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New Year, New Binge Part 1
3.1k Plays1 year ago
The New Years holiday is a celebration of new beginnings. With that in mind, we know this collaboration will introduce you to several amazing new true-crime podcasts that will quickly become your newest true-crime binges as we enter 2024 because, let’s face it, we know that’s exactly what you needed! With tons of episodes each, investigative curiosity, and a focus on advocacy, these podcasts will live up to the theme of our collaboration (“New Year, New Binge”) because you’ll soon find yourself falling in love with the podcasters included in these episodes. So, sit back, grab your detective caps, and let’s get this party started!
Be sure to follow all of the podcasts you enjoyed so you never miss a new episode. Podcasts are listed below in the order in which you will be introduced to them:
Crimelines https://linktr.ee/crimelines
Sirens: A Southern True Crime Podcast https://bit.ly/TheSirensNetwork
Private Dicks Podcast https://linktr.ee/privatedicks
Morning Cup of Murder www.morningcupofmurder.com
Persons Unknown https://personsunknown.buzzsprout.com
Fresh Hell Podcast https://freshhellpodcast.com/
Stories With Sapphire www.storieswithsapphire.com
Twisted Travel and True Crime https://linktr.ee/twistedtraveltruecrimepodcast
Excuse Me, That’s Illegal www.linktr.ee/excusemethatsillegal.pod
A Nefarious Nightmare www.linktr.ee/anefariousnightmarepodcast
The Trail Went Cold https://www.trailwentcold.com
Coffee and Cases Podcast https://linktr.ee/coffeeandcases
True Crime Creepers https://linktr.ee/TrueCrimeCreepers
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Transcript
Introduction and Theme
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome, welcome, true crime enthusiasts. I'm your host, Alison from Coffee and Cases Podcast, and joining me today is the one, the only. I'm Johanna from Fresh Help Podcast. Get ready for an episode packed with mystery, unsolved cases, intrigue, and a whole lot of new binge-worthy podcast recommendations to carry you into 2024.
00:00:28
Speaker
That's right, Johanna. New Year, New Binge is our theme today, and we're about to unveil some of the most mind-bending, informative, and impactful True Crime podcasts to set the tone for 2024.
00:00:44
Speaker
First up on my list is a podcast that delves deep into unsolved mysteries and chilling crimes. Crimelines. If you're into unraveling mysteries through timelines and meticulous research, Crimelines is the podcast for you. It's like following the clues in a real-life detective investigation. So grab your detective hats, turn off the lights and let's dive in.
The Case of Harold Klaus and Tina Lynn
00:01:10
Speaker
Hi, it's Charlie with Crimelines here, and today I'm bringing you a case that is known most widely by two words, baby Holly. So let's go ahead and get started with Harold Klaus, who went by his middle name Dean and Tina Lynn. The two lived in New Smyrna Beach, Florida in the late 1970s, and they met through their siblings. Tina's brother was dating Dean's sister.
00:01:36
Speaker
At the time they met, Tina was 15 and Dean was 19, and within a year of dating, the two found out that Tina was pregnant. And, in spite of their very young ages, they decided to have a quick courthouse wedding in June of 1979. They lived with Tina's sister for a while, and their daughter, Holly Marie, was born on January 24, 1980.
00:01:59
Speaker
With the hope of better job opportunities, the young family moved to Louisville, Texas. They had so little at that time that they had to borrow Dean's mother's car just to make the move. And they lived with Dean's cousin until they could get on their feet.
00:02:16
Speaker
At that time, Dallas was exploding in size, so construction and carpentry jobs were plentiful. Dean went right to work building cabinets while Tina stayed home with Holly.
00:02:29
Speaker
Eventually, they were able to get a place of their own, though there were some lean times in there. Dean's job wasn't always steady. It was on an as-needed basis, and things would get really tight during the times he wasn't needed. But from what they reported back to family, they were happy in Texas.
00:02:49
Speaker
But within a few months of their move, Dean and Tina stopped contacting their family in Florida. Many sources say that the last contact was in October of 1980, but the Texas Observer reported that Tina did send a Christmas card to her family, which included a recent picture of Holly, and that may have been sent a little later, possibly November or December.
00:03:12
Speaker
From what we learn later, this card probably did come more like November than December. It was in December of 1980 that Dean's mother Donna got a call from someone claiming to have found Donna's car that she had loaned to Tina and Dean. This man was in Los Angeles and he said he was going to arrange to have the car returned to Florida for her.
00:03:40
Speaker
When a time was arranged to get the car, it was strange. The people who brought the car to Florida wanted to meet at midnight at the Daytona Speedway. When the family got there, they were met by three women wearing long robes and only one of them spoke. She said her name was Sister Susan. She said she wanted to return this car to the family, but it was in exchange for a donation, of course.
00:04:05
Speaker
Hearing from someone with a name like Sister Susan wasn't entirely out of the norm for the family. Dean had dabbled in various groups that grew from the Jesus People movement, more commonly known as the Jesus Freaks, of the 1970s.
00:04:20
Speaker
Like other religious movements of the time, it came from those who had been inspired by the hippie counterculture, the peace-loving movement, but they didn't find the answers they were looking for in either the free love side of things or drug use or both. They were looking for something that encompassed all of the peaceful side without all those other things.
00:04:45
Speaker
And some found this by turning to religion. Not all of these religions were based in Christianity. The Hare Krishna are a good example as many of their early American members were ex hippies. Dean was more interested in the Christian groups, particularly the Jesus people movement. When he was 17 and 18, his mom would come home and find men in robes sitting at the table.
00:05:10
Speaker
But Dean's interest in this declined as his relationship with Tina became more serious. But with Sister Susan and other robed women around, it looked like Dean may have gotten back into some type of religious group.
00:05:26
Speaker
And that was what Sister Susan said happened. Dean and Tina were now members of their group and wanted the family to know that they were fine. But they were cutting off contact with anyone outside of the faith and that included their family. Sister Susan then had the gall to ask Donna for a thousand dollar donation to get her car back.
00:05:49
Speaker
According to the Washington Post, the police had been alerted to the meeting and Sister Susan was taken into custody, though the police report about this has not been located as far as I know. It's not clear why they took Sister Susan into custody, maybe on suspicion of theft of the vehicle, but she was not held for long and did not go through any formal charges.
00:06:11
Speaker
At first, the family reluctantly accepted Sister Susan's story that the family had joined this religious group due to Dean's history dabbling with those types of organizations. And also Tina's sweet and trusting nature and her relatively young age would have also made her susceptible to a group like this.
00:06:32
Speaker
Frankly, it sounded like something they might do. But as time passed, it just didn't seem to sit right with Dean and Tina's parents. There's a difference between joining a church and joining a church that makes you cut off all contact with everyone you know. The first thing could have happened, but the second seemed wrong and out of character, especially as time passed.
00:06:57
Speaker
So Dean's mother Donna went to the police to report 22-year-old Dean, 18-year-old Tina, and the one-year-old Holly missing. And she gave Louisville, Texas as their last known location.
00:07:10
Speaker
Donna told the police everything she knew, including the return of the car and the meeting with Sister Susan. And the police essentially told her that adults who choose to cut off contact with their family aren't missing people. Maybe they were in a cold, but that wasn't as of yet a police matter.
00:07:30
Speaker
So the parents were left to search for themselves. Though they couldn't get the police to see the family as missing people, they were able to get them listed with the Salvation Army. Now, I didn't know this, but the Salvation Army has their own family reunification program that they've been running since the late 1800s. Their goal is to bring together families who have lost touch with each other.
00:07:53
Speaker
But though the Salvation Army's Missing Persons Program did actively search for the family, no solid leads about Dean, Tina, or Holly ever came to light. From 1980 until 2020, the families had no idea what happened. And then, investigative genetic genealogy solved the case.
00:08:15
Speaker
Back in January of 1981, a man let his German Shepherd off leash in a wooded area in northeast Harris County, Texas, which is near Houston. The dog ran off and then came back with a human arm. The man called the police who then searched the area, but they didn't find anything else. A week later, the same dog went out to this same area, and this time he came back with a hand.
00:08:45
Speaker
And even more thorough search was launched, and on Monday, January 12, 1981, two bodies were found just about 100 feet off the road. At first, the authorities couldn't even tell gender due to the state of the remains, but it was later determined that they were male and female. They had been in the woods for at least two weeks and up to a few months.
