and his girlfriend had been, they had been at that point together for, like, years.
00:35:20
Speaker
But they had both, like, from... I don't know, 13 or 14, like kind of just been together all the way through. But her, I think he was like a year, year and a half older than her or something. Oh my gosh. And hardly so like, but at that point they had been together years, like whatever.
00:35:41
Speaker
But they got in argument or something and her parents got mad at a boyfriend for some reason. So they called and reported him and said he was having sex with their underage daughter. And it's like, but they've been in a consensual relationship for like four years at that point. And he had reached the age of consent and she hadn't? Yeah.
00:36:05
Speaker
yep and it's like oh my god so he got listed and they're still together it had been like how many years and they had still been together but they had cut off all ties from her family they were both so mad about it but yeah because when he joined the job he had to like tell them all hey like just so you know and this is the story and it's like my brother told me that and i was like wow like that's I didn't think that would be possible if, like, you had been together for years up into that point.
00:36:35
Speaker
Like, that should be possible. No, there should be some sort of investigation if it's Yeah....up-up-board, consensual relationship between two teenagers. Like...
00:36:47
Speaker
Yeah, that like started when both of you were underage and has been over years. Like, yeah, it was so bizarre to me. And they're like, yeah. Fucked up exes, man. They will do crazy shit.
00:36:59
Speaker
And their parents, obviously. yeah like Yeah. Sorry, I was thinking. and every time they move or anything like that because like they were new to the city so he had to tell everybody and they went like him and the girlfriend went and were like this is the whole story like yes i'm on a sex offender list like this is literally my girlfriend of 10 plus years Yeah. Like... No, this sounds yeah actually like how... Yeah, just bizarre to me.
00:37:26
Speaker
That sounds like how my brother ended up actually with it. It's Patreon, so I can talk about it on here. But he... Like, he his girlfriend got mad at him, and then he had been... had, like, pot plants in his room that he would grow and, like, you know, sell a few people of his friends and stuff, right? But she, like, called the cops and said that he was, like, dealing, and that was enough to, like, get him charged and...
00:37:52
Speaker
Literally put in jail. it's just like, oh my god. It's literally like he's not some big like yeah drug dealer. he had like couple of plants in his closet or something. not fucking Walter White and over in his basement. Yeah.
00:38:06
Speaker
Yeah. And so it's been really rough. for Yeah. For him too. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. um Yeah, but they, I guess, all got investigated and cleared.
00:38:17
Speaker
um And the what's interesting, too, is the last known footage of the girls um was found. They had figured out, which I think really helped with the timeline.
00:38:31
Speaker
ah It was released to the public on August 8th. And it was footage of them arriving at that local sports center at six twenty eight um to get to that vending machine and then them like leaving okay so they at least so they saw them leave it okay yeah they saw them leave the sports center um so they're like back on the street um presumably walking home to the Wells house, um the girls had also been spotted by several people walking or driving by who saw them walking arm in arm and noted it because they were like skipping, they were holding hands and um ah people were like honking and like waving at them because they were wearing their matching Manchester United shirts. Oh my god.
00:39:21
Speaker
just dig yeah the in a little deeper why don't you so people really it wasn't just like glancing thing it was like oh my god you guys look so cute like looking matching outfits so it really stuck out in people's minds when they're like these are the clothes you were wearing they were wearing it's like oh yeah i saw them um a lot of people came forward and said that they had seen them walking down the street yeah um Yeah.
00:39:48
Speaker
Getting into details about it doesn't really talk about autopsies too much, but um it looked like when their bodies were found that their bodies had been burned or tried to be burned.
00:40:05
Speaker
ah And they were in an advanced state date of decomposition because, again, they had been at this point missing for two weeks. Oh, yeah. So it's probably killed right away.
00:40:17
Speaker
Yeah, that's the belief. ah The coroner ruled that they had likely died from asphyxiation and being strangled. ah But again, it couldn't be confirmed because of the burning and the decomposition. so Yeah, which is what they obviously were going for.
00:40:37
Speaker
the killer.
00:40:40
Speaker
I
00:40:43
Speaker
have a lot of information from BBC.
00:40:49
Speaker
BBC one, BBC two. Yeah, this part was a little confusing to me. I tried to figure it out the best I could. I was like, what's going on? Oh. um So, like, during the time of the searches, when the girls were missing, ah local people were being interviewed and kind of like pleading with them being like if you have any information come forward and that kind of stuff but there was somebody that was sticking out uh in some of these interviews that they were giving to press and journalists that started to become somewhat suspicious
00:41:32
Speaker
and that was a gentleman by the name of ian huntley was 48 and ah Be, be suspicious, be, be suspicious.
Ian Huntley's Suspicious Activities
00:41:41
Speaker
He is, and good thing he was, because yeah I don't know if we'd necessarily know otherwise.
00:41:51
Speaker
um His answers to some questions were maybe a little too specific, strange, and maybe his interest in the case was coming off as somewhat unusual,
00:42:05
Speaker
um yeah he did have a bit of a connection to the girls him and his girlfriend were seen in interviews appealing for the girls to be found ah they had hung a missing poster in their window like their big window um that I think like most people in the area had and he had claimed to have ah had a brief conversation with the girls when they showed up ah walking past his house but he said they showed up on his doorstep yeah um but that they appeared happy during the brief interaction that he had had with them minutes before they disappeared oh and he just volunteered that information weird
00:42:53
Speaker
ah Yeah, I think so. i Police conducted a search of his home. They noted that clothes that were hanging outside on the line to dry were there even though it had been raining. um So it's like, why hang up clothes to dry when it's going rain?
00:43:11
Speaker
But. ah There had also, it looked like most of the house had been thoroughly cleaned, especially in the dining room, which he had claimed was due to a flood that had happened.
00:43:27
Speaker
Yeah. flood. Okay. Yeah. A neighbor of Carr, sorry, his girlfriend's name, shoot, what's her name? Maxine Carr.
00:43:40
Speaker
um she was a teaching assistant at the girls primary school so like she knew the girls his girlfriend did because she's their teaching assistant our teacher like so she knows the girls so he had maybe at some point is he's like going to pick up the girlfriend from her job or something maybe he had seen the girls it's not really talked about um
00:44:10
Speaker
And yeah, um so his girlfriend Maxine Carr, a neighbor of Carr's mother, ah told police that on the 6th, that when Huntley came to pick Carr up from her mother's, because she had been staying at her mom's during that time, ah that the pair had stood with their trunk open, like Huntley's trunk open, and Huntley appeared pale and shaking While Carr was standing, crying with her head down, looking into the trunk.
00:44:44
Speaker
And this is in their drive, the driveway. The girlfriend ma girlfriend's mom. so Yeah, so weird. ah Once they realized that they were being watched by the neighbor, Huntley slammed the trunk down and they drove away.
00:45:00
Speaker
So I'm not pointing out. Yeah. Go pick a up your girlfriend with like what bodies in the trunk. I hate that.
00:45:12
Speaker
But it does make sense for what they find later. Unfortunately. um In one interview where they were like just talking to him and he was talking about like the girls being missing I guess, he's for some reason decided to give a detailed account ah when he was asked about how the girls might react to a stranger.
00:45:36
Speaker
Huntley, who barely knew the girls, supposedly, jumped in to answer the question ah that the interview Mr. Farmer had posed to his girlfriend, Maxine Carr, the one who knew the girls, because she's the girl's teaching assistant,
00:45:53
Speaker
uh about stranger danger and like how would they react if approached by a stranger and uh he kind of talks over her and said that he thought holly would probably get in the car and go and quietly go but jessica wouldn't and that she would put up a real fight and a real struggle which is gross how about you say nothing he that's just so oddly specific Right? as if As if you know them very well, in fact. Or or know the know what happened or how they acted. when they yeah
00:46:29
Speaker
Yeah, so like maybe that's exactly how it happened. Again, we don't know. he does have like a few other things he says where it's like, is that how it happened? Because he's never really talked much about Yeah.
