August 20, 2025 • 55 mins
In this week’s episode, the first part of a two-part episode, Paul and Kate head to western expansion era Colorado where a single murder seems to quickly relate to the first of many dead bodies.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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 (00:09):
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 2 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is Buried Bones.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Bay, Kate. How are you doing?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I'm doing great, Paul. I wonder if there's anything different
about me that you're noticing.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, your hair is different, very good.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
What's different about it? Do you think?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Well, you're you've got it brushed back.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Okay, hold on, I'll make it clear.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Is it shorter? Is it curly?
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Curly? Yes? I am a girl with curls, and I
straighten my hair on special occasions. I et bery bones
and some book events. But I am definitely naturally curly,
like one of my kids is. So I would like
to say, Officially, I wanted to try something new, different look,
(01:48):
just see, you know, spice things up. Unofficially, I didn't
feel like straightening my hair.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Okay, so this is you just just natural Kate today, right?
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I mean, well, I mean I did some stuff, but
normally I have a you know, I mean I've got
my glasses on. Normally, I'm mean I have a ponytail going.
So this is a little different. So we'll have to see.
I don't want to take a pole or anything, but
I might go back and forth unless unless there's like
a mass objection trend that happens, which I don't think
(02:20):
it will.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah, you look great, thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
And I also want my kid to know the one
who has a real gosh, he has gorgeous long, curly hair.
I want heard it know that. You know, I don't
always when I go fancy, sometimes the curls are the
way to go, you know.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Is this the same haircut you've always had high school everything?
And don't joke about your thinning hair thing? Hair is fine.
I know men are sensitive, but I mean, have you
ever changed up your look very much?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
No? You know, it's definitely different than when I was
in high school, you know, back in the eighties, kind
of the feathered back hair style for you know, the
guys was in and so I had a part of
down the middle and feathered back. And I also had
a mustache in high school throughout high school, which when
I look back at my yearbook photos, I was like,
what the hell were you thinking, Paul, But you know,
(03:07):
it is what it is. Basically, when I went to
the Police Academy in nineteen ninety four, you know, I
was working in law enforcement, and though I could have
worn my hair differently pretty much, it was always just short.
You talk about the thinning hair, you know. At one
point when I noticed I was my hair was thinning,
I decided, you know, I'll just do the shave at
bro and I did a really close buzz cut. And
(03:31):
I remember coming home and my wife and my oldest
daughter they both looked at me. They saw my haircut,
and in essence they both started to dry heave because
I looked horrible. I'm not one of those guys that
can be bald and look good. Unfortunately they started to heave. Yeah,
(03:52):
but right now, my hair is probably the longest it's
been in a quarter century. To be frank. Really, I'm
growing it out a little little bit, and that way
I can next time I get it cut, you know,
I'll give the you know, the the barber some options.
Maybe I'll change my look up, maybe I'll shave it
off you. I'll stay tuned.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
You should talk to your wife and your daughter before
you do anything. Clearly demoid any trauma. Alexis our producers
tiny med eval, and she thinks we both need to
give her our high school photos for social media.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Like a senior yearbook photo or the feather back where
you're talking.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yes, the Miami vice, I think is probably what it is.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I've got my eyearbooks right up right across the room
from me. I can you know, scan something and get
it to Alexis if that's what she's asking for. And
I don't have a problem with that.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
We pretty much always do what Alexis asks us to do,
so I think we're going to have to do that.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Oh yeah, listen, I was.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
I was not always at my best in high school either,
and I can't remember. I have a bunch of my friends.
I have a group of seven girlfriends who are my
best friends. From a couple of them, Tina and Angie
starting from middle school, so for a gazillion years, and
we always look at high school yearbook stuff and make
fun of ourselves. So I'm not always at my best
(05:12):
in high school. But the whole point is that in
high school I wore my hair down. I never wore
it as a ponytail. And I don't know when I started,
probably the mom thing when I was just like, I'm
either going to tear my hair out or I have
to put in a ponytail.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
So keep it easy right now.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah, So we'll see how this goes. I mean, don't
be surprised if I go back to my normal straightened hair,
because I do wear it curly so often. But you know,
I like to change stuff up and you know all that.
So there you go.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Well, I'll stay on top of you.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
How's that? That's the I think the key ingredient to
any relationship is you're always kind of throwing curveballs at
your person, you know, kind of like, well what do
you think about this? So there we go.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Keep it exciting, right.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Well, I think we'll say right now talking about keeping
and exciting, that's where we're going. This is the furthest
back we've been I would have to say in quite
a while, we're in Civil War era when we talk
about this story, which as it unfolds, real history geeks
might recognize, you know, where we're going with this, So
(06:14):
we will see what you think.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
That sounds good.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Okay, let's set the scene. Get ready for a history lesson,
mister Paul Holes. I'm game, and we are actually going
to be in your state. We're going to Colorado. Oh
so it's actually not even Colorado the state yet, it's
Colorado Territory. Do you know much about Colorado history, just
(06:40):
as far as establishing borders and all of that kind
of stuff. Who was there before?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
No, you know, I don't think I know anything. I
actually know Texas better because I had to. I did
seventh grade in Texas, and at least at the time
I went to school seventh grade, you had to have
go through Texas history.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
And what a history. Okay, let's start with we're going
to Colorado and we are in March of eighteen sixty three,
smack in the middle of the Civil War. The Civil
War doesn't have anything to do with it, but you know,
you have to think about how much the country's expanding
at this point. You know, there's the wars happening. There
are people divided in not only states and cities and
(07:19):
families really over you know who they should side with.
So in Colorado Territory, officially its union, but very very
very divided. And I think part of that has to
do with the history. So I tried to really streamline this.
Ali did a great job, one of our researchers. Ali
did a great job giving me a ton of history,
(07:40):
and I wanted to streamline it because I just thought
you were just going to jump off a bridge or
something like three pages of history, which I adore. So, Okay,
we are in now Colorado Territory. We're in the southernmost portion,
which is called the San Louis Valley. Are you familiar
with that area at all? I don't know Colorado very
(08:01):
well as far as geography goes.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah, I'm fairly sure that probably on my way out
to Telluride, I went down south and then went west
to get out to Telluride, and San Luis Valley sounds familiar.
It's either that or I had consulted with Wichita, Texas
authorities and had driven back from Wichita Falls and came
(08:25):
up through New Mexico and then the southern part of
southeast part of Colorado, and so maybe that's also where
what I'm thinking of.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
My experience with Colorado honestly is pretty much confined to Denver,
a little bit of skiing, and then I went to
Colorado City, I think is where I went to. So
the people who live in the Colorado Territory, this area
used to be Mexican citizens because it was with Mexico
twenty years earlier than it became New Mexico. So when
the property ownership happened with Mexico, you have all of
(08:56):
these people who have different plots of land. That's the ownership.
These plots of land go back for generations. When the
area becomes New Mexico, then you know there's no deeds
or paperwork really to back it up, and it doesn't
seem to matter because culturally New Mexico was really aligned
(09:17):
with the people of Mexico, so there were no problems.
You see where I'm heading here, there's a lot of
discontent when we have a new population come in. So
before this new population comes in, the residents mostly live
in what's called plazas. These are small adobe villages that
house a couple of different families. When this part of
(09:41):
the area, the southern part of the area of what
is now Colorado becomes a part of the territory, so
you know, New Mexico gives it up, or it's taken
from New Mexico and it's made into this new boundary.
This happens in eighteen sixty. So there had been a
gold rush, which I probably you know, I always think
about the California gold Rush, but this is a Colorado
(10:03):
gold rush. Do you know much about that?
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Well, I wouldn't say I know a lot about the
history of the gold rush. But one of the areas
that I go with my jeep because I live on
the side of Cheyenne Mountain and within ten minutes I
can be on the back side of that mountain. And
there is a road, old stage road that snakes its
way through the mountains out to Cripple Creek, which is
(10:27):
where there's this huge mine. And this road used to
be railroad, and I believe it was for the you know,
the metals that were being mined out of that mine,
and some of that I believe was gold, or at
least there was, you know, one of the one of
the roads out there is a gold camp road, so
(10:47):
I'm sure gold was being mined out just on the
other side of the mountain from where I live.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah, And I, like I said, did not know that
there was a big gold rush in Colorado. There was.
There are an awful lot of white set flooding the area.
Now we're going to have problems in that part of
the territory. You have people who were Mexican residents who
are now residents of Colorado, and you have white settlers
coming and taking away land. And so there's one of
(11:14):
the conflicts. And you know, the other thing is then
they're saying, these people who were in this territory, they
have not moved, it's the boundary that's moved. When they
were in New Mexico, everybody left them alone. When they
became a part of the Colorado territory, it was much
more inclined culturally towards the white settlers. And so this
is where they're not getting any protection, and this is
(11:36):
where we're having some issues. And all of this is,
you know, part of this story. So are you following me?
Speaker 2 (11:42):
I'm following you. Yeah, you know, I'm I'm just you know,
I'm starting to key in on you know, motives for crime.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Now what is this? This is for me, I would
call this historical context, right, but as an investigator, it's
not victimology. What would this be called? Where you need
to know is this a high crime area or there
was a riot here, you know, two years ago and
it might be pertinent. What is there a phrase for that?
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Well, there is a discipline that's environmental criminology, and this
is how the environment and possibly even the social economic
aspects within that environment influence criminality. And so now when
you start talking about Colorado Territory, you're having different people
(12:29):
coming in and you know, the occupants that have been
there had a certain lifestyle, and now that lifestyle is
being influenced and there's going to be conflict that is developing.
And some of that conflict is developing over the environment
and what's within the environment, what's within the geography in
the area. Now, this is on with what you're talking about,
(12:50):
it's on a much bigger scale. Typically, when I'm going
into a town or a city and I'm looking at
a case, I'm wanting to know about, Okay, what is
this neighborhood like, especially if it was forty years ago
on a cold case. What was it like then? And
so that's where I'm starting to take a look at
(13:10):
what the environment was in which the crime occurred.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Okay, so we know the environment. It's tension filled, and
there are an awful lot of former Mexican citizens who
are saying our land is being taken by white settlers
and they're not getting kind of any backup from anybody
who's in leadership with the Colorado Territory. So here's where
we begin. We'll talk about several things, and you're going
to ask details, and I probably am not going to
(13:39):
have the details, but you know, we'll see kind of
how this unfolds. Just be very understanding if I can't
answer some of your questions. And no, we're definitely going
in a particular direction. Okay, Okay, could I be any
more cryptic? Do you want me to be more cryptic
than that's pretty cryptic, Kate.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
I'm so used to it now, Kate, I just roll
with the punches.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
This is to happen, but it might not happen, but
we'll see. I'll let you know in thirty minutes that's
gonna happen. That would drive me crazy. Okay. So this
is March eighteenth eighteen sixty three, and there's a guy
named Franklin William Bruce, and he has a house that
is near Canyon City and he owns a saw mill. Okay,
(14:21):
it sounds like Canyon City in the eighteen sixties, of course,
like much of the territory would have been farmland, and
now we have these sawmills. So Franklin is leaving Canyon
City to go to the sawmill that he owns, which
is about twelve miles away. So he gets on a
horse drawn wagon. We're in that era. So Franklin had
moved to Colorado from Wisconsin about three years earlier, when
(14:44):
a lot of other people came for the Gold Rush.
