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E018 The Bricca Family Murders
2.1k Plays6 years ago
Was this the outcome of a sordid love triangle, a serial killer, or a calculated mob hit that resulted in the murder of a young family of three? Whatever it was, it rocked the small community of Green Township, Ohio-- whose neighborhoods changed from open windows and open conversation to barred doors and distrust.
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Transcript
Listener Engagement and Social Media
00:00:00
Speaker
Before we begin our show today, I wanted to remind you about our challenge. Maggie and I want to get to 150 ratings on iTunes. We currently have 80, so what we are aiming for is now less than double, yay. But I also wanted to remind you that it only takes a split second if you're listening to us on iTunes to click for that five-star rating.
00:00:21
Speaker
We have listeners from all over the world. So while this is a big ask, we know that you can do it. It may take a little longer than last time, but once we get to 150, Maggie and I will do a bonus episode. Just make sure that you follow us on social media, Coffee and Cases podcast on Facebook or at Coffee Cases podcast on Instagram. Or as always, listen in each week to find out when that bonus episode will air.
Adapting to Pandemic Routines
00:00:47
Speaker
As Maggie told you last week, she and I have had a surreal two weeks. We have had to, as teachers, put all of our content for two weeks or more potentially onto an online platform, communicate changes with our students and deal along with the rest of the world with a lot of uncertainty. In times like these, we are all being asked to make a lot of changes. We're being asked to keep our distance from others, to stay inside when possible, to not gather in large groups.
00:01:15
Speaker
and to have faith that we will get through this. Unfortunately, Maggie and I need a favor from you as well, to bear with us as everything else around us is changing. For the next few weeks, until we can return to normal routines, we will be recording separately, I from my home and Maggie from hers. We appreciate you, Sluthown, so much, and want to continue to provide you with cases. After all, our goal is continued hope and closure for these cases, and especially in times like these.
00:01:44
Speaker
We want to continue in our small way of helping families to keep their loved family member in our hearts and minds. Thank you for bearing with us and for understanding. We care about you. Stay together, united in the human spirit, even if not physically, and stay safe. Now onto this week's episode.
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Yeah.
00:02:37
Speaker
Welcome to Coffee and Cases, where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold.
Introduction to the Podcast's Focus
00:02:42
Speaker
My name is Allison Williams. And my name is Maggie Dameron. 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.
00:02:53
Speaker
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.
00:03:14
Speaker
Here in Kentucky, we have a wonderful governor, Andy Beshear, who gives us a daily 5 p.m. news conference with updates on how he's guiding us through our struggles as a community against COVID-19. People here have taken to calling them their fireside chats with Andy and the memes that liken him to Andy Griffith, while funny, are also accurate. His talks focus on the beauty of empathy and that, as he said this past Tuesday,
00:03:42
Speaker
Compassion and kindness are two of the most important emotions. He does sound a bit like Andy Taylor, doesn't he? I think most of us only wish we could actually live in a town like Mayberry. One where doors are left open, everyone is welcome for dinner, and comical schemes, not guns, are enough to catch criminals.
The Brica Family Background
00:04:03
Speaker
Over 50 years ago, Green Township, northwest of Cincinnati, Ohio, seemed about as close as one could get.
00:04:10
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It was a small town of lazy afternoons, children playing in the street until suppertime, and rolling lawns. That is, until September 25th, 1966. That was the night innocent, shattered, and terror rang through the community instead. That was the night of the Brica family murder.
00:04:33
Speaker
28-year-old Jerry and 23-year-old Linda were a young couple in 1966 who were trying to navigate this new town in which Jerry had just been transferred. Jerry Bricka, who had grown up in California, had gotten a degree in chemical engineering from Stanford in 1960 and have begun working for Monsanto Plastics. As a clean-cut, hard-working, and friendly guy, he quickly moved up in the company.
