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E220: Muriel Baldridge image

E220: Muriel Baldridge

E220 · Coffee and Cases Podcast
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Seventeen-year-old Muriel Baldridge had the whole world ahead of her. She and friends had made the most of the June evening, going to a softball game, a movie, and then to the local carnival. They walked together up to the West Prestonsburg Bridge in Prestonsburg, Kentucky. Immediately on the other side of the bridge was Muriel’s home. She said she would be fine walking the rest of the distance on her own, saying goodbye to her friends, who walked back toward town and the carnival. But, in that short distance, someone took Muriel’s life-- and there was no shortage of potential perpetrators.

If you would like to donate to the upkeep of Muriel’s burial plot, donations can be sent to:
The Muriel Baldridge Fund
℅ John Preston
5670 Highway 707
Louisa, Kentucky 41230

If you would like to read more, please consider purchasing Michael Crisp’s book Murder in the Mountains: The Muriel Baldridge Story, which can be purchased from michaelcrisponline.com or at Amazon.com through THIS LINK.

If you are interested in bonus content for our show or in getting some Coffee and Cases swag, please consider joining Patreon. There are various levels to fit your needs, all of which can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/coffeeandcases

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Transcript

Comfort and Challenges of Routines

00:00:00
Speaker
Routines can be comforting and create stability. Ask any classroom teacher the importance of routines, and he or she will advocate that routines are what help keep classrooms running smoothly. It helps students and teachers know what to do in various situations, thus alleviating stress and even off-task behavior. So too in our daily lives, routine lends a sort of comfort.
00:00:27
Speaker
What we don't often talk about are the dark sides of the routine. Routine can add complacency and even a lack of attentiveness. When we do the same action a thousand times a day or even once a day for a lengthy amount of time, we pay less attention.
00:00:45
Speaker
The thousandth time is just like any other in our minds. In our case this week, a young girl decided to walk across a bridge to her home after spending the evening with friends. It was an action she had taken hundreds of times before. In fact, when her friends asked her
00:01:05
Speaker
If she wanted them to accompany her across the bridge to her home, which was just on the other side, she made a remark, something to the effect of, I'll be fine. I've crossed this bridge at night alone a hundred times. But this time the routine act ended in her death. This is the case of Merle Baldrige.

Podcast Introduction and Merle's Case

00:02:01
Speaker
Welcome to Coffee and Cases where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold. My name is Allison Williams. And my name is Maggie Dameron.
00:02:10
Speaker
We will be telling stories each week in the hopes that someone out there with any information concerning the cases will take those tips to law enforcement. So justice and closure can be brought to these families. With each case, we encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast, because as we all know, conversation helps to keep the missing person in the public consciousness, helping keep their memories alive. So sit back, sip your coffee, and listen to what's brewing this week.
00:02:38
Speaker
For our case this week, Maggie, I had the privilege of speaking with filmmaker, author, musician, and Kentucky native Michael Criss.
00:02:48
Speaker
Oh, very long reasoning. Yes, and since our case this week took place in 1949, there aren't many left who have first-hand knowledge of the case. However, Crisp did extensive research digging into newspaper archives, speaking with family and community members,
00:03:08
Speaker
to bring light to this case in his book, Murder in the Mountains, the Merle Baldrige story. And most of the details that I discuss in this podcast episode actually came from his book. And he was kind enough to speak with me to fill in some details about the case for our coverage because, like me, he felt drawn to this case. In fact,
00:03:33
Speaker
He had been working on a separate project, also related to Prestonsburg, Kentucky, where our case is set, when he first heard about Merle. So I asked him what drew him to this case and how he found out about it. And here is what he said.

Michael Crisp's Connection to the Case

00:03:51
Speaker
So my name is Michael Crisp and I'm pretty much from Georgetown, Kentucky, and I over
00:04:04
Speaker
films and writing books. And some of the films and books that I've done have involved interesting stories that have happened in Eastern Kentucky. My mom's family is from Floyd County in Eastern Kentucky. And when I grew up here in Georgetown, we would go visit Floyd County quite a bit. And I would hear all these pretty interesting stories about Eastern Kentucky in
00:04:34
Speaker
tragic things that happened there as well. So I was making a documentary film about a really bad school bus accident that happened in 1958 in Prestonsburg. And as I got into that story and was interviewing people on camera, a lot of the interviewees would tell me
00:04:57
Speaker
about Marl Baldrige and I had never heard of her before. I'd never heard that name and they told me it was a very fascinating cold case that happened back in 1949 and around that time period in Floyd County. So as they started telling me a little bit about it,
00:05:19
Speaker
year old cheerleader who was found mysteriously murdered underneath a very famous bridge in Floyd County. And with all the details surrounding everything, I was immediately hooked. So as I continued working and finishing the film about the school bus accident, I also began writing the book about Merle Baldridge. And a few months later, it was finished.
00:05:48
Speaker
I think it came out maybe a year or so after the bus wreck film. So that's pretty much how I got into it. Specifically for the coverage of Merle Baldrige's story, Crisp worked closely with Merle's nephew, John Preston, and John's wife, Lynn Preston.
00:06:06
Speaker
While only a child, John Preston had actually been living in his grandparents' home, so in Merle's home at the time of the murder. And he and his wife have continued to try to keep Merle's case in the public eye. And I get the feeling that because of the age of the case and so many years having gone by, so many witnesses have passed away and so much evidence has been lost that there's this
00:06:35
Speaker
fear that we may never have answers. But that doesn't mean that Merle and her family don't deserve the attention coverage can bring. And so I truly believe that there is always

