Cry For Help

In this week's episode, Kate and Paul take us to 1917 Springfield, Missouri where a wealthy couple comes home from a night out to find their baby missing. With the help of authorities, the family attempts to have their baby returned safely. 

Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/4buCoMc 

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
last twenty five years writing about true crime.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
compelling true crimes.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
new insights to old mysteries.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is buried bones.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Hey Paul, Hey Kate. Oh, you're sounding a little bit
what's the term happy? Yes, hold on, there's a little
bit more energy in your voice.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Oh, we're close to Halloween. I love Halloween, love it,
love it, love it. And we've talked about Halloween. The
only thing that I remember about Halloween with you is
that you say nobody in Colorado puts out jack o'
lanners because the deer eat them all. And then you
sent me a phone ume of a deer eating Lennar.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
Yes, the Porsche pirates that we have out here, so.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
I would like a more constructive, I think conversation about Halloween.
How did you celebrate it? I know that you were
moving a lot as a kid. Did you have a
particular tradition about Halloween that you and your parents celebrated.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
No? Nothing, you know, nothing over the top.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
My parents weren't real heavy into decorating for any of
the holidays, you know, more so for Christmas than than
anything else. Of course, we always had candy for the
trick or treat, and you know, my brother and I
would go trick or treating when we were really young.
I can't quite remember when we stopped doing that, but
you know, I have some very fond memories, particularly of

(02:11):
when I was really young, like five years old, at
Hill Air Force Base outside of Salt Lake City.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
And you could not get away with this today, but.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
The neighbors had set up a maze using cardboard boxes,
like refrigerator sized boxes that went all through their house.
So as a trick or treater as a little kid,
I'd have to get on my hands and knees and
disappear from site from whoever was watching me and travel
this maze. And they would have little outcroppings within the maze,

(02:44):
or you'd have like the wolverine you know that would
kind of jump out at you, or those types of things,
and eventually you'd get into where they had the candy.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
And it was a really cool setup, I mean, very clever.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
But nowadays, you know, me being the helicopter parent, there's
no way in hell would I let my kid disappear
into some person's house like that.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
And I think a helicopter parent might be an understatement. Yeah,
I agree. I agree. I had that kind of childhood too,
where we would go into, you know, the neighbor's houses.
I remember trick or treating with my friend one time
and we knocked on this woman's door. She came to
open the door and she said, oh my gosh, girls,
I don't have any candy. I just made a pot

(03:26):
of chicken. Or would you like some boiled chicken? And
I said, srure, of course, who doesn't want chicken?

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Is?

Speaker 1 (03:33):
We came in and a chicken.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
Okay, this is Hansel and Gretel. Are you sure it
was chicken?

Speaker 1 (03:41):
I mean, I'm not sure chicken is the greatest draw
for twelve year olds, but it worked on us. We
came in and had some chicken.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
And then we left and that was it. I know, like,
would that happen today?

Speaker 3 (03:51):
No?

Speaker 1 (03:51):
But it was a nice memory. And then I loved
my friend Stella. I love this particular friend because she
hated and hates chocolate currently, and so we would sit down.
She'd take all my nasty sweet tarts sorry for fans
who love sweet tarts, and I would take every piece
of chocolate that she had. And that's what I do
to my kids today and take all their chocolate.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
There you go, yeah, I'm I'm a sweetheart person, are
you really? But are you a chocolate person?

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (04:17):
I like chocolate, you know for sure. But like Smarties,
that type of thing was That was one of my
favorite candies of all time. But like the candy bars.
Three Musketeers, that's the bomb.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Really, yep, by we're going to go down a dypole here.
There's no contrast with three Muskets here, though, you know,
there's no like Chewy.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
I don't I don't want chewy.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
You don't like Chewy.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
I don't want nuts. I don't want caramel, no, no.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
And I if I'm doing chocolate, I just want pure chocolate.
You know, whether it be like the Hershy's Bar or
the Kisses, you know, that's that's what I want. And
I do like the dark chocolate, So you'd get the little,
the little Hershey's, you know, and you'd get the various
ones I always would go after. I think they call
it the dark specialty or specialty dark variety.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah, special dark.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Ye.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
My dad liked to freeze snicker bars in the freezer
and he ate one.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
I know.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
I don't get it either. He ate one and he
chipped his tooth.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
I don't know if it says more about my dad's
teeth quality or more about the durability of this frozen
snicker bar.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, he turned it into Yeah, I mean just hard
candy at that point.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure. My dad had
a lot of common sense, but that not involving chocolate bars.
He also used to eat giant, those really big Hershey
chocolate bars with almonds in them, which I loved. I
thought that was great. But I remember him telling me
one night he was sick. He was kind of going
through My dad you know, I told you died of

(05:51):
lung cancer long ago, and he was going through chemo.
He called me one morning. I was teaching at Fordham
and he called me in. He said, I didn't sleep
a look last night. It was awful. I said, oh, Kimo,
what's going on? He said, no, I just was wide
awake all night long. And I said, well, what did
you eat? He ate two of those bars? Yeah, the
pull the giant ones. And I said, I don't know

(06:12):
how much caffine and sugar is. You cannot eat like
a half a pound or whatever that was of candy.
He really his love for candy really overcame his common sense. Sometimes.
I think.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
Sugar is addicting. There's no question about it.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
Oh listen, buddy, We're not going down the sugar road
with you. I know how you feel about sugar. It's
as bad as some of the criminals you've encountered in
your career.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
Is the way that you frame it, That's the way
it is. As I reach for my.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
Beef jerky here, hold on now in your whiskey.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Probably, you know, I actually I just have you know,
my flavored water right now?

Speaker 3 (06:51):
You know?

