July 16, 2025 • 53 mins
In this concluding part of a two-parter, Kate and Paul head back to an investigation in 1978 Arizona, where a suspect emerges in a murder case. A look back at the handling of evidence and crime scenes provides unexpected hurdles and challenges.
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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.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
True crimes, 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. Hey Kate, Hey Paul, you ready
(01:03):
to go on Bob Crane.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Absolutely, I want to hear it.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I'm surprised you didn't text me in the middle of
the week and say, okay, tell me a little bit more.
I mean, it's a big one when somebody is not
who you expect them to be, and now there's these
suspects and people around in sort of a sleazy world
in a way, so it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Well, I think yeah. That was one of the takeaways
from the first episode, is the victimology. Because all I
knew about Bob Crane is the actor, and now you
start to see, well, everybody has their thing, and it
looks like he's got this whether he's making poorn, but
he's doing something that seems a little shady and I'm
(01:45):
interested to see how that world develops. Is that the
reason he ends up dead? Is it because of these
affairs that he's having, these you know, sexual flings that
he's having, and you got jealous men that are coming
after him, you know, So there's a lot of stuff
going on with him.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Absolutely, let me do a quick recap and you know,
catch everybody up. So we're in nineteen seventy eight Scottsdale
Hotter in Hell and it's June and Bob Crane is there.
We don't know for how long, but it sounds like
just for a few weeks, maybe a month, staying in
a little apartment doing a dinner show, and he has
a co star coming over. She discovers his body. The
(02:26):
police then discover a large amount of photos of naked
women on polaroids, as well as a lot of video.
He's got video equipment everywhere. He's been hit twice in
the head and he has a cord ripped from a
VCR around his neck, and you know, this is a
very bloody scene. There's no signs at forced entry. But
(02:49):
at the end of the last episode we talked about well,
I mean a gun pointed at you would not indicate
forced entry either, So we can't really rely on that.
But there are jealous boyfriends, and there's a wife who
thought that she was going to be reconciling and now
she finds out that it doesn't sound like he's gotten
out of this sex addiction is what he claims it
(03:11):
is at this point. So the police are investigating a
good friend of his named John Carpenter, electronics salesman. We're
assuming most of the electronics in this apartment and probably
what he had in LA are sold to him or
given to him by John Carpenter. So one of the
big questions will be for us, what does John Carpenter
get out of all of this? The mystery will deepen
(03:34):
once we find out a little bit more about their relationship.
Did I get everything right or do you have any
other questions or anything I haven't covered?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
No, I think that you know from the investigative side,
that pretty much sums it up. One of the questions
that I have is what was the autopsy finding? You know,
in terms of you said there was two blows. I
mean I could see the two lacerations. Was there signs
of strangulation?
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Okay, there's a deputy medical examiner, a guy named Thomas Jarvis,
this is from John Hook's book, who performed the autopsy.
So he was almost fifty years old when he died.
Type of death is listed as violent, no kidding, the
manner by blunt instrument and chord. Here are the abnormal findings,
abundant dry blood on face, hair, and upper chest. The
(04:23):
autopsy report also noted a flaky, white dry material on
the pubic hair, right lower abdomen, and right anterior thigh,
which they said was likely semen, but they never tested it.
Police later theorized the killer may have masturbated over Crane's
dead body after the killing, which John Hook says is
(04:45):
a final fuck you quote unquote, But it was a
theory and they never tested the semen and never came
to a conclusion about what it was. And that's all
the information I have about what they found. Okay, what
do you think about that? The way they described it,
does that seem likely? If this is a man Is
it a fuck you masturbating over somebody? Is that what
(05:05):
that is? I always thought it was sort of a sexual.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Component, So that does happen? You know, you have these
offenders that will masturbate after they've they've killed their victims.
You know, Is it a form of denigration to the victim? Potentially,
you know, but it's a it's a sexual act. It
sounds like they didn't collect these items, these stings. You know,
it's like, oh good god, we're talking about all the
(05:28):
you know, these these photos of nude women and and
and videos of women having sex his bedsheets. That's a
huge source of information. There's all sorts of DNA from
these various sexual encounters, and most certainly there could be
evidence from the offender and stains on that sheet for
maybe a prior occasion, if there had been a relationship
(05:50):
between the offender. Right now, I'm assuming the offender is male.
I don't know if Crane is having sex with men,
but I wouldn't end up saying no, that's an impossible
because all the subjects of his photos and videos, as
far as what you've told me, are women, you know,
but you know, is crying somebody that is you know,
crossing into homosexual acts. That opens up a whole other
(06:15):
suspect pool. And it's like, who has he had sex with?
And you can answer that by swabbing his body, by
collecting his bed sheets. You know, that is so huge.
There's limited number of reasons why people are killed in
terms of primary motives, and one of the primary ones
(06:37):
is it's who they're having sex with, whether it be
a man or a woman. So you need to collect
that evidence up front.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Okay, Well, let's talk about John Carpenter and his relationship
with Bob Crane. And yes, we know they didn't collect
anything another failing. They did some good things and some
bad things here. I mean, I'm glad he had her
answer the phone that one time, even though I know
it contaminated even more of the crime scene. It was
interesting that he called twice, you know, and what his
(07:08):
reactions are in all of that. But at the same time,
forensically they're failing. Scott Stale police are not doing a
great job right now.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
There's a struggle going on there. Yeah, things could have
been done better.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Well, let's talk about the police interview. They are looking
at Bob Crane's inner circle, as any police would, and
they start talking to a lot of people. They're getting
conflicting reports because they really are focusing on John Carpenter,
for better or for worse. There were reports that they
got along great, these two guys, and there are reports
that they had been on the outs, and a few
(07:39):
days before Bob's death they were in a heated argument.
We don't know about what. And Bob Crane Junior, who
was close with his dad, gives police this quote, and
I promise this is all going somewhere more than just
they probably irritated each other every once in a while.
There was an indication just in a passing conversation with
my father that John Carpenter coming into town was getting
(08:02):
to be a little bit of a pain in the ass.
My dad expressed that he just didn't need Carpenter kind
of hanging around him anymore. So let me explain what
the relationship was like. John had cultivated this transactional relationship
between Bob and himself. So for Bob, John has this
access to equipment that I'm sure Bob is clueless about.
(08:24):
So he gets all of this great equipment for something
that he's obviously preoccupied with. And that's a big part
of Bob's life, and John gets the proximity to Bob,
so he gets Hollywood fun, he gets women and sex.
And the men have even taped themselves. I'm assuming they've
(08:45):
found these tapes in threesomes, so there is some kind
of intimacy. I mean, the range of two men and
a woman in a threesome could go, you know, many
different directions, but there's certainly an intimacy and a comfort
level there with the two men.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
So it sounds like per Crane's son that Bob Crane
was starting to say John Carpenter was more of a
hanger on and not as desired at this point.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah, in the relationship, and he and his wife were
getting back together if we believe the wife, you know,
he's in therapy, although I don't know if those tapes
say that.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
But yeah, and so now this this becomes interesting from
potentially a motive, you know, was John Carpenter starting to
sense that Bob Crane the celebrity, was pulling away from
him and that his lifestyle was going to be changing.
You no longer have access to the women, to the
Hollywood you know, lifestyle, whatever that was with Bob Crane.
(09:45):
Did Crane tell him, you know, hey, stop coming around,
you know, and now you could have somebody being very
upset as a result of it's basically a breakup, you know.
And so Carpenter most certainly is an interesting suspect, you know.
And I'd say he's a suspect for sure, I just
right now. You know. My fear is is that maybe
(10:07):
law enforcement so focused in on him that they didn't
pursue other leads as rigorously as they possibly should have.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Yeah, I mean it sounds like it. Let me give
you a little tiny bit more insight. I mean, this
is such a gross quote, but the Phoenix New Times
back in nineteen seventy eight said women were drawn to
the still popular crane like fish to a worm, and
Carpenter didn't seem to mind dallying with the leftovers. Gross
(10:36):
And so, you know, the theory for the police, which
they thought was the strongest of any of these suspects
and any other theory they had, was that John was motivated,
just like you said, to kill Bob because Bob was
stepping back from their friendship. Bob apparently had been saying
he was going to try to get back together with
his wife. John says none of that is true. He said,
(11:00):
I came to Arizona on June twenty fifth, and all
of this happened on the twenty ninth, so it sounds
like he had been there for three or four days.