00:46:43
Speaker
So Carr, his girlfriend, originally claimed that they had been together at home in Soham. um The evening the girls disappeared. But later she ended up finally telling police that she was actually at, I put, at her home in North Lincolnshire.
00:46:58
Speaker
Another Lincolnshire.
00:47:02
Speaker
um But I think at a different, sort model sorry, other sources said this was her mom's house. Okay. And this one ah was on August 4th. So she hadn't been there.
00:47:13
Speaker
I think it was maybe a weekend or something that this happened. So it's like had gone to stay at her mom's for the weekend or something. And this is when happened. a press photograph of Huntley's car showed that two new tires had been installed.
00:47:29
Speaker
And when they tracked down the old ones, they found evidence that linked the car to the area that the girl's bodies had been found. Aha. is a by a military base so like why are you going to a ditch by a military base you don't need to be there here's the forensic files narration now and they found microscopic granules they found the fucking pollen pollen in the nettles um they find some other stuff uh oh they'd call the episode pollen angels
00:48:09
Speaker
Oh my god, no! oh That's the name of a meadery that mom buys me from in Brunswick.
00:48:20
Speaker
I'm sorry. ah A cover from the rear seat was missing and the lining of the boot or trunk ah had recently been removed and replaced with an ill-fitting section of household carpet.
00:48:37
Speaker
Oh! Let me re-carpet my trunk with office carpet. like I can't remember where I heard this. Was this on this pod or a different one where somebody would like repainted their car but with house paint?
00:48:52
Speaker
Maybe it was one of my cases. They just tried to use like red house paint or something to like redo their car. I don't think I've ever heard that. so I think it might be something else you heard it from.
00:49:06
Speaker
Okay, okay, maybe it wasn't something that like we talked about on here, but I was like, bro.
00:49:15
Speaker
oh man. I know they do that with like hit and runs. If somebody, especially a cyclist or anything like that, they can normally tell if you hit like a bicycle for the paint transfer and stuff.
00:49:26
Speaker
but like Yeah, it was something like that. And the mechanic remembered. Like, yeah. something about how the paint wasn't really for cars. It was just like, that is so crazy.
00:49:39
Speaker
anyway Yeah, i remember one Forensic Files episode that said there was like such good paint transfer. It had like four level layers of paint ah because the person's lawyer was like trying to say, oh, well, there's so many of like whatever vehicle manufactured.
00:49:55
Speaker
Yeah, that they were like, okay, well, let's go back to the last four layers of paint jobs. They're like, this one was orange. Let's match that with the... That's different.
00:50:07
Speaker
The thing, and they match they color matched the last four previous colors of the vehicle. And you're like, and here's order that they happened in and everything. And they're like, yeah, so this is definitely your vehicle. Because how many of these cars with these four layers of paint jobs do you think are driving around this city?
00:50:25
Speaker
ah that's pretty good. Yeah. Good evidence. Yeah, it was like, this is wild. Right. So hard. Yeah. ah Yeah, so, yeah, they replaced the trunk with ill-fitting household carpet. So that's why I kind of believe that story that the neighbor said that they saw them crying over the trunk and that's how they transported the Would they be any more obvious?
00:50:54
Speaker
Yeah. um Yeah, because if they did do something to the trunk, it sounds like something happened to it. So does make sense. Um, Wilt Shire, the botanist, was able to prove that pollen found on Huntley's shoes and in his car exactly matched the type found at the scene.
00:51:16
Speaker
that put him at the scene.
00:51:20
Speaker
She said, quote, the plants helped because Huntley had put the girls' clothing into a bin and tried to burn them back at the school. And lo and behold, it was covered in little bits of e in sorry little bits of vegetation from where the girls had been laid.
00:51:36
Speaker
Wow. So just like all this cross-contamination that's happening that can now be like just... tying everything back to each of the scenes um that had can you imagine she gets back you said she was at her mother's like when this happened yeah apparently and then he goes to pick her up supposedly with the girl's bodies in the trunk because the witness that sees them crying over the trunk
00:52:08
Speaker
is that her mother... is her mother's neighbor. It's not even the neighbor at their house. It's the neighbor of the mom in a different city. Oh, God, right. That's, like, they're standing over their trunk crying.
00:52:20
Speaker
Like... And she's like, what the fuck did you just bring here? to go pick you up from saying... Yeah, that's why I'm, like... I didn't believe that until I saw the thing where they said, oh yeah, they pulled out the trunk lining and like put carpet in.
00:52:38
Speaker
And I was like, oh, okay. Like I can, I can believe the person's ah like statement now. and Yeah, that totally implicates the girlfriend too. Crazy.
00:52:54
Speaker
And that's been a whole part of this, too. People are really after her because it's like, she doesn't. Yeah, we'll get to what they get charged with. um So Wiltshire, the botanist, she goes, continues saying, I found pollen grains and spores that were characteristic of that site.
00:53:15
Speaker
And I checked other sites and they were not characteristic of those sites. And one always has to eliminate. And there are many, many markers in terms of pollen grains and spores on Huntley's shoes and his vehicle that perly that firmly put him in that place, not just once, but twice because he was going back to check on things.
00:53:37
Speaker
So he had gone there a different time. Oh my God, this guy sucks. Good ditch. So much. It was a little confusing in the case too because a lot of sources, especially when this was first being investigated and reported on, said that Ian Huntley also was a caretaker at the girls' school.
00:54:03
Speaker
But he wasn't a caretaker at the girls' school. He was a caretaker at Soham Village College. um And his girlfriend is the one that worked with the girls at the school.
00:54:14
Speaker
Right.
00:54:16
Speaker
But is very interesting how he had been able to get a job working with children or even underage people because he ah had a history of complaints of rape and underage sex, which had been made against him to police ah in nearby Humber side ah where he had worked before.
00:54:39
Speaker
So it was like in a different jurisdiction. um so he had a history of this he shouldn't have ever been able to work at even a college like with doctors or priests that just get pushed around when they get caught doing shit they shouldn't be doing and then they just push the problem onto someone else it's so fucked up yep instead of dealing with it yeah Yeah.
00:55:08
Speaker
I found it really interesting, too, because remember, these girls are 10, and this is 2002. But apparently Jessica had a phone, like a mobile phone. Yeah, I'm like, that is so early.
00:55:22
Speaker
i had my first, like, cell phone, I think, in 2004, and I was the only person my age in almost my entire grade with a cell phone.
00:55:33
Speaker
Like... yeah I mean where are you going to go? Two years before that. ah Right. It's kind of wild. And parents that grew up in the 70s and 80s. They're like well we ran free. They'll be okay. yeah don't always need to know where they are.
00:55:53
Speaker
yeah Yeah my brother had to carry a roll of change. And use pay phones. Anytime they were going anywhere else. He just had to call my mom on the pay phone. Oh there you go.
00:56:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, i had a cell phone before my, um, almost ah about the same time my mom did. Like, my brother had a cell phone first, and then, uh, my brother got a new phone, so I got his old phone.
00:56:23
Speaker
And then because I had a cell phone, my mom's like, I should get a phone. So then my mom finally got a phone when I got a phone, but my brother had got a phone phone first. Uh, Everybody's playing snakes. She's like, that looks fun.
00:56:36
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, so ah they also had Jessica's phone, which had had a last, sorry, last had a signal around the area of Huntley's home at about 6.46 p.m. before it was turned off.
00:56:56
Speaker
Yeah. And fibers from the girl's clothing were also found in, I think this was like around his home area, like outside his house.
00:57:10
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah, and if you remember, the last known footage of the girl showed them leaving the sports center after going to that vending machine 6.28. So later.