Prestonsburg in 1949 and Merle's Background

00:06:47
Speaker
hope. And that's why I felt the pull to cover the story. Yeah, I mean, all that ancestral DNA and stuff now, it still could get solved.
00:06:57
Speaker
That's right. Merle's case, like I said a second ago, was set in 1949 in Prestonsburg, Kentucky with potential links all across the state of Kentucky, as you'll see. So especially for those outside of Kentucky, I wanted to tell you a little bit about the town and I wanted to give
00:07:16
Speaker
A quick reminder about the way the world was in America in 1949, so obviously the pastimes in the late 40s were quite different than today, mostly involving outdoor activities since only about 1% of US households had a television in 1949.
00:07:36
Speaker
So in 1948, so the year before, the Cleveland Indians had beaten the Boston Braves in the World Series, which in my head I'm like Boston Braves because it's not right on the movie screen where actors like Rex Harrison, Katherine Hepburn, and Jimmy Stewart. I know I love Jimmy Stewart.
00:07:58
Speaker
On the radio Bing Crosby crooned and artists like Doris Day and the Andrews sisters had listeners swaying to the beat. The average annual salary Maggie in 1949 was $3,600 a year.
00:08:13
Speaker
Talk about inflation. Yes, minimum wage was 40 cents an hour, but buying a house would only set you back $14,500 on average. And a gallon, yes. A gallon of gas was 26 cents. I don't think you can buy anything with 26 cents now. No, not even gum. Not even gum. No.
00:08:37
Speaker
Prestonsburg, Kentucky, which is in the eastern part of the state in the Big Sandy River Valley, is the county seat of Floyd County. So hop, skip, and jump away from Pikeville. That's right. And from where I grew up in Greenup, I mean, it's not too much further south, but the town had in 1949 a population somewhere in the mid to high 2000s.
00:09:02
Speaker
So again, small town. And because it was a small town, most families knew one another. And this was a time when people didn't even think of locking the doors at night.
00:09:14
Speaker
Well, now I'm curious what their population is now. I'm Googling it. Oh, like 4,000, so still. Oh, so it's roughly, yeah, roughly the same now. Mm-hmm. Our focus for this episode is on June 27, 1949. And before I begin, I wanted to tell our listeners that if you look at Merle's name in the show notes, you might think that I'm mispronouncing it because it looks like Muriel
00:09:42
Speaker
But it was actually pronounced like Pearl with an M, so Merle, by her friends and her family. So since that's how her family pronounces it, that's how I'm pronouncing it. So I just wanted to clarify if anybody looks at the show notes and they're like, who is this country girl saying Merle when it's Muriel, but it actually is Merle.
00:10:04
Speaker
Merle was the youngest of seven children, again, different times, born to parents George and Bertha Baldrige.
00:10:14
Speaker
And George Baldrige was a section foreman for C&O Railroad at the local train depot, which just happened to be right across the road from the Baldrige house. Oh, convenient. So, yes, hop, skip, and a jump. Literally. And Merle's mother Bertha was a homemaker.
00:10:36
Speaker
The family had actually moved into this home in 1942, so about seven years prior. And in addition to its handy proximity to Georgia's workplace, their home had a nice backyard overlooking the Big Sandy River. And right next to the house was the bridge that you would take when you would want it to go into town. So convenient location.
00:11:02
Speaker
Exactly. Things were nice and cozy in the modest home that was shared by Merle, her parents, and another one of her sisters, Melda, who was called Med, who had just gone through a divorce and had moved back in with her parents, along with her three children, John, Sue, and Win. And her child, Med's son, John, is the one with whom Michael Crisp spoke with for research.
00:11:31
Speaker
Merle Baldrige had recently completed her junior year at Prestonsburg High School and was so excited to start her senior year. She was beautiful. She was popular, outgoing, spunky. She was a social butterfly, Maggie. I mean, she fit in at church, in her large family, with friends. Wherever you put her, she would find her place. She was the it girl.

Merle's Disappearance and Crime Scene

00:11:58
Speaker
Yes.
00:11:58
Speaker
The morning of June 27, 1949, one of Merle's friends, D.L. Horn, who was nicknamed Dootney. So you're going to hear a lot of more Appalachian names. I mean, this sounds a lot like, you know,
00:12:12
Speaker
where I grew up. I don't know about you, Maggie, but so one of her friends, Dutney Horn, whom she had dated in the past off and on, but they were still friends, came by her house to say goodbye because he had plans to leave and go to Texas.
00:12:29
Speaker
So he was getting out of that town and he was making his rounds before catching his ride. Eek from New Jersey. And Mint was Merle's dad's sister. We like the M names in this family. We do. We do. Yeah, Mad Merle, Mint. And it sounds actually Maggie like everybody loved
00:12:52
Speaker
because some of Merle's other sisters had also come to town so they could visit with her. And they were also staying with Merle's parents, George and Bertha as well. So you can imagine at this moment, it was a pretty crowded house.
00:13:06
Speaker
But even though Aunt Mint was visiting and there was plenty to do at home, there was too much activity in town for the 17-year-old high school cheerleader Merle and her friends to stay in on that hot June evening. So Merle got ready between 5 and 6.
00:13:24
Speaker
she put on this blue sundress and seeing how beautiful she looked, Aunt Mint decided to loan Merle a strand of pearls to wear. Yeah, because she thought it would just match the dress perfectly. And after asking her family to save her some watermelon to be eaten later that evening, which I totally understand. I mean, that would be me. Yep, same.
00:13:47
Speaker
Yeah, Merle left home to meet up with three of her friends, Thelma Hollingsworth, Sybil McKenzie, and Gail Hamilton. The girls packed a ton into their evening, Maggie, going to a softball game and to a movie, and then Merle and her friends attended a carnival that was being held in Prestonsburg. That sounds like a great day, to be honest. Can we go back to these times? Yes, for real.
00:14:16
Speaker
The group arrived at the carnival sometime around 9 p.m. and left around 10, so they didn't stay for very long. As the girls were walking home, Merle asked if they wanted to come to her house for some watermelon. I mean, watermelon's great. Why not share? But they had other things that they needed to do, namely chores, like doing the dishes. That was good. Hate it. I know. They'd been out all night.