And he says, look, I was there to do some
business and to hang out with Bob. They said, what
did you guys do together? He said, we tried to
pick up women. So much for therapy and getting back
(11:20):
together with your wife. So this is a funny line
from Marin. And then I want to hear from you.
She said that they tried to pick up women and
then Bob was successful. John was not. And the last
night that John was in town, he brought a woman
back to the hotel and put the moves on her,
and at three am, the woman asked to be taken home,
(11:41):
so he dropped her off. And he's unaccounted for from
three am until eight am when he checks out the
hotel and he goes to the airport. So there's this
five hour window, according to John, where he could have
absolutely carried out.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
This murder for sure. This also goes to where we
know John Carpenter changed the time that he said that
he left Bob Crane from one am to two forty
five am, and I mentioned what sounds like he's concerned
about witness possibly seeing him later than what he stated
he was there. And now there's this woman and I
don't know if she has ever identified, but his from
(12:16):
his perspective, he's seeing an homicide investigation unfold and he's going, oh,
they are tracking people down, and they're going to find
out about this woman. And she's going to say I
was with him several hours past the time that he
said that he had actually left Bob Crane. One of
the thoughts that I have though, is if John Carpenter
is truly enjoying the lifestyle with Bob Crane and Bob
(12:40):
Crane is starting to pull away, well, killing Bob Crane
basically completely ends that lifestyle, you know, so there is
there's an argument to be made that Carpenter would be
more motivated to have Crane alive than dead if he
wants to have any potential future relationship with Crane and
(13:03):
all the various advantages that gives Carpenter in his life.
You know, that's you could most certainly see where in
a fit of rage, you have a homicide occur because
of this. Let's say a breakup between Bob Crane and
John Carpenter, and possibly if a tripod was used as
a bludgeoning device. This doesn't sound like it's pre planned homicide.
(13:26):
He's not coming in with a weapon. He's utilizing something
that is found within the apartment. The electrical cord is
something that is coming off of a VCR. And I
think it's significant that. I mean, I've seen offenders pull
electrical cords out of various devices and use them as
binding and or ligature material, but it's significant that he's
(13:47):
choosing an electronic device. The offender's choosing an electronic device
versus maybe drapery cord or something like that. So would
that kind of suggest you know, Carpenter is familiar with
these electronicquipment. He knew that possibly this VCR has a
power cord and that would be very easy to be
able to yank out of it, just the way it's
(14:08):
attached internally. However, the victimology also just keeps the door
open to the possibility that you have the jealous male
coming in and taking Bob Crane out.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Yeah, and I think that, like I said, they are
really really focused on John Carpenter and just the squishiness
of his timeline in general, I think is what gets them.
So let's talk about evidence. That's what you and I
care about. Also, police need to find the rental car
that John Carpenter had used. He had been there four
or five days, he said, I rented a car. So
(14:43):
a few days after Bob is found dead, they finally
locate this car and it's having mechanical issues and was
being sent to a repair shop, which I think probably
would have been a nightmare. Of course, having other people
in the car, because it's a rental car would have
been bad too. But the police find it, they toe it,
and they start looking at some things. So in a minute,
(15:04):
I'll have you look at the car. Well, actually, go
ahead and look at the car. Now, it's not a Cadillac,
but it's a Chrysler Cordoba. I don't know if that
looks like a Cadillac, So look on your bump crane photos. Also, Paul,
there's a doc I don't I guess I skipped over it.
There's a little diagram in there from the police. I
don't know if you're going to think that's helpful or not.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
To be frank, this this crime scene sketch is quite artistic.
This is unusual.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Looks like a like a pro create drawing to me,
like a really high level drawing.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Well, this is you know, this is where Obviously the
person who did this sketch for Scottsdale PD is a
talented sketcher. But like if I were the mentor of
this person, I'd be slapping him on the back of
his head saying, you're taking too long because you're putting
in detail that is not needed. He's got the you know,
(15:58):
wrinkles in the sheet and shape to the pillow, and
it's like, no, you know, this is we need to
get moving on this, you know, collecting evidence. We can't
be sitting here trying to make a pretty sketch. So
this tells me there's a level of inexperience. As good
as this sketch appears visually, it's like, no, it's too much,
(16:18):
it's overkilled. We have photographs to fill in those details. Okay,
So I'm looking at a photograph. It's indicating that this
is John Carpenter's Chrysler Cordoba. So this was a rental
car and this is you know, your typical boat of
a car from the nineteen seventies. Yeah, yeah, it's you know,
(16:38):
you got the massive trunk, you probably got a massive
front bench seat. It appears to be a Tudor car.
This photograph to show in the car from the rear,
you know, so I'm seeing the tail lights. You know,
it's a massive car. And I know we have this
witness that sees what was described as a white Cadillac.
White Cadillac look like this back in the nineteen seventies,
(17:01):
you know, so this is where Okay, this car, this Cordoba,
is probably something that would easily be confused for a
Cadillac from this this era. So I think you mentioned
it when you're talking about the white Cadillac in the
first episode that yeah, you could probably you know, throw
a rock and hit one because they would be so popular.
(17:23):
So it's not I can't put a lot of weight
that carpenter has a vehicle that I would say matches
what that witness said about a white Cadillac. But it
is important evidence in that. Okay, what is found inside here?
Is there anything from the crime scene that could be
(17:44):
you know, inside to this rental car. You know that
today maybe with DNA we could tie back, you know,
is there blood transfers or other aspects. Hopefully they did
a thorough job processing this.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
So let me look and go back and forth, so
don't skip ahead. But we do have photos kind of everything.
Every time I say something, we've got a photo. So
first up is going to be in the backseat of
the passenger side of what's confirmed to be John Carpenter's
rental car, technicians find a small dry blood smear on
the switch that rolls the window up and down. John
(18:24):
hook says they weren't drops of blood. These were more
like streaks or smudges or smears. So that's what you
see on page five of your doc.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
It's important that they're finding blood because you have a
homicide victim that is bleeding. So is it possible the
offender walked out from that homicide with blood on his person,
on his clothing, on an object, let's say the murder
weapon that is transferred inside the rental car? For sure. However,
at this point it's a rental car. Who else has
(18:55):
been inside this car and is bleeding until that blood
is owned to be Bob Crane's blood with DNA, you know,
for me, it's like, yeah, it's important, but you need
to do DNA in order to interpret it as having
any relevance to this crime.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Yeah, and there's a couple of other things. So there's
a bunch of other stains. I guess if you kind
of go through, you'll see there are a few other stains.
Blood on a power window switch, you know, blood stains
on the passenger door. There is a tissue speck on
the door panel, and then there is going to be
one more little bit down there that they believe is
(19:31):
brain matter that was found in the car.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Wait a second, So okay, So this tissue spec on
door panel believed to be from Bob Crane's skull lost
or never collected.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
So they took a photo of it but never collected it.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
What the hell?
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Well, we've established, Paul that Scottsdale pet is overmatched.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Here, So I mean, how can they even say anything
about this? Let's see here, I do not know. So
I'm zooming in and I see that. You know, there's
a ruler that in you know inches American standard measurement ruler,
and this red glob is about one sixteenth of an
(20:12):
inch in diameter. It's got three dimensions to it. There's
a closeup photo of this tissue spec on the next page.
When it's initially photoed, you know the coloration, it's looking
bright red, and then this close up photo it's looking brown.