00:57:23
Speaker
this is not even twenty minutes later
00:57:28
Speaker
ah We also know that Wells and Chapman would have to walk past Huntley's house on their way to get to the Sports Center um from the um Wells house.
00:57:42
Speaker
So they were walking past it. Yeah. Okay. Okay. It's believed that he likely lured them into the house in, like, kind of multitude of different ways.
00:57:53
Speaker
Some believe that he told the girls that their teaching assistant, his girlfriend, Maxine Carr, was inside um and, like, lied about that'd be my first thought. Hey, come say hi. Yeah, I kind of believe that one.
00:58:08
Speaker
Yeah, she baked you cookies or something. the Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. um In later testimony, I guess, Huntley said that he had been outside washing his dog when the girls passed by around 630 and that one of the girls had had a mild nosebleed and he had like brought them inside to help her stop it.
00:58:32
Speaker
Someone saw that?
00:58:35
Speaker
No, that's what he's saying later when he's like being interrogated by police. He says, oh yeah, it's like they were walking past him. Because Nosebley conveniently explains blood.
00:58:49
Speaker
probably. Actually, that's a very good point. Okay, just go. Go, please. Yes, just go, Gordo. Gordo. That's what we should have called you. Sorry.
00:59:03
Speaker
Sorry.
00:59:06
Speaker
So Ian Huntley, he's... Gordo? Okay, just get out. Go. I'm gonna pick you up by the scratch of your neck.
00:59:21
Speaker
Throw him over to the bar. Cut off. You scratch the carpet one more time. Oh, Fenrir was doing that earlier. i was like, oh, he came upstairs. I couldn't hear him.
00:59:32
Speaker
Yeah. ah All right. So Ian Huntley, he was, i don't know when he was arrested or anything, but he was convicted of the murders of Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells on December 17th
Legal Repercussions and Huntley's Conviction
00:59:48
Speaker
2003.
00:59:48
Speaker
And he was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 40 years. And Maxine Carr, his girlfriend, was also jailed in 2003 after being found guilty of conspiring to pervert the course of justice um for providing Huntley with a false alibi. Because remember, she said she were they were originally at home together that weekend, and then she changed. It was like, actually, I wasn't even there. I was at my mom's house.
01:00:18
Speaker
Yeah, totally aiding and abetting. Yeah, so she lied. um She was sentenced to three and a half years, um but she was never charged with, like, disposal of corpse.
01:00:31
Speaker
Anything like that? Hard to prove, I guess. Yeah. That's my thought, anyway.
01:00:42
Speaker
Other than the false alibi, which I think sucks, because people are really after her. They're like, she had to know. Like, had to. Yeah. Go home. And then he also was like, we had a flood. um Help me bleach the whole dining room.
01:00:58
Speaker
Like, oh, cool. um She'd have to be straight up stupid. Yeah. It's crazy.
01:01:09
Speaker
For kind of like the aftermath. um You would appreciate this. I got information from the website, the Scottish Farmer. thought you'd be random i was like i've never heard of this site before was a scottish publication i think it was like a little blog or something i can't remember a but they had a bit of information and
01:01:42
Speaker
i was gonna say that i liked but i don't like this information ah it's terrible information huntley remains behind bars at hmp franklin in durham and while in prison he faced oh i like this part he faced a series of attacks from other prisoners i always like that uh health problems i mean nobody likes don't like this as much but um suicide attempts he has done a few i guess um
01:02:14
Speaker
That tracks. And, yeah, ah while in prison, Huntley confessed to sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl that he dragged into an orchard in 1997. Oh, boy.
01:02:28
Speaker
I bet he's getting sexually assaulted in there. i can only hope. I hope he's dropping the soap every five minutes. I don't want relishing.
01:02:39
Speaker
boy. but Yeah, it's likely. i yeah You know what? I see hi don't believe in... um You know how they do, like, separation? Like, they keep people safe.
01:02:56
Speaker
Oh, yeah. like Like, pedophiles and that kind of stuff. They will have you, like, in solitary, whatever, and keep you safe because other inmates will kill you.
01:03:07
Speaker
let them kill them. Or high security ward. Let that be a deterrent. Just put them all on the... Oh, I'm sure there's like a movie where they just all get thrown on an island and maybe it stars Steve Austin and they all just have to kill each other. probably, Plus all the convents. Yeah.
01:03:25
Speaker
That's what Kelsey wants. Or the the Arrested Development where... I just don't... I don't believe people should be spending taxpayer money and stuff.
01:03:37
Speaker
to keep people separated because your crime is of a specific kind you did that crime you got sent to prison fucking deal with it like specifically for like child rapists and murderers i can definitely get behind that yeah ah but i do i was thinking of on arrested development when the the two grandkids are talking about how, you know, Lucille Bluth says, put all the rapists and murderers on an island and they can all kill each other and there'll be one rap rapist and one murderer left.
01:04:12
Speaker
It's so specific. I don't know. Something like that.
01:04:20
Speaker
Or you'll end up with a murdering rapist at the end. yeah like, I forget how the last two go out, but it's great.
01:04:31
Speaker
like yeah Oh, man. ah Yeah. Don't piss us off Canadians. Yeah. ah They noted that Huntley is not eligible for parole until 2042, which is not far enough away now.
01:04:49
Speaker
It's less than 20 years from now, when he will be 68 years old. And it will be denied. I hope. I hope.
01:05:00
Speaker
I mean, he has a history. Now, while in prison, he's confessed to this other one. So, like. It wasn't a one-time thing. He had had a history. had the other complaints of rape and underage sex that had happened before that the police were aware of.
01:05:20
Speaker
Yeah, no, that doesn't seem like a first-time kind of thing. No, and now he's escalated to murder. like definitely should never get out. um I think the last, yeah, the rest of this is all from...
01:05:36
Speaker
BBC. They said an inquiry revealed that it was unclear if any background had ever been compiled on Huntley before the murders in Cambridgeshire. it also revealed that the Humber side's record keeping was so poor that even if they had ever made a request for information, it ah would have most likely been negative.
01:05:59
Speaker
So they not only found that Cambridgeshire... didn't try and do a background check before letting him work at the college that Humber side also was not keeping accurate record keeping that even if they had made a request for information, it probably wouldn't have been accurate.
01:06:18
Speaker
Yeah, so there's big problem in system. Yeah, I think it was probably pretty common in the US until a certain point um when like in England, a national police database was recommended after this inquiry.
01:06:35
Speaker
which has now been put in place, I guess. The subsequent... Oh, no, this says bitchered. It's like Richard, but it's a B. The subsequent bitchered inquiry report heavily criticized police failings and led to the creation of the Independent Safeguarding Authority, ah now a part of the Disclosure and Barring Service.
01:07:03
Speaker
A key recommendation was a police national database to ensure convicts and suspects could not hide across county borders. It was launched in 2011 to combine intelligences from 43 forces in England and Wales and data from 150 computer systems.
01:07:25
Speaker
So that's really, really good. I think that this case helped with that. Yeah. I think access to information is always a better thing when it comes to police than not, like, by way of, like, criminal backgrounds.
01:07:43
Speaker
Like, having access to that kind of information is always a better thing. Oh, for sure. And the creation of the database was described by the parents of Holly and Jessica as a defining moment um in the...
01:07:57
Speaker
to mark the passing of their daughters. ah Cheryl and Les Chapman, Jessica's parents, said, quote, we hope the database's use will mean other families don't suffer the same loss and heartbreak we did.
01:08:13
Speaker
And the case also led to the strengthening of legislation to protect children, including compulsory criminal background checks on people who applied to work with them.