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Maybe maybe the next time we get together, I'll have
a poor Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
Probably in the middle of this episode, I would say,
I don't know. There's a positive thing about this episode,
which is I'm so interested in kidnapping and people who
are willing to kidnap people. I find it fascinating the
wacky things that they ask the victims' families to do.
We've had many of those. I don't know if these
people think that they're pulled out of some sort of

(07:17):
Cops and Robbers movie, but you know, some of the
wacky instructions that we read about. But the hard part
about the story is that it involves a baby, and
we're not rehashing Lindbergh Baby, but this feels pretty familiar. Okay,
so we're going to be going down not a spooky
road with this story, but maybe just something that is

(07:38):
this mystery that I think was very difficult for investigators
to untangle. And it happens right after World War One starts,
so it's a great time period to talk about.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
All right, Well, once again, I'm looking forward to hearing
the case.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
Okay, I have your whiskey ready.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
I might have to go run and grab the bottle.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
You might right now. I don't know why you don't
have one downstairs right now in your man cave.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
Because that gets dangerous.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
Oh oh okay, all right, Well let's set the scene. Okay,
we are in Springfield, Missouri. I've told everybody my dad
was from Vandalia. I have very fond memories of Missouri,
and you know, driving in the snow, which I had
never really done before. And I don't know if you
do this, Paul, but I speak. Every time my book

(08:22):
comes out, I appear at the Saint Louis Library there,
the main library, and it is a wonderful book event.
I'm always happy to be there. So a big shout
out to the folks at the Saint Louis Library who
do such a good show. But I'm a big Missouri fan,
you know.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah, you know, I really don't have any experience in
Missouri outside of that very same library. I did that,
I believe it was on my paperback tour, you know.
So flew into Saint Louis, never saw the arch, you know,
and flew out. That was my experience in Missouri and
in Saint Louis.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
Let's talk about Springfield. This is May thirtieth of nineteen seventeen, and,
as I said, a couple of months after the beginning
of World War One. So it will tell you a
lot about the importance of this story when I say,
when we start unraveling details, that this was front page
news in Missouri for quite a while, and that says

(09:19):
a lot considering we were going into war. So this
was a big deal, big deal. So this is on
a plateau in the middle of the Ozarks, which must
just be gorgeous. It's a warm spring night, like I said,
right at the end of May nineteen seventeen, and this
is happening in a wealthy enclave on a street called
Windomere Street. There are some a couple of different reports

(09:41):
that say one says Windemere Place and some Windomere Street
just a wealthy area. Let me tell you about the family.
This is the family of a wealthy banker. His name
is James Holland heat He's married to a woman named May.
He is thirty three and she is twenty eight, so
young couple from my point of view. Young. They have
two kids, James Junior, who is three, and a little

(10:05):
boy named Josiah Lloyd who everybody called Buddy. Buddy is
fourteen months old. This is a very very wealthy family
by any stretch of the imagination, let alone in Missouri.
He owns a dry goods store and he manages a bank,
but it sounds like he's pulled back from his role
a little bit with the bank. But it's well known
that he has a lot of money. He's one of

(10:26):
the wealthiest people I'm sure in the state. James is
worth about three million dollars, which is in today's money
about seventy five million, almost seventy five million dollars. So
this is wealthy, right, And now you know where we're
going with this kidnapping. Sometimes we talk about kidnappings. Well, actually,
I don't know if we've had a story yet where

(10:47):
it's a kidnapping that is purported to be a kidnapping
and it turns out to not be a kidnapping, it
turns out to be something else. When we talk about kidnappings,
they tend to actually be kidnappings for money, right, Can
you think of anything that's not a kidnapping for money?
When we do this, we had Linn Bergh.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
Right, Well, you know, I think you know when you
start getting into when law enforcement gets called out for kidnapping.
I don't know what the percentage is, but there's a
decent percentage of cases in which the parents have hurt
their kid or killed their kid and now they're you know,
staging it to look like the kid has gone, you know,

(11:24):
and then there's numerous high profile examples of that type
of case. I'm trying to think. I can think of
two cases in my career in which there was a
bona fide kidnapping. One was of a wealthier adult woman,
and the other was a child that was kidnapped and
it's actually assaulted, but then the child was sort of

(11:44):
returned to the same neighborhood.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
What happened with the wealthier woman.

Speaker 3 (11:49):
She survived is what I recall.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
It was a case from the late nineteen eighties, and
so I came on board shortly thereafter, and I had
a very small in lab role, but I remember talking.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
To the uh we had a DA.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
He was an amazing legal mind as well as just
what his contributions were to our criminal justice process out there.
His name was Bob Hole h O l E. You know,
so I'm Hole's He's Whole. We're probably related many many,
you know, decades ago over in England somewhere, but he
was involved. I remember him telling that story in terms

(12:27):
of how he was, you know, this woman was kidnapped
and now they're in the streets of San Francisco looking
for her, and there's communications. There was a ransom request,
you know, and they were trying to get that resolved,
and I don't quite remember how it got resolved, but
it did. But it was one of those when you
start talking about a bona fide kidnapping, that's the one

(12:47):
case that I sort of had a role in way
back when you all.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
Need to refresh my memory on how these things were
handled and maybe should be handled when we're talking about
ransoms here pretty soon, So James and his wife who
goes by Jenny sometimes are at a dance. They're coming
home from the country club where they belong, and they
have it's a little confusing about the details, but they

(13:12):
have either a baby nurse or a maid, or two maids,
but it sounds like there are two people, so either
a baby nurse and a maid, or there are two maids,
but there are two, you know, domestic workers who are
staying with these two kids. And again we have a
three year old and we have a fourteen month old.
So they get back home, it's around midnight, warm summer night,
nineteen seventeen, and they go look in on the baby

(13:34):
in the nursery. The nursery is on the first floor.
One of the things that I think is a little
confusing about this story is that there are some reports
that the baby nurse and the maid we're on the
upstairs floor and the nursery's on the bottom floor, or
they're both in an adjoining room, whatever the case. Buddy
is left alone. The fourteen month old is left alone

(13:56):
to go to sleep in his nursery. When the parents
go into the room, they see that Buddy is gone
and the nursery window is wide open. The screen has
been removed. They run around the house and then I'll
stop after this. They run around the house because they
want to know what happened. Number one to the two
women who were supposed to be looking after this kid,

(14:18):
and number two, where their other child is. James is fine,
James Junior is there. The three year old, he is
upstairs and unharmed. So the only person potentially who was
asleep downstairs was the fourteen month old. So you know,
they sound the alarm and off we go trying to
figure out what happened to this kid. So obviously, the
nursery has a window, an exterior window in it, which

(14:43):
I guess I thought about, you know, when I had
these two twins, like who could have access? I definitely
thought like that. I don't know if people in nineteen
seventeen would have or would you have thought, can somebody
get into this house, you know and slip in and
slip out without me knowing accessing my kids?

Speaker 3 (15:00):
Absolutely?

Speaker 2 (15:00):
You know, that's just part of you know, assessing the
you know, the residents, and it's you know, like I know,
for raising my kids. Always had the kids on a
second floor, never on the first floor, you know, and
that's just part of you know, like when the kids
are now going to college, you know, are they on

(15:21):
the first floor, on the second floor, you know, And
that's just make it harder for the offender. Not only
does it make it harder to gain access to a
bedroom from the outside, you know, being on the second floor,
but also it's it's how two story structures are set up.
Typically you have one staircase going up and down, and

(15:43):
this is really the funnel of death for the offender.
He has to go through this particular structure and is confined.