(20:33):
It's like this globular mass that to be frank. Just
from its physical appearance, I couldn't draw any conclusion as
to what it is. I have processed, you know, thousands
of items for blood for tissue over the course of
my career. I've seen them at a crime scenes, seen
it on items of evidence within the lab, and this
(20:59):
mass could be anything. I literally cannot conclude what it is.
And I will tell you I've seen stains on physical
evidence that I was like, that's blood, and then I
test it and it's not blood. And I've seen stuff,
let's say, inside a car. I can think of one
thing where I've got this reddish brown it looked like
dried blood and tested it and it was not blood.
(21:21):
And so that's where you know I have developed a
level of cautiousness. I can look. I know what a
crime scene looks like. I know what blood looks like,
fresh looks like when it's coagulating as it's outside the body.
I know what it looks like when it's dry, when
it's been subjected to environmental influences. But now there's a
(21:41):
photo of this globular mass that they never collect, and
they're saying it's coming from Bob Crane's skull.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
They're not sure. I know, I know, you know.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
I can't. I personally and I have a level of expertise,
I cannot draw that conclusion. It seems like somebody's really
reaching on this item of evidence. And there's these other
bloodstains in the car. Did they collect those? And has
DNA testing been done on those?
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Let me get you jumping way ahead, buddy, so you
just hang Remember this is a two part and we're
not ten minutes. Let me tell you what they do.
So thankfully, they do pull a sample of the blood.
It is type B rare and Bob is a type B.
John is not. Bob says, I have no idea how
the blood got in there. I don't know what you're
(22:29):
talking about. He volunteers to go back to Arizona. He
does not get a lawyer. He says, I'll take a
lie detector test, and I'll take truth serum sodium pentothl.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yes, so pentothal sure, which just.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Sounds like an interesting way to die. Truth serum or
even go under hypnosis, and he says, I don't have
anything to hide. You know, the police are very frustrated.
For years, they remain focused on John Carpenter. The tangible
evidence against him is scant, so every so often there's
a tip. There's a housekeeper at the Scottsdale Hotel where
(23:04):
John stayed. She found a bloody pillowcase and a washcloth
in the room he had slept in. But these are
thrown out, and you know, her dates are kind of off,
so we don't even know if that's where John was.
And then we get to the blood tissue stuff. So
you know, you saw the photo and we talked a
little bit about it. The reason this photo comes up
(23:27):
is more than a decade later. So this is in
the early nineteen nineties. There's a detective named Jim Rains,
and he looks at the case with fresh eyes and
finds what Entertainment Weekly calls a previously unseen crime scene
photo of the rental car. There's no sample, nobody acknowledges
this brain tissue is what they're calling it. And this
(23:50):
detective the decade or so later, finds this photo that
nobody recognizes. He finds medical experts who say that the
photo there's no negatives. Pull He finds these experts who
say the photo it shows what appears to be a
small piece of human tissue stuck to the interior side
of the passenger door. Their theory is is that John
(24:11):
beat Bob Crane to death with this tripod, they're assuming,
and then got in the car and carried all of this,
you know, biological evidence with him. It might have bumped
or rubbed against the car door, he tossed it in
the back, who knows. And that is when they end
up arresting him with this little discovery right of this
(24:32):
photograph that you say, we can't even tell whether this
is brain tissue or not, but this to them a
decade later is enough to arrest him. Just so you know,
he had completed a short stint for molesting his girlfriend's
ten year old daughter, so they knew.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Where he was. It sounds like at the very beginning
of this case that they built against Carpenter. And what
you were laying out is that they did ABO blood
testing on the bloodstains and it came back type B
and Bob Crane is type B. So I'm just having
to go back to my ABO typing charts.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
I was wondering you. I knew you were listening to me,
but I was wondering what you were doing at the
same time.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
As an example, then there's a reason why we moved
away from ABO typing, and it's because it's not very discriminating.
Now Type B. You know, it's a smaller percentage of
the population, so there's a little bit more weight that
can be put on it. But I'm looking at I
had to go. I have an old book, it's called
The Source Book of Forensics Sorology, but on the fly,
(25:41):
trying to find what I needed was going to be
too much, so I'm just going online. And this is
pretty cool because I didn't have this back in the day.
But they've actually got the percentages of the blood types
per ethnicity, if you will, across the world, and I'm
looking at type B, and depending on where you're at,
(26:02):
it's anywhere from nine percent of a population up to
I'm seeing as high as thirty five percent, like one
third of the population of certain ethnicities are type B. Basically,
they cannot exclude this blood as being from Bob Crane,
but I can't put depending on the ethnicity who knows
(26:22):
who's been bleeding inside this rental car. Depending on the
ethnicity background, one third of the population of that person's
ethnic background could be Type B. This is where hopefully
they still have this evidence and we do modern DNA
testing on it and then say yeah, this is Bob
Crane's blood inside John Carpenter's rental car. Now I'm on
(26:46):
board right now. It's just like, well, you can't exclude
all it is is a weak inclusion from a physical evidence.
I'm just talking physical evidence by itself. That blood Type
B inside the rental car is just like, well, I
can't eliminate Carpenter on that.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
And you know, back then they said when they found
it in the early nineties, they were saying the estimate
was one in seven people had Type B. But right
are they looking at the different ethnicities? And who knows?
Their point is that it's rare enough for John Carpenter
to still be in their crosshairs, that it was just
(27:24):
too weird. You know.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Sure, well then they you know, I was listening, but
they said, this is where the investigator found a previously
unknown crime scene photo. So let me hear what you
were talking about with that.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Well, that was the brain matter one that you looked at.
So the point with that tissue I know I'm putting,
I'm gonna put quotes brain matter. The point of that
photo is that they didn't keep the evidence. There's no
way of identifying what that actually is. But it was
enough to arrest John Carpenter more than a decade after
Bob Krane's death.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Again, just speaking from the physical evidence it's been presented. No,
there isn't probable cause on that. Now, you know the
investigative side, his movement patterns, statements he's making. You know
that all has to factor in as to whether they've
actually built sufficient probable cause to arrest. I'm not convinced
(28:17):
that they have that with what you've told me.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I mean, I don't know what it was like in
the seventies, but if you rented a car and then
return the car, I would assume they would clean it
and examine it in between each rental. I mean maybe not.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
I'm kidding. You know, I travel a lot. I mean
rental car companies today are very very good, but I
have had some rentals that are dirty. They're you know,
they smell like weed. You know, it's it's like really
you're you're you're not even trying, you know, to clean
the car. So no, I are the rental car technicians
(28:53):
really paying that much attention to maybe there's a red
stain on you know, the window, you'll ever, No, they're not,
you know. So that's just where we know that there's
a transient population that has been in and out of
this particular car. And so to put any weight on
(29:13):
the blood and that globular mass as being related to
the homicide with the testing that they've done, no, you
can't draw that conclusion that is right now. I think
that's on the level of almost absurdity. They need to
find that evidence and do DNA testing to show it's
(29:34):
from Bob Crane.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Okay, here we go. Let's talk about the trial, and
we do talk about this quote unquote brain matter. So
John Carpenter goes on trial in ninety four. Bob Crane
was murreed in seventy eight, So this is what sixteen
years later, and two pathologists testify for the prosecution. They
say that a piece of human tissue would shrivel up
(29:59):
after a few hours on a hot day and a car.
But based on these photos you know that were taken,
I guess as soon as they found the car, which
would have been a few days later. The sample appeared
fresh more than a day after John turned in the car.
So I think this was not good for the prosecution
because they're saying, we didn't find this car on the
(30:19):
day that his body was discovered. We found it four
or five days later.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Right, And that was my observation. I talked about how
bright red that initial photo was, and then when they
had the close up photo, it's all shriveled up in
like this brown globular It's almost looks like like these
this little globular amber like substance. And you know, this
is where you know, I have to be cautious. I
can't say it's not tissue, but I'm looking at it,
(30:45):
going that doesn't look like what I have personally witnessed
in actual homicide cases where I can test it and
know what it is. You know, It's like I can't
draw any conclusion as to what that mass is.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Yeah, well let me tell you. I mean the prosecution
just gets shamed. I think through this whole trial, there
are technicians they put on the stand who process the
car as a crime scene, and they can't remember hardly
anything about doing this in seventy eight, and they barely
remember seeing any blood even let alone this tissue on
(31:19):
the passenger door. So they're useless. So they're out the door.