01:08:25
Speaker
Which is good. Yeah, i had to do a police background check just to work in registries. Yeah, so did i i I. had to do one because um I think a lot of jobs require them nowadays, which um is good and bad. I mean, it does hurt some people if you can't afford them because a lot of times there could be a charge for it. but Oh, yeah, the company should have to pay. yeah so Yeah, I think a lot of times you get, like, reimbursed for it or something stupid. um
01:08:59
Speaker
Yeah. I wish there was, like, that could be better ah streamlined or whatever. But, a yeah, got to protect, like, people that are working closely with kids.
01:09:18
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's my case. It was...
01:09:23
Speaker
A bummer. Thumbs down. I know, yeah. It's like a bummer and you're just sitting there going boo. Thumbs down. We don't have that, I guess on Zoom, if you do the thumbs down. Oh yeah. It like started raining when Christine was doing it Oh, really? and then That's funny.
01:09:42
Speaker
Yes, because any time Em would put like thumbs up and then they would get balloons. But then Christine tried to do and she got crickets. It was so funny. She just awkwardly sitting there like, oh no.
01:09:56
Speaker
Oh my god. They put the clip up. It was funny. Yeah. Yeah, that sucks. Yeah. Yeah, I know there wasn't a whole lot of, like, forensic-y type stuff. I'm sure there's other, like, more forensic-heavy cases, but I feel like this one, once they kind of noticed behavior, it's really the, like, forensic evidence that proved he's the one that did it than necessarily, like, having witnesses or anything like that, which I think was important in his conviction.
01:10:33
Speaker
Yeah, and it seemed like they... found a ton of it once they started looking for the yeah like the pollen and fibers from the clothes and the carpet and
01:10:46
Speaker
yeah yeah yeah i'm glad they caught him I know. I was like reading it. I was like, oh thank God this isn't unsolved. i think I would die. i probably wouldn't have covered it.
01:11:03
Speaker
Right. Yeah, because when you're just like in on that note. Yeah. Yeah. know Good job, though. Thank you. It was very confusing researching because most of the sources would only tell half of it.
01:11:19
Speaker
They'd tell like the stuff about like the ditch and then they wouldn't talk about um any of the stuff about like the car or his house or finding evidence at the school where he worked where he had tried to burn their clothes which they wouldn't have gone to college a campus like why would their clothes be there And like all this stuff and then some other stuff would only talk about that. They wouldn't talk about evidence in the ditch. And then, yeah, it was quite hard to piece this together. So hopefully it makes sense.
01:11:56
Speaker
No, totally. thought you did a good job. and Yeah. Okay. I'm glad. I think we get better at researching as time goes on because you you do see the same stuff in this. So then you go, okay, well, I can only get this new thing and this new thing from this article because otherwise...
01:12:09
Speaker
Yeah. Doesn't really help you. Or sometimes you find a really long article and you're like, I'm set. Yeah. Yeah. Hit the hit the jackpot here. Yeah. That's why I liked the one. um Well, I think it's probably you feel the same. I really like when people have quotes like from the people that were actually involved in the case. So I really was happy when I found that Guardian article that was um interviewing the botanist that worked on it. That was so important.
01:12:40
Speaker
um yes yeah because i feel like i could trust that information at least what she had to say it was like you worked on the investigation okay i can trust you exactly darn i'm now hoping i shouted out the last big article i used which was the vanity fair one for the oh yeah you did did i say that author's name oh whatever can't remember now now i'm just gonna fret about it and maybe Maybe not, but I know we were talking about Vanity Fair.
01:13:13
Speaker
Yeah, it'll be the first one that comes up. It was called The Goddess and the Gangster. I think I said that part. Anyway. All right. um Mine's only six pages, so if I can have a minute to grab some water, it shouldn't take too long. Yeah. so Take a quick break with, what, no promo or ad break?
01:13:36
Speaker
We'll be right back. like Yeah. Two seconds. You guys are too good for ads.
Frances Glessner Lee and Forensic Dioramas
01:14:01
Speaker
Cleaning my head. My one head. Yeah. yeah
01:14:07
Speaker
like Speaking of crazy animals and dozy dogs, my dog put himself to bed. you went Well, if we keep the bedroom the door closed, then he stays out of there during the day and stuff and doesn't jump up on the bed. But then I guess, yeah, I left it open and I figured he'd be sleeping out in the hallway now he's in the...
01:14:30
Speaker
laying on the bathroom tile floor part of our en suite there. Waiting for everybody else to come up and join him, he is.
01:14:43
Speaker
um was like, oh. Yeah, it's probably so nice and cool to lay on there. Yeah. Yeah, it's not like we have the heat up hot, but yeah. He likes it.
01:14:59
Speaker
I thought I turned one of them off, but it's still going.
01:15:05
Speaker
All right. Oh, yeah. I, mine the other day, I hit the button so hard, it said, noise cancelling on, and I was like, wait, thought that's always on.
01:15:19
Speaker
So confused. Because usually i just, yeah, I use it to pause and press play, and that's all. I guess I forgot it had another function. Or that, yeah.
01:15:30
Speaker
I don't know.
01:15:34
Speaker
Alright.
01:15:39
Speaker
The lady we are talking about today is named Frances Glessner Lee and she's been called the mother of forensics.
01:15:51
Speaker
The mother of forensics? That sounds cool. right and different variations like that um because yeah she had a pretty big impact on um police procedure back in the she's well she's like born in the late eighteen hundreds so kind of you know early yeah the early nineteen hundreds yeah mop it up i've got a hunch that days those times i deduced
01:16:26
Speaker
yeah um so yeah so yeah she was like uh boring we're going way back 1878 like i think i just said damn that's a long time right i was like Oh, your case is modern.
01:16:43
Speaker
Yeah, and then I was like, oh, not too long ago, 2002. Right. Feels like yesterday sometimes. um no You're like, I was seven.
01:17:00
Speaker
I was.
01:17:04
Speaker
um So her dad was John Jacob Jingle. hi No, I'm just kidding. i was gonna say right john jacob glasner okay glasner that's where she gets the glasner from and she gets the francis from her mom francis m glasner so if she was a boy she'd be a junior or whatever um and she was born in chicago
01:17:34
Speaker
and yeah They were quite wealthy. Her father was the vice president of International Harvester. Didn't look up what that was about. International Harvester. i have no idea.
01:17:48
Speaker
and Something in agriculture. Right? It must have been something maybe to do with farming. They were rich. That's what I gathered. Okay.
01:17:59
Speaker
okay Yeah. She had one brother named George and they grew up in a house on Prairie Street, which is kind of cute. There was a lot prairie still at that time, right?
01:18:12
Speaker
In the surrounding area. um They said that I like the description of the house. It said a house that epitomized the aesthetic and moral ideals of 19th century domesticity.
01:18:27
Speaker
Oh, no. don't even know if I said that word right. Domesticity. Yeah. I think so.
01:18:36
Speaker
So she's just learning to be quite the proper lady um from her private tutors. And she also has taught like all the female things.
01:18:48
Speaker
Well, like all the female family members teach her things like interior design, metalwork, the sewing, the knitting, the crotcheting, um the embroidery and the painting. Yeah.
01:18:59
Speaker
right metal work that sounds hardcore yeah that one is not your normal i guess woman's work that you usually think of so i'm not actually sure what that entails but she was quite smart i i gather she had wanted to study law or medicine but unfortunately her parents discouraged her those were the times they said a lady didn't go to school
01:19:27
Speaker
Yeah, well, private private school you, but you can't go to school. Oh, right. thank Yeah, she's allowed to learn from private tutors. You cannot be in a classroom. You will distract everybody.
01:19:40
Speaker
oh God. or ta to You will ruin education. Mingle with the lower classes. Yeah. yeah Sorry.
01:19:49
Speaker
ah She married a... got another weird B name here. he was an attorney named Blewett Lee. Blewett? blew it He blew it?
01:20:02
Speaker
I mean, how else would you say it? It's B-L-E-W-E-T-T. Yeah, but say blew it. He blew it as an attorney?