00:14:43
Speaker
Around 1015, they asked Merle if she would like for them to walk across the West Preston Bridge to her home, which was just on the other side. Remember the bridge kind of spans the distance between town and her house across from the train depot. But as I mentioned in the introduction, she said something to them to the effect of, I'll be fine. I've walked this bridge by myself hundreds of times.
00:15:10
Speaker
But I did want to tell you a little bit about this bridge that Merle was crossing because this wasn't one of those, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about Maggie, single lane wooden or concrete bridges that you can find and other first there was a city bus driver named Tom Calhoun who noticed something in the greenery below and had pulled over at the depot to check.
00:15:33
Speaker
He reportedly started yelling for someone to call the police and then a bread truck driver Don Pitts and his brother also saw something and it was Pitts who actually ran down the bank and that's when he saw the shocking sight. The body of a young girl pale and bloodied with a wounded head.
00:15:54
Speaker
essentially died in her backyard. Yes. Pretty much. Yes. Oh my God. Pitts then ran back up the embankment yelling for help. When law enforcement arrived, the body of the young girl was taken to Carter Callahan Funeral Home. And while there were whisperings at this point that the body was that of Merle Baldridge, whose home was
00:16:17
Speaker
like we said, less than 200 yards away. The coroner had thought it best if the family were allowed to identify their daughter in private and not with all of the onlookers who had since gathered at the scene. I mean, a number that seemed to continue to grow with each passing minute. Oh, I'm sure in a small town people want to know what's going on.
00:16:39
Speaker
Exactly. Crisp tells us that one young girl, cheerleader friend Sybil McKenzie, who had been with Merle the night before, heard word that a girl was found murdered under the bridge and she came running, fearing that it was her friend Merle. And Crisp writes that Sybil saw Merle's family on their front porch and demanded of Father George to tell her where Merle was.
00:17:07
Speaker
but the family remaining silent retreated into the house. I mean, Maggie, they were in shock and disbelief even at the potential of their baby girl being gone. So this was before they had even identified the body? Correct, yes. And it was at this point that someone, I don't know who,
00:17:28
Speaker
decided not to have the family identify Merle at all because they felt that that would be too difficult. So they asked her best friend, 15-year-old Joan Hall, yes, who was still in bed and hadn't even yet heard the news.
00:17:48
Speaker
Oh my lord, yeah, let's ask a 15-year-old to do that. That'll haunt her forever. I know. Crisp wrote that a tiger eye ring that Merle wore actually showed Joan that this was Merle. And you know, I get wanting to protect her family. Yeah. But that makes me so sad that a 15-year-old would be put through something as traumatic as that. I mean, they could have asked her cheerleading coach.
00:18:17
Speaker
Someone, an adult. Yes, the autopsy found that Merle had been dealt five blows to the head, each creating skull fractures, any one of which could have been the fatal blow. Her blue dress was torn, maybe as part of a struggle, and bark from a nearby tree found under her fingernails. There was no sign of sexual assault.
00:18:46
Speaker
In terms of the crime scene, a pool of blood was located near one of the bridge's concrete pillars, but Merle's body was found several feet away, and there was a trail connecting the two locations. So it led law enforcement to deduce that Merle had been drug from one location to the other.
00:19:08
Speaker
They think, or they surmised, with the dragging of her, that the intent had been to throw her body into the Big Sandy River, though the perpetrator had stopped short of getting her to the river.
00:19:24
Speaker
Interesting. They also found an uprooted peach tree. Reportedly, it said, as big around as your arm. So, I mean, this is a strong tree, even though that's small. And the tree had been uprooted. So, if she had grabbed it during the struggle, imagine the desperation, yeah, the force with which she had held on to it. But the string of pearls was hanging from it. Oh, my lord.
00:19:55
Speaker
At the scene as well was an eight inch piece of lead pipe and an empty bottle of Four Roses whiskey. So many people speculated with Merle's head injuries that maybe the lead pipe had been the murder weapon. However, Floyd County coroner Brady Shepherd did not think that the pipe was the murder weapon because he said the head wounds were quote unquote very clean.
00:20:24
Speaker
And so he believed it was more likely caused by something like a brick or a tire iron. I don't know.
00:20:32
Speaker
Why? I mean, every death that we talk about is so just traumatic and sad, but the head trauma wins really affect me differently. It's just like chills. And I just, because you feel that, you know what I mean? I know, I know. Law enforcement at the time also implied that there was some indication that Merle had been grabbed from the bridge.
00:20:57
Speaker
but they never elaborated on why they had that belief, nor what evidence, if any, led them to that conclusion versus her meeting someone under the bridge.
00:21:08
Speaker
As I mentioned with the uprooted peach tree and the torn dress, the scene did indicate that Merle had fought with her attacker. An article from the Courier-Journal from June 29, 1949 states, quote, that were signs of a violent struggle in which one fair-sized bush was uprooted and the attractive blonde's blue sun-backed dress was torn, end quote.
00:21:34
Speaker
There were also footprints there at the scene from a size eight or nine shoe that they believe were the perpetrators. But Maggie, the crime scene, it wasn't managed all that well. Remember I said the crowd kept growing. So really ensuring that evidence was preserved was kind of an afterthought.
00:21:53
Speaker
Despite that, it looked to investigators, if they're following the footprints, like the killer had run up the embankment between Merle's home and the neighbor's home, the Dotson's. Oh my gosh. But it didn't look like the killer had tried to go into one of the houses, and then the footprints just abruptly ended as though the perpetrator had gotten into a car.
00:22:18
Speaker
So I'm wondering if he even knew, which I'm sure we'll discuss later, but if he or she even knew Merle or if this is just like a random thing.