The defense then says, you guys can't identify any of
this stuff based on these photos, and they put a
DPS Lieutenant colonel on the stand who is supposedly an expert,
who says, according to the crime Laboratory, even under the
best of circumstances, it's unlikely that stains or substances can
(31:41):
be identified as blood, smears or tissue just by looking
at photographs. Therefore, a confirmation of any stain as being
blood or tissue requires extensive laboratory testing. Therefore, it must
be assumed that personal examination of the door panel did
not reveal tissue, that no evidence was destroyed. So I
don't know what that means, Like, what was that a
(32:03):
kernel of popcorn? I mean, what is he saying?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
No, well, I mean he's saying. What I'm saying is
that you can't draw any conclusions from these photographs. You
have to do testing. The undercurrent about that is for
people like myself and like this Lieutenant colonel out of
Arizona DPS lab. We've seen the spectrum, let's say, of
bloodstains and various colors and forms it takes. And that's
(32:30):
where you can't say, well, hold on, I've got this here,
this mass as an example, and that looks like this,
so therefore it's got to be human tissue. And from
Bob Crane's skulls, there's no way you can jump to
that conclusion. We have also been fooled ourselves when we go, wow,
that really looks like blood and then we test it
and it turns out it's not blood, you know. So
(32:53):
that's fundamentally what he's saying. Now that the last phrase
that you read, I didn't understand the meaning of that.
And what did he say at the end of.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Their So he says, you know, the confirmation of any
stains as being blood or tissue requires extensive laboratory testing.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Which you said golden, yep.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Yes, he says, Therefore it must be assumed that the
personal examination of the door panel did not reveal tissue,
and that there was no evidence that was destroyed because
it wasn't there to begin with, is what he's saying.
And then let me tell you what another person says
that gave me a little bit more perspective. Prosecutors can't
explain why police reports in seventy eight didn't mention the
(33:33):
tissue photo or the speck itself, or why there are
no negatives. A jury is going to be asked to
believe that an untold number of investigators and prosecutors for
whom a solution to the famed Crane murder would have
been career crowning as an achievement, never noticed that stinkin photo.
So I don't know where they think the photo came from,
(33:54):
but it doesn't sound like it's even remotely a possibility
that there was a brain spec found in the back
of the car, because that guy would have been under
arrest much sooner most likely.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Yeah, so I'm going back to these these photos. So
one of the things that I'm looking for is definitely
you know, in the lab, when we take photos of
physical evidence, you know will use a scale so you
have a sense for the size of the stain or
whatever you're looking at. But oftentimes the scale will have
(34:25):
the lab number or the case file number and the
item number written on it, so the photograph shows it's
from this case and it's from this item. And so
you know, with what I'm seeing of these photos, there's
a there's a steel ruler that is being used to
show size of various stains. But there's no markings anywhere
(34:46):
in these photos within the photo itself to indicate what
case it's associated with. And that's not to say it's
these photos are from some other case. It's just that
that would be something that I, as a reviewer of
the processing and of the documentation, would be noting. And
I also think it's notable I mentioned it's a steel ruler.
(35:07):
This steel ruler, and this is something you know, back
in the day I'm guilty of, we had plastic ones,
but this is a this is a ruler that is
being used from case to case to case to case.
It's a source of contamination, and this day and age,
we would use something that's disposable so we don't track,
let's say, DNA from a previous homicide into a current
(35:29):
homicide that we're working. But it looks like this this
photo of the car door, the inside panel, you know,
it's so cropped, but it doesn't look like that's currently
attached to the car, So it's like it was removed
and possibly the entire panel, if not, the entire door
was collected. You know, so this is where Okay, they
(35:52):
say they can't find this evidence, Well, is there a
paper trail? You know, where did it go? If it
went to the lab, did it go from the lab
back to property? Where in property was at place? You know?
How rigorously have they looked for this evidence. I've got
my own cases, you know, from back in the day,
in which we can't find the evidence. And then you
(36:13):
find it and it's been placed in the wrong box.
You have to start rolling up your sleeves and start
going through where it most likely is going to be.
Have they done that? This is such a critical These
bloodstains inside Carpenter's rental car are so critical. They have
to exhaust everything in terms of trying to find it
because it could prove the case and show that yes,
(36:35):
if Bob Crane's blood is inside Carpenter's rental car, I'm going, okay, yeah,
he's the killer. But if it comes back and it's
not even Bob Crane's blood, then it's just spurious and
they got nothing on Carpenter to be frank.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah, absolutely, And I think you hit the nail on
the head because the prosecutor's case fell apart and annoinege
On Carpenter is acquitted by the jury.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
You know, and this is this is a problem.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
And this is not the end. Poll hole, So don't
you tell me your statement. But don't think this is
the end. Don't say bye bye. I'm gonna go have
a drink a bourbon now, because there's more of this.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
No, but but this is where, you know, you take
a weak case to court and you get an acquittal,
you're done. Don't take a weak case like this to
court because now, let's say they do test, they find
those those bloodstains out of Carpenter's rental car, and it
comes back to Bob Crane. They can't prosecute him. All
(37:34):
they can say is, well, we now know who the
right killer, the right guy is, but he's free and clear.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Well he was free and clear for four years and
then he dies. So you know, after that, there are
of course lots of people who say that John definitely
was the one who killed Bob with a tripod and
a VCR cord. And you know, he probably took the
tripod and folded it up and put it in his
case and took it back home to LA with them.
(38:02):
And then there are other people who say, listen, the
police really dropped the ball here. I don't know if
they should have called the state police or what, but
that they dropped the ball and they didn't investigate enough.
And then there are more developments. But what I can
tell the way you sit up that usually I can
When you sit up like that, that's how I usually
can tell you've got something to say.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Well, I think you know. This is where agencies need
to recognize what they're good at and what they might
want to reach out for help, you know, and this
case was not handled right based off of what you
told me. But I'm not going to cast I'm not
going to say bad things about Scottsdale PD from nineteen
seventy eight, but I can guarantee that the agency right
(38:43):
next to them, Phoenix PD, has very experienced investigators, very
experienced csis. This is where you have agreements when you're
a smaller agency, recognize your weaknesses and get MOUs in
place with the resources that you can pull in when
you have a case like this. And you know, this
(39:05):
is something that I've seen over and over again, and notably,
let's say John Bene Ramsay, where you have a smaller
inexperienced agency who probably should have called in Denver homicide
to be frank, you know, kind of a similar type
of scenario where from the very beginning, it really underscores
that you have to do it right from the very beginning,
(39:26):
otherwise you can possibly just completely kill the case.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Well, let me tell you, you know, John Carpenter dies and
this case goes very cold. So in the mid two
thousand tons, the reporter I told you about, John Hook,
who wrote the book, was given permission to submit the
blood samples from John's car using you know more updated
or using updated DNA processes in which were available during
(39:50):
earlier phases, which were not available during earlier phases of
the investigation. So according to Hook, this is what the
testing concluded, and this is from him. John Hook really
did think that John Carpenter was responsible for this. The
DNA found on the door of John Carpenter's mental car
is not from Bob Crane. The test actually picked up
(40:12):
two DNA profiles, a major contributors from a man we
don't know who he is. The second is from a
partial profile too degraded to reach any conclusions. So what
John hook says, is I still think he's the guy
John Carpenter, But I mean the DNA detected and our
test might be completely unconnected to the crime, might have
(40:32):
been depositive before after you know, who knows. It's unlikely
this has anything to do with the crime in general.
But that was the conclusion. And just as a note, Paul,
they said that. And I don't know if you want
to call somebody and double check that this is the
truth or not, but they said that all of the
samples in Bob's case are done and can't use him anymore.