00:09:12
Speaker
A pair of green gym shorts and a bloody towel were found near their bodies. It was determined that the couple had been murdered, the woman had been strangled, and the man had been beaten to death.
00:09:24
Speaker
Reconstructions of their faces were made and their ages were young. The female was between 15 and 20 and the male was 18 to 25. Early investigative speculation was that the woman had been attacked and the man likely tried to defend her, which then turned the attacker or attackers on him.
00:09:46
Speaker
Though Tina and Dean's families tried to report them missing, the police wouldn't take the report, so they were not considered when the investigators were looking at missing persons reports in the area. When they were not identified, they were both buried and then known as the Harris County Dose.
00:10:04
Speaker
In July of 2011, a cold case investigation took on the case of the Harris County Do's and they were both exhumed to get DNA samples. This was funded thanks to a grant from the National Institute of Justice to do DNA testing on unidentified murder victims, of which there were several in Harris County. Among them were victims of serial killer Dean Coral.
00:10:31
Speaker
As of this recording, only one set of remains from the Dean Coral case remain unidentified, and that case is being actively worked on. The DNA of the Harris County Dose was entered into a national database, though they didn't expect to get a hit. The bodies had been found in early 1981, long before people's DNA was being collected into law enforcement databases. So even if one of them did have a criminal record,
00:11:01
Speaker
DNA wouldn't have been taken. But it was there ready to be used when they could use it. And they could in 2020 when they stopped trying to make a direct DNA match and instead tried to make a familial match. Identifinder International took the case and began building out the victim's family trees.
00:11:23
Speaker
They had two genealogists working on the case, one working on the male doe and one working on the female. The idea was that since they were found together, identifying one would get them to the other. And this worked.
00:11:38
Speaker
They were first able to find a family tree for the male doe that led them to a family with the last name Klaus out of Kentucky. These were cousins of the male victim. They then learned that the family line had moved to Florida and they were starting to get very close.
00:11:56
Speaker
They narrowed in on one line of the family tree through DNA, but then it was time to do some detective work. They called a woman named Debbie Brooks to ask her if she had a family member go missing in the early 1980s. Debbie was Dean's sister.
00:12:12
Speaker
When Debbie told them that her brother had been missing for a long time, they broke the news to her that they believed his body had been found back in 1981. Debbie mentioned that Dean's wife had gone missing at the same time and that her name was Tina. And so they told her that a woman's body had been found with Dean.
00:12:34
Speaker
So then Debbie asked the next logical question in her mind, what about the baby? To which the genealogist asked, what baby? Holly, who would have been one around the time the bodies were found, was still missing. She was not found with her parents' bodies, so they did a search for any infant and child dough cases that might match the timing and the circumstances, but they found none.
00:13:00
Speaker
There was always the possibility that Holly's body had been near her parents, but being smaller, it may have been taken by animals. But so long as her body hadn't been found, the family did have hope that she may still be alive and they would get to meet her one day. And that is exactly what happened.
00:13:20
Speaker
Unfortunately, that is the end of the time I have here today. So if you want to hear the details on how they found Baby Holly as now a full grown adult, you can search for Crimelines in Your Favorite Podcast app. And the episode came out on December 17th of 2023. So if you want to hear the rest, go check that out. And if not, just know that the good news is Baby Holly was found alive and well.
00:13:46
Speaker
We usually don't have any kind of happy ending in a true crime case, not even a partial one. But in this case, thankfully, we did. Advocacy, investigation, prevention, storytelling is their motto.
00:14:06
Speaker
and Sirens, a Southern True Crime podcast, does all of that and more. It's a podcast that not only tells a gripping story, but advocates for justice.
00:14:22
Speaker
I'm Raven Rollins, and this is my Southern True Crime podcast where I discuss cases from my former hometown. Ada, Oklahoma paints itself as an average community, but its history of murder and corruption runs deeper than any story is ever
Daniel Furr's Troubled Story
00:14:36
Speaker
told. You'll hear plenty of special guests, including authors and experts in their fields, who visit with me on each episode, as well as other cases in the Southern states.
00:14:45
Speaker
With notorious and unknown cases alike, every victim sees the light on my show. This is Sirens, a true crime podcast.
00:14:56
Speaker
A life might end, but sometimes their case lives forever. Charlie Donnelly, The Girl Who Was Taken In 1995, the movie Seven with Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman was released. Top charting songs that year were Gangsta's Paradise by Coolio, Waterfalls by TLC as well as Kiss from a Rose,
00:15:18
Speaker
On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh set off a bomb at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, including eight federal marshals and 19 children. 680 others are wounded. For more information on that case, please check out our three-part miniseries Up in Smoke, where we discuss the bombing in detail as well as the events leading up to it, like the siege at Waco.
00:15:45
Speaker
1995 was a historical year with white Broncos and even more tragedy. But before the year begins, we travel back to my hometown of Ada, Oklahoma, where 15-year-old Daniel Furr leaves home for the last time. Join me as I discuss this case with my co-host, Professor Manda McNeely, as well as Daniel's mother and sister, Gail and Chelsea.
00:16:09
Speaker
I am Chelsea. I am Daniel's little sister and we were seven years apart. I was eight years old and my brother was killed. It wasn't until after I
00:16:26
Speaker
I graduated high school and pursued criminal justice that I started digging into my brother's case myself and really started investigating and looking at his case. Even though I was really young,
00:16:46
Speaker
When Daniel was killed, I still remember him as being the pesti older brother, like, chasing us around the house and with a purse strap and, you know, trying to attack us and being the honoree big brother. And so he was the typical big brother picking on us little kids, so. So I'm Gail Whitson. I'm Daniel's mother. I had Daniel when I was a senior in high school. Oh. You were a baby. I was a baby. Being Grant Daniel kind of grew up together. Aw.
00:17:16
Speaker
Daniel was a very fun, young kid. Never gave me any trouble until about a year before his death. That's when he started hanging with the wrong crowd to get with the wrong people. And at that point, I had become a single mother and I had three other children. So I was a single mom of four kids. And it was difficult. It was difficult times. Like I said, Daniel kind of grew up together. He loved animals.
00:17:48
Speaker
newspaper out. And when he'd go to his newspaper out, when he'd come back, he'd have like 10 dogs following him. I was like, where'd all these dogs come from? I petted them and they followed me on. So then he'd have to go back around and take every dog back home. We did adopt one and named it Bo. Yes, he had one. Sticking your dog in, Bo.
00:18:13
Speaker
He loved Bo, and Bo loved him. Yeah, there's a little creek just probably about 10 blocks from my house. And he'd go down there with his little boy scout camping thing, and he'd catch crawdads and cook them.
00:18:24
Speaker
Did he eat them? Yes. Oh. But he liked to be outside. He liked voice counts. He liked to do outdoor stuff camping. In 1994, Daniel began hanging out with a bad crowd. He often disappears for days or weeks on end and informs his mother, Gayle, that he has joined a gang called Cripp's Eight Ball. He will not disclose member names to Gayle other than...
00:18:49
Speaker
MH, home Daniel is supposedly selling drugs for at the time, and one other member. Daniel tends to get into a lot of trouble around this time, and in November of 1994, he enters Willowview Juvenile Center. Daniel begins receiving death threats, telling Gale that, quote, they showed up for the message that if he talked, he would be killed, end quote.
00:19:12
Speaker
Daniel's stay in Willowview is 30 days long. Once he went up to the placement where he was supposed to go, he said after 30 days, he started telling me, I just wanted to see if I could do it. And they took him to a place and
00:19:28
Speaker
I told him I had to steal a car and then he had to run down what they call the gauntlet where you run down and they beat you. Oh my gosh. And he goes, I did it. But after he came to a census and was in treatment for a while, he says, this is scary. They've came to my window and told me if I said anything that, because I placed him up in Oklahoma City.
00:19:49
Speaker
And that's where he supposedly got jumped into the gang. And he was 14. That was right before he turned 15. He said they actually came to the window of his room and through the window told him.
00:20:03
Speaker
And that was just days after. In June of 1995, a childhood friend of Daniel will call the fourth scout tells me that he spoke with Daniel around this time. He says that Daniel told him that he thought he had made a group of guys very upset with him and they were making threats, but he wasn't too worried about it.