Investigation and Suspects

00:22:28
Speaker
We will definitely be talking about that. Here is Chris detailing those items that were found at the scene of the crime. I believe there was a strand of pearls draped across an uprooted peach tree that when looking at the peach tree at
00:22:47
Speaker
put up a struggle and she was trying desperately to not be thrown to the big sandy river. So it looks like her that the perpetrator involved with this who did this awful deed was trying to kill her or do something to her there on the riverbank and also toss her into the river. So she pulled up this
00:23:15
Speaker
strand of pearls around the tree branches. So those were hers as well. I believe a lead pipe was nearby. There were a footprint or two was found that looked like it might belong to the killer. And then the most famous evidence that everyone over the years talks about was somewhere near her body
00:23:44
Speaker
bottle of four roses whiskey so that was one of the things that just jumped out to everybody there as they started to collect evidence they thought well if we found out who was drinking four roses whiskey this might be the person who killed her since
00:24:07
Speaker
Investigators immediately began trying to track down anyone who may have heard or seen something on the bridge the evening before. They soon discovered that while no one as yet had come forward with what they had seen, there were several who lived nearby who had heard something the evening before. Many noted hearing screams just after 10 p.m.
00:24:34
Speaker
And since we know her friends had left her at the bridge sometime around 10, 15 p.m., her time of death was presumed to be around 1030. So, minute after her friends had lived.
00:24:50
Speaker
Now, what I found interesting, though, is that while there were people who said that they heard screams, I didn't hear or see any research about Merle's friends hearing a scream, only from neighbors. Right, because they were all walking, right? Right.
00:25:07
Speaker
And that seemed very strange to me that they didn't hear her scream because, you know, the attack would have happened only minutes. I mean, as few as a couple of minutes and at most 10 minutes or so after they left. So I actually asked Michael about that detail. And here's what he told me.
00:25:37
Speaker
was still going on at that time. But where the girls parted ways was not that far from the carnival and if they walked back toward the carnival, then that could have covered the the screams and that might have explained why they didn't hear anything.
00:25:54
Speaker
So it could be that moral screams for them were drowned out by the sounds of the carnival back in town. However, neighbors, Maggie Dotson and her husband, E.S. Dotson, remembered hearing screams around 10, 20 p.m. And nobody called the police, I'm assuming.
00:26:14
Speaker
They did not. Another of Merle's friends, though not one of the three that she was with that evening, actually heard screams because she was staying the night with another friend from school, Betty Lou Tackett. And the two girls who were up reading comics heard a scream and they even thought that they heard a woman say, hey, where are you? Or hey, where did you go?
00:26:39
Speaker
but they brushed the sounds off as ones, like the screams, they were like, oh, there's this nearby hospital. Maybe there's a patient who was hurt or mistaking those sounds as coming from a relative who was talking in another part of the house. So they just kind of brushed it off. So they heard just a woman calmly say, hey, where are you? Or like, where'd you go? I didn't read anywhere the tone with which those words were said.
00:27:06
Speaker
The friends that Merle had been with that evening, they were questioned, Maggie, to see if anything out of the ordinary had happened in those hours leading up to Merle's death, if she had made plans to meet someone, I mean, anything. And friend Thelma said nothing unusual happened and that they knew of no other plans that Merle had other than to head straight home and get that watermelon.
00:27:35
Speaker
Cause sometimes you think, you know, maybe if the family doesn't know about a secret relationship, friends might. Yeah. But even they didn't know anything. I just get like the feeling she was.
00:27:47
Speaker
pulled off this bridge as she was walking home. Like, that is just my gut feeling as of right now. There was definitely, Maggie, an assumption from the beginning that the crime was committed by a male, even though there was no sign of sexual assault. So police started looking at boys who Merle had dated. And there were only a few. But police, initially anyway, assumed that whomever had done this had known
00:28:16
Speaker
Merle, and I'll tell you why they thought that. They believed that the perpetrator had known Merle because in their mind, whoever had taken Merle's life had known that she took this route home and that she often walked alone. It's almost like she'd been watched. Right. They're not thinking this is a crime of opportunity, at least initially, they're not thinking that.
00:28:44
Speaker
Despite this belief, though, the first person who was arrested for questioning was a stranger. 18-year-old Richard Funk, who hailed from Michigan, had just hitched a ride from Prestonsburg to Catletsburg, Kentucky.
00:29:01
Speaker
And the truck driver who had given him a lift had heard about the murder that had happened in Prestonsburg and turned Funk in because when the truck driver had picked him up, Funk's clothes were a mess, like as if he'd been in a struggle and his shoes had been muddy. So as they would be if he had been involved in a struggle on the riverbank.
00:29:28
Speaker
But this lead and other leads that came in during the early part of the investigation didn't seem to go much of anywhere because even with this lead the belief by law enforcement was that only someone who was familiar with the area and even specifically the area of the riverbank would have been able to navigate the crime in the darkness of night. Because remember it's pitch black.
00:29:55
Speaker
So they're thinking, okay, whoever did this likely knew Merle and knew she walked alone, but they were also likely familiar with the riverbank to know, you know, the terrain to be able to pull her down. According to Crisp, quote, authorities went on to speculate that the killer either had a long acquaintance with the terrain or has studied it in a premeditated plan for murder, end quote. Yeah.
00:30:25
Speaker
And meanwhile, Funk, who had been detained until questioned, was released. Merle's funeral was held on June 30th, 1949, with around 3,500 people in attendance. Wow. So more people than lived in her community. Yes. That shocked me. I mean, I feel like that turned out it just shows the impact that this crime had on the community.
00:30:50
Speaker
Because, like you said, I mean, there were more people who came to her funeral than the entire population of Pressensburg.
00:30:59
Speaker
I think that reveals something. And as the community mourned, the investigation was gaining momentum. Detectives from the Kentucky State Police joined the investigation, and they were working on developing theories and on identifying a potential motive. One detective, Arch Thompson, said of the crime, quote, while no motive has been officially established,
00:31:24
Speaker
I am inclined to believe that jealousy was behind the killing." And what he meant by that, Maggie, was that he believed that it could have been committed by a rejected male suitor who was jealous of Merle paying attention to another male.
00:31:42
Speaker
wow i mean well she was popular and well-liked so maybe that is the case right even though there were not any easy answers as part of the investigation law enforcement were putting in the hours in fact police questioned 30 people in the first three days alone
00:32:02
Speaker
between the crime and Merle's funeral. And when none of the interrogations got them anywhere, law enforcement brought in an additional five people to interrogate on July 6th to whom they administered truth serum in hopes of getting a confession. Oh, like some Harry Potter stuff. It is. Apparently this is a real thing.
00:32:26
Speaker
I had to research it, but truth serum was developed in the 1930s and was a short acting barbiturate, namely sodium aepental, that aimed to make the receiver impaired enough that when asked questions, they would admit the truth. So we're getting them like a little bit tipsy. Yeah. So they answer the questions. Interesting. Yes. I would like to see
00:32:54
Speaker
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00:34:31
Speaker