They've all been used up, so there's no further DNA
(40:55):
testing possible.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Well, and I you know, when you start talking about
DNA tech technology in the mid twenty ten range, we're
talking modern DNA technology. This is where now you have
the discriminating power. At least with the sample that they
got results on, they've eliminated Bob Crane as being a
contributor to that bloodstain. Just like what I say it
(41:17):
was saying before, it's like it's somebody else's. It could
be somebody else's. It's a rental car. So you know,
it's unfortunate if they've completely consumed the samples that they
don't have results on. Because the technology from a sensitivity
standpoint has greatly improved since the twenty ten timeframe, it's
possible with the current law enforcement type of DNA testing
(41:40):
that maybe they could get a result. I guess my
question would be is why are they saying it's now consumed.
It's because they consumed the entire extract. Have they consumed,
you know, the swab that they used to collect it.
Do they still have let's say, the door panel. Can
you go back and reswab that area? But absent being
(42:01):
able to do that, I think that one test in
and of itself pretty much in all likelihood. Okay, you've
got a bleeder inside this rental car. That's and that
blood is not coming from Bob Crane. Well likely the
other blood stains which have very similar color appearance, you know,
they don't look like they you know from a temporal
(42:22):
standpoint that some of these stains have been there much
longer than other stains. Likely all those stains are from
that same bleeder that's not Bob Crane, you know. So
this is where the physical evidence against Carpenter, at least
from that rental car is you know, you have to
throw all of that out. You can't rely upon that
at all, you know, the circumstantial case he is, he's
(42:43):
a suspect. I just don't think that they have enough
to be confident he is one responsible. Do you know
did they ever go out to LA and search Carpenter's residents?
I have an issue maybe with Carpenter bringing a murder
weapon back home with him flying it. You know, I
(43:03):
would think he would have gotten rid of that somewhere
in the you know, Scottsdale, Phoenix area.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Yeah, And I was thinking, Paul, what would make those
stains in the car? Like I guess the theory is
is that he uses a tripod he beats Bob Crane
to death. It's not that he's using a knife and
he's cut his hands. It's that the blood was transferred
from the tripods somehow in the car. But do the
(43:30):
patterns that you saw make sense for flinging a tripod
into the back of a car. And would he do that?
To begin with? Why would he do that? It's a
rental car, you know.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
You know you have one blood stain where obviously you
have a finger that has blood on it that is
being used to operate the window switch, right, that's obvious,
you know. So I would say that chances are as
those blood stains are being transferred because the person has
(44:00):
blood on their hands, and not so much that it's
because you've got a bloody tripod that's being flung back there.
It's not going to be touching that part. If it's
a tripod that's leaving those linear those parallel linear stains
on the bedsheet, that's a significant amount of blood on
the legs of that tripod. And if that is not
(44:20):
cleaned off and that's thrown in the trunk or that's
you know, thrown into the back seat or something, you'd
probably see some fairly significant transfers if those particular legs
with blood on them are contacting surfaces within the car versus.
What I'm seeing in those photos is more consistent with
(44:41):
somebody transferring blood from their fingers. And it may not
be the person's own blood. It could be somebody else,
you know, maybe this car was used in a different homicide,
who knows, you.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Know, or someone with a bloody nose. My kid gets
bloody noses a lot, so who knows, you know.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Sure you know they've got if they put a bloody
nose and transfer that onto their fingers. But right now
that blood is irrelevant. It's not related to the crime
per modern DNA testing. So now it's okay, you think
it's John Carpenter. How do you prove it's John Carpenter
in this day and age, you know, are they going
to get any further circumstantial evidence against him? You know
(45:23):
it's going to be tough.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Yeah, and I don't see that. I'm assuming they did
Search's apartment and didn't find anything. They never found the
tripod which was Bob Crane's tripod, if that's what was used,
and so you know, this just becomes a big mystery,
and that's why it's an unsolved case. I guess the
big movement would be if somebody like a Pole Hooles calls,
you know, Scottsdale PD and says, do you guys still
(45:46):
have any biological evidence anywhere, any kind of evidence at
all from this Bob Crane case.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Well, and that's where I would be going back to
the original. You have to go to the origin of
the crime, which is Bob Crane's body, where Bob Crane
is killed, and then an outer circle, if you will,
is whatever they collected out of their apartment, how much
Layton processing did they do? Do they have any latents
that are unidentified? Today we always get Layton's out of
(46:15):
houses if we do a decent job, and we always
find Layton's that we can never identify because you have
so many people that flow in and out of that apartment.
But we have technology today that if they have unidentified latents,
they could identify that person and go that person was.
You know, like I had one case in GSK where
we got super excited because in the bottom of the
(46:35):
victim's phone there was an unidentified Layton, and one of
the examiners identified, you know, forty some odd years later,
and then investigation showed that turned out to be a
telephone repairman. That's why his Layton is on that phone.
It's not GSK. But you have to go through those motions.
And so this is where if I were to look
at this case today, it's like I want everything. I
(46:58):
need to see the entire case file, and I need
to see the entire evidence list of what was collected
back in the day, which should be in the case file.
I would also need to go to property and start
auditing the property room, like my old property room. For
these old cases, they use three by five index cards
really kind of a pretty pretty good file system for
(47:19):
back in the day that wasn't computerized. Do you still
have those cards? And on the back of the card
would be written information as to this evidence was destroyed
on such and such a date whatever, you know, so
you establish a paper trail. If you don't have the
paper trail, that's like, well, where would this evidence normally
be kept in the property room? And are there cases
from this era that are in this area. Have you
(47:41):
guys opened up the boxes to see is there bob
crane evidence that got just put somewhere else where it
shouldn't be. You know, that's just the reality of what
happens with these old cases. And so this is part
of if I get involved in the case, that's all
part of the step to compile the current state of
the case at this point in time, in the current
state of the evidence that exists, and then make decisions
(48:04):
on how to proceed from there.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
It's been a while since I think you've gotten this
excited about a case, and I understand why. You know,
I'm always trying to think about what the lesson is
when we do these cases, things that I think about,
you know, with historical cases, and sometimes I put them
in a couple of different categories. There's one category where
it's clear the police in the eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds,
(48:29):
or even in the nineteen seventies want to do everything
they can. They know they don't have the technology to
solve this. Now, they collect everything in the best way
they know how. And then there are the investigators and
the prosecutors who are doing things that where they should
know better and they're not doing them. And we've talked
about climbing over the body to shave it right then
(48:52):
and there, you know, putting on a case that is
clearly weak based on a photograph that's not going to
lead you anywhere, and ruining any chance of being able
to prosecute this guy later on. So you know, there
are these balances where I look at the investigators in
the past and just go, man, I'm so sorry that
(49:12):
you will that you had to attach a magnet to
a fishing line to try to find a gun in
a river. I mean that was fortitude. But then there
are other times where I just think, yeah, you really
didn't even think about what was going to happen. What
consequences were of your decisions.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
I don't want to just call out incompetence. I think
oftentimes you have very well meaning individuals that are working
a case, but they don't have the experience, they don't
have the expertise. And that goes back to when you
say the message, you know, this case here, if properly done.
(49:50):
In nineteen seventy eight, sexual assault case were being done
on victims' bodies, Fingernail scrapings were being collected, crusty material
from pub care was being collected out of you know,
the agency I worked for in the Bay Area. If
they didn't do that, this is where you go, Okay,
they were in over their heads. And that's where agencies
(50:11):
just need to know what they don't know and be
prepared when they have to recognize I've got a case
that my agency cannot fully handle. I need outside help
in order to do this right from the very beginning.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
So that's maybe a better takeaway. The better takeaway here
is get over yourself about taking the lead on a
case because it's your jurisdiction or it's your town, and
call and help when you need it. Here, they call
the Texas Rangers. Also, you know, I mean there are
resources that everyone has certainly more than they used to have,
I'm assuming. So okay, I like that too. So you know,
(50:46):
as we move along in our seasons here, I want
to definitely keep an eye on the really good performances
that we see, the impressive people. Sometimes you say, I
didn't know that pathologist figure that out, And I've done
that too, So I'm surprised sometimes and then sometimes I go,
don't what is going on with these people? So it's
(51:07):
good for you to tell me the difference between just
people who are malicious or don't give a shit versus
the people who just clearly are sort of drowning in
a case that has you know, more to it than
they can handle.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
Yeah, no, that's for sure, you know. And and most
certainly there are just negligent individuals and law enforcement that
purposely are just lazy and they don't try, you know.