00:05:01
Speaker
And soon after earning this job with Monsanto, Jerry met Linda. There was an immediate attraction. In fact, this was an attraction felt by many. In an article entitled, Death on a Quiet Street by Jack Heffron, and published on April 1st, 2008, literally everyone interviewed about the case, quote, mentioned Linda's beauty. One resident of the area said that when she worked in the front yard, men nearly drove off the street when they passed by.
00:05:31
Speaker
She was tall and shapely, with sharp features and large brown eyes that possess even in photos an alluring intensity." There was just something about the United Airlines stewardess that drew people in. And Jerry Brico was no exception. Nor was his family, who felt Linda was the perfect match for their son Jerry.
00:05:55
Speaker
and Jerry's family, as well as Linda's, was even happier when the couple welcomed into this world a little girl named Debbie in 1962. Just one year later, Jerry's company, Monsanto, asked him and his family to relocate to help at their branch in Addiston, Ohio. So in 1963, with their now one-year-old in tow, the family moved to Green Township. Now,
00:06:21
Speaker
As I mentioned earlier, Green Township was a lazy town sounding much like Mayberry. According to several articles I read, the Green Township Police Department only worked 14 hour days so that the officers could leave and go home at night to be with their families. And since few homes were equipped with air conditioning, many in the neighborhood would while away the cool evening hours, sitting on the front porch, talking to a neighbor about the kids who had just moved into the neighborhood.
00:06:50
Speaker
That's what the neighbors had taken to calling Jerry and Linda, even though most people in the neighborhood were only in their 30s and 40s themselves. The neighbors liked the Brickas. One particular neighbor, Nettie Coddle, whose own daughter, Darlene, often played with the Brickas' daughter, Debbie, indicated that the Brickas were a normal couple who liked to keep to themselves.
00:07:12
Speaker
They would attend the backyard barbecues and basement parties, but no one on the block really knew them well. In Jack Heffron's article, he infers that this might have been because Jerry expected to move up the ladder again soon, and perhaps the family didn't want to get too comfortable when, in all likelihood, they would very soon end up moving again. But the family did quickly fall into a routine.
00:07:35
Speaker
Jerry, in an effort to make that good impression and continue his ascent of the corporate ladder, worked long hours, which often left Linda and Debbie home alone. Linda, who was now a stay-at-home mom, had a lot of time to fill and wanted to continue to explore her own passions and good for her. So while most days she was home with her daughter, she hired a babysitter three days a week and began a part-time job at the local veterinary hospital to explore her love of animals.
00:08:04
Speaker
working alongside Dr. Fred Leininger. On Sunday, September 25th, Jerry attended Mass at St. Aloysius Church at 10 a.m. and then went into work. After working a full shift, he then headed home. We know this because he stopped at United Dairy Farmers at 8 p.m. on the 25th to pick up some milk on his way home. With the next day, Monday, being trash day, Jerry, per his routine, rolled the trash can to the curb
00:08:34
Speaker
exchanging a friendly hello with neighbor Joan Jansen, who was out that drizzly night walking her dog. As Jack Heffron speculates, because of the rain and the cold dip the temperature had taken that night into the fifties, it's likely that windows that were normally left open were shut. It is also likely that most neighbors had stayed inside that evening because it was the television debut of the film The Bridge on the River Kwai.
00:09:00
Speaker
which had over 60 million viewers across America for its television debut. By the next morning, however, the temperatures rose again into the 70s and neighbors rose as well to head off and begin the work week. The trash was collected. Nothing was different. But by that evening, neighbors did notice something different. Something small, but perhaps significant.
00:09:26
Speaker
Linda had not rolled her now empty trash can back up her driveway, something she always did like clockwork. Winnie Fisher, who lived a few houses down from the brickas, even went so far as to say that Linda was, quote, religious about bringing in those cans, end quote. But the morning paper wasn't there at the end of the driveway, so maybe she just decided to wait until later to grab the cans. But neighbors couldn't shake that off-putting feeling.