01:20:13
Speaker
Sorry, Gordo's like laid right in between me and the mic. Oh, he's ready to hear my story. He's like, I can't hear shit, He's gonna start purring. He's going to be so loud.
01:20:25
Speaker
He's such a, he's such a, like, has to upstage everyone. He's going to be the center of attention. There's a camera? What? ah Just like, actually, no, that was a different video the other day where this llama, every time somebody was trying to take a video, they'd like set it up and then their llama kept popping its head in the frame.
01:20:47
Speaker
That's hilarious. Alpaca. It was something weird. Oh my god. Blew it Lee. Just like when, what, didn't my dad joke we should name me Go Blow Peters or something?
01:21:00
Speaker
My mom remembers it fondly.
01:21:05
Speaker
um He was a distant relative to Robert E. Lee, so they did give out some normal names in that family. Sorry. Sick burn. Burned a dead guy.
01:21:19
Speaker
yeah i'm I don't know. I just don't think she liked him very much because they got divorced. So oh they had three kids together and they had a long separation and they divorced in 1914. Oh, and she had married him when she was only 19.
01:21:36
Speaker
Really? well Well, we'd say young. She was practically an old maid. Yeah, that's true. Come on, 18, 19, whatever. Yeah. She's practically on her deathbed.
01:21:50
Speaker
was like, yeah but you better get on it. no
01:21:58
Speaker
No, I will not be that relative. Oh my God. Yeah. yeah They got divorced. So I don't know how long that means they were together. She was born in 1878. So what if she was 20, it would have been like, if she was almost 20, it would have been like 1890.
01:22:15
Speaker
eighteen ninety eight ah Okay, so yeah there's yeah, they lasted over a decade, I guess. um And she had another skill also that was making miniatures.
01:22:28
Speaker
Miniatures. miniatures ah which she learned as a girl. And ah so think like dollhouse sized stuff.
01:22:40
Speaker
Yay.
01:22:43
Speaker
I love it. Her first solo miniature um display she made was for her mom's birthday in 1913. And she recreated the, it was a mini Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
01:22:57
Speaker
ah Oh, that sounds so cute. I know. I wish there was a picture of that one. um complete with 90 music musicians not magicians there's probably no magicians that were there in the orchestra i don't think so but she did all the sheet music the tiny instruments the stands and the cases all of it um and that was oh yeah for her mom's birth and She also made one, and that took her about two months, that one. And then she also made one that I guess got fairly famous of a Floorsley Quartet.
01:23:37
Speaker
I don't know. Never heard of her. Or them. Around her mid-40s, she then developed an interest in crime.
01:23:47
Speaker
Don't we all? Eventually.
01:23:52
Speaker
and She went to hit her true crime era. and yeah but she definitely yes queen she learned a lot from her brother's best friend his name was also George George Burgess McGrath um so the two Georges were they were friends at Harvard and now he works as a this George works as a medical examiner in Boston that's cool oh no he sees all sorts of not really shit
01:24:25
Speaker
yeah
01:24:28
Speaker
your cousin in from boston oh sorry my neck is so sore he just pulled out clumps in gordo's hair and now he's getting mad he's like hey that hurts oh i know fan does not like when i do that if it's if the if the tuft is not just like right about to fall out then i he's like her what are you doing I try and pull Gordo's apart because most of the fur in there is already fallen apart so I kind of like rip it apart yeah so kind of pulls into little tiny ones and then lots of times you can just comb it out.
01:25:05
Speaker
Oh yeah yeah yeah because it's clumps. He's getting a little dreads. Yeah he's like I don't know he's doing better this year than he was last year for clumps but it's hard this time a year they go so so fast.
01:25:23
Speaker
With his like thick fur. Yeah.
01:25:29
Speaker
This is Ben could use a bath too. He's pretty stinky. Oh. Um, so at the time there was definitely yeah very little training for police officers.
01:25:42
Speaker
So evidence was often and could be easily mishandled and crime scenes could be muddled and most had no little to no medical training. So determining cause of death could be very difficult.
01:25:54
Speaker
I mean, yeah.
01:25:57
Speaker
Right? Just sounds like you could go through with like, no training and just get a certificate and be like, you're a medical examiner now. go be free. yeah but Yeah, and the police officers specifically have...
01:26:15
Speaker
Very little training in the area either. But yes, it was coroners. It mentioned coroners were not required to have a medical degree. Nor were police trained to process medical evidence.
01:26:27
Speaker
Yeah, that's always been a weird one. and like If we don't have a direct witness that somebody did something, ah the case will go cold. There's way they're just the ones that get determined cause of death. No big deal. um Yeah.
01:26:42
Speaker
Damn. She... so Glessner Lee became the first female police captain i guess ever there just said like no caveat i was like okay um so that was pretty cool I don't know a lot about when she first started out uh
01:27:04
Speaker
Yeah, maybe it was, who knows? Could have been more honorary. I'm sure she wasn't working the beats. Like, just she's got money. She wouldn't be, like you know, starting out on the plainclothes officer.
01:27:19
Speaker
ah but And she, yeah, she definitely helped a lot by founding a bunch of stuff. Like, she helped found the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard. so like, I don't know, Flex?
01:27:31
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. um she was able to do this with a lot of the money she inherited upon her parents passing in the 1930s so she put it to really good use I don't know yeah we' was just gonna say use that money to change lives forever it's kind of actually now that I think about it because I didn't want her to go to school and she's like I'm gonna give this to education um oh I like that yeah
01:28:03
Speaker
um She established the George Burgess McGrath Library of Legal Medicine. um So named it after her friend there. And underwrote, this is a lot of academia terms that, you know, it's a little confusing. She underwrote a chair for the department, a position that was first filled by her friend McGrath for whom the library was named. So that's cool.
01:28:30
Speaker
So then she, yeah, she was really good at criminology. She happened to excel.
01:28:38
Speaker
Sorry. um But not only was she great at criminology, but she's just really good at crafting. And like we talked about the the dioramas as well. So she puts these together in a really cool way.
01:28:51
Speaker
um This is starting in the 1940s, comes up with the idea to make these dioramas of death, if you will. Oh, okay. Like dollhouse sized rooms, uh, recreations of crime scenes.
01:29:06
Speaker
And they are going to be her teaching stool, teaching tool. Jesus.
01:29:12
Speaker
Can someone teach me how to, uh, pronounce things? I know both of us are having a hard time tonight.
01:29:20
Speaker
Oh my God. Yes. It's been a long day. Okay. She called them the nutshells and they are what on the pictures are of on the drive. so that okay I saw the the folder name but I didn't want to click into it.
01:29:40
Speaker
Oh yes. What's in this nutshell? I was thinking of the Austin Powers scene. Oh look at me, I'm in a nutshell. What am I doing in this nutshell?
01:29:51
Speaker
I think it's when they're doing the photo shoot. so they are, yeah, there's crime scenes or unexplained deaths that were used to, yeah, help teach cops how to process a crime scene. Oh, they're so cute.
01:30:11
Speaker
They're so fucking cute and dark. I don't know.
01:30:16
Speaker
And I loved them. I liked when I got a dollhouse for Christmas one year that my mom and my brother helped set up in the basement because it was like a pretty big one, actually. um Nothing like super fancy, but like I just like I always love that little stuff.
01:30:30
Speaker
The lady, one lady at the market had a stall with the little. Not the one, not the one diorama of somebody falling down the stairs. I know.
01:30:43
Speaker
Just the doll flung down the stairs. right yeah the beer bottles all shrewd on the floor gordo details oh yeah there's some crazy cool looking yeah i said think dollhouse size furniture food people blood stains down to the last minute detail um they've been called exquisitely detailed crime scenes oh sorry my throat
01:31:14
Speaker
This is such a, like... If you literally took out the murder part... Yeah. It's such a cool talent. She, like, builds them all. Yeah.