But oftentimes what I see, you know that the general
population is going to blame that. But oftentimes it's what
I think is going on here is that you know,
it's an experience. Yeah, and maybe you know certain things
(51:45):
like you know, evidence tracking within the evidence room, property
room could have been more robust back in the day
than what it sounds like they have, you know, but
I'm not convinced just because I've seen it before. Where
and it's it's because of experience? Is that? Nope, we
can't find the evidence. So the case is done. And
I was like, did you really look, you know? Or
(52:07):
is your property technician just telling you, hey, there's nothing
on the shelf under that case file number. Then I'd go, well,
you need to go back and you need to look.
It didn't look well.
Speaker 1 (52:17):
Next week? Can I guarantee you that we're not going
to have lazy investigators?
Speaker 2 (52:23):
No?
Speaker 1 (52:24):
I can't. Will there be investigators, yes, that's about the
only thing I can say that. We will have people
looking into a crime. And that's it. But every week
to week, I'm always interested in seeing how you rate
these people, and you know, some of them I press
for sure. So we'll see what happens next week.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
All right. Again, I'm looking forward to it, and thank
you again for bringing this case to me.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
You got it. This has been an exactly right production
for our sources and show notes go to exactly right
dot com, slash Buried Bones sources. Our senior producer is
Alexis Emirosi.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
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Speaker 2 (53:12):
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Speaker 2 (53:17):
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Speaker 1 (53:21):
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Speaker 2 (53:27):
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, and
Speaker 1 (53:33):
Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life solving America's Cold
Cases is also available now
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.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
True crimes, 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. Hey Kate, Hey Paul, you ready
(01:03):
to go on Bob Crane.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Absolutely, I want to hear it.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I'm surprised you didn't text me in the middle of
the week and say, okay, tell me a little bit more.
I mean, it's a big one when somebody is not
who you expect them to be, and now there's these
suspects and people around in sort of a sleazy world
in a way, so it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Well, I think yeah. That was one of the takeaways
from the first episode, is the victimology. Because all I
knew about Bob Crane is the actor, and now you
start to see, well, everybody has their thing, and it
looks like he's got this whether he's making poorn, but
he's doing something that seems a little shady and I'm
(01:45):
interested to see how that world develops. Is that the
reason he ends up dead? Is it because of these
affairs that he's having, these you know, sexual flings that
he's having, and you got jealous men that are coming
after him, you know, So there's a lot of stuff
going on with him.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Absolutely, let me do a quick recap and you know,
catch everybody up. So we're in nineteen seventy eight Scottsdale
Hotter in Hell and it's June and Bob Crane is there.
We don't know for how long, but it sounds like
just for a few weeks, maybe a month, staying in
a little apartment doing a dinner show, and he has
a co star coming over. She discovers his body. The
(02:26):
police then discover a large amount of photos of naked
women on polaroids, as well as a lot of video.
He's got video equipment everywhere. He's been hit twice in
the head and he has a cord ripped from a
VCR around his neck, and you know, this is a
very bloody scene. There's no signs at forced entry. But
(02:49):
at the end of the last episode we talked about well,
I mean a gun pointed at you would not indicate
forced entry either, So we can't really rely on that.
But there are jealous boyfriends, and there's a wife who
thought that she was going to be reconciling and now
she finds out that it doesn't sound like he's gotten
out of this sex addiction is what he claims it
(03:11):
is at this point. So the police are investigating a
good friend of his named John Carpenter, electronics salesman. We're
assuming most of the electronics in this apartment and probably
what he had in LA are sold to him or
given to him by John Carpenter. So one of the
big questions will be for us, what does John Carpenter
get out of all of this? The mystery will deepen
(03:34):
once we find out a little bit more about their relationship.
Did I get everything right or do you have any
other questions or anything I haven't covered?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
No, I think that you know from the investigative side,
that pretty much sums it up. One of the questions
that I have is what was the autopsy finding? You know,
in terms of you said there was two blows. I
mean I could see the two lacerations. Was there signs
of strangulation?
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Okay, there's a deputy medical examiner, a guy named Thomas Jarvis,
this is from John Hook's book, who performed the autopsy.
So he was almost fifty years old when he died.
Type of death is listed as violent, no kidding, the
manner by blunt instrument and chord. Here are the abnormal findings,
abundant dry blood on face, hair, and upper chest. The
(04:23):
autopsy report also noted a flaky, white dry material on
the pubic hair, right lower abdomen, and right anterior thigh,
which they said was likely semen, but they never tested it.
Police later theorized the killer may have masturbated over Crane's
dead body after the killing, which John Hook says is
(04:45):
a final fuck you quote unquote, But it was a
theory and they never tested the semen and never came
to a conclusion about what it was. And that's all
the information I have about what they found. Okay, what
do you think about that? The way they described it,
does that seem likely? If this is a man Is
it a fuck you masturbating over somebody? Is that what
(05:05):
that is? I always thought it was sort of a sexual.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Component, So that does happen? You know, you have these
offenders that will masturbate after they've they've killed their victims.
You know, Is it a form of denigration to the victim? Potentially,
you know, but it's a it's a sexual act. It
sounds like they didn't collect these items, these stings. You know,
it's like, oh good god, we're talking about all the
(05:28):
you know, these these photos of nude women and and
and videos of women having sex his bedsheets. That's a
huge source of information. There's all sorts of DNA from
these various sexual encounters, and most certainly there could be
evidence from the offender and stains on that sheet for
maybe a prior occasion, if there had been a relationship
(05:50):
between the offender. Right now, I'm assuming the offender is male.
I don't know if Crane is having sex with men,
but I wouldn't end up saying no, that's an impossible
because all the subjects of his photos and videos, as
far as what you've told me, are women, you know,
but you know, is crying somebody that is you know,
crossing into homosexual acts. That opens up a whole other
(06:15):
suspect pool. And it's like, who has he had sex with?
And you can answer that by swabbing his body, by
collecting his bed sheets. You know, that is so huge.
There's limited number of reasons why people are killed in
terms of primary motives, and one of the primary ones
(06:37):
is it's who they're having sex with, whether it be
a man or a woman. So you need to collect
that evidence up front.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Okay, Well, let's talk about John Carpenter and his relationship
with Bob Crane. And yes, we know they didn't collect
anything another failing. They did some good things and some
bad things here. I mean, I'm glad he had her
answer the phone that one time, even though I know
it contaminated even more of the crime scene. It was
interesting that he called twice, you know, and what his
(07:08):
reactions are in all of that. But at the same time,
forensically they're failing. Scott Stale police are not doing a
great job right now.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
There's a struggle going on there. Yeah, things could have
been done better.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Well, let's talk about the police interview. They are looking
at Bob Crane's inner circle, as any police would, and
they start talking to a lot of people. They're getting
conflicting reports because they really are focusing on John Carpenter,
for better or for worse. There were reports that they
got along great, these two guys, and there are reports
that they had been on the outs, and a few
(07:39):
days before Bob's death they were in a heated argument.
We don't know about what. And Bob Crane Junior, who
was close with his dad, gives police this quote, and
I promise this is all going somewhere more than just
they probably irritated each other every once in a while.
There was an indication just in a passing conversation with
my father that John Carpenter coming into town was getting
(08:02):
to be a little bit of a pain in the ass.
My dad expressed that he just didn't need Carpenter kind
of hanging around him anymore. So let me explain what
the relationship was like. John had cultivated this transactional relationship
between Bob and himself. So for Bob, John has this
access to equipment that I'm sure Bob is clueless about.