Speaker 3 (15:53):
And so this is where.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
In my living you know situation, if if I've got
my kids on the second floor with me and I
hear something, if I'm confident nobody's in their room where
I'm at as I'm posting up on top of the
staircase and I'm waiting for somebody to show themselves in
that staircase. You know, that's just a tactically sound way

(16:14):
to handle let's say, an intruder in the middle of
the night. So that's where the you know, the advantages
are to the homeowner in that scenario, and if the
offender makes it up to the second floor, has to
go typically down that same staircase, right, and so it's
it's just that restriction that makes it hard for the offender.

(16:34):
So here, in this particular case, we have a fourteen
month old that is sleeping in a room on the
first floor, and everybody else in the house at the
time is at least on a second floor.

Speaker 3 (16:46):
It sounds like right.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
So you know, if you think about that, going back
to the Lindbergh baby, that if we believe that the
right people were caught for kidnapping him, they had made
a homemade ladder. Because this was remember I showed you
that photo. He was on the top floor. Charles Lindberg
Junior was on the top floor, but window access. And

(17:08):
the idea was that they climbed up this sort of
rickety makeshift ladder and got the baby and came down
and maybe fell because maybe one of the rungs was
broken and it was rural. This is different. This seems
like almost like a smashing grab. I mean, it's really
without the smashing part. It's it seems a little too
easy for somebody who's worth this amount of money and

(17:28):
who's in a city. I mean, you know, Springfield, if
we kind of get into it. Springfield is not a
massive town at this time period, but there certainly is
some kind of crime.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
I think also nineteen seventeen Midwest, how many people were
locking their doors, locking their windows, you know. So this's
pretty typical. And I you know, the first question that
I have is whether or not do we have any
information was the window locked? Was window pride, you know,
or did the offender just have to take the screen
off and then open up the window.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
We'll keep going and then we'll see if I can
figure that information out for you. Okay, they're calling in
the bloodhounds. We've talked about bloodhounds before, so this is
what they say. The Keith call the police immediately, volunteers
show up. They're very important. This is almost midnight, I mean,
how terrifying. They start searching through the night. The police

(18:23):
bring bloodhounds and they find by scent and trace it
to the outskirts of town and then they lose it
there about eight thirty in the morning, so they are
searching for you know, seven to eight hours, and they
think that when they lost the scent, the kidnappers had
been carrying the baby by foot. And then they get

(18:43):
to that spot on the edge of town and there's
a good away car. So is that accurate? Can bloodhounds
really tell you all that?

Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yes, you know, dogs are amazing, but it also is
dependent on the handlert, It's dependent on the environmental conditions.
There's so many variables. So there's no question that whether
it's bloodhounds. And we know bloodhounds are a breed that
have very very sensitive noses, but then there's other other

(19:10):
breeds that are very good at at tracking as well
their assessment, you know, in terms of if these dogs
were able to be on a scent trail for that
log I would agree it sounds like Buddy is being
carried on foot. And then once that trail disappears, then

(19:30):
likely into a vehicle. Now it's you know, it's not
conclusive of that, and you can't even you know the
problem is it's like with dogs, they can't talk to you.
So it's like, are they truly on buddies scent? Did
they pick up on something else inside the house?

Speaker 3 (19:47):
You know?

Speaker 2 (19:47):
And then they're following that. You know, there's there's a
lot of variables in which it's a tool. Dogs are
a tool, and they're a valuable tool, but you can't
put one percent confidence into any you know, sent track.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
Well, these bloodhounds actually hit paid later on, so that's
good to know somebody is competent, either the dogs or
the handler or both. But they are very very helpful
later on. And I will be honest, I don't know
if I've ever read anything on a story where bloodhounds
have actually been helpful in this time period. I mean,
I've never read a story where the bloodhounds actually tracked

(20:21):
down the person, the suspect, the victim, anything, But they're
helpful here.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah, Well, I think you know, in modern era, you know,
we've had dogs out on multiple cases I was involved
with for a variety of reasons, you know, whether it
be decompt dogs looking for human remains or in the
like in this situation where they're scent dogs and they're
trying to track down the scent. But most frequently you
have your canine handlers, you know, and they get dispatched

(20:48):
to a location and sometimes you know, they have their
dog go. I mean, dogs are incredible. You know, the
dogs are able to go and find the bad guy,
whereas the humans are just you know, kind of standing.
They're going, well, I know he's out there somewhere, I hope,
so it's again. You know, there's plenty of examples of
dogs that have really benefited cases as well as just

(21:12):
you know, general crime fighting.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
Well, and just to go back to American Sherlock and
the train robbery that's in my book nineteen twenty three,
that would be robbers. I hate to call them train
robbers because they actually blew up part of the train
and could not get any money. They actually didn't get anything,
so I'm not sure we could qualify them as robbers.
But these guys, these brothers, they wore burlap covers on

(21:36):
their shoes, their boots, and they soaked them in creosote.
Is that how you say that? I think so, yeah,
to throw off the scent of the dogs. And it worked.
It worked. It was the only smart thing they did
to me, honest, But it worked.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
Under that scenario.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
You know, it really depends on what the handler is
asking the dog to scent off of, you know, because
even though let's say your footwear is been put in
some you know, this somewhat of this noxious type of
you know, chemical, if the handlers knew that that's what
these guys did, then they would just have the dog
sent off that chemical and follow it. And that would be,

(22:12):
I would imagine, very easy when you have the offenders,
you know, you don't have their necessarily real good sent
articles to tell the dog this is what I want
you to follow. So let's say those you don't want
to call them train robbers, they're really vandals. You know,
they just kind of destroyed property and they're incompetence.