00:20:23
Speaker
The friend states that Daniel was actually in really good spirits and told him that he was happy and had been doing well. We jump to July 6, 1995. Daniel was seen by Gail that morning. He was also seen at his grandmother's house that day. This is the day that Daniel and his father Harvey get into a fight.
00:20:41
Speaker
Daniel leaves Harvey's house, and this is the last time Harvey sees him alive. So my dad was out of town or out of state. While he was gone, Daniel was to stay with my mom. Daniel had broken the house and stolen some items from my dad, upset my dad that he had broken and stolen something from him. He did confront Daniel about it, and they had gotten into an argument, and so then my dad left.
00:21:07
Speaker
And the bad thing about that is that's something my dad had always had to live with. He hated that that was the last thing he said to his son. The words got heated or whatever. A few days later, you know, he loses Daniel and you can't ever take that back. And so I know throughout the years after that, my dad battled a lot of depression and blamed himself. So that really, really was hard.
00:21:35
Speaker
I went through his room and I found some money. I found $85. I was stashed in his mattress. The day that he left, we'll put it that way, I confronted him. And then I finally said, I got it. And if you will tell me where you got this.
00:21:53
Speaker
You know, I will give it right back. He says, just give my money, Mom. We got a big fight. So the last time I ever talked to my son, too, it was a big fight. And he walked down the street in a way. And that was my last words with him, too. So I lived with a lot of regret on that, too.
00:22:11
Speaker
A witness states that Anthony Taylor and his crew showed up at a friend's house and invited them to a party at the quarry later that night. According to authorities, it is believed that this night, July 7, 1995, is the night Daniel is murdered.
00:22:28
Speaker
either late that night or early into the eight at this party. From statements to police, we gather that there could have been around a dozen possible witnesses to Daniel's murder that night, all underage kids he went to school with, or, quote, gang members.
00:22:45
Speaker
However, on July 8th, a girl we'll call MC says that LM, who was Anthony Taylor's girlfriend at the time, told her that she saw Daniel around 5.30 p.m. on the 8th. She does not say where, and I do not have an interview with the police from her.
00:23:04
Speaker
On July 11, 1995, at 5.55 p.m., a 911 call came in to the Ada Police Dispatch from Pastor Bill Galbraith. Bill at the time was the pastor for the First Presbyterian Church in Ada and the scout troop leader for Troop 9.
00:23:20
Speaker
He informed dispatch that several boy scouts from his troop, which was also Daniel's troop, had reported to him that they had found a body at the west side of the old brick plant, or quarry, just east of the church near the rock cliffs. Daniel was 5'10 and around 150 pounds. So reports of the body being six feet tall, weighing 160 pounds with long black hair and no facial hair.
00:23:47
Speaker
Age is approximated at 25 years old. And at the bottom, other descriptors are recorded, with height being 5'4", or 64 inches, and weight is noted at 92.5 pounds, along with the age of 15 and the race of white. It also says his hair is brown. These two descriptors are both on the same report, one at the top, one at the bottom.
00:24:14
Speaker
I think this is the important part for everybody to realize why we had so much doubt. I got an autopsy before the sheriff did. I had one in hand. I had somebody waiting up there at the ME's office for it. And it said 5-4. That's when I started questioning. And I saw a picture of the body. And the hair went along the shoulder to the end. And I said, just explain this long black hair to me.
00:24:43
Speaker
It seems that the body was found in the active decay stage, near the end of decomposition, with only advanced decay or skeletonization remaining, which would take around a month, even in the heat. So the ME did not note what stages the maggots were in, nor their shape, size, or color.
00:25:03
Speaker
Maggots can be present at any stage, but these factors can tell us how long they have been present. Since these things were not recorded, we cannot use them for etymology purposes. I questioned the medical examiner on that, because I had took homicide investigation courses, just got out of them, and I said, you put the day of death, the day you found the body. He said, how else are we going to know? I said, the gestation of the maggots.
00:25:28
Speaker
And he said, we don't do that. For a homicide investigation, you need to know the time of death. I had questions. I had valid questions. And they would just tell me I was in denial.
00:25:38
Speaker
With all of this information, our team believes the body could have been dead for at least two weeks to a month. With no blood present at the scene other than one small leaf, and it's a suspected stabbing, we believe that there's a good chance that the body was killed somewhere else and then placed at this scene. This would also explain why, if the body was older than two weeks, no one found it in this spot prior.
00:26:04
Speaker
as we know that the scouts regularly meet at the church every Tuesday and played around this spot each week, yet did not witness the body there in previous weeks. In August of 1996, Gail speaks with Daniel's dentist, Dr. Clark. Dr. Clark didn't believe that they could have matched ID with the records that he provided.
00:26:26
Speaker
He stated that an X-ray had not been done of Daniel's teeth since 1991 when Daniel was 11 years old. He said he would have lost teeth and new ones would have grown in, so it would be unlikely that an ID could be made from them.
00:26:42
Speaker
Those x-rays from 1991 were the ones sent to the medical examiner's odontologist and used in the comparison and eventual ID of the body as Daniel. Clearly, the x-rays that were sent from Daniel's dentist was done when Daniel was 11 years old. There's a huge gap in between those times.
00:27:02
Speaker
We do have the official reports for that comparison. It's very light, and we agree. It seems unlikely a match could have been made from them. July of 2006. Daniel's family does a news story about possible exhumation of the body to test it to find out if it really was Daniel. The Emmy stated after it aired that they had a tissue sample from the body.
00:27:28
Speaker
The family is told they will need to obtain a court order for the samples. In January of 2007, the family calls the Texas lab to see how the testing is coming along. They are told then that they never received the samples from the medical examiner's office for comparison.
00:27:46
Speaker
So I called the ME's office and asked them, and they said, it's too decomposed. I said, I don't care. It belongs to me now. I have a court order. Will you please send it to my lab? And they can determine how decomposed it is. And they said, no, you'll have to get another court order. And I was just, every time they did that to me, it knocked the breath out of me. They just kept knocking me off my feet.
00:28:11
Speaker
The family requested another court order to release the sample to the lap anyway. While they are waiting on this second court order, and six months later, Joe Glover finds samples from blood from the body in the basement of the courthouse in Ada, labeled as Daniel Fur. It is sealed in an evidence bag with a sample of DNA, a leaf with blood, and hair samples.
00:28:36
Speaker
The DNA and hair are sent to the lab and tested against Gail. That sample was confirmed to be Daniel's DNA. But where is the chain of custody for these samples? Why were they stored in the courthouse basement instead of the medical examiner's office or an official evidence locker? How did they have these samples after the medical examiner themselves stated that their samples were not viable and had no other samples?
00:29:02
Speaker
Was the body found at the quarry misidentified due to an overwhelmed system in the months after the Oklahoma City bombing? Why did the medical examiner report one physical finding of the body only to change it later? Why has the autopsy report been left pending for 28 years? To hear our full episode on Daniel's case, find the Sirens podcast streaming wherever you get your podcasts.
00:29:29
Speaker
You can also find Daniel's case in our new true crime book, Sends of the South, a true crime case collection to advocate for anywhere you get your books online. Don't let Daniel be forgotten. Don't let his case grow colder.
Jeff Mudgett's Ripper Theory
00:29:53
Speaker
Now, for those of you who enjoy a bit of humor with their crime, Private Dix is a witty take on the world of private investigators. It's like detective work with a side of laughter. I got the opportunity to interview Jeff Mudgett. Jeff is the author of Bloodstains and has an eight episode series on the History Channel named American Ripper. He's even done a TED Talk. Jeff is the great, great grandson of Herman Webster Mudgett.
00:30:23
Speaker
true crime people we know that name well but if you're not a true crime person Herman Webster Mudgett is the real name for the infamous serial killer H.H. Holmes. This guy is widely considered America's first serial killer he is the worst of the worst
00:30:39
Speaker
H.H. Holmes built himself a murder castle in Chicago during the World's Fair in 1893. Holmes was also a career criminal with crimes including insurance fraud, check forging, horse theft, and of course murder.