He was a prospector and now he's pivoted to farming
and selling lumber from his sawmill. He's in his fifties
and he has a wife named Ruth and four children.
And there are a couple of kids who old enough
to work in the sawmill. I will say, boy, that
could be almost any age if they could hold a
(15:05):
piece of wood, that would have been a kid who
could work in a saw mill. So child labor laws
and everything else, we don't have a great idea of
the range of the ages of these kids, but it
doesn't come too much into play. Okay, Franklin's log cabin
is twelve miles away. He gets on the horse and
wagon and goes. Sometime later that day, the horses come
(15:26):
back to the house pulling an empty wagon. I know
that this is a kind of a question, sort of
out of left field. But how do they know? I mean,
how do they know not to stay? Are they looking
for food? What is happening? Twelve miles that's a long way.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Well, I think some of our listeners probably have expertise
with horses. This is I think it's always amazing, you know,
these types of stories like family dog goes missing and
then you know they move and you know, years later
the dog all of a sudden shows up at the
new locate. How do these animals do that? You know?
So I just yeah, I think, you know, it's interesting
(16:04):
with the horses, obviously, it's like, well, we'res Franklin, Bruce,
you know what happened? Why? You know, why aren't these
horses tied up at the sawmill? Sounds like something bad
happened to Franklin and route to the saw mill. But again,
the horse is coming back. That's that's fascinating. I mean,
I don't I can't explain it. It's just it's really cool.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah, it is, but alarming to Franklin's family, of course.
So the newspapers of the time say that his youngest
son decided to go up I'm assuming, on the horse
and cart to go figure out what happened to his dad.
He's referred to in the eighteen sixties early nineteen hundreds
in these articles as a young boy, which to me
(16:46):
could be pretty young, because they probably would not have
set a twelve year old and or a thirteen year
old working on a farm in a saw mill as
a young boy. That would have been a young man.
So he could have been an eight year old. I
don't know why he went. I don't know where the
older kids were, but he went, and he came back
and said, Dad looks dead. So he had been shot
(17:08):
through the heart. He was carrying a handgun. I don't
know what kind, but it's still in its holster. There's
conflicting accounts about whether he was found inside the sawmill
or if he had been outside the sawmill near where
his horse had been grazing. What certain is that he
had been shot once. There is an account in several
of the newspapers that a cross had been carved into
(17:31):
his chest. Oh, I don't know if that falls into
a ritualistic or what that means just yet.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Do we know anything more about the cross? Is this
like a Christian cross? Is this, you know, something different
than what I'm envisioning. Do you have any details on that?
Speaker 1 (17:49):
I think it is your standard cross, Just.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
A cross, okay, yep. Which obviously there might be religious
connotations related to the cross that the offender is conveying.
There also potentially could just be you know how crosses,
I'm thinking about Arlington National Cemetery, you know how crosses
are used to basically mark the location of the deceased.
(18:14):
And was that just you know where the offender is
coming up? And is just you know, in essence, I've
killed this guy and here he is, so right now,
I couldn't really draw any conclusions as to what the
offender is thinking about the significance of the cross. However,
the offender is sending a message. Franklin Bruce is dead.
(18:35):
He's not doing this to send a message to Franklin Bruce.
He's sending a message to somebody who's going to either
find the body or to some other entities, you know,
group of people you know, in which now it's like,
you know, what's going on with Franklin, Bruce, you know this? Yeah?
Is he being specifically targeted or is this more of
(18:57):
he just happened to be a victim of opportunity. He
and the offender or offenders killed him, And it's like,
you send anybody else down this direction, you're going to
you know, suffer the same fate or something to that effect.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Yeah, And I had wondered if it was to benefit
Franklin somehow. I don't know what that would mean, putting
a cross on him that makes him.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Go to heaven like maybe like a like yeah, a
spiritual thing.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Just something. I mean that seems not very kind. But
I mean, of course they couldn't really tell or I
don't have notes that say whether this happened before or
after he was shot. I imagine after, of course, But.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
I wouldn't argue against that thought. You know, this is
where the offender may be killing Franklin in this world
in order to deal with whatever's going on in this
world aspect, but is conscious of Franklin's spirit and wants
to ensure that the spirit is moving on in whatever
(19:55):
the religious philosophy. The offender had.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
One of the things that I want to I know
this is going to be disconcerting, but we have to
move on from this story because this will be a
series of things and so this is not something where
we need to examine Franklin's inner circle. I promise, so
this will be We've got to go next to another
group of people. Is that okay? Or does that make
you fairly uncomfortable?
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Again, I'll just roll with it, Kate.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Sorry, that's what I wish everybody said that to me. Okay, Kate,
we'll do what you say. But let's just we'll roll
with it the next night. So March nineteenth, eighteen sixty three.
This is near Colorado City, Colorado. There are a couple
of men who are building a new sawmill and there's
a you know, there's a little cabin nearby that they're
(20:44):
sleeping in, you know, so that they can get the
saw mill done. They notice that the cabin is dark,
so this is just a temporary home for them until
they're done. The reason they're alarmed that it's dark is
because one of the having mates, one of the workers,
who's a guy named Henry Harkins, is supposed to be
(21:04):
making them dinner. And every night when it's gotten dark
and two of the men are still working on the sawmill,
they could see through the cracks of the logs the lamplight,
and so this night there's no lights through the cracks
of the logs. So I guess they're facing a non window.
They might have a window at all in here, but
isn't it I thought that was really interesting. I mean,
(21:25):
we've talked about laundry hanging up, you know, as a
sign that this woman would never have done this because
it rained last night, all of these signals of alarm,
and these guys were alarmed because the light was out
when Henry was supposed to be cooking dinner for everyone.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Yeah, so now they must go explore this, right, what's
you know, where's Henry? What's up with Henry? Because they're hungry,
they want their food.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Right, they're hungry and irritated. Maybe he fell asleep. As
they approached the darkened cabin, they realized that Henry has
been attacked. It's not sir, whether he's inside or outside
the cabin. But what we do know is that he's
been shot in the forehead. The men think with a revolver,
but I don't know whether they retrieved a bullet or not.
(22:10):
And then they said that he was also attacked with
an axe. So there's a pertinent piece of information. And
then there's what the men say Henry's body was in
a state of the pertinent part of information is that
this is a group of men who came with Franklin
and his family to be prospectors. So they knew each other,
(22:32):
but they're quite a bit of part. They live kind
of in the same little region, but they are miles
and miles and miles apart where they might not ever
see each other.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Right, No, I had to look up where Colorado City
is because here in Colorado Springs there's old Colorado City.
And it was like, is this you know in the Springs,
But I believe where you're talking about this is. It
looks like it's about thirty thirty miles south of Pueblo,
which is about again about thirty miles south of Colorado Springs.
(23:02):
And then I can see it's really south of Canyon
City by about a good thirty miles maybe, Yeah, So
I could you know back in the day. That would
be a pretty significant distance to have to cover for
these groups that know each other to see each.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Other, right, right, And I mean there's horseback and carts
and everything. But you're right, okay. Let me tell you
about Henry and what happens. I told you that he
had been shot through the forehead, so Franklin had been
shot through the heart. There is a large gash in
Henry's head from an axe, they presume from his This
(23:37):
is graphic, y'all. I mean, if you know you're squeamish
at all. It's a gash that goes from his forehead
to his mouth. There are two wounds on his chest.
They are each four inches long and about three inches apart.
On the left side of his chest. It looks like
he's been hit on the sides of his head with
(23:57):
the blunt side of an axe. And the men find
two pieces of skull in some of Henry's brain on
top of his head, and the cabin has been ransacked.
I don't see where Franklin had been robbed, but this
is major damage. I don't know how close these guys
are close enough to see light peeking through you know, logs,
(24:20):
so I don't know how this happened without these men
knowing it.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
My initial questions, which you probably can't answer, was there
any evidence of distance that the firearm was from this?
This is this something that the offenders up close, you know,
and then so we would see firearms discharge evidence on
Henry's forehead? Or was this from a distance? And in essence,
(24:44):
you know, the offender was able to incapacitate and likely
kill Henry. But then did he used the axe on
Henry afterwards? Or was there a physical altercation prior to
the shooting in which an axe was used, and then
in essence Henry was finished off with a gunshot.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I don't know the answer to that. I'm so confused
about how that could happen. A gun shot acts It
sounds like probably Henry was maybe he was fighting back,
I'm not really sure versus Franklin, who it sounds like
just took one. It was one shot through his heart
and that was it. These men are close enough to
be able to see a light coming through the cabin,
(25:25):
and then I was thinking, how is that possible? Maybe
these guys are involved, but with saws and everything else
that they're doing, maybe a gunshot was something that was
covered up. I don't know, But I don't know if
he was axed first and then shot or the other
way around. And I didn't read anything about is it stippling?
Is that what it would be? Any kind of burns
or anything like if it was close contact.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Right, you know, the stippling of the gunpowder from the discharge,
you know, and that we are talking in the eighteen sixties,
so probably a black powder weapon. I don't think they
had the smokeless power, you know, single shot type of
handgun is what I'm envisioning my perspective in terms of
(26:07):
asking some of these questions. Am I dealing with everything
happening to Henry within the cabin or do I have
an offender shooting Henry and the offender's actually outside the cabin.
We know the use of the axe on Henry is
occurring when the two are the offender and the victim
are close together. Are there any symbols carved into Henry?
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Not that I know of, but the way that they
are describing those marks, and I can read them to you, again,
it might have been across and they just misread them.
They said that they're two wounds on his chest. They
are four inches long and about three inches apart on
the left side of his in the left side of
his chest. But I don't see whether what direction they're
(26:49):
in or if they could have been across. I think
if it was a clear cross, it would have shown
up in the newspaper articles. I don't know, but something
is and somebody's carving stuff in these these people chests.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Or these two These sound like possibly two blows from
maybe the sharp edge of the acts that are four
inches apart. They're not crossing over like a cross. Yeah,
you know, And this is this just part of an offender,
you know, during maybe combat with the victim, or is
this you know, after the victim has been shot he's
(27:22):
down and now either it's the same, you know, the
shooter is the one who's picking up an axe and
deciding to use an axe for whatever reason. You know.