Speaker 3 (22:33):
But you know, if let's say.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
They dropped a mask and the you know, the handler
knew that mask came from one of the bad guys,
then he would have the dog sent from that mask
and the scent comes from the other parts of the
the bad guy's body. And so that scent and oftentimes
will pool on the ground. That's why the dog sniffed

(22:56):
the ground, and so they can be told ignore the
koreosote sent this, and I bet the dogs would be
able to differentiate.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
That's interesting. Well, we'll see. I'll tell you later how
the dog has become helpful. Everyone's freaking out. They've lost
the scent. They think that Buddy has had kidnappers take
him on foot, and then they think that at the
outskirts of town that he's been put in a car.
They have no idea what this fourteen month old is.
That morning, after they lose the scent, the Keat family

(23:27):
gets a ransom letter and the letter is addressed to
the Holland Bank where James was vice president. Now he
has a less involved role, he obviously still has access
to the money there. People know he's very wealthy, so
it goes to the bank. Unfortunately, there are a lot
of media leaks in this story, and it causes a
pretty big problem because the leak of this letter got

(23:49):
to the press, and I think mostly it's because they
said that the postal workers attracted some attention when they
were trying to get the letter to James. I guess
they weren't subtle, and they said, you know, oh, I
don't know if they're waiving it and saying it's a
ransom letter. But now the press knows. The ransom letter
is written in pencil and it says this, and actually
this is the This is a ransom letter that makes

(24:10):
more sense than many of them we've read before. We
got your kid. Don't say anything to the police or
put it in the papers. There are three of us,
and we want two thousand dollars a piece, so it
will cost you six thousand dollars. Thanks for the math.
Six thousand dollars to get him. We got another picked out.
I'm assuming they mean kid. So if we don't get

(24:34):
this from you money, we can tell them to see
what we did to yours, to buddy. So the letter
says that they'll get more instructions in another letter the
next day. Six thousand dollars is about one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars today. So what do you think about that?

Speaker 2 (24:51):
Well, it's very clear in terms of what they want.
It's not rambling. I think it's interesting that they're specifying
the number of a vendors three and you know, I
get a little skeptical about that. You know, I would
tend to lean well, you may just have one offender
and wants to be more intimidating by adding a number there,

(25:11):
but not necessarily. That's kind of a hard thing to interpret.
The offender has taken Buddy out of Buddy's residence, most
certainly would know or have access to the address. The
letter could have gone directly to James. But it sounds
like they knew James's connection to the Holland Bank. So

(25:33):
that's a little bit of insight about the offender. Don't
know how much insight that is, but it's like, Okay,
why would how how does the offender know about his connection?

Speaker 3 (25:43):
Is that just you know, through reading.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Newspaper articles, or is this does is there a personal
connection the offender has to that bank and or James
knowing this connection to the bank, you know, So that's
just something I'm going to kind of go, okay, that's
that's an interesting bit of knowledge that the offender is
revealing kind of indirectly by sending the ransom note to
the bank itself.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
I wonder how they picked that number. Six thousand dollars
two thousand per person, We can't get into the mind
of an offender, but how would you come up with
a ransom number? How would you know how much this
person is willing to pay? And incidentally, I'm pretty sure
he'd be willing to pay a lot more than that,
knowing what he's worth.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
Well, it would be interesting, you know, is there any
type of you know, in this day and age, certain
amounts of dollar transactions are tracked much more rigorously than
lesser amounts, you know, so I'd be kind of curious
to see is there anything monetarily that the offender is
trying to avoid by asking for a certain amount.

Speaker 3 (26:45):
It may you never know, it may just be the.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
Offender is going, well, I want to buy, you know,
a fancy carriage with four horses, and it costs so much,
and so you know, that's the value. That's the amount
I'm going to ask for. You know, it's something that
the offender just happens to me, maybe as a gambling debt,
and that's the amount that he so right now, don't know,
you know, it's just it's curious.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
Okay, So we're we're at six thousand right now, that's
what they want. James Keat goes to the sheriff, because
the sheriff is ready to investigate, and he says, I
don't want you to do one thing until we get
this additional letter. I want to pay the ransom. It
is no big deal. I want my kid back. And
the sheriff lets him, you know, stay in the driver's seat.

(27:27):
And so they say, okay, let's wait and see what
this next letter is. So again, this is fourteen years
before the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, which was the most high
profile kidnapping case as far as I know, certainly of
a child ever. And this is a time where kidnapping children,
non parental kidnappings are very very rare for ransom, So

(27:48):
the story becomes huge national news of course, you know,
all across the country, even though we're getting ready to
really dig into World War One. Now, this would have
been terrifying, I'm sure, you know, for all parents, but
particularly wealthy parents I'm sure are gripping their children a
little more tightly. The Keat family says nothing to the press,

(28:09):
but there is a lot of reporting to the kidnap
about the kidnapping as early as the morning after thanks
to the postal carriers really making a big deal going
from the bank over to James's house. The newspapers are
reporting that day that James's family got a ransom letter,
that the baby has been kidnapped, and everybody's in fear.

(28:30):
The articles say that mister Keat will not reveal the
contents of the ransom letter, and he's not going to
talk to the press. He has hired private investigators, and
every time I see the name of the firm, it
always makes me smile, the Pinkerton's. And I mean, I
think everybody's probably heard at least at once about the
Pinkerton Detective Agency.

Speaker 3 (28:50):
I've heard of it.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
I can't quite place why, but definitely a famous agency.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
I mean, they were the go to for basically everything
is private detectives. And they were in Saint Louis. I
don't know if that's where they were based, but they
had a big office in Saint Louis, and you know
they investigated like armed robberies and train robberies and outlaws
and also you know, going back to murders. Anybody who
had the money could hire the Pinkertons, including the government.

(29:15):
James's brother is being pressured by the press to give
more information, and he says we are not doing any talking.
That is the order, and the order is being obeyed.
Now we get another letter. We do get these cases
where we get these really wacky instructions for ransom, and
now we kind of go I think off the deep end.
Do you have anything to say before I tell you

(29:38):
what their instructions are for James.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
I think the only observation that I'm making right now
is from the very get go. When the parents come home,
they are responding as you would expect them to. There's
no delay in reporting. You know, once they've determined that
buddy is gone. You know, they are mobilized, seeing you know,

(30:01):
authorities and trying to do what they can. And I
completely understand James's position with the sheriff. You know, it's
just like no, hold on, you know, I'll pay the money.
I want my kid back. That is what most parents
would probably do under that scenario. You don't oftentimes, you know,
law enforcement.

Speaker 3 (30:21):
You know, you don't want to.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
Encourage this type of activity by cooperating. It's just that
when you're the parent, it's like, no, what's going to
happen if I don't cooperate? You know, It's it's sort
of the worst scenario you could be in.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
Well, James is very upset. Of course he's reading this
note and he shows it to the sheriff and this
is what the note says in summary. They want James,
and only James, to leave by himself. I don't mean
to laugh through this some of the stuff they're having
him do. I know you're smiling to you. I don't
know where what movies these guys have been watching, but
this is what they want. He is a roadster, love roadsters.