00:30:54
Speaker
His number of victims vary from source to source. I've seen as high as 200 victims. And I've also seen as low as nine, even one for sure. And the reason Jeff's done a TED talk and had a history channel eight episode limited series and written his book bloodstains is not only because of the HH Holmes thing, but he also thinks that HH Holmes is
00:31:18
Speaker
or was, Jack the Ripper as well. So enjoy the episode. Let me introduce you to everyone here. So we have Jeff Mudgett here today. You're a jack of all trades, Jeff. I'm looking you up. You're an author. You're a TV star. Hey, History Channel TV star. You did a TED talk. I didn't know that. You're on Sorting Scale. I didn't know that. I didn't listen to that, but that must've been years ago. Maybe I should give a background of you a little bit too. Great, great grandson of the most evil American in history.
00:31:48
Speaker
Yeah. Great. Look at how proud to be. That's crazy to me that from my understanding, you got told this, like you, you didn't know this your whole life. Like, when did you find out that you were great, great grandkid to H.H. Holmes? 40. 40. I'm 38. It was a family dinner. I read about it in the book, which is, you know, my revision is coming out here soon, which
00:32:14
Speaker
I'll introduce to all your listeners sometime in your show today, but it's, it was a family dinner and my grandmother was, she was, her hobby was looking up our, our direct descendancy lines. Yeah. And her belief.
00:32:33
Speaker
all these years had been that it had been infamous or famous, however you want to call it civil war general Robert E. Lee. Oh. All that. And she hired these professional teams to run it down professionally, you know, and give her a full report verified, certified, all that stuff. It's been a lot of money. That's crazy. I thought you were going to say she was like on ancestry.com, you know, or something like that, but she got a whole team. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. No, that was her deal. And that, but that was a lot, you know, that was 25 years ago.
00:33:02
Speaker
I could be your grandpa. How old are you, Jeff, if you don't mind me asking? 66 here pretty quick. There you go. So you could be my dad. You could be my grandpa if we were like, you don't know my mom. No, I'm just kidding. You never know.
00:33:20
Speaker
I don't know. You look kind of cute. You didn't look kind of cute. She might be pretty. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. So you're sitting around dinner and your grandma's trying to figure out from Robert E. Lee. Cause she's convinced of that. What happens next? Well, she sits us all down and she's spooning out her famous chicken dumplings, you know, and we're all eager to dive in. And then she says, I've got something to tell you all. The pros came back to me and said that I need to take up a
00:33:49
Speaker
something I need to do differently now." And then she told us what they told her about that. It wasn't Robert E. Lee. It was a man that, you know, was every major newspaper in the 1890s was referring to as the devil. And
00:34:10
Speaker
you know, not just a criminal, the devil for sure. And she said, and I, you know, and I looked it up and then, and then my brother was her, was her assistant and all this stuff. He'd always been involved with it too. He jumped in and said, yeah, I did some research. And, uh, this was, this was not a good man. And my grandfather sitting there and my grandmother was a very quiet stoic man. I had very little relationship with him.
00:34:34
Speaker
And he's sitting there. And I was watching him. Because this would have been his grandfather, right? Yeah, for sure. And he explodes at the table, Richard, and storms out of the room. But he's yelling at the family, that name will never be used in my house ever again, and storms out of the room. And we're all just going to sit there like, wow, we were just looking for apple pie. We weren't looking for this.
00:35:06
Speaker
you're writing blood states, and then you find out while you're researching, what I find is the craziest thing. Yes, it's crazy that you're an ancestor, but then you've upped the ante even more. What did you find out while researching HH Holmes that is crazy in the whole true crime? It's the one that people get just violently angry with me about my theory about Holmes having been Jack the Ripper. Da, da, da! Jeff figures out that Holmes,
00:35:32
Speaker
likely was Jack the Ripper. And that's what I'm doing a giant series on right now is Jack the Ripper. That's what history hired me to do with them. Yeah. For eight, for eight episodes. Yeah. That's so crazy. So what was the first piece of evidence when you were doing your research that puts you towards this conclusion? Well, and it wasn't, I wasn't the first, there were other people, historians that believed there was a connection.
00:35:55
Speaker
I didn't know that. With Holmes and being in London selling body parts there, working to up his business. And then all of a sudden they started looking at his handwriting comparisons with some of the famous Jack the Ripper letters, the Dear Boss, the Sausage Act letters, those. And having worked with handwriting comparisons at law,
00:36:19
Speaker
I knew that this was difficult and pretty much in the 19th century, Richard, there was no DNA. There were no fingerprints. There were dental records and handwriting that the law... Police would come to a crime scene of Jack the Ripper and they'd see blood everywhere and they'd go like, well, there's no evidence. And then they'd leave like, nowadays that would be a treasure trove of so much evidence you wouldn't have made it past murder one.
00:36:41
Speaker
But back in those days, they needed someone to see them exactly doing it, get caught red handed, maybe fingerprints. Cause I think fingerprints are still pretty new. Uh, so that was in its infancy. So you're right. Handwriting might've been one of the only few things that they could actually figure out, right? Well, on these, and these guys were on that before me and then, you know, they, they found out what I was doing. They got ahold of me and they're good.
00:37:03
Speaker
They're good people. And they said, hey, we've got this. And if you watch my Ted talk, you'll see that I use some of their, with their permission, some of their material about the home's letters being compared with the dear boss letter. And we put it up on screen at Ted. And then we asked the audience, I think there was like 2,500 people there, but it was, we asked them.
00:37:27
Speaker
We know you're not in Scotland Yard. We know you're not in the FBI. Just look at this picture up here on the wall above me. Look at this. What do you see there in there? The whole audience. Well, it's the same handwriting. It definitely looks similar. I've seen your Ted Doggett. And I knew that wasn't going to go anywhere as far as history and proof. All right. Just somebody's saying, hey, it looks the same. No, no. So I located with some help from some of the previous law enforcement people I've worked with in California.
00:37:56
Speaker
an outfit that did computer programming and comparison for the FBI and Scotland Yard and the CIA with handwriting. And they were eager to help me. They compared the Dear Boss letter with the Holmes handwriting comparisons, and they came back with 97%. You're saying that even me, if I wrote two different letters, it probably wouldn't come back 97%. No, and they told me
00:38:20
Speaker
that, you know, they were working with a font that was different now than back in the 19th century. And that if we really wanted to get this a direct match, we had to invest in them putting together a new program and then doing it again. And they, and they thought they probably could come out with a hundred percent.
00:38:40
Speaker
So, you know, all this, all of a sudden slapping in the face, here we go, we got this evil man that all of a sudden is now possibly solving the most incredible true crime mystery that ever was. The first American serial killer with like the first serial killer, like that, Jack, it just adds the whole new layer to the whole thing. It's okay. So we have the deer boss, Saucy Jackie letter. They saying that that matches too. Cause I know the Saucy Jackie and the deer boss,
00:39:09
Speaker
they think are written by, like there's other people, not just you that think it's written by Jack the Ripper, but there's also people that think they're written by some media man at the time to keep the whole story rolling, like as if to keep business alive for the story, which I don't think a brutal murder like that needs as letters being sent. I think they could have stayed in the papers for a bit anyway. All the historians realize when you look at it, Saucy Jack and Dear Boss are not written by the same man. So what they came up with was that Dear Boss was a journalistic hoax.
00:39:37
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Because they wanted to go with Saucy Jack in the murders. For sure. And that's all ripperologists pretty much went that direction. And then they used to call journalistic hoax. So when these guys came back to me with
00:39:52
Speaker
This isn't a journal, this is probably your great great grandfather wrote this letter. And that led to the number three murder there, Richard. I don't know if you want to go this far into it, but that was Catherine Eddowes, who the letter described
00:40:08
Speaker
what was going to happen to her in when she was being killed. She's part of the double event, right? She's the second girl in the double event, which you know what? History is never actually sat down and I'm trying to get the guys at the MGM Amazon to go with me on this.
00:40:23
Speaker
We're trying to sit down and show that it probably wasn't possible those two on the same night, one hour. I've been doing so much research on Jack the Ripper. I don't think long Liz was killed by the same person. I don't need white chapel was a disaster. Murders, rapes, robberies, theft, prostitution, everywhere. It wasn't that place. I wouldn't be shocked if that was just someone hearing, knowing Jack the Ripper is on the loose. I'm going to slit a throat. I can get away with it.
00:40:48
Speaker
Same thing with Mary Ann Kelly. I don't want to get too far into it. I think there's no way that's the same man, the Mary Ann Kelly. And I'm trying to show them that too, and how we can go into the MO and the evidence there and break that down. But the first two, the first two I'm convinced were by the same man.