But it's interesting, you know that does two weapons being
used suggest that two offenders were possibly present.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Let me show you something that I think you'll think
is interesting. I didn't think I was going to mention this.
The men who responded to Franklin, the first victim, the
men said that they thought there was a it was
a certain kind of gun that had been used. I
just thought it's a revolver and it doesn't really particularly
come into play. But now that you're talking about single shot,
(28:00):
let me show you what they thought it was.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Yeah, So this see how it says this warning black
powder firearms cannot be shipped, et cetera, et cetera. So
this sounds like, you know how modern guns have ammunition
in which there's a cartridge case that has the gunpowder
in it and a primer that the firing pin strikes,
and then of course the round, the bullet is seated
(28:26):
in this cartridge case. So that's where you have a
single round of ammunition, and so it's all contained together,
whereas with black powder rifles, black powder revolvers what you're
now seeing and I am no expert on this at all,
but because we didn't deal with black powder guns and
modern crime, but the little bit of exposure I've had
(28:48):
with it, what I'm envisioning is is that the shooter
has to load each chamber in the revolver with the
black powder, with the round, you know, and kind of
tamp it down. So it's a very slow process to
reload a gun like this. But this as opposed to
(29:10):
a single shot handgun the revolver. Once he's taken the
time to put this black powder ammunition into the revolver,
he could shoot however many shots this revolver would hold,
you know, typically modern revolvers are usually six, but they
can vary. So once he's loaded it, he's now got
(29:31):
the capability to be able to shoot multiple times with
that old black powder revolver.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
When we were talking about single shot, I was reminded
of a show that I used to watch all the time.
I'm slightly obsessed with Sleepy Hollow. I worked at a
university in Sleepy Hollow in New York, in North Terrytown,
and I would take the train up there and everything,
and it was part of Fordham University and I taught there,
and so I'm a huge Washington Irving fan. And this
(30:01):
TV show came out about Pikabod Crane, you know, the
star of Sleepy Hollow, and he is sort of comes
back to life, and he's very handsome and he's interacting
with the modern police and it's very confusing. He has
kind of a woman who is working with him trying
to solve cases, but he feels like it's the seventeen hundreds,
and so there's a scene when they're sort of fighting
(30:23):
the headless horseman and she runs ahead and she says,
unload your gun, and he goes okay, and there's one
shot and she said, I thought you unloaded your gun,
and she said I did. So I always think about that,
you know, when when I do think about, like how
many bullets do we have to work with here? So anyway,
that was the longest side to say that. I still
(30:44):
wonder why they thought it was the specific one Colt
Navy revolver. But I mean, maybe it was a bullet
or something. I don't know. But the people who responded
to Franklin's body said, this is what it looks like
to us.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Okay, so you're saying that in Franklin's case, they think
it was this forty four black powder revolver.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
They just called it the cult Navy revolver. And that's
what I looked up. And then all of these popped up,
and they look exactly the same if.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
It was a handgun like this, and these handguns were
not tremendously accurate. In fact, I think this is possibly
it's not a rifled barrel, you know, the rifling in
the barrel puts a twist on the projectile that gives
its stability. I'm guessing this is not a rifled barrel
based on this era, and again I am no expert.
(31:34):
But now, in essence, you've got a round coming out
of this very inaccurate weapon and striking Franklin in the heart.
So I'm surmising that the shooter was reasonably close to
Franklin versus Franklin is driving the horses and he's on
the stagecoach and he gets sniped from a distance from
(31:54):
a rifle. So it almost sounds like Franklin and the
shooter probably were in relatively close proximity before Franklin was shot.
That's my guess based off of this type of weapon.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
And I wondered about the damage that was done to
his forehead gashes. I mean, this sounds like a total
mess of a scene. So right, Pablo, they still would
have seen the black on him on his forehead, but
still it's such a mess, you.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Know, Yes, so with Henry, if he's being hit with
the blunt end of an axe, you know, this is
a very devastating weapon. It's in essence, you know, that's
like being hit in the head with a sledgehammer, and
so the skull is going to be compromised. And yes,
you know you talked about the description of blood and
brain matter being present outside of his skull. Absolutely, Now
(32:45):
that could also be a result of the gunshot. So
it just depends on what they're seeing and what the
sequence of Henry's injuries were.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Okay, well let's move forward. So now we're talking about tracking,
and I know very little about but what happens is
there's US sheriff. So I always like to figure out
who law enforcement is. What are we calling them? The
local sheriff and the deputy are tracking Henry's attackers. It
sounds like using the horse tracks and they follow this trail.
(33:15):
This doesn't even seem possible, Paul, from Colorado City to
the Ute Pass, which is about ninety miles to the north,
and then Canyon City, where the first murder took place,
is kind of is in between these points. So ninety miles.
How do you how would they I know you probably
don't know this, but how do you how would you
(33:36):
even differentiate which horse prints or which horse hoofs we're
going with here?
Speaker 2 (33:40):
I don't I'm not a tracker.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
So now we have to call another expert. So we
need something, yes, okay for listeners and watches, we need
a gun expert, and we need a tracker.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Well, but I think, you know, I've followed, you know,
shoe impressions, you know, which the let's say an offender
running away from a scene and he steps in a
garden bed, and so now I shoe impressions, and then
he's running over grass, and then you see him cross
over an area where there's dirt and you see the
same tread pattern. You know, So I've done that type
(34:13):
of thing. That's just typical CSI style, you know tracking,
if you will, to track this distance with something that
is so nondescript as horse shoes, it almost tells me
that whatever path that they're following is not a well
traveled path, and they're probably taking a look at the
(34:35):
what they're interpreting as being the fresh impressions that they
can see, and then so they're connecting the dots because
I can guarantee over ninety miles, there's probably long lengths
of this trail in which they don't have anything that
they can see, and they just kind of keep on
the same direction that the previous you know, track showed
and all of a sudden they're picking up the track again.
(34:58):
You know. So that's my guess. It's just that how
accurate is it? Could they have been misled?
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Well, let's continue on. Now we are about thirteen days
after Franklin, twelve days after Henry. This is March thirty first,
and now we're in an area called Wilkerson Pass. This
is between Colorado City and another gold camp which is
about fifty miles away. And this is a man working
(35:25):
at a way station. This is a rest stop, kind
of like a truck or rest stop in a way Okay,
so people stop for rest and they get supplies. There
is a guy named John Adelman who runs away station.
And this is again these places are in the middle
of nowhere, literally in the middle of nowhere in Wilkerson Pass.
And there's a mail carrier who stops at this way station.
(35:48):
When he arrives to Adelman's way station, the mail carrier
finds the house to be disordered, is what he says.
Quickly he rides away. It looks like it's been trashed.
He doesn't find anything. He just sees that maybe they've
been robbed. He finds the sheriff in the deputy who
have been tracking Henry and Franklin's attackers. They're connecting these
(36:11):
because it doesn't sound like these kind of attacks are common.
And it's at two sawmills, Franklin sawmill and Henry with
the cabin. So you've got the sheriff in the deputy
covering god knows how many miles, at least ninety. And
this mail carrier, gosh, what a hard job. That must
have been a cold territory being a mail carrier. This
(36:33):
mail carrier tracks them down and he says, this way
station is normally very orderly. I don't know where John is.
It's been trashed. Can you come and help. They get
to Adalmans and they find his body on the property,
not inside the way station. So some reports say that
he had been shot through the head. Others say that
he was shot twice through the heart. And we don't
(36:56):
know about the type of gun, and we don't have
a clear connection to the other two men. So to summarize,
we've got three victims, all men connected to you know,
this part of the territory, not tremendously far apart, and
two victims know each other mostly just in passing. That
kind of came in at the same time. It looks
(37:18):
like there's been a robbery in this one too, So
these are happening close. I mean, this is the eighteenth
of March, the nineteenth of March, and then the thirty
first of March. And before you ask, I do not
see that he has been hit with an axe, John,
and I do not see that there has been anything
(37:38):
carved in his chest.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
You know, even though you know Franklin and Henry had
some sort of connection to each other, whereas Adalman, there's
no known connection to the two previous victims. So I'm
wondering at this point of the you know, Henry and
Franklin becoming victims even though they knew each other, that
that really relationship was just coincidental. They're not being targeted
(38:03):
because they knew each other, So if I'm right about that,
So now you have with Henry and John Adelman, you
now have this what sounds like the tossing of the
inside of the places where you know they had control over.
Henry's killed inside this cabin, whereas Adelman's body is outside,
(38:25):
but the offender took the time to go inside and
toss the place. Part of the assessment is as, why
are they looking for something? You know, what are they
looking for? Are they looking for something that has you know,
monetary value? Are they looking for land deeds? You know?
So that's if I'm assessing this crime scene, I want
to know, Okay, is there something about the locations within
(38:48):
these structures that the offender seems to be focused in
on and what would normally be kept at these locations?
Is there overlap between these two crime scenes? J indicates
these offenders are going around looking for something specific or
they just I mean sometimes you know, I've processed many
burglaries early on in my career, and you just have
(39:11):
you know, some of these guys are very focused on
what they're going after and targets certain areas within a house.
Other guys will just start throwing things everywhere, just hoping
to run across something, you know. So that's what I'm
trying to discern here. Am I dealing with just you know,
somebody who's looking for something random, not knowing what's in
the structure or is this a targeted type of ransacking
(39:35):
within these structures? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (39:37):
And I don't have an impression that this was anything
but just tossing and trying to grab anything of value.
I do know that this part of Colorado, the Colorado territory,
is remote, all of it, but there are sembilances of cities, right.
I mean, we talked about the plazas where all of
these Adobe houses are set up and everything, But where
(39:59):
the killer is hitting are these remote spots and spots
that are not particularly well traveled. I mean, I know
this is a way station, but John might not have
seen people for days and days and days, depending on
how many people are going through this area. So you've
got Franklin who is by himself. You've got John at
the way station, who is by himself. But then you
(40:21):
have Henry, who has two or three people not far
from him at all there. And so I wonder what
the motive is. If it's just simply killing people, that
just seems risky to me, because these are the people
at the middle murder, Henry's murder. These were all relatively
young men who could have overpowered whomever ends up being
(40:43):
the one who did this.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
You saying that there's no information to indicate that the
ransacking that's being done has any targeted item that the
offender is looking for, And so if the offender is
just going into these struck and is taking whatever he
or they run across for financial value. You know, that
(41:06):
suggests to me that this is possibly somebody that does
not have let's say, a lot of monetary means, you know,
and is having to subsist off of whatever he finds
during the ransacking the homicides. You know, I think right
now it's kind of hard to say. You know, the
cross being put into Franklin, you know, if that was
(41:29):
to send a message to others, then that would seem
to think that there's a mission that this offender is on.