(30:57):
They want him to paint one of the headlights of
the roadster the color red. Okay, he's supposed to He's
supposed to travel into the foothills of the Ozarks through
Green County and go under twenty miles per hour the
whole time, and he is told that he should be
listening for a voice to shout stop. Then he's supposed

(31:18):
to get out of the car and walk one hundred
paces backwards and set a white lantern on the road
with this money, the six thousand dollars. Then he's supposed
to drive one mile and then return back to get
the ladder. Presumably the kidnappers will take the money. Then
when he leaves, and then the kidnappers will have taken

(31:40):
the money and left behind a map that will lead
them to Buddy. I mean, what the hell this is
really complicated, you.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
Know, as comical as it sounds, as I'm mentally kind
of going through this. So there's a certain logic to it,
and I think part of it is the geography, you know,
going up into the Ozarks. You know this idea of
him painting one headlight red on his roadster, Well, that

(32:10):
is something that they would be able to see from
a distance. Right, So now they're aware that James is
approaching underneath twenty miles an hour, they're able to gives
them greater time to assess the vehicle, assess is he alone,
is there anybody following him, is there anybody else in
the vehicle, et cetera. And then the voice stop. So

(32:35):
they're not like walking out of the middle of the
road and holding their hand up. They're wanting to keep
their physical presence a mystery. So the use of the
voice makes sense. They're obviously having James drive past their location.
That's why they want him to walk backwards, to just
minimize the chance of him spotting something. The lantern, the money,

(32:58):
it's a beacon where now they can see him actually
deposit a container I'm assuming with the lantern, so at
least they know there's something that he's putting down. They
don't know the money's in there, but they still hold
the cards. They have buddy, you know, so he better
put the money down or he's not going to get
buddy and then to drive off for a mile, turn
around and come back. Well, that's going to give them

(33:20):
time to be able to go up there, ensure that
they got the money, drop the map, and in essence
put enough distance between that location and their escape for
the time it takes James to get back to the location.
So as as goofy as this scenario sounds, at least
as I'm going through this, I'm going, okay, you know,

(33:41):
it actually makes sense because they're trying to minimize their
risk offenders. That's part of their planning process. They want
to minimize the risk to themselves as they commit the crime.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
Well, I just did a little bit of a search,
and we're talking about eighteen miles between Springfield, depending on
where he is, and Green County, So they're having him
drive less than twenty miles an hour for about eighteen miles.

Speaker 3 (34:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
Now, so they're telling him the entire distance he has
to drive less than twenty miles, not once he gets
into the Ozarks or whatever location.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
Well, I mean they're telling him to go travel into
the foothills of the Ozarks through Green County, right, you're right.
So I don't know how much further passed. I just
didn't get that information how much further past Green County
he was supposed to go into the Ozarks. But I mean,
you know the complaint, he says that he had to

(34:37):
drive all night long, so it must have been a
long drive for him.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
Yeah, And there may be a reason for that location
to the offenders, it may just be purely I don't
know the terrain well enough, but my guess is is
that where he is doing this drop off of the money,
that visibility from a distance is reduced, either because it's
a hillier air or it's more forested, you know, more

(35:03):
curvy roads, you know, versus right out there in Springfield.

Speaker 3 (35:07):
You know.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
Plus, if they do have somebody following him when he
leaves his house, it's also gives them time to spot
somebody that let's say, you know, the sheriff has a
you know, unmarked car that's following from a distance.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
Well, funny you should say that that's going to come
into play in just a minute or two.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
Imagine that. I know.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
James says, okay, let's do it, and he gets in
his car, and he has the ransom money, the six
thousand dollars. He's following the directions perfectly. There is a
lot of rain and a lot of tornado activity in
the area, but he does it. He follows the route
laid out in the ransom note. He drives, goes slowly,
and at the point where the kidnappers are supposed to

(35:49):
say stop, he'd never hear stop. Ever, the issue I
think is again, the second note got out to the press,
and there have been various reports that he was followed. Okay,
he was either followed by the sheriffs and they never
told him he was followed there. Actually, this is an
interesting quote. Some witnesses from smaller towns in Green County

(36:10):
told the reporters that they saw as many as a
dozen additional cars that were following him. That they think,
we're just like strangers trying to be helpful. Regardless, it
pissed off the kidnappers and they never responded to him
until they send another note. So I guess well meaning people,
but they really botched this. If the kidnappers ever even

(36:32):
intended to follow through with this plan.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
Yeah, you know on that right now is going to
be the big question at this point. Let's say the
offenders bailed because they saw a scenario that was not
in line with their instructions. Now it comes down to
how much do they want that money? And it sounds
like they communicate again. Is that what she said? Another
letter comes.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
In, Yes, So here's what happens next. The report is
that a little boy, after James gets home, runs to
his door, rings the bell and hands him a letter.
Nobody's talked to this kid, but you know I had wondered, Okay,
how is James receiving letters so quickly? Nobody's been able
to track that kid down, But he gets a letter

(37:15):
almost immediately when he gets home. The letter says, it
didn't take long to see what you were up to.
Every saloon in town knows how much we wanted money
and where we told you to go. Call off your
detective bloodhounds. If you don't, you'll never see the baby again.
If they ever get near us. The baby will be murdered.

(37:36):
So you're right, there's the smartest kidnappers that we've been
countured so far.

Speaker 3 (37:40):
So from a timing standpoint, you're saying that when James
gets home to his house from this money drop, he's
already got a letter being handed to him.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
So the report is that there's a little boy who
runs over with this letter and hand delivers it to
him and then vanishes. So they're obviously watching him. Somebody's
watching him.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
Okay, So think about this.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
You know, in this day and age, you know, you
got cell phones, mobile phones, but you know, in nineteen seventeen,
out in the middle of nowhere, you know, how is
somebody who sees him and then goes, oh, hold on,
there's other headlights out there in the ozarks, you know,
eighteen miles away. How is that information getting transmitted all
the way back to Springfield? You know that quickly. I'm

(38:24):
kind of wondering if they were watching him from the
very beginning or very early on in the route and
then saw the tail you know by you know, good
smiritan citizens or sheriff's whoever, and just called it off
at that point and then already had the note in hand.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
By the time he got back.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
You know, they're they've given it to some kid, probably
paid the kid, you know, five dollars and say go
give this to this man when he comes home.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
The letter that he got when he when he came
home basically saying we know what you're doing and you
better stop. All so said, we will give you more instructions.
But we're not sure if they ever do get more
instructions because at some point the sheriff is going to
get a break in the case that doesn't have anything
to do with these letters. What sounds like happened was
James did this two more times every freaking time it