00:41:05
Speaker
And then, um, I'll give you an interesting, uh, story about it while we were over there filming in London and history. Didn't want to put this on the show. Well, I will, I will take that history channel. That's why we take that history channel. You can't censor me history channel.
00:41:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's going to come out by somebody, it will. But, you know, I'm sitting there and, you know what, filming in London with the crew there for McGill production was awesome. They treated me like a king. It was fun. My co-host, Amaryllis, was ex CIA. I used to call her Scully. She was ex files.
00:41:42
Speaker
Yeah, I've seen some clips. I didn't want to watch it because I didn't want to ruin this interview. I'm going to watch them right after this. So I'm sitting there in the hotel bar. We finish producing all day long and we're resting and they're not the crews down in the, in the pit, the fire pit of the hotel planning on the next day shoot. And, uh, these two fellows come up in suits and ties and they walk up to me at the bar. Mr. Magic, uh, we'd like to introduce ourselves where, uh, was Scotland yard. Oh, I said, uh,
00:42:10
Speaker
I didn't ask to see their badge or anything. They could have been lying to me. If that was me, Jeff, if that was me, I'd be turning and running because I probably did something illegal the day before. Yeah, well, I was worried about it here. We're over there breaking down the UK, the English people's most, I don't know, talked about, favorite, I don't know, mystery of a long time.
00:42:34
Speaker
They actually got very stoic and very solid. And they said, we just want you to know, we don't agree with what you're saying about Jack having been your great-great-grandfather. But we do agree with your theory that there was a copycat involved. It wasn't one man and five weren't. And that's right from there. And then they turn and walk off.
00:43:02
Speaker
If you want to listen to the rest of that hour plus long interview with Jeff Mudgett, go over to private dicks and take a listen. Also, if you want to hear, listen to the rest of our episodes, please do. Thanks for having us on the show and we'll do this anytime we can. Love you.
00:43:24
Speaker
Now, for a quick true crime fix in the morning, Morning Cup of Murder delivers bite-sized episodes that will wake you up faster than your caffeine fix. It's the perfect way to start your day with a jolt of suspense. There were two more murders 15 miles away. The police arrived, they found the telephones and electricity lines. We have a weird hummus, guys. A scene described by one investigator is reminiscent of a weird...
The Murder of Carly Pierce Stevenson
00:43:54
Speaker
Some crimes are so gruesome, the details are enough to make you sick. On November 30th, 2018, a man was sentenced for crimes that, when made public, shocked everyone who read the horrific details. So if you like your coffee hot but your bones chilled, sit back and start your day with a morning cup of murder.
00:44:16
Speaker
On August 29th, 2010, trailbrick riders near Bolanglo State Forest in New South Wales stumbled upon the skeletal remains of a woman who, eventually, would be identified as Carly Pierce Stevenson. Initially linked to Ivan Malott and the other backpacker murders, it wasn't until later that forensics would place her time of death years after 1996 when Ivan Malott was finally sent to jail. Called simply Angel by law enforcement due to the t-shirt she was wearing,
00:44:46
Speaker
In 2010, a public plea was made for any information on their unidentified body. And finally, in October of 2015, she was formally identified as 20-year-old Carly. Now, just months before Angel was given her name, a second body was found near Waynarka, South Australia on July 15, 2015.
00:45:08
Speaker
680 miles away from where Carly was dumped, the remains seemed to belong to a young child and were found surrounded by girls' clothing by a passing motorist who went to examine an abandoned suitcase on the side of the Karunda Highway. Believing the girl suffered from an incredibly violent death several years before her remains were dumped in that suitcase, police again
00:45:30
Speaker
made a public plea for information, and posted details about what was found with and near the body. After more than 1,200 calls to Crime Stoppers, one caller identified the handmade quilt found at the scene as one made by a child's grandmother. The woman died in 2012, believing her daughter and granddaughter were living interstate.
00:45:51
Speaker
and with the help of DNA extracted from the child's skeletal remains, which were then compared to the DNA retained from a neonatal heel prick, a match was made that not only identified the little girl as two-year-old Condoleece Pierce, but showed that she was the daughter of Carly Pierce Stevenson, the woman found years before and over 600 miles away. The pair had been reported missing from Alice Springs back in 2009.
00:46:20
Speaker
According to the information gathered by investigators, Carly Jade Pierce-Stevenson, born in 1988, had her daughter Condoleece Cara Pierce in 2006.
00:46:31
Speaker
The pair were believed to have left the Alice Springs area in 2008 so Carly could go find work and might have traveled to areas like Darwin, Adelaide, the Murray and Riverland districts, Victoria, and Canberra, but were last officially seen on November 8th, 2008 when they were stopped by police on the Stewart Highway and again in December of 2008 in the Canberra area. Appealing to all motel, hotel, and caravan park owners in those areas,
00:47:01
Speaker
and asking them to look for Carly and Condoleece in their records. Police learned that on September 4, 2009, Carly's mother filed a missing persons report that was closed just over a month later when she was reassured that they were safe and well, but did not want family to contact them at the time. Police believe that Carly was killed in the Belonglo Forest on December 14 or 15 of 2008.
00:47:27
Speaker
and that her daughter was killed sometime after that in a totally different location. Years after her death, someone used Carly's phone to send false quote, proof of life messages to loved ones and both identities were used by third parties to commit social security and identity fraud. Though Carly's mother died back in 2012, her stepfather and stepbrother were still alive and living in Alice Springs.
00:47:54
Speaker
The remains were returned to the area and a funeral service was held in December of 2015. Following whatever leads they had, a joint investigation began and investigators, following the money trail, were led to a woman who appeared in a credit union in June of 2010, claiming she was Carly Pierce Stevenson. In a wheelchair and accompanied by a man, another woman impersonating the deceased at a Central Link office in South Australia came in that same year.
00:48:24
Speaker
Within just days of releasing the identities of Carly and Condoleece, police reported that they had several suspects and that one was already in jail awaiting sentencing on an unrelated charge. On October 28th, 2015, 41 year old Daniel James Holdem was arrested in Cessnock, New South Wales and later charged with the murder of Carly Pier Stevenson. According to the investigators, Daniel was in a relationship with a woman named Hazel Passmore.
00:48:53
Speaker
who allegedly stole the woman's identity just after the murder and might have been in a relationship with Carly at the time of her death. Daniel, back in 2008, had been in an accident with a then partner that resulted in the deaths of her two children and her leg being amputated. She is believed to be the woman who was impersonating Carly in the wheelchair. In August of 2008,
00:49:18
Speaker
The month before the accident, she uploaded images of her two children and Condolee's peers at a motor show in Alice Springs on her Facebook. Further connecting Daniel to the crime, police allegedly traced a signal from his cell phone to the location near where Carly was eventually found around the suspected time of her murder.
00:49:39
Speaker
On December 15, 2015, he was arrested again for the murder of Condoleece, who police now believe died just five days after her mother. And he was refused bail.
00:49:51
Speaker
After a number of delays to collect more evidence, now coming from a total of five jurisdictions, it was alleged during his committal hearing in August of 2017 that Daniel told a witness he stepped on Carly's throat, crushing her windpipe, and admitted to burying her in the forest. He also said he stopped at a store, purchased some duct tape and garbage bags, and then suffocated Condoleece at a motel room in Nerendara and put her into that suitcase.
00:50:20
Speaker
After making his first appearance in the Supreme Court of New South Wales on December 1st, 2017, on July 31st, 2018, Daniel Holden pleaded guilty to the murders. During his plea, the details of the crime were revealed and the public learned for the first time that Daniel, a man with no prior history of violence against women or sexual interest in children, murdered Carly in order to rape her two-year-old daughter.
00:50:47
Speaker
He allegedly kept a quote, child sex hit list that contained a list of children's names with the words like consent and forced written next to them. And next to Condoleece's name was the word rape. Condoleece, when found, had a diaper wrapped around her skull and a balled up dishcloth stuffed into her mouth. Police believe that it is highly likely that she was still alive when she was gagged and placed into the suitcase.
00:51:16
Speaker
On November 30th, 2018, Daniel James Holdem was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences without parole. Thank you for joining me in my morning cup of murder. If you want to help support the podcast, there's always Patreon or just sharing it with your true crime obsessed friends. And remember, stay safe.
00:51:40
Speaker
And for the true crime lovers intrigued by the unknown, Persons Unknown explores cases of unsolved murders and of disappearances.