But if, like your thought, if this was just the
offender for religious purposes, you know, carving the cross into
to Franklin's body, you know, then now in essence, you
may be dealing with somebody who is just marauding around
(41:52):
the countryside, you know, trying to find things of monetary
value to be able to continue to subsist as willing
to kill. Right now, I can't say that there's anything
that suggests there's like a predatory aspect, but it could be.
You know that that's where if if we have more victims,
and maybe it becomes more apparent that you are dealing
(42:14):
with a fender that is purposely going out to trying
to find victims because he wants to kill. He gets
some sort of satisfaction. It may be, you know, retaliation
against raw perceived wrongs that these people do. You know,
and if you have somebody that's been displaced because of
the white settlers, now you can see where there could
be what I would consider an anger retaliation type of offender,
(42:38):
where he's now angry based on his lifestyle being impacted.
And even though these aren't the people that who necessarily
displaced him from a in person type of aspect, they're
representative of somebody of a group, you know, the white
settlers that are impacting his life. And now he's you know,
he's taken it out on these to white settlers.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Okay, well, unfortunately we do have more victims to talk about.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
I had a feeling it was going that way.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Yeah. The sheriff and the deputy who find John's body
ride back down south to Canyon City to report this
additional murder. So now they're up to three. But it
looks like the killer or killers went north because there
are more bodies, so this is near fair play. We
(43:28):
were twenty five miles from Colorado City. So this is
far north. This is a lot. I mean, we're not
talking about geographic profiling at this point. They're going at
least ninety miles, maybe hundreds of miles on horseback likely.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Yeah. Well, just you know, taking a car to go
from Colorado Springs up to Breckenridge along roughly this route,
probably where fair Play is located at, that's going to
be about a two hour drive, you know, and it's
i mean it's freeway speeds, but it's you know, these
are windy roads and stuff through the you know, sometimes
(44:04):
it's mountainous, sometimes it's open plains. So on horseback, you know,
this is a pretty significant distance to go, let's say,
from the Canyon City area all the way up to
fair Play.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
What does that tell you about the offender or offenders
they're obviously comfortable on horseback and going long distances.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Well, I would say, you know, like like my experience,
of course, is dealing with offenders that are utilizing modern
transportation to move around. And you know, some of this
is due to the offenders' work, let's say truckers. Other times, offenders,
possibly Golden State killer DiAngelo, purposely moved around just to
(44:48):
commit crimes. And try to prevent law enforcement from linking
crimes together. So you know, there may be an aspect
to either one of those scenarios with this offender who
who's purposely traveling around. Maybe it's work related, maybe it
is purposely just trying to move around and kind of
stay hidden from sight, if you will, by moving to
(45:10):
such you know, disparate locations to commit crimes. Right now,
I'll just say it seems like there's no question that
the offender is comfortable moving around, as you mentioned, it's
just why is he moving around? And right now there's
there's not enough information to try to discern that. And
from a geographic profile standpoint, I think what I would
(45:30):
be looking at is these paths that the offender is
having to take to go from one location to another.
Are they what we would consider primary arterial you know, roads,
if you will. And is the offender just following a
known path and is offending along a certain route as
he's proceeding north or is are there anchor points for
(45:54):
the offender? Does he have a connection to these locations
maybe for work, maybe because he's lived there, or he's
got family there, and while he's visiting that particular location,
he's deciding to go out and offend because he needs
more money.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
Well, let's find out. We are now on the road
to Denver. We are well, as I said, fair Play, Colorado,
about fifty miles north of where all this other stuff
had been happening. And this is a campground. So people
find two bodies, both men. One is a twenty three
year old named Jacob Binkley. The other is a twenty
(46:33):
nine year old named Abram Shoop. Shoop becomes important because
his brother is a prominent lieutenant and he will ultimately
go on to be the first governor of the state
of Idaho and one of its first senators. And so
this happened with the Bloody Benders, which we've never talked
about that story. I've interviewed a lot of people about,
(46:55):
you know, which was a family I think in Kansas
who murdered a lot of people as they would come
by and try to stay at their inn. They were
getting away with it until there is a person who
they murder who is related to a very prominent person,
and that all hell breaks loose when that happens. So
you've got these two men. So you've got Jacob and Abram.
The bodies are found by an innkeeper who saw their
(47:17):
oxen grazing unaccompanied and recognize them because the men had
stayed with him the previous trips and so you know,
they had been regulars at this inn. The weather had
been nice the previous night, so it looks like instead
of staying at the end, these guys decided to go
ahead and camp, and they are both found at their campground,
(47:39):
which is right by a river. Jacob had been shot
once through the back, with the bullet becoming lodged at
the front of the chest and is found lying face
down on the river bank right at that campsite. They
don't know what kind of gun is used. Doesn't sound
like a shotgun? Does that sound like a revolver? Or
(48:00):
I mean, I guess we don't get a rifle, do that?
Speaker 2 (48:02):
I guess right now, there's no information to indicate what
type of weapon was used. Now, the bullet, the projectile,
you know, penetrated through the victim's body from the back
and lodged at the chest. Now, there is a phenomenon
that happens where you can have a bullet, you know,
because as bullets pass through bodies, they lose energy and
(48:25):
sometimes you can have something as simple as a T shirt.
When the bullet comes out and exits out of the body,
the fabric of the T shirt is strong enough to
just kind of contain the bullet and keep the bullet
sort of at the exit wound. And this is what
we called a shored exit. Now, with him being faced
down on the river bank, you know, one of the
questions that I have is was he shot upright and
(48:47):
he collapsed or did the offender, after this guy is
made to late lay prone, you came up and shot
in the back and now you got the ground in
essen's preventing the bullet from exiting out the chest. And
it's also possible that the bullet just lost enough energy
as it passed through the upper torso of this victim
and never even had the energy to be able to
exit out in the first place. And that would tend
(49:09):
to suggest that that's a less powerful weapon. So it
all depends right now, I can't draw any conclusions as
to what kind of weapon was used.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
My guess would be that he was standing up and
the only reason why is the way that the other
murder plays out, which is Abram Shoop. He's found at
the bottom of a gulch about four hundred yards away.
He had been stabbed three times in the chest and
his head had been mutilated. I don't know the specifics,
(49:39):
not with the cross I'm pretty sure carved into it,
but it had been mutilated. It appears that he ran
before collapsing at the bottom of the gulch, and they
had both been robbed. So I don't know if this
was a everybody lay down and then they're shot, but
Abram's the first one to not be shot. I think
he was stabbed. What does this sound like and all,
(50:01):
and definitely think about the number of offenders at this point.
What does this all sound like to you so far?
Speaker 2 (50:06):
Well, obviously, with Abram being stabbed three times in the chest,
you know, it's indicating that the offender is very close.
I mean, you are dealing with face to face interactions
between the offender and Abram. The fact that he's able
to run before collapsing, which is something that you see
(50:26):
with stabbings. You know, even if it's a fatal stab
wound that's inflicted, it takes time for the you know,
the the bleeding to cause the person to in essence
lose consciousness, right, And so sometimes you do see stabbing victims.
They receive fatal stab wounds, but then they're able to
run a distance and then they collapse a distance further
(50:47):
down that the head being mutilated. I'm just kind of wondering,
you know, And this is where sequencing would come in.
It's just is this just possibly in some ways the
offender is trying to stab the victim, and now you
have incisive injuries and stab wounds to Abram's head as
(51:09):
he's warding off the knife attack. And then of course
there's some stabs to the chest and Abram is able
to get away before he collapses. So I'm not you know,
I don't know what to make about the head mutilation.
If it's if the offender is purposely coming up and
trying to do something like that, then that sounds like
there's a personal aspect to that, you know, between the
(51:31):
offender and Abram. Again, you have the use of two
different weapons. You have Jacob being shot and Abram being stabbed,
and they were both robbed. How do you control two
men with the gun? Absolutely, you know, give me, give
me your money. And then you get into basically close
(51:52):
quarters with Abram with a knife, and now you have Jacob,
you know, running away, and you're able, you know, once
you've you know, stabbed Abrahm. Now you pull out your
gun and you shoot Jacob in the back. I mean
that's a possibility. Or you control these two men with
two offenders. Yeah, one's armed with a knife and one's
(52:14):
armed with a gun.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
Okay, I forgot to tell you that these two murders
happened fifty miles away from the other ones, about eight
days after the last ones, after John at the way station.
So these are happening to me so quickly, especially with
the distances that you know the offender is traveling. So
it's clear they've been able to get away with this.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
So far right, you know. And the interesting thing about
this is obviously you have a series. It appears, you know,
even though back in the day they don't have DNA
to say it's the same person. But there's enough mo
o characteristics that you say, yeah, you have somebody that's
going around killing men and robbing them, you know, financially motivated.
(53:01):
So you know, by definition, for some people you could
say this is a serial killer. You know. Now, this
is a very different type of psychology than the fantasy
motivated killer. At this point in time based on what
you've told me. Now, there may be aspects where this
is an offender that really gets off on killing men,
(53:23):
but it appears that he's doing this for financial purposes
at this point in time, and I'm not convinced it's
a single offender at this stage. So it's it's fascinating
from that perspective, and so I'm really curious to see
what other cases you know, are part of this series
(53:43):
and ultimately who is the person responsible.
Speaker 1 (53:46):
Well, about three weeks later, we have another murder, but
we have a survivor also, oh, we have a witness.
We will talk about all of that next week. Because
I did not know until about five minutes ago that
this would need to be it's harder because I just
told Alexis I didn't know you were going to like
(54:07):
this case so much, and that's great. I would rather,
you know, have to expand it. But we we have
a lot lot more to talk about.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
Nope, you and right now, this is very akin to
where you have a series of robberies, you know, maybe
not necessarily resulting in homicide, but you do have one
offender that's going around and robbing people for financial purposes,
and so I would say it's it's very similar to
a modern version of this type of crime.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
Well, we will talk about this type of crime next week.
Speaker 2 (54:36):
All right, I'm looking forward to it again.
Speaker 1 (54:42):
This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
For our sources and show notes go to exactly Rightmedia
dot com slash Buried Bones Sources.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
Our senior producer is Alexis Amrosi.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
Research by Alison Trumble and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1 (54:56):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Toliday.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
Our theme saw is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2 (55:04):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 1 (55:08):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Buried Bones pod.