And at the same time those individuals were being questioned, police also looked into people who had left town around the time of Merle's murder. This included a gas station attendant that they ended up ruling out and Merle's friend, Dutney, who, remember, had stopped by that morning to say goodbye.
00:34:54
Speaker
What made Dootney especially interesting to them was that he himself gave an indication that he might know something about the crime. Here's what Crisp told me about Dootneyhorn.
00:35:10
Speaker
Hootneyhorn had recently, right before the murder, moved to El Paso, Texas. He took a train down there to El Paso. Within a few days of finding out of Merle's murder, the new business that he had opened in El Paso wasn't going really well.
00:35:36
Speaker
So he went to the authorities in El Paso and said, I'm wanted for questioning in this moral Baldrige case back in Kentucky, and they need me back there. And he sort of inferred that he did have something to do with it, that he knew about it. And so a lot of people were thinking, well, we've got our
00:36:08
Speaker
jail and started talking to him, he produced a train ticket that proved he was on a train at the time of the murder. He was halfway to Texas. So he used her murder to get a free ride back from Texas to Kentucky.
00:36:28
Speaker
As Crisp mentioned, Doonie Horn was brought back from Texas for questioning, and that act alone led many people to think that he must be tied to the crime since police went to the, you know, that expense to bring him back. But those who knew Doonie Horn well
00:36:45
Speaker
maintained that he was not the quote-unquote mean type and shortly after he was brought back to Kentucky he showed proof that he couldn't possibly have committed the crime because he still had his ticket from the 27th showing that he had left from Mount Sterling headed toward Memphis before the murder had occurred.
00:37:06
Speaker
you know what's so crazy to me is like trying to imagine because like you said this is pretty close to we're not close but you know relatively close to where we both grew up and it's just so crazy to me to say things like oh he was getting on the bus in Mount Sterling because I don't even think you can do that now right I know I think the closest one would be
00:37:28
Speaker
Lexington or probably Ashland if they still have one and it's just weird like to think back to that time. Right. I know and this case was it was really bizarre for me because there are so many towns that are mentioned that have ties to my life and so I think that was another pull of this case for me but this bit you know he's showing the ticket for it had actually left just after 6 p.m. from Mount Sterling
00:37:55
Speaker
So it seemed rather than a killer, Dutney might have just used Merle's death as a way to get a free ticket back to Kentucky. So not a good look, but yet not a murderer either.
00:38:10
Speaker
It was sometime after letting Horn go that police turned their attention to two other individuals, Collins and Gamble, who were linked to the traveling carnival that had been in Prestonsburg at the time of the murder. Carnivals in general at the time had a pretty bad
00:38:27
Speaker
reputation of employing people who were escaping crimes back home. So combined with rumored questionable characters and the fact that no one in the towns where these workers are traveling to were familiar with them,
00:38:43
Speaker
and it made them either the perfect perpetrator or the perfect scapegoat for suspicion. These two workers in particular came onto the police radar when 15-year-old carnival worker Olin Collins said a 24-year-old coworker named Bill Gamble had killed Merle.
00:39:07
Speaker
How did he know they asked? He said he was there. What happened? Oh my! Yes, he told police that the two of them were crossing the bridge in a car, he said, when they saw a girl crossing the bridge alone. He said that Gamble grabbed the girl and pulled her in the car before covering her mouth
00:39:27
Speaker
and driving them three miles away. Collins said that Gamble took her into a field before bringing the girl now crying back and putting her in the back of the car. To stop her crying, Collins said that Gamble grabbed a 14-inch screwdriver and struck her in the head with it.
00:39:49
Speaker
He drove back to the bridge, parked on the side, and then drug her under the bridge. And what led Credence to Collins's report was that six of the people questioned by police, remember that group of 30, had said that they saw a, quote, big man and a little man, end quote, on the bridge close to the time of the murder.
00:40:14
Speaker
Did we have, though, like, I know there was the trail of blood from the one spot and then pulled closer to the river.
00:40:24
Speaker
Wouldn't there have also, if this was true, been a trail of blood from the bridge down to the riverbank where the big pool of blood was? There could be, because remember, police indicated that they believed that she had been taken from the bridge, but they never indicated why they had that belief. So I don't know if there was another trail of blood. Oh, okay. Or what?
00:40:51
Speaker
So now we're thinking, might that big man and little man have been the adult male gamble and the teenaged Collins? And I wonder if, because at 15, most boys are just kind of starting to go through puberty. So I wonder if the man that they thought, or the woman that people thought they heard talking was really the teenager. It could be. And he just has maybe a high pitched voice. Right. It could definitely be.
00:41:20
Speaker
Additionally, Gamble had a lengthy criminal record and he was even wanted in the questioning the disappearance of a husband and wife after a break-in. So now people are thinking, okay, this couple's missing. What if they too were murdered? And if he had murdered before, they wondered, might he have done it again? So it seemed that police might finally have an answer until just days later,
00:41:49
Speaker
Olin Collins recanted his statement, saying that he had lied and he didn't really know anything. Okay, so my question here.
00:42:03
Speaker
When one recants a statement and they're like, just kidding, I lied, do we as police officers have to pretend like we never received that information so we can't question gamble or can we be like, okay, cool, and then just keep going on about our business? I think we can still, that's a wonderful question. I do not know with 100% accuracy, but I would assume that you could still
00:42:31
Speaker
question because it was the statement was given. Right. And you just wouldn't be able to say like, oh, we have a witness that said this because they recanted it. Right, right. But he now said that his mom was the one who told him about the crime. And when he was asked how he knew details about the crime that weren't in any of the reports, he said that he was just, quote unquote, guessing.
00:43:00
Speaker
what happened. Okay. So in support of the recantation, Gamble's car was checked and there was no screwdriver, nor were there blood stains found in the car. He could have been wrong about him striking her in the head in the car. And the screwdriver could have easily been tossed into the river. That's true. I mean, we can have explanations, yeah, that would explain why evidence wasn't found. But Maggie,
00:43:27
Speaker
We aren't done with Collins and Gamble yet. To make things even more confusing, Gamble, so the adult, 17 days after Collins recanted, confessed to Merle's murder. Yes. Okay.
00:43:43
Speaker
After digging deeper into Gamble's actions around the 27th, investigators found that Gamble, along with two other men, had left Greenup, Kentucky on June 26th and on the 27th had helped set up the carnival and all of the men, when initially interviewed, had told police that they had left for Detroit on the 27th before the murder had occurred.
00:44:08
Speaker
But investigators were now able to verify that they didn't leave for Detroit until the 28th. So they're thinking, okay, if they did nothing, why lie about that detail? And in his confession, Gamble implicated the teenage Collins in helping him commit the crime.
00:44:34
Speaker
After the implication of involvement, Collins was questioned again. This is the teenager. And again, he named Gamble as Merle's killer. Yes. So he's like, he did it. I'm kidding. No, he didn't. Yes. And much of the story of grabbing the young girl stayed the same. But this time he said that Gamble hit her head on the steering wheel first. And when she wouldn't stop screaming, that Gamble had told Collins to climb into the front and drive.
00:45:02
Speaker
Again, the cornfield trip was part of the confession, as well as the screwdriver.