01:31:33
Speaker
So, she she used them... to aid homicide detectives and investigators, as she said, to convict the guilty, clear the innocent, and find the truth in a nutshell.
01:31:45
Speaker
That's cute. Yeah. um would help teach officers how to properly canvas the scene, as I mentioned, and she had to make them perfectly to scale bodies, if there's any bullet holes, like all this stuff.
01:32:00
Speaker
Um, and so they're so good that training seminars still employ their use today at the office of the chief medical examiner in Baltimore. um and they were on display at a time at the Renwick gallery. Uh, I believe that was at the Smithsonian Institute, but they're, most of them are not on display anymore. I was like, Oh, and,
01:32:27
Speaker
Yeah, some of them were determined to be homicides. Other cases were suicides or and or accidental death. um But like also they won't tell you what the answers are because they're locked up because they're still used as a training tool.
01:32:43
Speaker
Oh, yeah. They probably don't want like people to know beforehand. I know. So I was like, I can't look into more. Well, they have like description and some clues for each one that you can find. Well, not each one, but there's a few that have some, some further details that I have. There's like somebody, somebody in a bathtub, somebody fell down the stairs, somebody, one person's like hanging from the rafters in a
01:33:16
Speaker
attic and somebody stabbed lying on their living room floor i know they're all completely different scenarios and you immediately are like oh that's what there's a body yeah yeah somebody was holding what i think is an ice ice cube tray oh this one's called kitchen wife um she died while putting ice in the fridge
01:33:42
Speaker
Oh yes, i she's by the There's a i Like an old timey ice box And a like little stove This is so cute I'm obsessed Right? I love it I love it I immediately was like I have to talk about this at some point This is amazing Listen to how she had to make some of these It said or I guess I said, Frances Glessner Lee was, ah quote, both exacting and creative in her pursuit of detail, knitting tiny stockings by hand with straight pins, hand rolling tiny tobacco filled cigarettes and burning the ends, writing letters with a single hair paintbrush and creating working locks for windows and doors.
01:34:33
Speaker
Wow. Pardon Yeah. Yeah.
01:34:40
Speaker
And even cooler was she liked to focus on cases of people that got more overlooked, like marginalized people and women, you know, cases that, yeah, didn't get as much attention.
01:34:56
Speaker
She's so cool. um Oh, yeah, that exhibit they had displaying her work for a time was called Murder is Her Hobby, Frances Glasner Lee and the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death.
01:35:10
Speaker
um it was the first public display of the complete series of which 19 of them are left in existence sadly you can find pictures of a about i don't know i think i have 11 different ones written down here that have different names
01:35:28
Speaker
sorry uh It was the first time since 1966 that the 18 pieces on loan from Harvard Medical School were reunited with the Lost Nutshell.
01:35:44
Speaker
The Lost Nutshell um is on or was on loan from its home at the society this is a weird one Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, courtesy of the Bethlehem Heritage Society.
01:36:00
Speaker
Okay. Heritage? I don't know.
01:36:06
Speaker
um And ah just before we get to the nutshells, she did other training um and stuff like that. She started a seminar series, the Harvard Seminars in Homicide Investigators, which they smartly renamed the Harvard Associates in Police Science Seminars, or HAPS.
01:36:28
Speaker
Okay. Like, what's the haps, Gordo? Yeah. So that first seminar series was 1945. One week on crime scene detection.
01:36:41
Speaker
Experts attended, lectured on topics like identifying victims, interrogation techniques, etc. Ended with a bang, a banquet at the Ritz, rather. She jokingly indicated that one time there would typically not be a fresh crime scene available at the time of the seminars.
01:36:56
Speaker
Sorry, this is a quote I liked. So she had to find another way for the state police captains to be able to study crime scenes, and that was when she came up with the idea for the models.
Intricate Crime Scene Models and Their Mysteries
01:37:06
Speaker
She was like, there's just no convenient crime scene when you need to teach someone, so... Did she use, like, crime scene photos? Is that how she got, like, what the rooms looked like and all the evidence?
01:37:18
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure if there's one she personally worked on or just had connections with being the captain. Because this like lot of details and everything to even figuring out like the scale. You said everything's like to scale would be really hard to figure out.
01:37:40
Speaker
ah Yeah, it's like an inch to is a foot is equal to an inch or something. That kind of scale. Yeah. um Yeah, i have a little bit earlier ah further on how she, like, is so exacting. She, like, makes them get the most perfect rocking chair.
01:37:56
Speaker
ah It's crazy. um So the ones that you can find names are, if there's the case of the hanging farmer, ah which is, think I got a picture of him. And he's, like, there's a rope around his neck, and he looks like his feet fell through like a crate, a wooden crate or a box. Maybe, maybe there's not that one on there.
01:38:19
Speaker
Um, so he, or that one's sometimes called barn. He's in a barn. There's a one called three room dwelling, um, which I have a little bit more details on, uh, which is the only one that's actually a multiple murder.
01:38:35
Speaker
And yeah, the one that had that, that no, no, that's the other kitchen one. um There's one called Red Bedroom, one called Burned Cabin, one called Dark Bathroom. I think that's the one with the lady in the tub ah with all her clothes on.
01:38:54
Speaker
The kitchen, the living room, there's Log Cabin, there's Parsonage Parlor. and and oh, the attic one might be the one called Striped Bedroom.
01:39:09
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, the official answers are under lock and key. um Oh yeah, but I have a little bit. However, on Harvard's website of digital did digital exhibitions,
01:39:23
Speaker
there is a page with three files that appear to state a possible solution to the nutshell kitchen. ah But whether this is the official solution is not known. um I don't want to spoil that one. So we'll speculate a bit though.
01:39:39
Speaker
So for the three room dwelling one, there's one of it's like a, got a table set for breakfast um and stuff like that. So that case was briefly, it was Monday, November 1st, 1937 shoe factory supervisor, Bob Judson, his wife, Kate and their infant daughter were all found dead.
01:40:03
Speaker
Um, this was by neighbor, Sarah Abbott. Uh, and that was after Bob failed to show up to carpool with her husband. So they went over there at eight 15 and police come and they see like blood and they can see a rifle through of the window. and And it said clues. The table was neatly set for breakfast, presumably the night before. And there's a rifle on the kitchen floor next to the baby's high chair.
01:40:27
Speaker
There's a flashlight beside the telephone on Kate's nightstand. Both exterior doors were locked from the inside and no lights were on in the house. um And they noted that sunrise was at 617 a.m. that day.
01:40:42
Speaker
ah Chairs are toppled in both the nursery and bedroom. Toys are knocked over and a teddy bear is on the floor. There is a pool of blood in the nursery and what looks like bloody footprints or drag marks leading from the bedroom entryway to Bob's body.
01:40:55
Speaker
Could that be blood spatter on and around Kate's head?
01:41:03
Speaker
So like, to me, it doesn't sound like there was a, an entry, a forced entry or anything like, They were all still inside with the lights off as if they'd never gotten up for breakfast, you know. Well, it's very sad.
01:41:21
Speaker
um And then have the barn. I have a little bit on the barn one and the dark bathroom one. and the lost nutshell.
01:41:33
Speaker
Sorry, they're so fun. There's not...
01:41:37
Speaker
a ton, but is Gordo over it?
01:41:42
Speaker
Ah, he was just being annoying. Yeah. So the story...
01:41:54
Speaker
um So the barn one which I thought I put a picture up. I don't know. It's sometimes hard to find pictures that weren't web files for all of them.
01:42:07
Speaker
um But where it looked like the guy had been hanging after it getting up on a ah crate or something. It said, on Saturday, July 15th, 1939, Eben Wallace, a local farmer, was found dead by his wife, Imelda.
01:42:20
Speaker
After disagreements, she told police, her husband habitually went to the barn, stood on a bucket, put a noose around his neck, and threatened suicide. So... That's insane, right?