Persons Unknown Podcast Introduction
00:51:49
Speaker
It's a deep dive into the mysteries that continue to baffle investigators both in Wales, where our host is based, and in the rest of the world. Persons Unknown is a true crime podcast dedicated to unsolved murders and missing persons cases from all over the world.
00:52:07
Speaker
I'm John, I live in Wales, UK, and I research, write and produce each episode. New episodes are released every other Monday. Cases I have covered recently include the disappearance of Robin Graham from California in 1970.
00:52:26
Speaker
The Unsolved Murder of Zagametsi Mogamatsi in Botswana, 1994. The 1973 Unsolved Murder of Brian McDermott in Northern Ireland. And the 2008 Unsolved Murder of Narti Mallory Manning from Christchurch, New Zealand. The segment I'm sharing with you today is the beginning of the episode about the 1986 Unsolved Murder of Danita Kachmarska.
00:52:56
Speaker
Danuta was a Polish-born doctor living in Birmingham, UK.
Dr. Danuta Kaczmarska's Murder Mystery
00:53:01
Speaker
You can find the rest of the episode by searching for Persons Unknown in your podcast directory, or alternatively, you can follow the link in the show notes. There you will also find a transcript for the episode and a list of the sources I used. Thank you for listening.
00:53:22
Speaker
It was January 22nd 1986 and enthusiastic amateur photographer Paul Kernich was spending his Wednesday evening going through some slides on a home projector.
00:53:37
Speaker
At 9pm, he suddenly became aware of a strong smell of smoke, wafting through the living room. He quickly got on the phone and dialed 999 for the emergency services, requesting a fire engine be dispatched to his property in Coniston Close, Hall Green, in the southeast of Birmingham. The response was prompt, and a team of town firefighters soon arrived at the scene.
00:54:04
Speaker
A cursory search discovered that the blaze was not at Mr. Kurnich's home. The smoke was coming from a house a few doors away, which belonged to a popular local GP, general practitioner, Dr. Danuta Kaczmarska. The firefighters donned breathing apparatus and approached the house.
00:54:27
Speaker
They found the front door locked, so forced entry to the property. Visibility was extremely poor, as the firefighters were enveloped in a thick black blanket of smoke. Even so, it was apparent that the fire was contained to the ground floor, specifically the kitchen. The blaze was able to be put out relatively quickly, within a matter of minutes.
00:54:56
Speaker
The crew began sorting through the wreckage of the fire to ascertain what had gone on and discover its cause. One firefighter crawled over a mound of cold and burnt debris, not knowing what it was. A short time later, at 10pm, it was discovered to be the charred remains of a human skeleton.
00:55:20
Speaker
Station officer Steve Pearce, who was in charge of the operation, contacted detectives and the West Midlands fire investigation team. They were dispatched swiftly and an incident ring was established at nearby Sparkhill police station. Attempts were made to formally identify the body. Police suspected the body to be the house owner, 52-year-old Dan Utterkaczmaska,
00:55:51
Speaker
Dental records soon proved that this was correct. A pathology report showed that Danuta had been struck forcefully several times with a sharp, heavy object, probably a small axe or machete. Five winds had been administered to the back of the head and at least one to the forehead. Later at the inquest it was said a total of seven blows were counted.
00:56:20
Speaker
Blood found on the walls testified that the attack had happened in the kitchen. The injuries to the head had rendered Danuta unconscious. The blow to the forehead had fractured the skull and it was determined that Danuta would have died from this injury alone. However, she was still alive when doused in inflammable liquid and satellite.
00:56:47
Speaker
Before this had happened, Danita had first been placed atop a pyre of pillows and bedding. A tea towel was found stuffed inside Danita's mouth. It had been used to gag her and prevent any screams or calls for help from being heard.
00:57:06
Speaker
Though the following information was not released at the time, pathologist Dr Keith Scott later revealed at the inquest that there were signs of a violent struggle. Danuta had fought back hard. Knives and food items were strewn around the body, as well as copious amounts of blood. There has never been any evidence released that suggests Danuta was sexually assaulted.
00:57:35
Speaker
Police wrote a loss as to the motive for such a brutal slaying. Robbery seemed unlikely as a large amount of cash and valuables were left untouched. Hundreds of pounds in notes and travellers checks were found all around the house. A newspaper article in the Birmingham Post in March 1997 later said that a total of £800 was discovered at the scene.
00:58:03
Speaker
PC Jackson, who was one of the first officers at the house on Coniston Close, said there was no sign of a break-in. Therefore it was speculated that Danita may have known the killer. Within a day of the murder, police did say it was believed that Danita had a number of male friends and they were attempting to trace and speak with them.
00:58:29
Speaker
Danita was born in Poland during the mid-1930s. Her father, Stefan, had been a judge there before emigrating with his family. I am unsure exactly when this happened, but by the mid-1980s, the catch-maskers had been in the country for decades. By 1986, Danita had been a general practitioner in Birmingham for 15 years.
00:58:58
Speaker
At the time of her death, she earned two GP surgeries, and personally oversaw around 4,000 patients. One surgery was on Westfield Road in Acox Green, and the other on Addison Road, King's Heath. Some of her patients had trouble pronouncing her last name, Catch Masker, so she was known by patients and colleagues alike as Dr. K.
00:59:25
Speaker
The amiable GP was held in high regard by the local community. Her neighbours said she was kind and would often give them presents and gifts. Danuta was loved and respected by her patients. She often went the extra mile for them and counted many as friends.
00:59:47
Speaker
Danita's parents lived in Birmingham too. Her father, Stefan, had been ill with cancer for some time and her mother, Alina, is described in one press report as having been suffering stress due to the strain of caring for a terminally ill husband. In a particularly cruel turn of fate, Stefan passed away just six days after his daughter's murder.
01:00:15
Speaker
Danuta had at least one sister, Alicia. He was a social worker living in Newcastle in the north of England. She travelled down numerous times over the first few weeks of the investigation to provide valuable information to the police about Danuta's life. Confusingly, later newspaper reports from the 1990s refer to a sister named Irina. He was then living in the south of England
01:00:46
Speaker
Both the Alicia and Irina mentioned have the same English surname. I'm guessing a married name. So I assume it is the same person, but for some reason she is referred to by different first names. Donita was a wealthy woman. As well as the two surgeries and house in Greenhall, she also owned two cottages in Stratford-upon-Avon. I believe she may have owned another house in Birmingham too.
01:01:17
Speaker
Danuta enjoyed foreign holidays and went abroad two or three times a year. She had travelled extensively in India, China and Sri Lanka. When she died, Danuta left no will, so letters of administration were granted to her 76-year-old mother, Alina.
01:01:38
Speaker
Alina was left to decide what to do with her daughter's considerable estate. It totaled £202,384, the equivalent of over half a million pounds today. To put this into perspective, the average house price in the UK in 1986 was a little over £30,000.
01:02:04
Speaker
A woman named Edna, who worked as a receptionist at Danita's doctor's practice, spoke to the Birmingham Metro News about the murder. She was in complete shock and could not fathom what could have happened to have led to her beloved boss being killed in such a gruesome manner.
01:02:23
Speaker
What made this murder even more baffling and disconcerting was the fact that almost four years to the day, another body had been found at the same address, also having been unrecognizably burnt in a fire. To continue listening to the episode, follow the link in the show notes or search for persons unknown in your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
Major Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris's Tragedy
01:02:57
Speaker
Next we have Fresh Hell, a podcast where two women from opposite sides of the Atlantic bring you tales and murder and mystery. One half of that podcast is our very own host, Johanna. If you're into true crime that is both engaging and pulls no punches, this one's for you.
01:03:18
Speaker
I'm Annie in America and I'm Johanna in Austria and you're listening to Fresh Hell, your favorite international podcast. If you've never listened to us, we are friends who met online, discovered we had a similar dark sense of humor and an interest in the macabre, but from very different global perspectives.
01:03:37
Speaker
We started this podcast almost five years ago and we've still never met in person. It's a whole thing. And the original full version of this episode is one I told Johanna about way back in 2019. We were younger then, but our audio is better now.
01:03:55
Speaker
This is the tragic story of Major Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris Rathbone, the couple who attended the play at Ford's Theatre with the Lincolns on the night President Lincoln was shot. It's a story of murder, madness, and more murder, so let's get into it, and just a brief caution that this episode deals with untreated mental health issues, spousal abuse, and murder.