(39:17):
gets out to the press, and it obviously, you know,
thwarts the plans of the kidnappers. One time they tell
him to arrange Listen to this, that James had been
instructed in another letter to arrange for a sign atop
a tall building in downtown Springfield to be illuminated when
he starts out on his trip. But the press reports

(39:40):
on it before this even happens. I don't know who
the leak is. There might be various leaks, but you know,
probably the Sheriff's department, I would guess. But he is
not making contact direct contact. He has the money, he's
willing to do it. It sounds like the kidnappers want
the money, but because there's so much outside interference, this
is not happening.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
Well, kind of maybe stepping back to James receiving the
letter from the boy after he does the trip, James
is the one that is the controller of that information
at that point in time, and so of course it's like, well,
who is James communicating with such as the sheriff, you know,
and how is that information, you know, getting out at

(40:22):
a certain point. My expectation of James, let's say he
goes through this process and it gets screwed up again
outside of his control. I would think he would just
naturally circle the wagon and not tell anybody what the
next letter tells him to do, because each time, you know,
it's getting out. So that's that's interesting to me, you know,

(40:44):
is that you know these other letters that he receives,
are they direct handoffs to him? Are they also coming
in through the bank again or a post office? And
now you have potential multiple sources of leaks.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
The first I believe was the bank, and that was
the one that was delivered by postal workers apparently, and
then I think the last two have been directly to
him at his house. So yeah, I mean, obviously he's
being watched. So they seem very thorough, but they are pissed.
They are tired of this, the kidnappers, sure, And in
the meantime, the sheriff is conducting his own investigation, trying

(41:23):
to get ahead of all of this. They are asking
everyone in Springfield where they were on the night of
May thirtieth when Buddy was kidnapped, and they do a
lot of canvassing and they actually get a lead. There
is a cabin at the edge of Springfield and in
that cabin is a man named Taylor Adams and he's
married to a woman named Ali Adams. He is known

(41:44):
as the town drunk. I'm sure there's a more PC
way to say that, but he is. He is somebody
who is often inebriated and maybe considered a little bit
of a pest. They have two adult sons, and that's
who we're going to be focusing on. These guys are
named Kleatus and mac See, and they have a border
named Claude. I don't know if you've done the math,

(42:06):
but that's three I was just starting.

Speaker 2 (42:08):
To add them up on my fingers and yes, I agree,
that's three.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
That's three. I don't know why they if this is
who we're thinking of, I don't know why they would
tell the truth. There are kidnappers, I guess, who could
be smart in some ways and not so smart in
other ways. But I guess they were just explaining why
they needed that particular amount of money.

Speaker 3 (42:28):
Yeah, in terms of yeah, two thousand dollars each, so
six thousand dollars total.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
Yeah, it's weird. It's almost like justifying, well, this is
why we need this amount of money. They did say
in one of the letters. The longer this takes for
us to work this out, James, the more money we're
going to ask for. So they had actually upped it
to ten thousand dollars, which is about almost a quarter
of a million today. So they were becoming very impatient
and not to take up for the kidnappers. I understand why.

(42:55):
When everything is being published in the press and people
are following their main mark here, it just seems very
chaotic for everybody.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Well, this is something that they could not have anticipated.
They just want to get, you know, quick money, easy
m hmm. It's turning out it's not so easy. And
while they're waiting for the money, they've got this fourteen
month old, you know, and assuming that they didn't kill
Buddy right away, they're now having to care for this
fourteen month old while they go through all these processes

(43:28):
to try to figure out how can we get our money,
you know, without being discovered.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
Yeah, they're in a cabin, which I can't imagine is palatial,
and they've got you know, their parents and these two
young men, and then they've got a border. So you're
talking about five people in a cabin. So it'll be
fascinating to me to see who knew about any of this,
that this is what happens. So now we go from
me saying the kidnappers seem pretty bright with some of

(43:55):
the decisions that they've made, and you've said, you know,
some of the stuff that they've said for Jamie to
do makes sense. Now they start doing things that don't
make sense as far as I'm concerned, if these are
our people. They are vague when the police who are
canvassing and talking to everybody on earth about this story,
they're vague about where they were on May thirtieth. I
can't imagine everybody has a solid alibi. There's you know,

(44:17):
no TV, but probably people are with their families, but
they are unusually vague about really not even being able
to say what they were doing in any realm. Claude
has already been talking around town about being involved in
two different ransom plots, not involving Buddy Keat. He is

(44:38):
mouthing off about trying to kidnap a local jeweler and
a local munitions dealer. But both of those kidnappings fell
through this is the border, not the two sons. So
now they're alarmed because they had heard rumors about this
the Sheriff's department, and that's why they want to talk
to Claude. I think they think it's you know, a quinketin,

(45:00):
not that he's talking about kidnapping and there's a kidnapped baby.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
Well, I think, you know, if this group is responsible.
Anytime you have like this conspiracy amongst thieves for law enforcement,
that's what you hope for because there's a weak link
there somewhere. At some point, somebody's going to either directly
come to law enforcement because they feel that they're going

(45:26):
to be targeted and they're scared about what's going to
happen to them, or they're around town, they get drunk
and they start talking to you know, their bar buddy,
you know, scenarios like that, and next thing you know,
the tips are coming in. So inside this little shack,
you've got five adults and potentially a fourteen month old.

(45:46):
You know, it seems like stress levels are going to
go up.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
Yes, I would say that's an understatement. The police, once
they start getting information about what Claude is saying around
town that they were going to, you know, kidnap a
jeweler and ammunition's dealer, they start trying to figure out
who their associates are and they bring in seven people.
They bring Claude the border in. They bring all four
members of the family, the parents, a driver named George

(46:13):
Walker who doesn't work with them, and a cook named
Sam McGinnis who doesn't work for them. These are all
people that they know. It's their inner circle. They're all
arrested because the police say, we cannot connect them to
Buddy yet, but we are trying to connect them to
these other two potential kidnappings that never happened. In the
course of questioning, all seven of these people, which I

(46:35):
assume they split them all up and question them. There
is word from someone within this group that the plan
was to take the jeweler, in particular to an abandoned mansion.
Can't get any creepier for our Halloween episode, an abandoned
mansion outside the city called the Crenshaw Mansion. This is
where police say, well, heck, let's go and see if

(46:55):
Buddy is there, and that will of course then connect
Buddy to them and you know, hopefully he'll be alive
and they've thwarted this kidnapping. But that's where we are now.
I mean, they just it is one person who mouthed
off that led to all of this.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
Yeah, that's that's what happens.