(08:24):
So he gets all of this great equipment for something
that he's obviously preoccupied with. And that's a big part
of Bob's life, and John gets the proximity to Bob,
so he gets Hollywood fun, he gets women and sex.
And the men have even taped themselves. I'm assuming they've
(08:45):
found these tapes in threesomes, so there is some kind
of intimacy. I mean, the range of two men and
a woman in a threesome could go, you know, many
different directions, but there's certainly an intimacy and a comfort
level there with the two men.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
So it sounds like per Crane's son that Bob Crane
was starting to say John Carpenter was more of a
hanger on and not as desired at this point.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah, in the relationship, and he and his wife were
getting back together if we believe the wife, you know,
he's in therapy, although I don't know if those tapes
say that.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
But yeah, and so now this this becomes interesting from
potentially a motive, you know, was John Carpenter starting to
sense that Bob Crane the celebrity, was pulling away from
him and that his lifestyle was going to be changing.
You no longer have access to the women, to the
Hollywood you know, lifestyle, whatever that was with Bob Crane.
(09:45):
Did Crane tell him, you know, hey, stop coming around,
you know, and now you could have somebody being very
upset as a result of it's basically a breakup, you know.
And so Carpenter most certainly is an interesting suspect, you know.
And I'd say he's a suspect for sure, I just
right now. You know. My fear is is that maybe
(10:07):
law enforcement so focused in on him that they didn't
pursue other leads as rigorously as they possibly should have.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Yeah, I mean it sounds like it. Let me give
you a little tiny bit more insight. I mean, this
is such a gross quote, but the Phoenix New Times
back in nineteen seventy eight said women were drawn to
the still popular crane like fish to a worm, and
Carpenter didn't seem to mind dallying with the leftovers. Gross
(10:36):
And so, you know, the theory for the police, which
they thought was the strongest of any of these suspects
and any other theory they had, was that John was motivated,
just like you said, to kill Bob because Bob was
stepping back from their friendship. Bob apparently had been saying
he was going to try to get back together with
his wife. John says none of that is true. He said,
(11:00):
I came to Arizona on June twenty fifth, and all
of this happened on the twenty ninth, so it sounds
like he had been there for three or four days.
And he says, look, I was there to do some
business and to hang out with Bob. They said, what
did you guys do together? He said, we tried to
pick up women. So much for therapy and getting back
(11:20):
together with your wife. So this is a funny line
from Marin. And then I want to hear from you.
She said that they tried to pick up women and
then Bob was successful. John was not. And the last
night that John was in town, he brought a woman
back to the hotel and put the moves on her,
and at three am, the woman asked to be taken home,
(11:41):
so he dropped her off. And he's unaccounted for from
three am until eight am when he checks out the
hotel and he goes to the airport. So there's this
five hour window, according to John, where he could have
absolutely carried out.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
This murder for sure. This also goes to where we
know John Carpenter changed the time that he said that
he left Bob Crane from one am to two forty
five am, and I mentioned what sounds like he's concerned
about witness possibly seeing him later than what he stated
he was there. And now there's this woman and I
don't know if she has ever identified, but his from
(12:16):
his perspective, he's seeing an homicide investigation unfold and he's going, oh,
they are tracking people down, and they're going to find
out about this woman. And she's going to say I
was with him several hours past the time that he
said that he had actually left Bob Crane. One of
the thoughts that I have though, is if John Carpenter
is truly enjoying the lifestyle with Bob Crane and Bob
(12:40):
Crane is starting to pull away, well, killing Bob Crane
basically completely ends that lifestyle, you know, so there is
there's an argument to be made that Carpenter would be
more motivated to have Crane alive than dead if he
wants to have any potential future relationship with Crane and
(13:03):
all the various advantages that gives Carpenter in his life.
You know, that's you could most certainly see where in
a fit of rage, you have a homicide occur because
of this. Let's say a breakup between Bob Crane and
John Carpenter, and possibly if a tripod was used as
a bludgeoning device. This doesn't sound like it's pre planned homicide.
(13:26):
He's not coming in with a weapon. He's utilizing something
that is found within the apartment. The electrical cord is
something that is coming off of a VCR. And I
think it's significant that. I mean, I've seen offenders pull
electrical cords out of various devices and use them as
binding and or ligature material, but it's significant that he's
(13:47):
choosing an electronic device. The offender's choosing an electronic device
versus maybe drapery cord or something like that. So would
that kind of suggest you know, Carpenter is familiar with
these electronicquipment. He knew that possibly this VCR has a
power cord and that would be very easy to be
able to yank out of it, just the way it's
(14:08):
attached internally. However, the victimology also just keeps the door
open to the possibility that you have the jealous male
coming in and taking Bob Crane out.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Yeah, and I think that, like I said, they are
really really focused on John Carpenter and just the squishiness
of his timeline in general, I think is what gets them.
So let's talk about evidence. That's what you and I
care about. Also, police need to find the rental car
that John Carpenter had used. He had been there four
or five days, he said, I rented a car. So
(14:43):
a few days after Bob is found dead, they finally
locate this car and it's having mechanical issues and was
being sent to a repair shop, which I think probably
would have been a nightmare. Of course, having other people
in the car, because it's a rental car would have
been bad too. But the police find it, they toe it,
and they start looking at some things. So in a minute,
(15:04):
I'll have you look at the car. Well, actually, go
ahead and look at the car. Now, it's not a Cadillac,
but it's a Chrysler Cordoba. I don't know if that
looks like a Cadillac, So look on your bump crane photos. Also, Paul,
there's a doc I don't I guess I skipped over it.
There's a little diagram in there from the police. I
don't know if you're going to think that's helpful or not.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
To be frank, this this crime scene sketch is quite artistic.
This is unusual.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Looks like a like a pro create drawing to me,
like a really high level drawing.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Well, this is you know, this is where Obviously the
person who did this sketch for Scottsdale PD is a
talented sketcher. But like if I were the mentor of
this person, I'd be slapping him on the back of
his head saying, you're taking too long because you're putting
in detail that is not needed. He's got the you know,
(15:58):
wrinkles in the sheet and shape to the pillow, and
it's like, no, you know, this is we need to
get moving on this, you know, collecting evidence. We can't
be sitting here trying to make a pretty sketch. So
this tells me there's a level of inexperience. As good
as this sketch appears visually, it's like, no, it's too much,
(16:18):
it's overkilled. We have photographs to fill in those details. Okay,
So I'm looking at a photograph. It's indicating that this
is John Carpenter's Chrysler Cordoba. So this was a rental
car and this is you know, your typical boat of
a car from the nineteen seventies. Yeah, yeah, it's you know,
(16:38):
you got the massive trunk, you probably got a massive
front bench seat. It appears to be a Tudor car.
This photograph to show in the car from the rear,
you know, so I'm seeing the tail lights. You know,
it's a massive car. And I know we have this
witness that sees what was described as a white Cadillac.
White Cadillac look like this back in the nineteen seventies,
(17:01):
you know, so this is where Okay, this car, this Cordoba,
is probably something that would easily be confused for a
Cadillac from this this era. So I think you mentioned
it when you're talking about the white Cadillac in the
first episode that yeah, you could probably you know, throw
a rock and hit one because they would be so popular.
(17:23):
So it's not I can't put a lot of weight
that carpenter has a vehicle that I would say matches
what that witness said about a white Cadillac. But it
is important evidence in that. Okay, what is found inside here?
Is there anything from the crime scene that could be
(17:44):
you know, inside to this rental car. You know that
today maybe with DNA we could tie back, you know,
is there blood transfers or other aspects. Hopefully they did
a thorough job processing this.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
So let me look and go back and forth, so
don't skip ahead. But we do have photos kind of everything.