01:04:21
Speaker
Clara Hamilton Harris was born in 1834, one of four children born to Senator Ira Harris of New York and his wife Louisa, who unfortunately died when Clara was around 10. Three years later, Ira married Pauline Rathbone, the widow of Jared L. Rathbone, a successful merchant who went on to become the mayor of Albany, New York.
01:04:44
Speaker
Jared and Pauline also had four children, and two of their sons, Jared Jr. and Henry, would survive to become adults. When Pauline Rathbone and Senator Ira Harris married, Clara and Henry became step-siblings. Clara was a couple years older than he was. They were 11 and 13.
01:05:04
Speaker
They became quick friends, and although Clara's mother told her to think of Henry as family, they were not family, and she fell in love with him. He felt the same way. They were both witty, sarcastic, and smart, and they were both from well-to-do, politically connected, upstate New York families. Despite those families disapproving, or maybe in part because of it, Henry and Clara were finally engaged in 1861, just before the start of the Civil War.
01:05:34
Speaker
as Henry had joined Union forces. Henry survived some of the most brutal battles in one of the worst wars, including Antietam, the bloodiest day in US history, with 22,717 dead, wounded, or missing.
01:05:51
Speaker
While Henry was away, Clara met and became friends with the first lady, Mary Linko, a close friend of her stepmother's, and was making friends and social connections during this time as well. At the end of the war, Henry is a major and on Good Friday 1865,
01:06:07
Speaker
The Linkins are going to attend a play with friends Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancé Clara Harris, who were honored to attend with them. Linkin hadn't actually wanted to go to the theater that night, but once there, he was enjoying the play seated in a comfortable rocking chair. His favorite type of chair, as his height made standard chairs uncomfortable to sit in. It was during Act 3 of the day when the officer guarding the door to the president's box
01:06:33
Speaker
went to get a drink, and assassin John Wilkes Booth snuck into the box and fired one shot into the back of President Lincoln's head. The box is chaos, full of smoke from the gun being fired, and Mary Lincoln can't stop screaming. Henry tried to get a hold of Booth and the two struggle until Booth pulled out a large knife and stepped Henry, ripping the knife down from shoulder to elbow, the blade touching the bone in some places.
01:06:59
Speaker
As Booth tried to flee, Henry tried once again to grab Booth, who was trying to leap from the box to the stage. It's believed that Henry's actions caused Booth to break his leg in his attempt to escape. And if that hadn't happened, Booth might never have been caught, but that's a topic for a different day. Clara applied a tourniquet to Henry's arm, unknowingly saving his life. Henry passes out from blood loss, and it's only then that people realize how seriously he's been hurt.
01:07:28
Speaker
We have a letter written by Clara around this time, and she writes, quote, Henry has been suffering a great deal with his arm. The knife went from the elbow nearly to the shoulder, inside cutting in artery nerves and veins. He bled so profusely as to make him very weak. My whole clothing as I sat in my box was saturated literally with blood, as well as my hands and face, end quote.
01:07:55
Speaker
President Lincoln died of his wound at 7.22 a.m. on April 15, 1865.
01:08:02
Speaker
Henry and Clara finally married in July of 1867, but it was said Henry was increasingly depressed and irritable. I think we can make an educated guess that between the horrific battles he survived during the Civil War and the fight in the Box the Night Lincoln was assassinated, he was suffering from a serious case of PTSD. Henry was not okay. He struggled with terrible survivor skills for not having been able to save the president.
01:08:29
Speaker
Clara and Henry's involvement in Lincoln's assassination made them household names and the attention had begun to make Henry, already struggling with his mental health, increasingly paranoid. He started to think people were talking about him in a way that sometimes scared Clara. Not that there was anything anyone could do about it. In 1870 Henry resigned from the army. The same year the first child, they would have three children in total, was born.
01:08:56
Speaker
with the rank of private colonel. But once he left the army he found it difficult to keep a job as his mental health was deteriorating. He started to become suspicious of his wife who he thought was planning to leave him and take the children. And he accused Clara of adultery. He was angry and he was increasingly bitter that she seemed to love the children more than him. And he'd begun to threaten her.
01:09:26
Speaker
And it wasn't as though he hadn't seen the worst of the front lines and what they had to offer. For example, at the crater of Petersburg, he was shot in the chest and then left for dead for 68 hours. 68 hours, during which time he managed to not pass out and to stay conscious, because he knew if he passed out, his fellow soldiers would bury him alive in a mass grave.
01:09:51
Speaker
If he did also have other underlying mental health issues, which many think he may have, he just survived some of the worst sort of things imaginable, like real Bernica kind of stuff. Despite Henry's increasingly poor mental health, in 1882, President Arthur appointed him as the U.S. consul to the province of Hanover, and the family moved to Germany. Henry was drinking heavily, and he was regularly unfaithful, yet still convinced Clara was the one cheating.
01:10:21
Speaker
Clara's sister was visiting them, and there had been some discussion whether it might make sense that the two of them should return home with the children. Clara's family wanted her to just come home. And this irrational behavior unfortunately came to a tragic end on December 23rd, 1883. There are several accounts of the specifics, and we've chosen one from the Palmol Gazette December 31st, 1883.
01:10:50
Speaker
Quote, The murder of an American lady at Hanover. Further particulars have been received by telegraph at the London office. The telegram says, Quote, Though many details of the Rathbone tragedy are concealed from the public, enough is known to show that Mrs. Rathbone sacrificed herself in order to save the lives of her children.
01:11:16
Speaker
Colonel Rathbone was known in former years for his kindly genial nature. He had, for the last four years, become melancholy, morose, and suspicious, and was subject to fits of uncontrollable passion. Four years ago, he went to Carlsbad hoping to be cured, but returned rather worse than better.
01:11:37
Speaker
Of late, his condition grew worse, and his fits of passion were more frequent, so that his family had discussed the wisdom of permitting his wife and the children to remain with him. Mrs. Rathbone appears to have been fully aware of the approaching crisis. She is by all described as a lady of exceptional character, gentle, loving, and untiring in her devotion to her husband.
01:12:02
Speaker
She lived only to watch over him. On the Sunday before the tragedy, Rathbone sat moodily at the table of the drawing-room for some hours, not speaking a word, but staring blankly before him. At five-thirty he rose from his bed, and passing out of his apartment with a light in one hand, a revolver in the other, he went to the door of the room where his little daughter Pauline slept, with her nurse.
01:12:29
Speaker
Knocking, he asked the nurse. Is Pauline in bed? Yes, she answered. Are the boys in their room? Yes.
01:12:39
Speaker
Open the door. I want to see them." By this time, Mrs. Rathbone came out after him just as the nurse was opening the door. She said, My dear husband, do calm yourself. And just as he was about to enter the room, she called out, Nurse, lock the door, save the children. There's going to be some dreadful work. The nurse then closed the door while Mrs. Rathbone drew her husband away and appealed to him to go to rest.
01:13:08
Speaker
Hearing the door bolted and finding himself sorted, he turned around in a fit of ungovernable passion, seized his wife by the upper part of her arm, and dragged her by force into their bedroom. Mrs. Rathbone was heard appealing to her husband to let her live. Then shots were heard, succeeded by silence.
01:13:29
Speaker
On the door being burst open, Mrs. Rathbone was discovered lying on the bed covered with blood. She merely said to her sister, he has killed us both at last and then expired, without pain, in less than five minutes.
01:13:44
Speaker
She had received two pistol shots in the breast, but the fatal wound was inflicted by the blade of a dagger, which had pierced her heart. The Colonel was lying on the floor, and remained for some time conscious, though wounded five times by the dagger, one cut reaching his lung.
01:14:02
Speaker
He asked for Brandy, saying he was much hurt, but did not appear to know who had hurt him. He said, who could have done this? I don't think I have any enemies. He then asked where he was, but did not seem to remember that he was even in Hanover. When he was taken to the hospital for the first two nights, he asked piteously for his wife.
01:14:24
Speaker
Subsequently, he remembered what he had done, and said he had a great provocation. He had got up, he said, and to his great surprise found all the children dressed. Evidently with the intention of leaving him, this was a complete delusion. Everything, indeed, points to the conclusion that he was quite responsible for his actions.