Speaker 2 (55:13):
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 (55:20):
And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's
Cold Cases is also available now.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
Listen to Baried Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
last twenty five years writing about true crime.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
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 2 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is Buried Bones.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Bay, Kate. How are you doing?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I'm doing great, Paul. I wonder if there's anything different
about me that you're noticing.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, your hair is different, very good.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
What's different about it? Do you think?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Well, you're you've got it brushed back.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Okay, hold on, I'll make it clear.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Is it shorter? Is it curly?
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Curly? Yes? I am a girl with curls, and I
straighten my hair on special occasions. I et bery bones
and some book events. But I am definitely naturally curly,
like one of my kids is. So I would like
to say, Officially, I wanted to try something new, different look,
(01:48):
just see, you know, spice things up. Unofficially, I didn't
feel like straightening my hair.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Okay, so this is you just just natural Kate today, right?
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I mean, well, I mean I did some stuff, but
normally I have a you know, I mean I've got
my glasses on. Normally, I'm mean I have a ponytail going.
So this is a little different. So we'll have to see.
I don't want to take a pole or anything, but
I might go back and forth unless unless there's like
a mass objection trend that happens, which I don't think
(02:20):
it will.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah, you look great, thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
And I also want my kid to know the one
who has a real gosh, he has gorgeous long, curly hair.
I want heard it know that. You know, I don't
always when I go fancy, sometimes the curls are the
way to go, you know.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Is this the same haircut you've always had high school everything?
And don't joke about your thinning hair thing? Hair is fine.
I know men are sensitive, but I mean, have you
ever changed up your look very much?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
No? You know, it's definitely different than when I was
in high school, you know, back in the eighties, kind
of the feathered back hair style for you know, the
guys was in and so I had a part of
down the middle and feathered back. And I also had
a mustache in high school throughout high school, which when
I look back at my yearbook photos, I was like,
what the hell were you thinking, Paul, But you know,
(03:07):
it is what it is. Basically, when I went to
the Police Academy in nineteen ninety four, you know, I
was working in law enforcement, and though I could have
worn my hair differently pretty much, it was always just short.
You talk about the thinning hair, you know. At one
point when I noticed I was my hair was thinning,
I decided, you know, I'll just do the shave at
bro and I did a really close buzz cut. And
(03:31):
I remember coming home and my wife and my oldest
daughter they both looked at me. They saw my haircut,
and in essence they both started to dry heave because
I looked horrible. I'm not one of those guys that
can be bald and look good. Unfortunately they started to heave. Yeah,
(03:52):
but right now, my hair is probably the longest it's
been in a quarter century. To be frank. Really, I'm
growing it out a little little bit, and that way
I can next time I get it cut, you know,
I'll give the you know, the the barber some options.
Maybe I'll change my look up, maybe I'll shave it
off you. I'll stay tuned.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
You should talk to your wife and your daughter before
you do anything. Clearly demoid any trauma. Alexis our producers
tiny med eval, and she thinks we both need to
give her our high school photos for social media.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Like a senior yearbook photo or the feather back where
you're talking.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yes, the Miami vice, I think is probably what it is.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I've got my eyearbooks right up right across the room
from me. I can you know, scan something and get
it to Alexis if that's what she's asking for. And
I don't have a problem with that.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
We pretty much always do what Alexis asks us to do,
so I think we're going to have to do that.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Oh yeah, listen, I was.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
I was not always at my best in high school either,
and I can't remember. I have a bunch of my friends.
I have a group of seven girlfriends who are my
best friends. From a couple of them, Tina and Angie
starting from middle school, so for a gazillion years, and
we always look at high school yearbook stuff and make
fun of ourselves. So I'm not always at my best
(05:12):
in high school. But the whole point is that in
high school I wore my hair down. I never wore
it as a ponytail. And I don't know when I started,
probably the mom thing when I was just like, I'm
either going to tear my hair out or I have
to put in a ponytail.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
So keep it easy right now.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah, So we'll see how this goes. I mean, don't
be surprised if I go back to my normal straightened hair,
because I do wear it curly so often. But you know,
I like to change stuff up and you know all that.
So there you go.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Well, I'll stay on top of you.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
How's that? That's the I think the key ingredient to
any relationship is you're always kind of throwing curveballs at
your person, you know, kind of like, well what do
you think about this? So there we go.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Keep it exciting, right.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Well, I think we'll say right now talking about keeping
and exciting, that's where we're going. This is the furthest
back we've been I would have to say in quite
a while, we're in Civil War era when we talk
about this story, which as it unfolds, real history geeks
might recognize, you know, where we're going with this, So
(06:14):
we will see what you think.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
That sounds good.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Okay, let's set the scene. Get ready for a history lesson,
mister Paul Holes. I'm game, and we are actually going
to be in your state. We're going to Colorado. Oh
so it's actually not even Colorado the state yet, it's
Colorado Territory. Do you know much about Colorado history, just
(06:40):
as far as establishing borders and all of that kind
of stuff. Who was there before?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
No, you know, I don't think I know anything. I
actually know Texas better because I had to. I did
seventh grade in Texas, and at least at the time
I went to school seventh grade, you had to have
go through Texas history.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
And what a history. Okay, let's start with we're going
to Colorado and we are in March of eighteen sixty three,
smack in the middle of the Civil War. The Civil
War doesn't have anything to do with it, but you know,
you have to think about how much the country's expanding
at this point. You know, there's the wars happening. There
are people divided in not only states and cities and
(07:19):
families really over you know who they should side with.
So in Colorado Territory, officially its union, but very very
very divided. And I think part of that has to
do with the history. So I tried to really streamline this.
Ali did a great job, one of our researchers. Ali
did a great job giving me a ton of history,
(07:40):
and I wanted to streamline it because I just thought
you were just going to jump off a bridge or
something like three pages of history, which I adore. So, Okay,
we are in now Colorado Territory. We're in the southernmost portion,
which is called the San Louis Valley. Are you familiar
with that area at all? I don't know Colorado very
(08:01):
well as far as geography goes.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah, I'm fairly sure that probably on my way out
to Telluride, I went down south and then went west
to get out to Telluride, and San Luis Valley sounds familiar.
It's either that or I had consulted with Wichita, Texas
authorities and had driven back from Wichita Falls and came
(08:25):
up through New Mexico and then the southern part of
southeast part of Colorado, and so maybe that's also where
what I'm thinking of.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
My experience with Colorado honestly is pretty much confined to Denver,
a little bit of skiing, and then I went to
Colorado City, I think is where I went to. So
the people who live in the Colorado Territory, this area
used to be Mexican citizens because it was with Mexico
twenty years earlier than it became New Mexico. So when
the property ownership happened with Mexico, you have all of
(08:56):
these people who have different plots of land. That's the ownership.
These plots of land go back for generations. When the
area becomes New Mexico, then you know there's no deeds
or paperwork really to back it up, and it doesn't
seem to matter because culturally New Mexico was really aligned
(09:17):
with the people of Mexico, so there were no problems.
You see where I'm heading here, there's a lot of
discontent when we have a new population come in. So
before this new population comes in, the residents mostly live
in what's called plazas. These are small adobe villages that
house a couple of different families. When this part of
(09:41):
the area, the southern part of the area of what
is now Colorado becomes a part of the territory, so
you know, New Mexico gives it up, or it's taken
from New Mexico and it's made into this new boundary.
This happens in eighteen sixty. So there had been a
gold rush, which I probably you know, I always think
about the California gold Rush, but this is a Colorado
(10:03):
gold rush. Do you know much about that?
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Well, I wouldn't say I know a lot about the
history of the gold rush. But one of the areas
that I go with my jeep because I live on
the side of Cheyenne Mountain and within ten minutes I
can be on the back side of that mountain. And
there is a road, old stage road that snakes its
way through the mountains out to Cripple Creek, which is
(10:27):
where there's this huge mine. And this road used to
be railroad, and I believe it was for the you know,
the metals that were being mined out of that mine,
and some of that I believe was gold, or at
least there was, you know, one of the one of
the roads out there is a gold camp road, so
(10:47):
I'm sure gold was being mined out just on the
other side of the mountain from where I live.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah, And I, like I said, did not know that
there was a big gold rush in Colorado. There was.
There are an awful lot of white set flooding the area.
Now we're going to have problems in that part of
the territory. You have people who were Mexican residents who
are now residents of Colorado, and you have white settlers
coming and taking away land. And so there's one of
(11:14):
the conflicts. And you know, the other thing is then
they're saying, these people who were in this territory, they
have not moved, it's the boundary that's moved. When they
were in New Mexico, everybody left them alone. When they
became a part of the Colorado territory, it was much
more inclined culturally towards the white settlers. And so this
is where they're not getting any protection, and this is
(11:36):
where we're having some issues. And all of this is,
you know, part of this story. So are you following me?
Speaker 2 (11:42):
I'm following you. Yeah, you know, I'm I'm just you know,
I'm starting to key in on you know, motives for crime.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Now what is this? This is for me, I would
call this historical context, right, but as an investigator, it's
not victimology. What would this be called? Where you need
to know is this a high crime area or there
was a riot here, you know, two years ago and
it might be pertinent. What is there a phrase for that?
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Well, there is a discipline that's environmental criminology, and this
is how the environment and possibly even the social economic
aspects within that environment influence criminality. And so now when
you start talking about Colorado Territory, you're having different people
(12:29):
coming in and you know, the occupants that have been
there had a certain lifestyle, and now that lifestyle is
being influenced and there's going to be conflict that is developing.
And some of that conflict is developing over the environment
and what's within the environment, what's within the geography in
the area. Now, this is on with what you're talking about,
(12:50):
it's on a much bigger scale. Typically, when I'm going
into a town or a city and I'm looking at
a case, I'm wanting to know about, Okay, what is
this neighborhood like, especially if it was forty years ago
on a cold case. What was it like then? And
so that's where I'm starting to take a look at
(13:10):
what the environment was in which the crime occurred.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Okay, so we know the environment. It's tension filled, and
there are an awful lot of former Mexican citizens who
are saying our land is being taken by white settlers
and they're not getting kind of any backup from anybody
who's in leadership with the Colorado Territory. So here's where
we begin. We'll talk about several things, and you're going
to ask details, and I probably am not going to
(13:39):
have the details, but you know, we'll see kind of
how this unfolds. Just be very understanding if I can't
answer some of your questions. And no, we're definitely going
in a particular direction. Okay, Okay, could I be any
more cryptic? Do you want me to be more cryptic
than that's pretty cryptic, Kate.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
I'm so used to it now, Kate, I just roll
with the punches.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
This is to happen, but it might not happen, but
we'll see. I'll let you know in thirty minutes that's
gonna happen. That would drive me crazy. Okay. So this
is March eighteenth eighteen sixty three, and there's a guy
named Franklin William Bruce, and he has a house that
is near Canyon City and he owns a saw mill. Okay,
(14:21):
it sounds like Canyon City in the eighteen sixties, of course,
like much of the territory would have been farmland, and
now we have these sawmills. So Franklin is leaving Canyon
City to go to the sawmill that he owns, which
is about twelve miles away. So he gets on a
horse drawn wagon. We're in that era. So Franklin had
moved to Colorado from Wisconsin about three years earlier, when
(14:44):
a lot of other people came for the Gold Rush.