Speaker 1 (47:13):
If you're going to commit a crime, don't get other
people involved.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
Right, Yeah, you know, most early if you want information security,
you know this is now. You know you've got let's say,
these seven people separated being interviewed.

Speaker 3 (47:27):
I just harken back to that Russell Crowe.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
Movie La Confidential, Uh huh, you know where basically, I
mean I can easily see where a detective goes in
to Kletis or Maxie and is like Claude's spilling the
beans here.

Speaker 3 (47:41):
Oh yeah, you know, putting it all on you.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
And you know, let's see how they respond, you know,
because Claude, it's already known Claud's around town spouting off.
So just blame Claude, you know, and say, hey, Claude's
the one that's telling us everything.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
So how do you respond to that.

Speaker 1 (47:59):
Well, they are most concerned about trying to find Buddy alive.
So this is now June sixth, so we're thinking about
a week or so later after he has been kidnapped,
maybe eight days. A group that includes police officers and
friends of the family go up to this mansion and
once they bring bloodhounds, thank Goodness with them. The bloodhounds

(48:24):
immediately pick up on his scent, Buddy scent once they
get to this mansion. And remember this is just one
person saying this was the game plan that never happened.
We were supposed to take this jeweler out to the
mansion and wait there. They pick up on buddy scent,
and the hounds eventually find a piece of Buddy's baby
blanket inside the abandoned mansion, and they find an empty

(48:48):
crib with clean sheets and a makeshift caught next to
the crib, but they do not find Buddy. The group
that they've arrested maintained they had nothing to do with
this kidnapping, except obviously there's evidence that someone was keeping
a baby at this abandoned mansion and they've already been
connected to it. So they can't find Buddy, but his

(49:08):
baby blanket is there. Okay, So now we're going to
get into the trigger warning because I know everybody knows
where this is going. Unfortunately, three days later, on June ninth,
they go and do another search of the mansion and
the grounds. This time they find an old well. We're
back with old wells. I feel like we do these
stories a lot. They remove the stone cover, and when

(49:30):
they do, they see one of the baby's feet sticking
above the surface of the water, about eight feet down.
And here's the hard part. And then I want you
to respond to that his parents had heard a report
saying that Buddy had been found alive. I mean, misinformation everywhere.
And then they find out the truth, and it's of

(49:50):
course heartbreaking for them. Authorities just say they thought that
the kidnappers, whomever they are, and they're assuming it's this group,
thought that the story had become too hot, and they
killed the baby and gave up hopes of getting the ransom.
So what do you think about all that? And then
I have information about cause of death? Bad ending.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
Yeah, so you know, the presence of the crib with
a cotton next to it tends to indicate that there
is at least a thought that they Buddy was going
to be kept alive for a period of time. I
would also be assessing, well, what else did they find?
Is there dirty diapers?

Speaker 3 (50:25):
You know?

Speaker 2 (50:26):
Is there I don't know what kind of food Back
in nineteen seventeen, you know, a toddler would be eating.
But is there evidence that Buddy was alive for a
period of time? And this is going to be somewhat stereotypical,
But you've got these seven adults and only one of
the adults is a woman, Ali, you know, was she
the caretaker for Buddy?

Speaker 3 (50:46):
You know?

Speaker 2 (50:47):
I think that may be something where I could see
if she's not involved in this scheme but is now
being tasked with having to care for Buddy, she may
be a weak link from an interview standpoint. I mean,
they have even bonded with this child. It's hard to
say right now. Was Buddy killed right away, you know,

(51:07):
or did they hold Buddy for a period of time
and then once things were starting to go sideways with
all the public attention and law enforcement involvement and the
money drop offs not working, did they just decide, Okay,
we got to cut bait and run. And the way
they did that was, you know, kill Buddy in some
manner and hide the body. And it's at a location

(51:30):
that is separate from their living quarters, you know, it's
at the Crenshaw Mansion, on the grounds of the Crenshaw
Mansion versus back where their shed is their cabin.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
So let me tell you about the autopsy. The autopsy
showed that he had been suffocated. They did not find
any water in his lungs. The medical examiner or whoever
corner whoever did the exam, said that he thought that
Buddy had been dead for four or five days from
when he was discovered, which would have meant, you know,
the kidnappers were keeping him alive, and probably on the

(52:01):
second attempt they said, well, this is never going to work,
and then they killed him. I was immediately questioning whether
a body in the well for however many days, if
they would really be able to get an accurate time
of death.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
What do you think, Well, it's not going to be
very accurate.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
If the pathologist is experienced, he's got a library in
his head of all these bodies that he's done autopsies
on under the various circumstances. And so if he takes
into account that this baby has been put into this well,
it's been in the water for a period of time.

(52:37):
Even though this is a warm spring day, the well
water is probably cool, so it's going to slow down
some of the decomposition, and so that may extend out
some of the indicators of length of time that Buddy
has been dead. I would say that he's at least,
you know, his estimation of the how long Buddy's been
dead is probably within a reasonable dough of time.

Speaker 3 (53:01):
It's not going to be spot on.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
Okay, So once the police find Buddy's body, it turns
into mayhem. As you can guess, the case attracts a
lot of attention. There is a point where a mob
of people actually get their hands on Claude the Border,
the one who's really been talking to the police, after
chasing the sheriff all the way to Stockton, Missouri. This mob,

(53:25):
which is thousands of people steak Claude and tie a
noose around his neck and string him up three times,
trying to get him to admit that he kidnapped and
killed the baby. But of course, you know press in
nineteen seventeen they said at least twenty thousand people. I'm
not sure about that, but he maintains his innocence and
each time he passes out, they aren't managing to murder

(53:47):
him or anything. Finally he has given back to the
sheriff and all seven people are arrested. Then it gets
broken up early in an interesting way. Claude and the
four members of the Adams family are all charged with
kidnapping murder, and eventually they drop the charges against the
mom and one of the brothers, Taylor and Kletas, plead

(54:10):
guilty and they get sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
Claude says he was not guilty. He pleads not guilty,
and he goes to trial. And here's the interesting part.
One handwriting expert thank goodness for trials, otherwise I would
have no stories at all. A handwriting expert says that
Claude's handwriting matched the handwriting on the ransom notes, and

(54:33):
the most important thing. A country club employee testified that
he saw Claude follow the keys home from the dance
that night.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
Oh yep, so okay, So the father and Kalidas.