00:09:54
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especially since they didn't see the brick as two dogs, Thumper and Dusty, running around in the yard. They didn't see Debbie playing with neighborhood friends, and they didn't see Linda in her garden. Odd. The post-time star evening newspaper was delivered, but never brought inside. When neighbors noticed by Tuesday morning that the trash can was still set at the curb, and the evening newspaper from Monday night
00:10:21
Speaker
as well as the Tuesday morning paper sat undisturbed, that gut feeling grew.
The Brica Family Murder Discovery
00:10:27
Speaker
One of those concerned neighbors called Monsanto to check on Jerry and was told by Jerry's employer that he had not shown up for work on Monday, nor that day, Tuesday. Workaholic Jerry being a no-show? Something was definitely wrong. According to the reporter Greg Noble in his article about the case published on September 28th, 2016,
00:10:50
Speaker
Around 10 p.m. on September 27th, two neighbors, Dick Meyer and Dick Jansen, noticing now three papers piled up by that point, so the Tuesday evening paper also being added to that paper collection, and now hearing the dogs bark incessantly, decided to check on the brickas. Dick Meyer checked the front door and found it unlocked. He opened it to step in and call for Jerry. However, as soon as the door swung open,
00:11:20
Speaker
Dick Meyer knew, even without seeing, that something had happened. He likened it to his days fighting in World War II. It was familiar. The stench of death, of rotting flesh that brought tears to his eyes. He called in the police. And what the police saw was something that rocked this small town with fear. The police brought the two neighbors back in, those who had discovered the bodies, to identify them.
00:11:49
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Dick Meyer remembers how gruesome the scene was. They found Jerry and Linda stabbed to death in their bedroom. Jerry had been stabbed nine times in the back and had a sock in his mouth as though he had been gagged. Linda, in her negligee, had been stabbed 10 times in her chest and abdomen. Then they found Debbie in her room. She, also in her nightgown, had been stabbed four times.
00:12:19
Speaker
with each piercing so violently delivered that it had gone all the way through her entire body. Entry wound on the front and exit wound on her back. Hers is the body that Dick Meyer says he will never be able to forget, seeing what they did to her. The two family dogs were found locked in the basement. The house, while portions of it looked as if it had been rifled through, didn't have anything of value missing from it.
00:12:50
Speaker
Unfortunately, crime scene investigation in the 60s was not as advanced as it is now, and without fingerprint evidence to go on, even though the detectives conducted over 400 interviews, no suspect was ever named.
Community Reaction and Fear
00:13:04
Speaker
The only thing they knew was that because of the smell, the crime had likely happened that Sunday night of September 25th, after Jerry arrived home from work.
00:13:15
Speaker
That didn't keep people from speculating, though, nor did it do anything to stop the spread of fear throughout this once peaceful little town. In fact, according to Evan Millward's article, Who Killed the Brica Family?, local historian explores Cold Case and New Book, published on December 13, 2018, neighbor Judith Hemmer, now in her 70s, stated, quote, We were all scared. Everybody got big dogs and deadbolt locks and didn't sit on the porch at night anymore.
00:13:44
Speaker
and didn't walk up and down the sidewalks." Jack Heffron's article adds that local residents also purchased, in addition to dogs and door locks, pistols and ice picks. They hired a night constable to work around the clock. They petitioned for more streetlights. Kids and their parents alike worried that if this could happen to the brickas, this could happen to anyone. The murder changed the face of the town.
00:14:13
Speaker
There was no longer a feeling of safety. Instead, the psychological grip of fear tightened around the psyche of all. And when there are no clear answers to senseless crimes that make us feel like none of us are safe, speculation rages. Unfortunately today, 23 and a half years later, speculation is still all we have. And when living in such a small town, sometimes rumor, and even something like what's perceived as a lack of communication with the police,
00:14:43
Speaker
can become the very thing that condemns you and everyone's mind.