Community Involvement and Legal Proceedings

00:45:08
Speaker
So there were lots of it that were the same. And again, Collins said that Gamble drug her under the bridge. And then- I wonder if there is like a cornfield, you know, obviously, Pressensburg, I'm sure it looked a lot different in 1949 than it does now.
00:45:23
Speaker
But where, I wonder, would a cornfield have been in this area? I don't know. I feel like there had to have been one. He said they drove three miles in the first confession. Oh, okay. So I feel like there had to have been one fairly close or else, you know, law enforcement would have been like, what are they talking about a cornfield? There's not one around here. But Maggie, you're not going to believe this. But the very next day,
00:45:52
Speaker
After making his confession, Gamble told a reporter from the Cincinnati Inquirer that he had made it all up and that he couldn't have pinned the confession to the police anyway because he couldn't read nor could he write. But the police, of course, deny that claim.
00:46:10
Speaker
And to be fair, all accounts involving Collins and Gamble include a car. And Merle's friends also didn't say that they saw a car or even headlights in the distance when they left Merle.
00:46:28
Speaker
I mean, if they're really creepy about it, they could have just been sitting there. That's true. Yeah, up to something nefarious. In the meantime, as a preventative measure, and I can totally understand given the circumstances, the city council banned all carnivals from coming to the city.
00:46:47
Speaker
Just as police seem to be getting the runaround with Collins and Gamble, another man, Leo Justice, confessed to killing Merle and then swiftly recanted.
00:46:59
Speaker
Why are we all doing this? Why? And all of that was happening just as Olin Collins again said that he had been lying. So he testifies that he knows about the death. Then he says, just kidding. I was lying. And then he says, nope, Gamble did it. And then he says, just kidding again. I was lying again.
00:47:21
Speaker
And I wonder if, I feel like this would have to be a very smart 15 year old, but I wonder if he did that to sort of throw in to question his credibility and they'd be like, look how many times he's changed his mind. This kid has no idea what he's talking about when really maybe he does.
00:47:37
Speaker
That's potentially true. Yeah. Well, police actually wanted to try both Collins and Justice for obstruction of justice. And I just want to pause here to have you think about what all of this was doing to Merle's family. Yeah. Because, oh, we have him. Oh, no, we don't. They're lying. Oh, we have him. No, they're lying.
00:48:01
Speaker
Yes, and police just seemed to be relying on confessions, which sadly was getting them nowhere and it was wasting valuable time and resources. But I will tell you, the community was still committed to helping the family find answers because they kept donating to the reward fund in Merle's case, which had already grown to around $1,635. So that's about half of the average yearly salary.
00:48:32
Speaker
And also you have to think about most people in the Eastern Kentucky area, especially during this time, probably were not very well off. So even giving a little bit of money, I mean, you can buy a gallon of gas for 26 cents. So that was a lot of money then. So even giving a little bit would have been a lot. And they were hoping that obviously this money would be an incentive for anyone with information that could lead to a conviction to come forward.
00:49:00
Speaker
Then Maggie, police announced that they had two more pieces of evidence. In Crisp's words, quote, a pair of stained trousers and a pillow, end quote, the pants looked to have blood stains on them and the pillow of blonde hair like murals. These two items were linked to a prominent local man.
00:49:28
Speaker
Okay, so now I have a question.
00:49:32
Speaker
So obviously I know in 1949, we did not have the technological advances that we have today. So I know that, you know, no DNA, but I'm wondering if in that time could they still, I know in some of the earlier dated cases we had talked about that they would determine if blood types matched. I wonder if they did that then. And I wonder if, I have no idea because, you know, I teach English to 12 year olds.
00:50:01
Speaker
but um i wonder if there's and i'm sure there is and a way to match hair like microscopically could they have determined that was mural's hair there is now but of course then all they could really tell is it's it's blonde and merle's hair is blonde okay so they couldn't even do like a microscopic right
00:50:22
Speaker
Right and they did not from everything I read even check the blood hype So I don't know if that was around in 49 or if that came later But I do know they didn't test but they just found blood stained trousers So this leads us to our next viable theory again linked to two men moles
00:50:47
Speaker
and Dotson, who were actually indicted for Merle's murder on February 4, 1950, so they felt there was enough evidence to take them to trial. 60-year-old Lon Moles worked at C&O Railroad with Merle's father, George.
00:51:13
Speaker
Moles and his wife were both prominent members in local society, so while some were shocked at the accusation, others were aware of the rumors floating around about Moles. Here's Chris. Moles' father George worked just across the street from, well I guess it really wasn't much of a street, but right across from the
00:51:42
Speaker
where Merle's father George Baldrige worked essentially for Lon Moles and there was a small group of men that worked out of that depot and Lon Moles had a reputation
00:52:06
Speaker
who he could see through the window of his depot station office. So he had that reputation where he took a shine to her and I believe George Baldrige
00:52:31
Speaker
that he didn't like, but everybody just kind of accepted it, especially since Lon Moles was his boss. Keeping in mind that rumored reputation and another reputation of frequently drinking to excess, both of which rumors Moles' father had to have known, locals noted that Moles' desk window at C&O Railroad at the depot looked straight out at Moles' front yard.
00:52:58
Speaker
And it was even said that Merle would come to the depot to use the phone there and that she had been seen sitting on Lawn's desk and laughing. And it just so happened that one of Moles' best friends, E.K. Dotson, lived with his parents whose home was right next to Merle's and the closest to the crime scene.
00:53:24
Speaker
Remember the footprints that went between. And how old are these people? So the one is like an old man. Yeah, I don't remember. Are they both old? He is an adult, yes. I don't remember his exact age though. Also, Merle is really pretty. She is. Cause you know, now I'm like stalking all these people on the internet.
00:53:42
Speaker
Dotson told police that he was home in bed when the murder was reported to have happened, but Maggie, many people didn't believe him because of one small detail in that statement. They said that they knew he had been sleeping on the outside porch recently and not in his bed.
00:54:01
Speaker
So they wondered if he's lying about that, what else might he be lying about? Plus, Merle had been seen near both men in the days leading up to her murder, specifically when Dotson had had car trouble. Moles had been in the vehicle, or at least someone who looked like him, and Merle and some of her friends were nearby when the car had broken down. So
00:54:26
Speaker
arguing that the two men, Moles and Dotson, would not get a fair trial if they were to face a jury from Prestensburg, which I agree with that. The two were granted a change of venue on February 14, 1950, and the trial would take place in Pikeville, Kentucky.
00:54:44
Speaker
I don't really feel like they would get a fair trial even in Pikeville. Right. It is pretty close. A jury of 10 men and two women were selected. As part of the selection process, potential jurors were asked if they would support the death penalty if the crime called for it. So it seemed pretty clear what the goal was on the part of the prosecution.
00:55:06
Speaker
The defense threatened that they would just simply call Olin Collins to the stand, who would again name Gamble as the perpetrator and thus create reasonable doubt, right? Because I mean, that's all we need. After an extension was also granted, the trial began on May 15th. And while I won't get into all of the nitty gritty details that Crisp explores in his book, I did want to share with you the details that stand out from Crisp's retelling.
00:55:33
Speaker
So the most damning testimony against Moles and Ottson came from a man named Lyd Godsey and his wife. They were local bootleggers. They both testified that Moles came to their home twice on the night of June 27, once around midnight and again around 4 a.m. on the morning of the 28th to get alcohol.
00:56:00
Speaker
During that first visit, they said Moles told Clyde's wife Julia Godsey not to turn the light on. But she couldn't see to count his change out, so she said when she did turn the light on, she saw blood stains on Moles' shirt.
00:56:19
Speaker
Oh my God. And the alcohol. What top of alcohol did he buy? He bought a bottle of Four Roses Whiskey. I remember that was the brand and it wasn't a common brand at the time. That was the brand of whiskey that was found at the crime scene. The couple testified that by the second visit, Moles had changed his clothes.
00:56:39
Speaker
And this time, he said when he was leaving the Godsey home in those early morning hours of the 28th, he said, quote, Remember, I wasn't here last night, end quote.
00:56:50
Speaker
Oh, and then your brain's like, I will remember forever the night that you were here at my house. Yes, exactly. Another testimony was made by a local gas station attendant and he said that Moles came in the very next day to the station to replace seat covers in his car and testified that it was clear Moles had tried to clean stains off the seats before bringing the car in.