01:42:34
Speaker
um She said she always talked him down. On Saturday around 4 p.m., they had a dispute, but she didn't follow him to the barn right away. When she did, she found him dead standing on a collapsed crate.
01:42:47
Speaker
The sturdier bucket wasn't in the barn. She said she'd used it and left it outside by the pump. The rope was always kept fastened to the beam just the way it was found. It was part of the regular barn hoist.
01:42:58
Speaker
Is it murder if Imelda Wallace, tired of her deeply unpleasant husband's manipulation, hid the bucket and maybe even put a flimsy crate in its place?
01:43:09
Speaker
thought that one was kind of interesting. thank Yeah. um Sounds like a great relationship. Right.
01:43:22
Speaker
I'm like, oh God, going to do it. I'm going to do it, honey. She's like, yeah, yeah, no. Oh, I'm sorry. um The one with the called Dark Bathroom was said on a Sunday night in early November 1896, Maggie Wilson was found dead in her bathtub by Lizzie Miller, a neighbor in their rooming house.
01:43:45
Speaker
Pardon me. Miller, who only knew Wilson in passing, told police she thought Wilson was subject to c seizures. She said a couple of male friends regularly visited Wilson, including that Sunday night when she believed they were all drinking.
01:44:00
Speaker
Sometime after they left Miller heard the water still running in the bathroom. Upon opening the door, she found the scene as set forth in the model. um And the clues they pointed out that um while it's hard to confirm with a doll, the body seems to be in rigor mortis and her clothes and her bathtub are dry.
01:44:21
Speaker
If she'd been preparing to take a bath, it would seem she'd at least put the stopper in first and it's clearly hanging off the side of the tub. um So it's possible she had a seizure, but they call into question the timing and the circumstances. they yeah It's a little weird. Like how yeah, just your face part gets in the tub after you and it's just like pouring right on your face.
01:44:47
Speaker
but That's pretty. Yeah, it looked like she was waterboarding herself. yeah fight So Final Destination. I noticed that. It was like, the water is pouring directly on your face.
01:44:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's not even Stoppard. Yeah. it Yeah. I'm going to kill myself I say yeah yeah one more time, but I totally think Final Destination or some evil force like that you can't see pushing them down, like unsupernatural or whatever.
01:45:17
Speaker
Creepy. um Oh yeah, that Lost Nutshell. called Case 20, or its description as sitting room and woodshed.
01:45:29
Speaker
think have pictures that one. um So that was the one on display at Bethlehem Heritage Society, or that much longer name. ah It was one of the original 20, of which ah one was destroyed, and then this one was missing until just over a decade ago.
01:45:48
Speaker
um And the article said that's when Claire bar Brown was digging through a storage area at the rocks. There was something in the far corner where the roof slants down so much you can't stand upright.
01:46:00
Speaker
I said, hmm, I wonder what that is. Brown pulled out what looked like a dollhouse. But when she looked inside, there wasn't a happy domestic scene. There was a tiny dead man on a tiny couch. so Brown wasn't sure what to make of this bizarre object.
01:46:16
Speaker
know. I'd be like, okay. Okay.
01:46:20
Speaker
She took it to Nigel Manley, who manages the Rocks for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forest, which owns the estate. He identified it. um And then she remembers talking to one of the local craftsmen, Alton Mosher, who helped find a tiny rocking chair for it.
01:46:41
Speaker
um He said one day he finished a tiny rocking chair. He brought it to Mrs. Lee for her approval and he rocked it and she rocked it. And apparently she had rocked the original chair in the real crime scene and it didn't rock as many times as the one in the real crime scene and he had to take it back.
01:46:57
Speaker
Oh my God, no. So I guess she has been on at least one crime scene. um ah To continue that quote, the Bethlehem nutshell shows a tiny man identified as Eugene Black, quote, town drunkard dead on the couch.
01:47:14
Speaker
Next to him is a bottle of whiskey. The clues provided by Lee say the setting is a sitting room at a woodshed. A boarder says he found Black passed out on the couch with a.22 caliber rifle next to him.
01:47:26
Speaker
Knowing Black was dangerous when drunk, he moved the rifle to the shed where it was usually kept. His daughter says she was upstairs listening to a radio. The program was a Western with lots of shooting. Sorry.
01:47:39
Speaker
She later heard moans and went downstairs to find her father dying. The medical examiner made a brief and hasty examination and declared acute alcoholism as the cause.
01:47:53
Speaker
But what remains missing is the solution to the crime. It's been lost.
01:48:04
Speaker
so yeah, yeah. they A little bit more from the actual... I don't know, crime statements and stuff. and so It's a weird one.
01:48:17
Speaker
Yeah, they're so cute, though. I know. like, terrible to love them so much. Is it terrible? but but I know. i just keep looking at the one that shows the
01:48:31
Speaker
ah I think, oh it's the one attic one with like the knitted socks. Like that's crazy. You can see it's a knitted pattern on the socks.
01:48:41
Speaker
Like it's not just fabric. Like could very easily just, who I don't know, cut a piece of fabric and then just like sewed up the sides of it and made a sock or whatever. But this is actually like 100% knitted.
01:49:00
Speaker
into a sock and it's tiny it's so tiny i loved that picture i think i used that for our teaser tuesday post because i was like patreon it's coming and here's a little teaser what's to come because this is like it's so detailed yeah i like that one it's a really good like close-up of um yeah yeah needed stocking and And then the one that shows like the vanity, that green vanity and so in striped room, whatever, that has like a wedding picture on the vanity. And like you can tell, like you can see in the little painting that the woman has like dark hair because you can tell what part of her, of like the in the picture is her face and then that she has dark hair and then the rest is like under her veil. Like,
01:49:53
Speaker
yeah Like, did you do that with a a single brush paintbrush? Like, that's insane. Yeah. The little calendar in one of them has flippable pages. and Oh, yeah.
01:50:06
Speaker
There was a a bit more that don't think I wrote anywhere, but it was talking about how the people ah keep them up to date. Like, they i don't want I don't know if they would really restore them, but if something were to change...
01:50:21
Speaker
at the crime scene, like they update it. I don't know if that makes any sense, but also they were like, they just try and keep them so accurate, but they were also going to replace like the little tiny light bulbs with led lights. And apparently it's this big, you know, or whatever.
01:50:39
Speaker
and I was like, do the little light bulbs work? Cause if the little locks work, then maybe the little light bulbs work, but they might. That's wild. I know it's something about, they don't want like,
01:50:50
Speaker
the heat LED lamps would make it not damage as fast or something. It's like teeny tiny little light bulbs with teeny tiny little matches and ashtrays and magazines.
01:51:05
Speaker
So crazy. Oh my god. um Yeah, i guess that was really all I had. There was a little bit more about that last case. Like, just the two different witnesses' statements, but I know, just a little bit more context if you want it. I don't know. You're like me. You just like love looking at the pictures. Yeah.
01:51:31
Speaker
She's like, I'm not listening. No, i'm just kidding. No, but that's really, mine was pretty short, but I definitely will have to post pictures with the Patreon posts. And then, yeah, it's like, maybe I'll post a couple more to Instagram to entice people over to Where the cool kids are. i don't know.
01:51:51
Speaker
Yeah. Does it say what's up with the burned cabin one? What's that one about?
01:52:00
Speaker
What did I say? Oh, um... There... Yeah, it has... It has a little write-up, but on the thing. i From... what I recall, cause I don't seem to have that one in my notes, uh, a guy, a guy was staying with his uncle and he said he smelled smoke and he got out and stuff.
01:52:24
Speaker
And then the cabin burned down around the uncle. Maybe I should look up this one. It's in this, it's on the, um, it was in one of my sources. The Smithsonian website had, had, um, all the, descriptions available that,
01:52:38
Speaker
are out there. hang on. I can pull it up pretty quick. Oh, nutshell studies. I don't want the book.