Suspects and Theories
00:14:47
Speaker
The two neighbors who discovered the bodies, Dick Meyer and Dick Jansen, were quickly cleared of any involvement. But there was a third neighbor, one for whom rumored links to the brickas were already swirling, who was a little, shall we say, less cooperative. That third neighbor, after only being interrogated by police for 45 minutes, a little over a week after the murders, hired lawyer Richard Moore,
00:15:13
Speaker
refused to give fingerprints, and refused to answer even a single other question for police. Now, hiring a lawyer, even when you're innocent, today is nothing new. In fact, it's smart to hire a lawyer from the beginning. However, at the time of the Brica family murder, the Miranda rights ruling, alerting an individual of his or her rights to hire an attorney, was only three months old. Most still didn't even know of the right to do so.
00:15:40
Speaker
It was the newness of this ruling, combined with the speed at which this third neighbor hired a lawyer, that left many questioning. In the weeks after the murders, the Cincinnati Inquirer ran stories revealing a theory that a quote, male friend was recently seen with Linda and suggested the possibility of a love triangle that resulted in murder. However, while a couple of fingerprints were found in the home, they never matched any of the fingerprinted suspects.
00:16:07
Speaker
leading many to believe that this male friend was potentially the neighbor who lawyered up and refused to be fingerprinted. And while Linda did have some hairs in her hand believed to belong to the killer, DNA investigation was not available back then. Heck, we are even today still developing the processes to run mitochondrial DNA, just like Maggie and I talked about with the Amy Mihalovic case. Unfortunately, much of the evidence, like the hair,
00:16:34
Speaker
is now believed to have been stored in such a way that renders it useless for the purposes of modern testing. Despite the fact that there's no hard evidence to tie anyone to the crime, Chief Investigator Lieutenant Herbert Vogel and County Prosecutor Melvin Ruger, who investigated the crime when it happened, said to a newspaper in 1967 that they felt they had narrowed it down to a single suspect, but they were unable to interrogate the suspect due to the new Miranda ruling.
00:17:03
Speaker
because the suspect had also hired a lawyer and could no longer be investigated. It was because of those comments that many suspected the brick's neighbor, who they knew had hired a lawyer and refused to answer questions by citing the new Miranda ruling. That suspect, that neighbor, also had some ties to the brickas, to Linda specifically. That neighbor was the veterinarian for whom Linda worked three days a week, Dr. Leininger.
00:17:32
Speaker
Despite the rumors of Linda's male friend, as well as rumors that Dr. Leininger often had, despite being married, relationships with many of the young women who worked for him, I couldn't corroborate anything about a relationship between them. And during one of the 45 minute interrogations, Dr. Leininger actually denied any untoward relationship with Linda. The police felt he was being deceitful.
00:17:58
Speaker
and they noticed how agitated he became when the police contacted his wife. But to me, Slootowns, I don't think that that shows any guilt. I think him getting agitated makes sense either way. If he is guilty of an affair, I could see why he would get nervous about his wife finding out if the police are going to call her. But even if he's innocent of an affair, I could see why he would get nervous if the police even insinuating that he could do such a thing. For the rest of Leininger's life,
00:18:28
Speaker
he lived with the lingering speculation of his guilt. For those who think Leininger is guilty, here are their justifications. First, they note that of the 400 interviews the police conducted, they had flagged 16 of them as suspicious. According to Amber Hunt's article in the Cincinnati Inquirer, published on December 18, 2018, two of those 16 interviews were ones with or concerning Dr. Fred Leininger.