He was a prospector and now he's pivoted to farming
and selling lumber from his sawmill. He's in his fifties
and he has a wife named Ruth and four children.
And there are a couple of kids who old enough
to work in the sawmill. I will say, boy, that
could be almost any age if they could hold a
(15:05):
piece of wood, that would have been a kid who
could work in a saw mill. So child labor laws
and everything else, we don't have a great idea of
the range of the ages of these kids, but it
doesn't come too much into play. Okay, Franklin's log cabin
is twelve miles away. He gets on the horse and
wagon and goes. Sometime later that day, the horses come
(15:26):
back to the house pulling an empty wagon. I know
that this is a kind of a question, sort of
out of left field. But how do they know? I mean,
how do they know not to stay? Are they looking
for food? What is happening? Twelve miles that's a long way.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Well, I think some of our listeners probably have expertise
with horses. This is I think it's always amazing, you know,
these types of stories like family dog goes missing and
then you know they move and you know, years later
the dog all of a sudden shows up at the
new locate. How do these animals do that? You know?
So I just yeah, I think, you know, it's interesting
(16:04):
with the horses, obviously, it's like, well, we'res Franklin, Bruce,
you know what happened? Why? You know, why aren't these
horses tied up at the sawmill? Sounds like something bad
happened to Franklin and route to the saw mill. But again,
the horse is coming back. That's that's fascinating. I mean,
I don't I can't explain it. It's just it's really cool.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah, it is, but alarming to Franklin's family, of course.
So the newspapers of the time say that his youngest
son decided to go up I'm assuming, on the horse
and cart to go figure out what happened to his dad.
He's referred to in the eighteen sixties early nineteen hundreds
in these articles as a young boy, which to me
(16:46):
could be pretty young, because they probably would not have
set a twelve year old and or a thirteen year
old working on a farm in a saw mill as
a young boy. That would have been a young man.
So he could have been an eight year old. I
don't know why he went. I don't know where the
older kids were, but he went, and he came back
and said, Dad looks dead. So he had been shot
(17:08):
through the heart. He was carrying a handgun. I don't
know what kind, but it's still in its holster. There's
conflicting accounts about whether he was found inside the sawmill
or if he had been outside the sawmill near where
his horse had been grazing. What certain is that he
had been shot once. There is an account in several
of the newspapers that a cross had been carved into
(17:31):
his chest. Oh, I don't know if that falls into
a ritualistic or what that means just yet.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Do we know anything more about the cross? Is this
like a Christian cross? Is this, you know, something different
than what I'm envisioning. Do you have any details on that?
Speaker 1 (17:49):
I think it is your standard cross, Just.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
A cross, okay, yep. Which obviously there might be religious
connotations related to the cross that the offender is conveying.
There also potentially could just be you know how crosses,
I'm thinking about Arlington National Cemetery, you know how crosses
are used to basically mark the location of the deceased.
(18:14):
And was that just you know where the offender is
coming up? And is just you know, in essence, I've
killed this guy and here he is, so right now,
I couldn't really draw any conclusions as to what the
offender is thinking about the significance of the cross. However,
the offender is sending a message. Franklin Bruce is dead.
(18:35):
He's not doing this to send a message to Franklin Bruce.
He's sending a message to somebody who's going to either
find the body or to some other entities, you know,
group of people you know, in which now it's like,
you know, what's going on with Franklin, Bruce, you know this? Yeah?
Is he being specifically targeted or is this more of
(18:57):
he just happened to be a victim of opportunity. He
and the offender or offenders killed him, And it's like,
you send anybody else down this direction, you're going to
you know, suffer the same fate or something to that effect.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Yeah, And I had wondered if it was to benefit
Franklin somehow. I don't know what that would mean, putting
a cross on him that makes him.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Go to heaven like maybe like a like yeah, a
spiritual thing.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Just something. I mean that seems not very kind. But
I mean, of course they couldn't really tell or I
don't have notes that say whether this happened before or
after he was shot. I imagine after, of course, But.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
I wouldn't argue against that thought. You know, this is
where the offender may be killing Franklin in this world
in order to deal with whatever's going on in this
world aspect, but is conscious of Franklin's spirit and wants
to ensure that the spirit is moving on in whatever
(19:55):
the religious philosophy. The offender had.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
One of the things that I want to I know
this is going to be disconcerting, but we have to
move on from this story because this will be a
series of things and so this is not something where
we need to examine Franklin's inner circle. I promise, so
this will be We've got to go next to another
group of people. Is that okay? Or does that make
you fairly uncomfortable?
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Again, I'll just roll with it, Kate.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Sorry, that's what I wish everybody said that to me. Okay, Kate,
we'll do what you say. But let's just we'll roll
with it the next night. So March nineteenth, eighteen sixty three.
This is near Colorado City, Colorado. There are a couple
of men who are building a new sawmill and there's
a you know, there's a little cabin nearby that they're
(20:44):
sleeping in, you know, so that they can get the
saw mill done. They notice that the cabin is dark,
so this is just a temporary home for them until
they're done. The reason they're alarmed that it's dark is
because one of the having mates, one of the workers,
who's a guy named Henry Harkins, is supposed to be
(21:04):
making them dinner. And every night when it's gotten dark
and two of the men are still working on the sawmill,
they could see through the cracks of the logs the lamplight,
and so this night there's no lights through the cracks
of the logs. So I guess they're facing a non window.
They might have a window at all in here, but
isn't it I thought that was really interesting. I mean,
(21:25):
we've talked about laundry hanging up, you know, as a
sign that this woman would never have done this because
it rained last night, all of these signals of alarm,
and these guys were alarmed because the light was out
when Henry was supposed to be cooking dinner for everyone.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Yeah, so now they must go explore this, right, what's
you know, where's Henry? What's up with Henry? Because they're hungry,
they want their food.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Right, they're hungry and irritated. Maybe he fell asleep. As
they approached the darkened cabin, they realized that Henry has
been attacked. It's not sir, whether he's inside or outside
the cabin. But what we do know is that he's
been shot in the forehead. The men think with a revolver,
but I don't know whether they retrieved a bullet or not.
(22:10):
And then they said that he was also attacked with
an axe. So there's a pertinent piece of information. And
then there's what the men say Henry's body was in
a state of the pertinent part of information is that
this is a group of men who came with Franklin
and his family to be prospectors. So they knew each other,
(22:32):
but they're quite a bit of part. They live kind
of in the same little region, but they are miles
and miles and miles apart where they might not ever
see each other.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Right, No, I had to look up where Colorado City
is because here in Colorado Springs there's old Colorado City.
And it was like, is this you know in the Springs,
But I believe where you're talking about this is. It
looks like it's about thirty thirty miles south of Pueblo,
which is about again about thirty miles south of Colorado Springs.
(23:02):
And then I can see it's really south of Canyon
City by about a good thirty miles maybe, Yeah, So
I could you know back in the day. That would
be a pretty significant distance to have to cover for
these groups that know each other to see each.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Other, right, right, And I mean there's horseback and carts
and everything. But you're right, okay. Let me tell you
about Henry and what happens. I told you that he
had been shot through the forehead, so Franklin had been
shot through the heart. There is a large gash in
Henry's head from an axe, they presume from his This
(23:37):
is graphic, y'all. I mean, if you know you're squeamish
at all. It's a gash that goes from his forehead
to his mouth. There are two wounds on his chest.
They are each four inches long and about three inches apart.
On the left side of his chest. It looks like
he's been hit on the sides of his head with
(23:57):
the blunt side of an axe. And the men find
two pieces of skull in some of Henry's brain on
top of his head, and the cabin has been ransacked.
I don't see where Franklin had been robbed, but this
is major damage. I don't know how close these guys
are close enough to see light peeking through you know, logs,
(24:20):
so I don't know how this happened without these men
knowing it.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
My initial questions, which you probably can't answer, was there
any evidence of distance that the firearm was from this?
This is this something that the offenders up close, you know,
and then so we would see firearms discharge evidence on
Henry's forehead? Or was this from a distance? And in essence,
(24:44):
you know, the offender was able to incapacitate and likely
kill Henry. But then did he used the axe on
Henry afterwards? Or was there a physical altercation prior to
the shooting in which an axe was used, and then
in essence Henry was finished off with a gunshot.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I don't know the answer to that. I'm so confused
about how that could happen. A gun shot acts It
sounds like probably Henry was maybe he was fighting back,
I'm not really sure versus Franklin, who it sounds like
just took one. It was one shot through his heart
and that was it. These men are close enough to
be able to see a light coming through the cabin,
(25:25):
and then I was thinking, how is that possible? Maybe
these guys are involved, but with saws and everything else
that they're doing, maybe a gunshot was something that was
covered up. I don't know, But I don't know if
he was axed first and then shot or the other
way around. And I didn't read anything about is it stippling?
Is that what it would be? Any kind of burns
or anything like if it was close contact.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Right, you know, the stippling of the gunpowder from the discharge,
you know, and that we are talking in the eighteen sixties,
so probably a black powder weapon. I don't think they
had the smokeless power, you know, single shot type of
handgun is what I'm envisioning my perspective in terms of
(26:07):
asking some of these questions. Am I dealing with everything
happening to Henry within the cabin or do I have
an offender shooting Henry and the offender's actually outside the cabin.
We know the use of the axe on Henry is
occurring when the two are the offender and the victim
are close together. Are there any symbols carved into Henry?
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Not that I know of, but the way that they
are describing those marks, and I can read them to you, again,
it might have been across and they just misread them.
They said that they're two wounds on his chest. They
are four inches long and about three inches apart on
the left side of his in the left side of
his chest. But I don't see whether what direction they're
(26:49):
in or if they could have been across. I think
if it was a clear cross, it would have shown
up in the newspaper articles. I don't know, but something
is and somebody's carving stuff in these these people chests.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Or these two These sound like possibly two blows from
maybe the sharp edge of the acts that are four
inches apart. They're not crossing over like a cross. Yeah,
you know, And this is this just part of an offender,
you know, during maybe combat with the victim, or is
this you know, after the victim has been shot he's
(27:22):
down and now either it's the same, you know, the
shooter is the one who's picking up an axe and
deciding to use an axe for whatever reason. You know.