01:14:47
Speaker
Dr. Gottlieb is convinced that his mind has been affected since the death of President Lincoln when he received a wound in the arm from Booth's dagger, and he subsequently had a severe attack of brain fever. In case he should recover, he will be defended by the ex-Henovarian minister, Winthorst."
01:15:07
Speaker
So, that's incredibly sad. He stabbed himself in the chest five times, but survived. The children went back to New York to live with Clara's brother, William Harris, who raised them. The judge found him insane, and he spent the rest of his life suffering terribly from extreme paranoia at an asylum in Hildesheim, Germany. He died there, aged 74, in 1911, and was buried beside his wife in the Hanover City Cemetery.
01:15:37
Speaker
In 1952 the Hanover city cemetery where Clara and Henry were buried determined that they hadn't had any visitors to their graves so they dug them up and disposed of their bones. We speak more in depth about the final resting place, the paranormal activity around their Washington home and the curse of Clara's bloody dress she wore that night Lincoln was assassinated in the longer version of the story in episode 26.
01:16:03
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining us. And remember, if you're going through hell, keep going. Tschüss. Bye.
01:16:34
Speaker
Hey everyone, my name is Sapphire Sandalo. I'm the host of Stories with Sapphire. Each episode contains real paranormal stories connected by a theme. And I add my insight and commentary as a practicing occultist and paranormal investigator. You can find the show on YouTube and anywhere you listen to podcasts. This is a story from a recent episode. Hope you enjoy. The Natural Exorcist submitted by Anonymous.
01:17:06
Speaker
Hi Sapphire. Because I was raised Southern Baptist in Detroit, it wasn't easy growing up seeing things or knowing things that were considered to be evil or demonic. In the black community during the 90s, if the Bible says it's bad or wrong, then you didn't ask questions. This probably explains why I prefer to remain anonymous.
01:17:27
Speaker
My core group of friends were normal and I had a secret group of friends that I felt comfortable talking about these experiences with. This story is actually the last time that we were all together. I changed their names, of course, and referenced their religions on purpose.
01:17:46
Speaker
I was about 15 and I was supposed to go to a sleepover. I don't remember if I was sick or busy, but I just know I didn't go. A few days later, I found out that they were playing with a Ouija board. I don't even like going into a house when I know a Ouija board is on the property, so I'm glad I didn't go.
01:18:06
Speaker
Since that sleepover, my friend Sam and I started noticing her older sister, Cassidy, was acting strange. Cassidy was about two years older and was honestly the ideal sister. She was always helpful, understanding, and just a genuinely good example of the perfect student-child citizen as far as we could tell.
01:18:30
Speaker
She had begun acting against their Catholic faith, started rebelling. Something was off. Our other friends, Sasha, who was Muslim, and Yoko, a Buddhist, noticed as well. When Cassidy became more verbally abusive towards her parents and began drawing weird symbols on her arms, we all started to think about that sleepover I missed.
01:18:55
Speaker
Apparently, Cassidy was the one that wanted to use the Ouija board. She told them that it would be funny if they played it, and that it would be hilarious if something happened. Sam remembered that Cassidy was openly antagonistic with the board, and things seemed to be off since that night.
01:19:14
Speaker
In our minds, a possession was the only explanation for the new Cassidy. I actually recall a moment when I had contact with the real Cassidy during all of this, and she bluntly told me that she was a prisoner in her own body.
01:19:32
Speaker
We were all 15 or 16, literally had no idea what we were doing. We should have gone to an adult, but for whatever reason, I felt that I could do this, that we could get rid of whatever was attached to Cassidy. The plan was for all of us to find a place that we could do this, get it over with, and pretend it never happened. Sam said she'd find a place. Her mom was a realtor, and she knew of places that seemed to never sell.
01:20:00
Speaker
We all gathered things from our religious affiliations and met up at the abandoned home. Sasha brought incense and oils. Yoko brought talismans and charms. I brought salt and sage sticks. Cassidy even helped, oddly enough, by providing tiki torch sticks.
01:20:19
Speaker
The house Sam found had a small pool space in the back. As the brains of this, I was literally playing it by ear, adjusting to whatever we had to make the best of what I could. I told Cassidy to stand in the middle of the empty pool, which she mindlessly did. We tied the sage sticks to the tiki torches and jabbed them into the ground at each corner of the pool. Sam was able to get enough water to fill the pool so that it was maybe ankle deep.
01:20:48
Speaker
Nothing happened. We circled the pool with oil, connecting torch to torch. Nothing happened. We placed the talismans and charms around the pool and on ourselves for protection. Nothing happened. We lit the sage sticks. Nothing happened.
01:21:07
Speaker
Finally, we slowly poured the salt on top of the oil line. When the line was complete, Cassidy's face became distorted and her eyes were black. Loudly, I said to my friends, I don't give a damn who you pray to. Just pray the strongest prayer of protection you know and don't stop.
01:21:28
Speaker
with fear in our voices. We loudly spoke the prayers we knew. Cassidy looked visibly agitated when we collectively said, Amen. It was at the top of our voices and Cassidy's body went limp.
01:21:44
Speaker
She fell into the water and I started freaking out. Where she previously stood was a black shadowy figure with reddish eyes glaring at me. It wasn't paying attention to anyone else. It was staring directly at me as though my existence was an insult. Finally, I snapped out of it. I screamed for Cassidy, get the hell out of the water and run.
01:22:13
Speaker
That's exactly what we all did. We took off. When we were back at Sam's house, no one said a word. We were still shaken. Yoko was the first to leave, then Sasha. I gave the sisters a small hug and walked out the house, taking the quick route home. For some reason, I felt that I'd be safer in my own home. I haven't seen any of them since that night.
01:22:42
Speaker
About five years later, I was talking to the pastor about everything. I was telling him that I felt that I was cursed and that I needed to figure out how to get rid of this. He said something that actually made me cry, and I'm crying now as I think back on it. God doesn't give curses. He gives gifts. You didn't seek this, but it's been there since birth, which is what makes this a gift.
01:23:10
Speaker
As for your so-called exorcism, you did horribly well. At that, he actually laughed. You got it out. Great. Why didn't you tell the demon where to go? I didn't think about that. I just wanted to help my friend. And this is why you guys should have gone to an adult. I felt a little better, but what he said next was what really hit hard.
01:23:39
Speaker
For someone that had never done this, you really seemed to have a good idea of what to do though. You never sought this information out, right? I shook my head. Is anyone else in your family like this? Well, my grandmother, who died when I was 16, she was like this, her mother too, and to my knowledge, my great-grandmother, but she died before I was born.
01:24:04
Speaker
I think you're experiencing genetic memory. Roughly speaking, this is something that happens when you seem to have knowledge of something, but you're not sure how you know it. I think God is allowing your great grandmother to positively impact your gift.
01:24:22
Speaker
I moved away from Detroit a few years later. I still have experiences where I seem to know about various paranormal or spiritual things with no idea of how I know it. I've even heard my grandmother's voice guiding me through a few of them. I'm interested to see what you make of this or if you have had a similar experience. Maybe not the exorcism, but with genetic memory. Be blessed.
01:24:52
Speaker
Thank you so much for sending in your story. I found this so fascinating. So I know that people will probably disagree with me on this, but I sort of liken exorcism to firefighting. If there is a fire, you'd want to call a professional because they have the tools, the physical strength, the knowledge, and experience to put it out. But it is possible a regular person could put one out as well. It's just way safer and quicker if a professional does it.
01:25:22
Speaker
So my theory is that you are dealing with a very small fire, which makes sense since Ouija boards tend to attract these lowly trickster types. And genetic memory is absolutely a thing. All the OO sites, which are the things that become eggs that a woman will produce in her life, are created when she is a four-month-old fetus in the womb.
01:25:47
Speaker
which means that part of us existed inside of our maternal grandmothers. So parts of her life are energetically imprinted on us before we even existed. So yes, I absolutely do believe that it is your great grandmother guiding you through these moments and helping you stay safe.
01:26:19
Speaker
And there you have it listeners, a fantastic list to kick off your new year, new binge listening. Thanks for tuning in and be sure to follow all of the podcasts you enjoyed so you will never miss an episode. Absolutely. Remember to follow them on social media as well. We hope you've enjoyed part one of this collab episode. Make sure to stay tuned for a whole new lineup of podcasts tomorrow that we know you'll enjoy. Until then, happy binging.