00:18:59
Speaker
At second, they recalled that the front door was unlocked and there was no sign of forced entry. This would seem to indicate that the brickers knew the killer. And because even though drawers were rifled through, nothing was taken, that seems to show that the motivation of the perpetrator was not robbery, but perhaps something more emotional, more personal. Plus, when you add the violence of the crime, the multiple stab wounds,
00:19:28
Speaker
seems to indicate a personal vendetta, a crime of passion. Other facts that make lining a valid suspect for many are some of the other more specific details about the crime scene. I mentioned earlier that Jerry was found with a sock stuffed in his mouth. Police found a small piece of tape on Jerry as well that had been used to hold that gag in place. The tape
00:19:53
Speaker
was a kind that would be used by a medical doctor or a veterinarian. Dr. Leininger would have had access to this tape. It's also suspicious that although Jerry was found during the crime, the perpetrator would have taken the time to remove the binding before leaving the crime scene. Was it because the perpetrator knew that the binding would then link them to the crime?
00:20:19
Speaker
Could this familiarity with the perpetrator also explain why little four-year-old Debbie had to be killed? Would she have identified Uncle Freddy, as sources say she called Dr. Leininger, as the one who murdered her parents? The second detail is that the dogs didn't begin barking until the second day and were closed off in a room in the basement. Dr. Leininger, as the local veterinarian, would have known the dogs
00:20:47
Speaker
which could explain why they wouldn't have barked at him and alerted the neighborhood when he entered the home. They may have even willingly followed him in putting the dogs up in a room. The way the house was laid out, if the brickas had been upstairs, someone could have entered the back door from the garden without anyone knowing. Many sources have suggested that the dogs were drugged since they didn't begin barking until Tuesday, which is one of the things that alerted the neighbors. If the dogs were sedated,
00:21:17
Speaker
Then, a veterinarian would be the very one with access to the sedative. Since the morning paper from Monday was gone, it is speculated that either lining her or any perpetrator actually took the knife, the murder weapon, which was never found, and wrapped it in the morning paper and threw it away. Driven off to the town dump when the trash was collected that Monday morning, and as a resident of the town,
00:21:46
Speaker
One would argue who believes Leininger is the suspect that he would have known that the trash would be collected that morning. But what's odd is that this would mean that the perpetrator stayed in the house all night and didn't leave until the next morning. Now, I don't know about useless hounds, but nothing about that fact makes any sense to me, no matter who the killer was. Those who come to Leininger's defense note that there's no solid evidence that he was anything other than Linda's employer.
00:22:16
Speaker
And since he was a well-known veterinarian with a thriving business, doesn't it make sense that he would hire a lawyer to protect that reputation? He also continued practicing in the town until 1995. And if he were guilty, I don't understand how he would have been able to continue practicing in that town knowing what he had done. I don't get how anyone would be able to do that, but we will never get an explanation.
00:22:44
Speaker
because Dr. Leininger and his wife of over 50 years committed suicide together in 2004. Some believe that that was a marker of his guilt, but the fact that it was a joint suicide to me doesn't fit with that belief. The biggest hang up for me about him as a suspect though, is that many things pertaining to the crime itself don't seem to fit with it being a crime of passion, which would have been the motivation if we suspect Dr. Leininger.
00:23:13
Speaker
If it were a crime of passion, why were all of the knife strokes of a uniform death? Wouldn't Linda's death, if she were the target, have been much more violent than Jerry's and especially little Debbie's? That combined with putting the dogs up, potentially sedating them, binding the victims, removing the binding, and having a plan to get rid of the murder weapon all show premeditation, not a crime of passion.
00:23:42
Speaker
A second theory involves a much more cold and calculated killer, the Cincinnati Strangler. During this time in the nearby larger city of Cincinnati, a serial killer was at large. According to Amber Hunt's Cincinnati Inquirer article, the brick of family murder took place during what was documented and attributed to the Cincinnati Strangler of his fourth and fifth victims.
00:24:08
Speaker
The problem is that the violence committed in this crime with the brickas didn't match the MO of the Cincinnati Strangler, Postiolaski Jr., who targeted mostly elderly women and, as his name indicates, the victims were strangled. The brickas were certainly not elderly, nor were they strangled. A final theory is that this was a professional hit, which would explain the cleanup of the crime scene and the lack of evidence.