But it's interesting, you know that does two weapons being
used suggest that two offenders were possibly present.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Let me show you something that I think you'll think
is interesting. I didn't think I was going to mention this.
The men who responded to Franklin, the first victim, the
men said that they thought there was a it was
a certain kind of gun that had been used. I
just thought it's a revolver and it doesn't really particularly
come into play. But now that you're talking about single shot,
(28:00):
let me show you what they thought it was.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Yeah, So this see how it says this warning black
powder firearms cannot be shipped, et cetera, et cetera. So
this sounds like, you know how modern guns have ammunition
in which there's a cartridge case that has the gunpowder
in it and a primer that the firing pin strikes,
and then of course the round, the bullet is seated
(28:26):
in this cartridge case. So that's where you have a
single round of ammunition, and so it's all contained together,
whereas with black powder rifles, black powder revolvers what you're
now seeing and I am no expert on this at all,
but because we didn't deal with black powder guns and
modern crime, but the little bit of exposure I've had
(28:48):
with it, what I'm envisioning is is that the shooter
has to load each chamber in the revolver with the
black powder, with the round, you know, and kind of
tamp it down. So it's a very slow process to
reload a gun like this. But this as opposed to
(29:10):
a single shot handgun the revolver. Once he's taken the
time to put this black powder ammunition into the revolver,
he could shoot however many shots this revolver would hold,
you know, typically modern revolvers are usually six, but they
can vary. So once he's loaded it, he's now got
(29:31):
the capability to be able to shoot multiple times with
that old black powder revolver.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
When we were talking about single shot, I was reminded
of a show that I used to watch all the time.
I'm slightly obsessed with Sleepy Hollow. I worked at a
university in Sleepy Hollow in New York, in North Terrytown,
and I would take the train up there and everything,
and it was part of Fordham University and I taught there,
and so I'm a huge Washington Irving fan. And this
(30:01):
TV show came out about Pikabod Crane, you know, the
star of Sleepy Hollow, and he is sort of comes
back to life, and he's very handsome and he's interacting
with the modern police and it's very confusing. He has
kind of a woman who is working with him trying
to solve cases, but he feels like it's the seventeen hundreds,
and so there's a scene when they're sort of fighting
(30:23):
the headless horseman and she runs ahead and she says,
unload your gun, and he goes okay, and there's one
shot and she said, I thought you unloaded your gun,
and she said I did. So I always think about that,
you know, when when I do think about, like how
many bullets do we have to work with here? So anyway,
that was the longest side to say that. I still
(30:44):
wonder why they thought it was the specific one Colt
Navy revolver. But I mean, maybe it was a bullet
or something. I don't know. But the people who responded
to Franklin's body said, this is what it looks like
to us.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Okay, so you're saying that in Franklin's case, they think
it was this forty four black powder revolver.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
They just called it the cult Navy revolver. And that's
what I looked up. And then all of these popped up,
and they look exactly the same if.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
It was a handgun like this, and these handguns were
not tremendously accurate. In fact, I think this is possibly
it's not a rifled barrel, you know, the rifling in
the barrel puts a twist on the projectile that gives
its stability. I'm guessing this is not a rifled barrel
based on this era, and again I am no expert.
(31:34):
But now, in essence, you've got a round coming out
of this very inaccurate weapon and striking Franklin in the heart.
So I'm surmising that the shooter was reasonably close to
Franklin versus Franklin is driving the horses and he's on
the stagecoach and he gets sniped from a distance from
(31:54):
a rifle. So it almost sounds like Franklin and the
shooter probably were in relatively close proximity before Franklin was shot.
That's my guess based off of this type of weapon.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
And I wondered about the damage that was done to
his forehead gashes. I mean, this sounds like a total
mess of a scene. So right, Pablo, they still would
have seen the black on him on his forehead, but
still it's such a mess, you.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Know, Yes, so with Henry, if he's being hit with
the blunt end of an axe, you know, this is
a very devastating weapon. It's in essence, you know, that's
like being hit in the head with a sledgehammer, and
so the skull is going to be compromised. And yes,
you know you talked about the description of blood and
brain matter being present outside of his skull. Absolutely, Now
(32:45):
that could also be a result of the gunshot. So
it just depends on what they're seeing and what the
sequence of Henry's injuries were.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Okay, well let's move forward. So now we're talking about tracking,
and I know very little about but what happens is
there's US sheriff. So I always like to figure out
who law enforcement is. What are we calling them? The
local sheriff and the deputy are tracking Henry's attackers. It
sounds like using the horse tracks and they follow this trail.
(33:15):
This doesn't even seem possible, Paul, from Colorado City to
the Ute Pass, which is about ninety miles to the north,
and then Canyon City, where the first murder took place,
is kind of is in between these points. So ninety miles.
How do you how would they I know you probably
don't know this, but how do you how would you
(33:36):
even differentiate which horse prints or which horse hoofs we're
going with here?
Speaker 2 (33:40):
I don't I'm not a tracker.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
So now we have to call another expert. So we
need something, yes, okay for listeners and watches, we need
a gun expert, and we need a tracker.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Well, but I think, you know, I've followed, you know,
shoe impressions, you know, which the let's say an offender
running away from a scene and he steps in a
garden bed, and so now I shoe impressions, and then
he's running over grass, and then you see him cross
over an area where there's dirt and you see the
same tread pattern. You know, So I've done that type
(34:13):
of thing. That's just typical CSI style, you know tracking,
if you will, to track this distance with something that
is so nondescript as horse shoes, it almost tells me
that whatever path that they're following is not a well
traveled path, and they're probably taking a look at the
(34:35):
what they're interpreting as being the fresh impressions that they
can see, and then so they're connecting the dots because
I can guarantee over ninety miles, there's probably long lengths
of this trail in which they don't have anything that
they can see, and they just kind of keep on
the same direction that the previous you know, track showed
and all of a sudden they're picking up the track again.
(34:58):
You know. So that's my guess. It's just that how
accurate is it? Could they have been misled?
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Well, let's continue on. Now we are about thirteen days
after Franklin, twelve days after Henry. This is March thirty first,
and now we're in an area called Wilkerson Pass. This
is between Colorado City and another gold camp which is
about fifty miles away. And this is a man working
(35:25):
at a way station. This is a rest stop, kind
of like a truck or rest stop in a way Okay,
so people stop for rest and they get supplies. There
is a guy named John Adelman who runs away station.
And this is again these places are in the middle
of nowhere, literally in the middle of nowhere in Wilkerson Pass.
And there's a mail carrier who stops at this way station.
(35:48):
When he arrives to Adelman's way station, the mail carrier
finds the house to be disordered, is what he says.
Quickly he rides away. It looks like it's been trashed.
He doesn't find anything. He just sees that maybe they've
been robbed. He finds the sheriff in the deputy who
have been tracking Henry and Franklin's attackers. They're connecting these
(36:11):
because it doesn't sound like these kind of attacks are common.
And it's at two sawmills, Franklin sawmill and Henry with
the cabin. So you've got the sheriff in the deputy
covering god knows how many miles, at least ninety. And
this mail carrier, gosh, what a hard job. That must
have been a cold territory being a mail carrier. This
(36:33):
mail carrier tracks them down and he says, this way
station is normally very orderly. I don't know where John is.
It's been trashed. Can you come and help. They get
to Adalmans and they find his body on the property,
not inside the way station. So some reports say that
he had been shot through the head. Others say that
he was shot twice through the heart. And we don't
(36:56):
know about the type of gun, and we don't have
a clear connection to the other two men. So to summarize,
we've got three victims, all men connected to you know,
this part of the territory, not tremendously far apart, and
two victims know each other mostly just in passing. That
kind of came in at the same time. It looks
(37:18):
like there's been a robbery in this one too, So
these are happening close. I mean, this is the eighteenth
of March, the nineteenth of March, and then the thirty
first of March. And before you ask, I do not
see that he has been hit with an axe, John,
and I do not see that there has been anything
(37:38):
carved in his chest.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
You know, even though you know Franklin and Henry had
some sort of connection to each other, whereas Adalman, there's
no known connection to the two previous victims. So I'm
wondering at this point of the you know, Henry and
Franklin becoming victims even though they knew each other, that
that really relationship was just coincidental. They're not being targeted
(38:03):
because they knew each other, So if I'm right about that,
So now you have with Henry and John Adelman, you
now have this what sounds like the tossing of the
inside of the places where you know they had control over.
Henry's killed inside this cabin, whereas Adelman's body is outside,
(38:25):
but the offender took the time to go inside and
toss the place. Part of the assessment is as, why
are they looking for something? You know, what are they
looking for? Are they looking for something that has you know,
monetary value? Are they looking for land deeds? You know?
So that's if I'm assessing this crime scene, I want
to know, Okay, is there something about the locations within
(38:48):
these structures that the offender seems to be focused in
on and what would normally be kept at these locations?
Is there overlap between these two crime scenes? J indicates
these offenders are going around looking for something specific or
they just I mean sometimes you know, I've processed many
burglaries early on in my career, and you just have
(39:11):
you know, some of these guys are very focused on
what they're going after and targets certain areas within a house.
Other guys will just start throwing things everywhere, just hoping
to run across something, you know. So that's what I'm
trying to discern here. Am I dealing with just you know,
somebody who's looking for something random, not knowing what's in
the structure or is this a targeted type of ransacking
(39:35):
within these structures? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (39:37):
And I don't have an impression that this was anything
but just tossing and trying to grab anything of value.
I do know that this part of Colorado, the Colorado territory,
is remote, all of it, but there are sembilances of cities, right.
I mean, we talked about the plazas where all of
these Adobe houses are set up and everything, But where
(39:59):
the killer is hitting are these remote spots and spots
that are not particularly well traveled. I mean, I know
this is a way station, but John might not have
seen people for days and days and days, depending on
how many people are going through this area. So you've
got Franklin who is by himself. You've got John at
the way station, who is by himself. But then you
(40:21):
have Henry, who has two or three people not far
from him at all there. And so I wonder what
the motive is. If it's just simply killing people, that
just seems risky to me, because these are the people
at the middle murder, Henry's murder. These were all relatively
young men who could have overpowered whomever ends up being
(40:43):
the one who did this.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
You saying that there's no information to indicate that the
ransacking that's being done has any targeted item that the
offender is looking for, And so if the offender is
just going into these struck and is taking whatever he
or they run across for financial value. You know, that
(41:06):
suggests to me that this is possibly somebody that does
not have let's say, a lot of monetary means, you know,
and is having to subsist off of whatever he finds
during the ransacking the homicides. You know, I think right
now it's kind of hard to say. You know, the
cross being put into Franklin, you know, if that was
(41:29):
to send a message to others, then that would seem
to think that there's a mission that this offender is on.