00:57:15
Speaker
Well, Moles and his attorney argued that the employee's dates were just wrong and that Moles getting the seat covers replaced and actually happened a month prior to Merle's murder. But also brought to the stand by the prosecutors were a local teacher and a contractor, both of whom said that they saw what looked like scratches on Moles's left arm the next day after the murder on June 28th.
00:57:43
Speaker
There was a blood-stained shirt that was found near the scene, so could that have been moles?
00:57:49
Speaker
I wonder if they were the size. I don't know. We know, though, that the bloodstained trousers were linked to moles. And we know that. Did we say that already? Well, the police connected that and the pillowcase to moles. Oh, yeah, I said that. Got it. And we have we have the added fact, Maggie, that the shoe size of the footprints found at the scenes that was the same size that moles wore. And, you know, I thought about this when you said that.
00:58:17
Speaker
I wonder what the typical or average shoe size is. I wondered the same thing because that seemed very small to me. Yeah, I feel like eight size eight is a very small shoe size. Googling that too. The defense on the other hand said that the witnesses, they said, well, they're not 10 and a half. So yeah. Yeah. So that was tiny.
00:58:39
Speaker
So that would stand out. The defense, on the other hand, they said, you know what, these witnesses, they're not telling the truth because they have been bribed to give certain testimony by law enforcement. They further argued that the evidence against Moles was only circumstantial because, again, keeping in mind that the birth of DNA testing is still decades away, all you have is a guy with blood on his shirt. Did we ever
00:59:06
Speaker
say definitively if the defense was paying people to say what they wanted them to say? No, we do not know. But the defense made the case that the large reward meant that people would lie because they would be desperate for that money. As further argument during trial, Moltz's lawyers said that he had documented health issues and he would have been physically unable to drag Merle.
00:59:33
Speaker
Moles further testified that he was at home that evening and he didn't leave home until 4 a.m. the next day. He said in fact that he didn't learn about Merle's murder until 6 30 on the morning of the 28th when he was at work.
00:59:54
Speaker
And Moles' wife and sister-in-law, also both prominent members of the community, corroborated that Moles had been at home. In fact, his wife said that she had been awake all night with these severe arthritis pain, and that's how she knew he hadn't left.
01:00:12
Speaker
Yeah, but not everyone is married to me or you because most wives would probably lie for their husbands whereas I feel like I would probably be like, I don't know that I'm gonna lie for you, Auntie Keith.
01:00:27
Speaker
Right. Well, so you've got all of this, you know, these arguments that are making to show that Moles couldn't do it. And then the defense presented contradictory testimony that the scratches on Lon Moles' arms were actually seen in the week before the murder, and they were not fresh the day after the murder.
01:00:47
Speaker
So now we're questioning whether he could have done something like this. We have testimony from prominent citizens that he was at home all night. We heard that the scratches were there before, that the seats were done before. So after only an hour and 53 minutes, the jury announced that they were ready to give a verdict. Not guilty. Well, you know, like you said, a lot of it is just kind of circumstantial. Right.
01:01:17
Speaker
Right. So despite that judgment though, Maggie, there were many who felt that the jury got it wrong. They argued that basically Moles had gotten away with a crime because he and his family were prominent people heavily involved in the community. Meanwhile, those who were giving the most damning evidence were local bootleggers.
01:01:40
Speaker
But you know, I feel like just with Moles and Dotson and then the Collins and Gamble, we're able to manipulate the evidence to fit to both groups of people because I do think it is so circumstantial. So I don't know how I feel about the not guilty verdict.
01:02:05
Speaker
Well, despite the final verdict, Merle's father, George, still felt Moles was to blame. Here's Crisp detailing the added difficulty of that fact. And then once the murder occurred, then that's when things kind of went into overdrive and George Baldrige unfortunately had to work under Lon Moles and continue working there for the next few months until George Baldrige passed away.
01:02:36
Speaker
That had to be so difficult. Yeah, definitely.
01:02:49
Speaker
Things were tense at work until the day George Baldrige couldn't take it any longer and refused to speak to Moles ever again. And it could be that her father had suspected something. It could be because of Moles' reputation. It could be the fact that even though the evidence against Moles was circumstantial, there was still more evidence to support this theory than any of the previous ones.
01:03:14
Speaker
Sadly, speaking of evidence, after the not guilty verdict, Merle's family, devastated for far too long after the loss of their baby girl, were given back her blue dress, which they decided to burn. And Maggie, Moles and Dotson were given back the bloodied clothing, potentially connecting them to the crime, which they also proceeded to burn.
01:03:42
Speaker
was it not a thing in 1949 that we keep evidence even if like apparently yeah apparently with the not guilty plea since that the bloodied clothing were connected with moles and the verdict is not guilty he was given it back
01:03:59
Speaker
So it seemed that the door to this theory, obviously with the elimination of that evidence, was officially closed. But this isn't the end of the theories. We do have a couple more to mention. In May 1953, a woman came to police to say that she suspected her ex-husband of the murder, saying that he had admitted to the killing and had claimed that the murder weapon was a hammer that he had used when hired by a building contractor in Prestonsburg. But
01:04:28
Speaker
without the weapon and without any corroborating evidence, we're talking years later, this theory was dropped.
01:04:36
Speaker
Despite no real leads, Merle's story was kept alive when it was told by Robert Benton in True Crime magazine in January 1954. Their coverage ended with the following statement, quote, a slip of the tongue, a word mumbled in half sleep, a guilty brain made careless by a mug of fiery Mountain Dew, a coral,
01:05:00
Speaker
Someday, the residents of the little city feel certain will reveal the story that Merle Baldrige's lips were sealed to hide." End quote. Oh wow. Powerful quote. Very. And that indeed was the hope of All Who Knew Merle.
01:05:18
Speaker
Then Maggie, 1957, brought us another theory, an Indiana state prison convict, minor Caldwell Taylor, age 35, who confessed to Merle's murder and implicated two others as well as a blonde woman in the crime.
01:05:37
Speaker
He told investigators that he had killed Merle with a pipe wrench in an argument over her male friends. He told them that he had arranged in advance to meet Merle on the bridge and that he had picked up Merle and one of her friends, but had gotten a flat tire.
01:05:53
Speaker
and while he's trying to fix the tire he said he and Merle got into an argument and he hit her with the wrench four or five times and took her body down by the river before before taking her friend to a lumber yard and dropping her off but then par for the course it seems in terms of confessions in Merle's case Taylor changed his story
01:06:17
Speaker
And he said, this time, no, just kidding. There weren't people with me. I did it alone. And she didn't have a friend with her. Instead, I just picked Merle up by herself. But despite that, that would be more likely because I would 100% tell on someone if you murdered somebody. Right, right.
01:06:38
Speaker
But despite the confession, a reporter from the Courier-Journal in an article from December 9, 1957 spoke with several of Merle's sisters and wrote the following. Quote, Mrs. Clark, who was the closest of the Seven Sisters and Brothers to Merle, echoed Mrs. Burchitt's skepticism.
01:06:55
Speaker
I don't think Taylor ever knew Merle, she said. She confided in me about everything. She was dating a boy from Martin rather steadily, once or twice a week, end quote. So her sisters are like, if this guy were in her life, we would have known it. And her sisters, it seems, were correct because Taylor ended up admitting to lying because he thought he was being mistreated in his current prison and wanted to serve out the rest of his life sentence in a Kentucky prison instead.
01:07:28
Speaker
Most in Prestensburg and in Merle's family still believe that lawnmowers committed the crime. Others keep going back to the continual confession, recantation of Collins and Gamble. And still others wonder if the perpetrator has yet even been explored. I actually asked Crisp if there were any theories that he had left out of the book. And he told me that there was one. He said that a close friend of his family is a psychic.
01:07:51
Speaker
Oh, okay.
01:07:58
Speaker
And he said, when I say she's a psychic, I mean that she has given several extremely specific premonitions to my family, all of which have come true. And when he handed her a copy of his book about Merle's case, she told him that a person, a prominent member of the community, was the real perpetrator. Someone who was not named in the book.
01:08:25
Speaker
But, of course, he didn't include it. Yes, she named the person. But because, of course, there's no physical evidence, you know, he felt like, you know, investigatively, this is not the appropriate time to name this person.