00:24:37
Speaker
Many believe that the crime was committed by two or maybe even more people because Jerry Bricka was a fit man who would have been capable of fighting an attacker. After all, if the Brickas were bound and there were only one perpetrator, what would have kept either Jerry or Linda from attacking the perpetrator while he or she were trying to tie up the other adult? What would have stopped them from screaming
00:25:04
Speaker
There are only a few things in my mind that I can imagine. Maybe one of the perpetrators, assuming that there were more than one, held a knife to Linda's throat while the other bound and gagged Jerry. Or perhaps one had a knife held to little Debbie and threatened her life if they made a noise. Either way, it would require more than one person. But why gag Jerry and not Linda?
00:25:29
Speaker
This makes me think that whoever it was wanted to get information from Linda that she was the focus of this murder and not Jerry. Linda's negligee was torn at the breast, but police believed that that could be a red herring. According to Jack Heffron's article, a neighbor noticed that in the weeks leading up to the murder, Linda had seemed nervous. Nettie Cottle had told the reporter that Linda was afraid of something. Cottle believed that it had something to do with the fact that two other United Airlines stewardesses,
00:26:00
Speaker
Lonnie Trumbull and Lisa Wick, with whom Linda had both worked and lived, had been attacked that summer. Trumbull was beaten and died as a result of her injuries, and Wick, who was also beaten, was in a coma for weeks. When she awoke, she had no memory of what had happened that night. Now, Linda had told Nettie that she was once involved in breaking up a drug ring with information that she had overheard while a stewardess
00:26:29
Speaker
And looking at the wounds, Jerry had been stabbed in the back, perhaps to incapacitate him, but Linda was stabbed in the chest and abdomen by someone who could look right into her eyes. So was this all part of the same crime? Could this have been vengeance? Served cold. What law enforcement need from you is information, pieces.
Call for Listener Involvement
00:26:57
Speaker
snippets from you or from family members who lived in the area in the late 60s to fill in the gaps. The fear is that those who have those missing pieces of information aren't even aware that they have it. So sleuth hounds, ask your relatives, urge them to share. This plea is especially important now since those who are in their 30s and 40s then are now in their 80s and 90s.
00:27:25
Speaker
The tips are slowing down now to a trickle, which is why Maggie and I chose this case to bring to you. And because some of the evidence has now been degraded, information from neighbors is even more important. About all we know for sure is that based upon the angle of the knife wounds, the killer or one of the killers of multiple was left-handed. Law enforcement in this case can be reached by calling 513-851
00:27:55
Speaker
6,000. Local writer Jason Townsend, who's written a book about this case, certainly believes there's still hope. In an article by Cherie Palayo, Townsend said, quote, be the suspect alive or dead, we need to close this case. You can close it with a dead suspect. You could certainly close it with a live one, end quote. The town still needs that hope.
00:28:24
Speaker
It went from being the lazy, Mayberry-esque town to the place where a family was savagely murdered. While we might not be able in our world today to navigate our way back to that world of unlocked doors and open windows, of running wild in the streets as children, only coming home as the sun goes down, I hope that we never let fear win. Instead, let's be the neighbors we want to see in the world.
00:28:52
Speaker
Not the ones who shut the door in the face of someone who's not like us. Not the ones who betray our core values. But the ones who still value our core. Our core being. Those who value compassion and kindness.
00:29:10
Speaker
Again, please like and join our Facebook page, Coffee and Case's podcast to continue the conversation and see images related to this episode. As always, follow us on Twitter, at Case's Coffee, on Instagram, at Coffee Case's podcast, or you can always email us suggestions to coffeeandcasespodcast at gmail.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.
00:29:40
Speaker
Stay together. Stay safe. We'll see you next week.