01:52:52
Speaker
Ah, Smithsonian. Because that one
01:52:58
Speaker
is called Cabin.
01:53:04
Speaker
Oh, here we go. Stories.
01:53:09
Speaker
Oh, there's a pretty good online gallery. um Yeah, it was like... Now I can't find it. They were suspicious that he got out and had his clothes on, even though it was the middle of the night, but his uncle didn't get out. Fuck, I thought it was on that store. Oh, like he wasn't dressed for bed? Yeah,
01:53:34
Speaker
and stuff like that.
01:53:40
Speaker
You know what? That might've been on the, the, one of my sources was literally Buzzfeed news. Cause I was trying to find the different stories and you'll find, yeah. Hang on. Let me see if that was the one that had the full explanation.
01:53:52
Speaker
Cause there was the explanation of that one. And, ah the one called the red bedroom, I think had the story too. Cause I think that one said it was about a sex worker.
01:54:04
Speaker
oh Hang on. Yes, I think this is the one that has most of the clues. Shout out BuzzFeed. yeah
01:54:16
Speaker
Three room dwelling. Barn. That's the barn with the hanging farmer. Okay, yes. do dod do do Burned cabin.
01:54:28
Speaker
On Saturday evening, August 14th, 1943, Philip Perkins said he had come to spend the night with his uncle as he frequently did. In the middle of the night, he was awakened by the smell of smoke and ran outside to find the house on fire and fire engines arriving.
01:54:42
Speaker
He said he had been very confused and could not remember any other details. Firefighters arrived at 1.30 a.m. m and quickly extinguished the fire before the building was completely destroyed. One of them noticed Perkins, fully clothed, wandering around near the house, but his uncle was missing.
01:54:58
Speaker
The model represents the premises after the fire was extinguished and before the investigation was started or any the part of the premise is disturbed.
01:55:07
Speaker
And then it does have clues for that one too if you want to hear. Sure. Let's try to solve a suspicious old ass case. Death? I don't know.
01:55:23
Speaker
Damn. Yeah. Based... Yeah, I believe he died. Yes, based on the state of the bed compared to the rest of the house, it would seem the fire originated there. There is no immediate evidence of the uncle's body.
01:55:37
Speaker
But in a similar contemporaneous crime, a killer had rigged an alarm clock to explode while their alibi had them elsewhere. Wow.
01:55:48
Speaker
Lee biographer Bruce Goldfarb noted that there is an alarm clock in this diorama, possibly a cheeky nod to the sensational real-life murder. In that case, the remains were found in the cellar after the fire caused the floor to collapse.
01:56:02
Speaker
Yeah, that is weird. I have no fucking clue.
01:56:07
Speaker
That is... That's not very many clues for that case, is it? It's like, well, it could have rigged an alarm clock. and I'm like, they didn't find the body? Yeah, that's so cool.
01:56:24
Speaker
Yeah, think they have also... And she, I'm pretty sure she took it and burned it with a blowtorch to give it that, that look.
01:56:37
Speaker
Dark bathroom. Oh, kitchen is the one with the lady on the floor with the ice cube tray. And it was like her husband came home and found her there.
01:56:51
Speaker
That one was April 11th, 1944. It said fred ball Fred Barnes called police to say that his wife Barbara was lying unresponsive on their kitchen floor. He said that he'd left the house at 4 p.m. to go downtown on an errand for his wife and returned about an hour and a half later.
01:57:08
Speaker
Although the outside kitchen door was standing open when he left, it was now locked. He attempted knocking and calling but got no answer. He tried the front door, but it was also locked. He then looked in the kitchen window, which was closed and locked, and saw what appeared to be his wife lying on the floor.
01:57:22
Speaker
He then summoned the police. The model shows the premises just before the police forced to open the kitchen door. um Oh, the clues are better. o i know she was baking.
01:57:36
Speaker
yeah yeah like Yeah, it looks like pizza. Pizza in the oven. was trying to decide what the hell it looked like. I know. I'm like, yeah, it's kind of roundish. ah The gas stove jets are on and Barbara's face has the rosy complexion typical of carbon monoxide poisoning. um Okay.
01:57:54
Speaker
In brackets, Lee painted all her doll's faces to indicate lividity or lack thereof. And newspaper has been stuffed at the bottom of the doors. But did she really decide to kill herself in the middle of cooking and baking and washing and taking ice cubes out of the refrigerator?
01:58:09
Speaker
ah Yeah. Yeah. ah maybe after you're done baking uh just go out with a full stomach cake or something yeah have something yeah have a piece of that pizza or whatever you baked um the last part of the clue says is it significant that the iron the iron is precariously placed in an otherwise extremely tidy kitchen on the edge of the ironing board near where she fell note that we aka the crime scene investigators here can't see the back of her head
01:58:47
Speaker
that's a bizarre one the door's being locked from the inside seems a little yeah but when he left it was open and then newspaper shoved under the door that seems weird because you think that would be like the you would want ventilation if you're cooking It looks like a staged suicide almost.
01:59:19
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, my headphones want me to charge them. I will charge you in a moment. Please charge me. Please commence with the charging.
01:59:33
Speaker
Please be back of you. Yeah. Yeah. like I don't. i don't think I would be committing suicide with my fridge open.
01:59:46
Speaker
in the middle of something unless she was just waiting for like carbon monoxide poisoning to take effect so she was like doing stuff instead of sitting or something no she's like i gotta get this tray cookies out and then and i can stick my head in um like what yeah doesn't make any sense oh let me get some ice i'm feeling warm from poisoning but right crazy hit her with the iron these are fascinating And then he stuffed all the stuff under the doors and then he crawled out a window. i don't know.
02:00:23
Speaker
Maybe. I said they were arguing, think. That's my bet. Damn. I want to solve all these murders tonight before I go to video.
02:00:37
Speaker
This is so fascinating. Yeah, the BuzzFeed has the best like the descriptions, and then the SmithsonianMag.com source has a really good picture gallery.
02:00:52
Speaker
You're welcome for the rabbit hole. no
02:00:57
Speaker
Catch me up in like a few days when I'm just like obsessed, and I'm like, okay, here's the theories. Red strings everywhere. Yeah. yeah someone said red string theory the other day but they were talking about like love and i was like wait was thinking red strings and the cork boards and then it was like there's an invisible tether or a red string pulling you to your person or something was like oh no not the twin flame shit again no a little less harmful than that it's more like the uh they'd be like oh the orange peel test and i'm like oh don't make me look this up and then it's like
02:01:34
Speaker
ask your partner to peel an orange for you if they do it then they're nice and you should love them and if not you should make a question I'm like I get it because like yeah sometimes you know people should just be like okay why not I love you or and if they're like why would I do that you're like uh oh a little bit of a red flag there like fuck you you're like wow acts of service acts of yeah it's my love line no um
02:02:05
Speaker
yeah anyway sorry this is late but we love you guys and yeah um people can comment on Patreon right so yeah look up look up the nutshell dioramas and give us your best theories that too yes I will post as many pictures here as it will allow me so that you guys have it right at your fingertips while you're listening and then yeah let us know what you think know what the hell we're covering next month, but let us know if you'd like more stuff like this and we'll make sure to mix it up and keep doing like our recaps and crap too. So doesn't get stale.
02:02:50
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, this was fun. i I'm a little bit more uplifted after the end of your case. Yeah. This was a better note to end it on. Yeah.
02:03:01
Speaker
You did say something cute at the beginning. You were like, well, my case did lead to some recommendations and stuff. I was like, aw, that's cute. Don't worry. We'll have ah an uplift in my case.
02:03:16
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Well, we love you. Thank you for being a patron. And we'll catch you next time. Yeah. Bye. In the meantime, keep it cryptic.