Speaker 1 (54:45):
And one son yep, plead guilty.

Speaker 2 (54:47):
And then Claude is hell to answer. He's going through trial,
and now you've got some evidence handwriting as well as
witness evidence being presented against him.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
Yep, he is found guilty and sentenced thirty five years
in prison. And he had denied it, denied it, denied it.
So after he's found guilty, now tell me what you
think about what he says. After he's found guilty, he
actually acknowledges his involvement, and he writes newspaper articles where
he claims that there were two other people, not any
of the other six other people were involved in the kidnapping.

(55:17):
He says that Buddy's death was an accident. Of course,
he's going to say that. He said that Buddy had
been given laudanum to keep him quiet and he accidentally overdosed.
And then there were other newspapers that say, well, you know,
they held a rag over the baby's mouth to muffle
his cries, which seems a little bit more consistent with
the autopsy findings. But I don't know laudanum. I don't

(55:40):
even know would that they would show up in an autopsy.
I guess if they did toxicology.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
Right, yeah, you know, I'm not sure that they would
be able to truly detect laudnum. The autopsy results a
pathologist having a ruling of asphyxia, there is you know,
diagnostic features that the pathologist is seeing. Takes a little
bit of force, you know, to you know, show how
the in the inside of your gums, on your mouth,

(56:07):
on your lips, how how the teeth are leaving, bruising
are are cutting into you know, the inside surfaces of
your lips, you know, abrasions around your nose. Depending on
how how the asphyxia is occurring, you could even have
petikia form in the eyes, you know. So it's something

(56:29):
where I would say this is likely more of a
an intentional act of homicide through asphyxia than accidental by
trying to muffle the cries.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
There was a head wound on Buddy, but the medical
examiner said it's unclear whether it was an intentional head
wound or one where he was dropped eight feet down
and banged his head, So I don't know if you
can read into that at all.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
You know that, well, that would be tough, just because
Buddy has been, you know, in this water for a
period of time. So some of what I'd be looking
for was there hemorrhaging in the wound, indicating that that
Buddy's heart was still pumping. Well, because Buddy's floating in
this water, that hemorrhaging, the blood flows, everything else that
has probably been in essence washed away. So the pathologist is,

(57:17):
for the most part, you know, he's handicapped, trying to
make an assessment and when that head wound happened.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
Well, just to wrap up this story, Claude is in
prison for twenty one years and then he's released and
he lives twenty four more years in Kansas City as
a walksmith. Oh wow, ironically.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:36):
And then James, Buddy's dad died at the age of
sixty one in nineteen forty five, so he lived almost
thirty years past this. Buddy's mom lived for the rest
of her life on that house on that street until
she died in nineteen eighty and of course the family
then immediately put bars on the windows. Jimmy who we've

(57:56):
not talked about at all. Who I don't know why
this is a big deal, but it feels like a
big deal to me. He went on to do great things.
This is the three year old who was not kidnapped.
He went to Princeton, he went to Harvard Law, he
got a bronze star in the Battle of the Bulge,
and he became a circuit judge in Springfield. And he
died in two thousand and five. So I was trying
to think of what the lesson here was. We don't

(58:18):
know anything really about the kidnappers, why they if they
needed the money out of greed, or who was really involved.
I don't know. For me, is what struck me about
this story is the just intentional assertion of the press
and of the people around them that just I don't
know if they would have gotten Buddy back alive after
that first one. I think they might have. I mean that,

(58:40):
you know, if they're trying to keep this kid alive,
I think their intention is to get the money and
return him. But I could be wrong.

Speaker 3 (58:46):
Yeah, Well, I think that that's the hard part.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
Because law enforcement often gets criticized for being very tight
lipped regarding cases and of course, you have journalists reporters
who want the details in are working their sources, and
you know, there is a balance for sure, particularly for
you know, protecting the case, and it's a fine line

(59:11):
to walk. And in this case, it seems like the
journalists were going more after the sensationalistic aspects and nobody
was putting a lid on them in terms of, hey,
i'll give you an exclusive, but don't release this detail
right now, or we're going to have a dead fourteen
month old. You know, that's the reality.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
Too many people involved, is what it sounds like. Yeah, yeah,
what a sad story. That kidnappings I always find to
be very dramatic, very detailed, lots of interesting plots and instructions.
But ultimately, I don't think we've had a kidnapping end
well for us so far. We've had you know, the

(59:54):
Lindbergh baby, We've had that executive, remember the man who
was writing with his former secretary and he got dragged
out of the car. I mean, we've just had several
of those where things have ended tragically, and unfortunately this
is what happened in this case too. But I've never
seen I feel like the press so aggressive in handling this,

(01:00:15):
and this is yellow journalism, this is you know, the
Hurst papers and everything moving forward. So it's an illustration
of it. And what a tragedy becomes of it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
No, for sure, you know, Buddy loss his life, and
I mean the entire family is living with that loss,
and for what six thousand dollars, which of course you
know is more money back then. But you know, it
just shows that there's individuals out there that are willing
to do the most horrific things to make a buck.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
Well, I need a break from children who have been
kidnapped and murdered. So we are not going to be
talking about that next week, thankfully, I can guarantee you that, okay,
And then we'll have you know, we have Halloween coming up,
and so I I hope that you are getting your
knife out and are gonna get ready to carve a
jack o' lantern that you will not put on the

(01:01:06):
front stoop because of the stinkin' deer of yours, and
you will have a wonderful draw up to the Halloween season.

Speaker 3 (01:01:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
No, I'm actually looking forward to the tricker treaders and
we'll see if it's a white Halloween or not.

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
Here in Colorado.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
H shut up, Paul White Halloween.

Speaker 3 (01:01:22):
I would love that unless you're out there trick or treating.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
I mean, I'm crossing my fingers for a under ninety
degree Halloween.

Speaker 3 (01:01:30):
Oh wow, there's that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:31):
Yes, Okay, well, I will see you next week.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
All right, sounds good.

Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
This has been an exactly right production.

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
For our sources and show notes go to exactly rightmedia
dot com slash Buried Bones Sources.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
Our senior producer is Alexis Emosi.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.

Speaker 3 (01:01:56):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.

Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
Our art work is by Vanessa Lilac.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hart Stark, and Danielle Kramer.

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Buried Bones Pod.

Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
Age story of murder and the race to decode the
criminal mind, is available now

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's
Cold Cases is also available now