But if, like your thought, if this was just the
offender for religious purposes, you know, carving the cross into
to Franklin's body, you know, then now in essence, you
may be dealing with somebody who is just marauding around
(41:52):
the countryside, you know, trying to find things of monetary
value to be able to continue to subsist as willing
to kill. Right now, I can't say that there's anything
that suggests there's like a predatory aspect, but it could be.
You know that that's where if if we have more victims,
and maybe it becomes more apparent that you are dealing
(42:14):
with a fender that is purposely going out to trying
to find victims because he wants to kill. He gets
some sort of satisfaction. It may be, you know, retaliation
against raw perceived wrongs that these people do. You know,
and if you have somebody that's been displaced because of
the white settlers, now you can see where there could
be what I would consider an anger retaliation type of offender,
(42:38):
where he's now angry based on his lifestyle being impacted.
And even though these aren't the people that who necessarily
displaced him from a in person type of aspect, they're
representative of somebody of a group, you know, the white
settlers that are impacting his life. And now he's you know,
he's taken it out on these to white settlers.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Okay, well, unfortunately we do have more victims to talk about.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
I had a feeling it was going that way.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Yeah. The sheriff and the deputy who find John's body
ride back down south to Canyon City to report this
additional murder. So now they're up to three. But it
looks like the killer or killers went north because there
are more bodies, so this is near fair play. We
(43:28):
were twenty five miles from Colorado City. So this is
far north. This is a lot. I mean, we're not
talking about geographic profiling at this point. They're going at
least ninety miles, maybe hundreds of miles on horseback likely.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Yeah. Well, just you know, taking a car to go
from Colorado Springs up to Breckenridge along roughly this route,
probably where fair Play is located at, that's going to
be about a two hour drive, you know, and it's
i mean it's freeway speeds, but it's you know, these
are windy roads and stuff through the you know, sometimes
(44:04):
it's mountainous, sometimes it's open plains. So on horseback, you know,
this is a pretty significant distance to go, let's say,
from the Canyon City area all the way up to
fair Play.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
What does that tell you about the offender or offenders
they're obviously comfortable on horseback and going long distances.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Well, I would say, you know, like like my experience,
of course, is dealing with offenders that are utilizing modern
transportation to move around. And you know, some of this
is due to the offenders' work, let's say truckers. Other times, offenders,
possibly Golden State killer DiAngelo, purposely moved around just to
(44:48):
commit crimes. And try to prevent law enforcement from linking
crimes together. So you know, there may be an aspect
to either one of those scenarios with this offender who
who's purposely traveling around. Maybe it's work related, maybe it
is purposely just trying to move around and kind of
stay hidden from sight, if you will, by moving to
(45:10):
such you know, disparate locations to commit crimes. Right now,
I'll just say it seems like there's no question that
the offender is comfortable moving around, as you mentioned, it's
just why is he moving around? And right now there's
there's not enough information to try to discern that. And
from a geographic profile standpoint, I think what I would
(45:30):
be looking at is these paths that the offender is
having to take to go from one location to another.
Are they what we would consider primary arterial you know, roads,
if you will. And is the offender just following a
known path and is offending along a certain route as
he's proceeding north or is are there anchor points for
(45:54):
the offender? Does he have a connection to these locations
maybe for work, maybe because he's lived there, or he's
got family there, and while he's visiting that particular location,
he's deciding to go out and offend because he needs
more money.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
Well, let's find out. We are now on the road
to Denver. We are well, as I said, fair Play, Colorado,
about fifty miles north of where all this other stuff
had been happening. And this is a campground. So people
find two bodies, both men. One is a twenty three
year old named Jacob Binkley. The other is a twenty
(46:33):
nine year old named Abram Shoop. Shoop becomes important because
his brother is a prominent lieutenant and he will ultimately
go on to be the first governor of the state
of Idaho and one of its first senators. And so
this happened with the Bloody Benders, which we've never talked
about that story. I've interviewed a lot of people about,
(46:55):
you know, which was a family I think in Kansas
who murdered a lot of people as they would come
by and try to stay at their inn. They were
getting away with it until there is a person who
they murder who is related to a very prominent person,
and that all hell breaks loose when that happens. So
you've got these two men. So you've got Jacob and Abram.
The bodies are found by an innkeeper who saw their
(47:17):
oxen grazing unaccompanied and recognize them because the men had
stayed with him the previous trips and so you know,
they had been regulars at this inn. The weather had
been nice the previous night, so it looks like instead
of staying at the end, these guys decided to go
ahead and camp, and they are both found at their campground,
(47:39):
which is right by a river. Jacob had been shot
once through the back, with the bullet becoming lodged at
the front of the chest and is found lying face
down on the river bank right at that campsite. They
don't know what kind of gun is used. Doesn't sound
like a shotgun? Does that sound like a revolver? Or
(48:00):
I mean, I guess we don't get a rifle, do that?
Speaker 2 (48:02):
I guess right now, there's no information to indicate what
type of weapon was used. Now, the bullet, the projectile,
you know, penetrated through the victim's body from the back
and lodged at the chest. Now, there is a phenomenon
that happens where you can have a bullet, you know,
because as bullets pass through bodies, they lose energy and
(48:25):
sometimes you can have something as simple as a T shirt.
When the bullet comes out and exits out of the body,
the fabric of the T shirt is strong enough to
just kind of contain the bullet and keep the bullet
sort of at the exit wound. And this is what
we called a shored exit. Now, with him being faced
down on the river bank, you know, one of the
questions that I have is was he shot upright and
(48:47):
he collapsed or did the offender, after this guy is
made to late lay prone, you came up and shot
in the back and now you got the ground in
essen's preventing the bullet from exiting out the chest. And
it's also possible that the bullet just lost enough energy
as it passed through the upper torso of this victim
and never even had the energy to be able to
exit out in the first place. And that would tend
(49:09):
to suggest that that's a less powerful weapon. So it
all depends right now, I can't draw any conclusions as
to what kind of weapon was used.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
My guess would be that he was standing up and
the only reason why is the way that the other
murder plays out, which is Abram Shoop. He's found at
the bottom of a gulch about four hundred yards away.
He had been stabbed three times in the chest and
his head had been mutilated. I don't know the specifics,
(49:39):
not with the cross I'm pretty sure carved into it,
but it had been mutilated. It appears that he ran
before collapsing at the bottom of the gulch, and they
had both been robbed. So I don't know if this
was a everybody lay down and then they're shot, but
Abram's the first one to not be shot. I think
he was stabbed. What does this sound like and all,
(50:01):
and definitely think about the number of offenders at this point.
What does this all sound like to you so far?
Speaker 2 (50:06):
Well, obviously, with Abram being stabbed three times in the chest,
you know, it's indicating that the offender is very close.
I mean, you are dealing with face to face interactions
between the offender and Abram. The fact that he's able
to run before collapsing, which is something that you see
(50:26):
with stabbings. You know, even if it's a fatal stab
wound that's inflicted, it takes time for the you know,
the the bleeding to cause the person to in essence
lose consciousness, right, And so sometimes you do see stabbing victims.
They receive fatal stab wounds, but then they're able to
run a distance and then they collapse a distance further
(50:47):
down that the head being mutilated. I'm just kind of wondering,
you know, And this is where sequencing would come in.
It's just is this just possibly in some ways the
offender is trying to stab the victim, and now you
have incisive injuries and stab wounds to Abram's head as
(51:09):
he's warding off the knife attack. And then of course
there's some stabs to the chest and Abram is able
to get away before he collapses. So I'm not you know,
I don't know what to make about the head mutilation.
If it's if the offender is purposely coming up and
trying to do something like that, then that sounds like
there's a personal aspect to that, you know, between the
(51:31):
offender and Abram. Again, you have the use of two
different weapons. You have Jacob being shot and Abram being stabbed,
and they were both robbed. How do you control two
men with the gun? Absolutely, you know, give me, give
me your money. And then you get into basically close
(51:52):
quarters with Abram with a knife, and now you have Jacob,
you know, running away, and you're able, you know, once
you've you know, stabbed Abrahm. Now you pull out your
gun and you shoot Jacob in the back. I mean
that's a possibility. Or you control these two men with
two offenders. Yeah, one's armed with a knife and one's
(52:14):
armed with a gun.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
Okay, I forgot to tell you that these two murders
happened fifty miles away from the other ones, about eight
days after the last ones, after John at the way station.
So these are happening to me so quickly, especially with
the distances that you know the offender is traveling. So
it's clear they've been able to get away with this.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
So far right, you know. And the interesting thing about
this is obviously you have a series. It appears, you know,
even though back in the day they don't have DNA
to say it's the same person. But there's enough mo
o characteristics that you say, yeah, you have somebody that's
going around killing men and robbing them, you know, financially motivated.
(53:01):
So you know, by definition, for some people you could
say this is a serial killer. You know. Now, this
is a very different type of psychology than the fantasy
motivated killer. At this point in time based on what
you've told me. Now, there may be aspects where this
is an offender that really gets off on killing men,
(53:23):
but it appears that he's doing this for financial purposes
at this point in time, and I'm not convinced it's
a single offender at this stage. So it's it's fascinating
from that perspective, and so I'm really curious to see
what other cases you know, are part of this series
(53:43):
and ultimately who is the person responsible.
Speaker 1 (53:46):
Well, about three weeks later, we have another murder, but
we have a survivor also, oh, we have a witness.
We will talk about all of that next week. Because
I did not know until about five minutes ago that
this would need to be it's harder because I just
told Alexis I didn't know you were going to like
(54:07):
this case so much, and that's great. I would rather,
you know, have to expand it. But we we have
a lot lot more to talk about.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
Nope, you and right now, this is very akin to
where you have a series of robberies, you know, maybe
not necessarily resulting in homicide, but you do have one
offender that's going around and robbing people for financial purposes,
and so I would say it's it's very similar to
a modern version of this type of crime.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
Well, we will talk about this type of crime next week.
Speaker 2 (54:36):
All right, I'm looking forward to it again.
Speaker 1 (54:42):
This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
For our sources and show notes go to exactly Rightmedia
dot com slash Buried Bones Sources.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
Our senior producer is Alexis Amrosi.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
Research by Alison Trumble and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1 (54:56):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Toliday.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
Our theme saw is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2 (55:04):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 1 (55:08):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Buried Bones pod.
Speaker 2 (55:13):
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 (55:20):
And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's
Cold Cases is also available now.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
Listen to Baried Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Kate Winkler Dawson
Paul Holes
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