Lingering Questions and Family's Pursuit

01:08:40
Speaker
Sadly, we can't depend on evidence maintained in the case for future answers, either, since much of the evidence was given back to the family or given back to Moles, and even the negatives of the crime scene photos were destroyed in a fire.
01:08:55
Speaker
Oh, bless. I will say that Crisp heard soon after the first edition of the book on Merle's case that Olin Collins was still alive. When Crisp initially contacted him, he said, oh, you've got the wrong guy. But Collins is telling him more lies. Yeah, exactly. But Collins's family reached out and said, you know, you most definitely have the right one who was linked to Merle's case. And they said, we'll try to get him to talk.
01:09:25
Speaker
Eventually, it seemed that Collins might, but he wanted to get paid first by Crisp. And when they couldn't come to a reasonable agreement on the amount, Crisp, of course, refused. And while Collins's wife Daisy told Michael Crisp that what he would say would, quote, turn this case on its ear, end quote, which makes it sound like he's going to say something, you know,
01:09:49
Speaker
Earth-shattering. Crisp actually now believes that Collins likely wouldn't have added anything new after hearing from Collins' daughter.
01:10:07
Speaker
And Olin had told her that he had no involvement and that the confession was coerced, that he and his friend had made, and that he couldn't offer any insights with everything. Since then, Collins has passed, so whatever information he may have provided has now gone to the grave with him.
01:10:29
Speaker
What makes this case so difficult in addition to the lack of physical evidence now was the heavy reliance on witness and suspect statements, as well as having too many agencies who were involved during the investigation who all seem to be looking in different directions. But my mind keeps going back to motive. I wonder what does the lack of sexual assault say?
01:10:55
Speaker
Or does it even say anything? After all, I mean the intent could have been sexual assault, but after the screams echoing through the night that plan had been dropped as the killer fled the scene, it doesn't seem like robbery had been the motive because, you know, there's the note the pearls were left behind.
01:11:14
Speaker
So part of me wonders, exactly. Part of me wonders, you know, if Gamble were known to have robbed previously, remember it's a robbery that's linked to the missing couple, then even if his intent had been different this time, like a sexual assault, would he really have left valuables behind?
01:11:33
Speaker
I don't know. And then the problem with the Moles and Dotson theory, alternatively, is that psychologically, a killer usually tries to distance themselves from a crime. And they likely would have disposed of her body elsewhere, because after all, Dotson lived closest to the crime scene. Oh, that's true. And Moles worked right across the street from Merle's home and right near the crime scene. So is that enough to rule them out?
01:12:03
Speaker
Here's Crisp's take on that question. I think some, I believe an intelligent criminal in that right mind, if you do analyze it, would not have done this crime in such a fashion and right there so close to the property where their best friend lives. But in another aspect, if you think
01:12:29
Speaker
that back in the day you have a couple of older gentlemen that are drinking a lot, especially moles who had a reputation for just drinking a whole lot. Even though a lot of times drinking doesn't really bring out necessarily violent behavior, it can create questionable decision making.
01:12:53
Speaker
And if he had criminal intent and he was drinking or pretty drunk that night and decided to do something toward moral, then maybe that's how things transpired. And then she's found early the next morning before you've really come to your senses to change anything. It's true.
01:13:16
Speaker
However, despite the common belief among many residents that Lon Moles was responsible for Merle's death, he continued to live in Floyd County for the rest of his life, which again seems to me to be odd if he truly were responsible. Because in my mind, I would think, oh my gosh, I've gotten away with it. I need to get the heck out of here. Yeah. So Maggie, with all of this information, what are your thoughts?
01:13:46
Speaker
Okay, so just a question that I have. I know we have the one footprint that's like the size eight or nine. Do we know with certainty that's a man's footprint? We do not.
01:14:02
Speaker
So then I'm wondering maybe could it have been hers? I don't know what, you know, a size eight in men's translates to women. But I'm also curious if it is one of the payers why we only have the one set of footprints. That is interesting. Instead of two and really even
01:14:22
Speaker
if it was just one individual, why do we just have one set of footprints and not Merle's unless she was, you know, drugged the whole way from the bridge, which I guess could have happened. And that may be why they think, you know, she was taken from the actual bridge. Yeah, it could be lack of evidence that makes them think, yeah, she was grabbed from the bridge. And the cornfield thing I just keep going back to because I don't know how
01:14:51
Speaker
Like I'm picturing trying to drive through the area, like how many cornfields would really be in that area and, you know, potentially how big would they be because it is mountainous.
01:15:03
Speaker
I feel like if there were cornfields, then the police at that time would be able to be like, oh yeah, that's Bobby's cornfield over in blah, blah, blah. They would be able to name the bigger type cornfields and potentially find a crime scene there. Why take her out to the cornfield, make her cry, and put her back in your car?
01:15:25
Speaker
didn't really make sense. So I don't know so many questions still that I can see how we haven't came to conclusive answers.
01:15:38
Speaker
While the answers may not be as easy to come by as they would have been decades ago, that doesn't mean that new information can't come to light. It doesn't mean that we can or should stop trying. While the investigation has been closed and Merle's death classified as a cold case, her family still maintains her burial plot and they still honor her memory. If you would like to make a donation to the family to help with that upkeep,
01:16:05
Speaker
Those donations may be sent to the Merle Baldrige Fund, care of John Preston, 5670 Highway 707, Louisa, Kentucky, 41230. And if you would like to read more about this case, please consider purchasing Michael Crisp's book, Murder in the Mountains, the Merle Baldrige Story. You can order my book online at michaelcrisponline.com and you can purchase
01:16:37
Speaker
The book is also available at about 80 or 90 different stores throughout Kentucky, including major bookstores, boutiques, gift shops, things along that nature. His book can also be found on Amazon. Links for purchase can be found in the show notes.
01:16:59
Speaker
Again, please like and join our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast to continue the conversation and see images related to this episode. As always, follow us on Twitter, at casescoffee, on Instagram, at coffee cases podcast, or you can always email us suggestions to coffeeandcasespodcastatgmail.com. Please tell your friends about our podcast so more people can be reached to possibly help bring some closure to these families. Don't forget to rate our show and leave us a comment as well. We hope to hear from you soon.
01:17:29
Speaker
Stay together. Stay safe. We'll see you next week.