Every time I say something, we've got a photo. So
first up is going to be in the backseat of
the passenger side of what's confirmed to be John Carpenter's
rental car, technicians find a small dry blood smear on
the switch that rolls the window up and down. John
(18:24):
hook says they weren't drops of blood. These were more
like streaks or smudges or smears. So that's what you
see on page five of your doc.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
It's important that they're finding blood because you have a
homicide victim that is bleeding. So is it possible the
offender walked out from that homicide with blood on his person,
on his clothing, on an object, let's say the murder
weapon that is transferred inside the rental car? For sure. However,
at this point it's a rental car. Who else has
(18:55):
been inside this car and is bleeding until that blood
is owned to be Bob Crane's blood with DNA, you know,
for me, it's like, yeah, it's important, but you need
to do DNA in order to interpret it as having
any relevance to this crime.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Yeah, and there's a couple of other things. So there's
a bunch of other stains. I guess if you kind
of go through, you'll see there are a few other stains.
Blood on a power window switch, you know, blood stains
on the passenger door. There is a tissue speck on
the door panel, and then there is going to be
one more little bit down there that they believe is
(19:31):
brain matter that was found in the car.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Wait a second, So okay, So this tissue spec on
door panel believed to be from Bob Crane's skull lost
or never collected.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
So they took a photo of it but never collected it.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
What the hell?
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Well, we've established, Paul that Scottsdale pet is overmatched.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Here, So I mean, how can they even say anything
about this? Let's see here, I do not know. So
I'm zooming in and I see that. You know, there's
a ruler that in you know inches American standard measurement ruler,
and this red glob is about one sixteenth of an
(20:12):
inch in diameter. It's got three dimensions to it. There's
a closeup photo of this tissue spec on the next page.
When it's initially photoed, you know the coloration, it's looking
bright red, and then this close up photo it's looking brown.
(20:33):
It's like this globular mass that to be frank. Just
from its physical appearance, I couldn't draw any conclusion as
to what it is. I have processed, you know, thousands
of items for blood for tissue over the course of
my career. I've seen them at a crime scenes, seen
it on items of evidence within the lab, and this
(20:59):
mass could be anything. I literally cannot conclude what it is.
And I will tell you I've seen stains on physical
evidence that I was like, that's blood, and then I
test it and it's not blood. And I've seen stuff,
let's say, inside a car. I can think of one
thing where I've got this reddish brown it looked like
dried blood and tested it and it was not blood.
(21:21):
And so that's where you know I have developed a
level of cautiousness. I can look. I know what a
crime scene looks like. I know what blood looks like,
fresh looks like when it's coagulating as it's outside the body.
I know what it looks like when it's dry, when
it's been subjected to environmental influences. But now there's a
(21:41):
photo of this globular mass that they never collect, and
they're saying it's coming from Bob Crane's skull.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
They're not sure. I know, I know, you know.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
I can't. I personally and I have a level of expertise,
I cannot draw that conclusion. It seems like somebody's really
reaching on this item of evidence. And there's these other
bloodstains in the car. Did they collect those? And has
DNA testing been done on those?
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Let me get you jumping way ahead, buddy, so you
just hang Remember this is a two part and we're
not ten minutes. Let me tell you what they do.
So thankfully, they do pull a sample of the blood.
It is type B rare and Bob is a type B.
John is not. Bob says, I have no idea how
the blood got in there. I don't know what you're
(22:29):
talking about. He volunteers to go back to Arizona. He
does not get a lawyer. He says, I'll take a
lie detector test, and I'll take truth serum sodium pentothl.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yes, so pentothal sure, which just.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Sounds like an interesting way to die. Truth serum or
even go under hypnosis, and he says, I don't have
anything to hide. You know, the police are very frustrated.
For years, they remain focused on John Carpenter. The tangible
evidence against him is scant, so every so often there's
a tip. There's a housekeeper at the Scottsdale Hotel where
(23:04):
John stayed. She found a bloody pillowcase and a washcloth
in the room he had slept in. But these are
thrown out, and you know, her dates are kind of off,
so we don't even know if that's where John was.
And then we get to the blood tissue stuff. So
you know, you saw the photo and we talked a
little bit about it. The reason this photo comes up
(23:27):
is more than a decade later. So this is in
the early nineteen nineties. There's a detective named Jim Rains,
and he looks at the case with fresh eyes and
finds what Entertainment Weekly calls a previously unseen crime scene
photo of the rental car. There's no sample, nobody acknowledges
this brain tissue is what they're calling it. And this
(23:50):
detective the decade or so later, finds this photo that
nobody recognizes. He finds medical experts who say that the
photo there's no negatives. Pull He finds these experts who
say the photo it shows what appears to be a
small piece of human tissue stuck to the interior side
of the passenger door. Their theory is is that John
(24:11):
beat Bob Crane to death with this tripod, they're assuming,
and then got in the car and carried all of this,
you know, biological evidence with him. It might have bumped
or rubbed against the car door, he tossed it in
the back, who knows. And that is when they end
up arresting him with this little discovery right of this
(24:32):
photograph that you say, we can't even tell whether this
is brain tissue or not, but this to them a
decade later is enough to arrest him. Just so you know,
he had completed a short stint for molesting his girlfriend's
ten year old daughter, so they knew.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Where he was. It sounds like at the very beginning
of this case that they built against Carpenter. And what
you were laying out is that they did ABO blood
testing on the bloodstains and it came back type B
and Bob Crane is type B. So I'm just having
to go back to my ABO typing charts.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
I was wondering you. I knew you were listening to me,
but I was wondering what you were doing at the
same time.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
As an example, then there's a reason why we moved
away from ABO typing, and it's because it's not very discriminating.
Now Type B. You know, it's a smaller percentage of
the population, so there's a little bit more weight that
can be put on it. But I'm looking at I
had to go. I have an old book, it's called
The Source Book of Forensics Sorology, but on the fly,
(25:41):
trying to find what I needed was going to be
too much, so I'm just going online. And this is
pretty cool because I didn't have this back in the day.
But they've actually got the percentages of the blood types
per ethnicity, if you will, across the world, and I'm
looking at type B, and depending on where you're at,
(26:02):
it's anywhere from nine percent of a population up to
I'm seeing as high as thirty five percent, like one
third of the population of certain ethnicities are type B. Basically,
they cannot exclude this blood as being from Bob Crane,
but I can't put depending on the ethnicity who knows
(26:22):
who's been bleeding inside this rental car. Depending on the
ethnicity background, one third of the population of that person's
ethnic background could be Type B. This is where hopefully
they still have this evidence and we do modern DNA
testing on it and then say yeah, this is Bob
Crane's blood inside John Carpenter's rental car. Now I'm on
(26:46):
board right now. It's just like, well, you can't exclude
all it is is a weak inclusion from a physical evidence.
I'm just talking physical evidence by itself. That blood Type
B inside the rental car is just like, well, I
can't eliminate Carpenter on that.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
And you know, back then they said when they found
it in the early nineties, they were saying the estimate
was one in seven people had Type B. But right
are they looking at the different ethnicities? And who knows?
Their point is that it's rare enough for John Carpenter
to still be in their crosshairs, that it was just
(27:24):
too weird. You know.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Sure, well then they you know, I was listening, but
they said, this is where the investigator found a previously
unknown crime scene photo. So let me hear what you
were talking about with that.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Well, that was the brain matter one that you looked at.
So the point with that tissue I know I'm putting,
I'm gonna put quotes brain matter. The point of that
photo is that they didn't keep the evidence. There's no
way of identifying what that actually is. But it was
enough to arrest John Carpenter more than a decade after
Bob Krane's death.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Again, just speaking from the physical evidence it's been presented. No,
there isn't probable cause on that. Now, you know the
investigative side, his movement patterns, statements he's making. You know
that all has to factor in as to whether they've
actually built sufficient probable cause to arrest. I'm not convinced
(28:17):
that they have that with what you've told me.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I mean, I don't know what it was like in
the seventies, but if you rented a car and then
return the car, I would assume they would clean it
and examine it in between each rental. I mean maybe not.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
I'm kidding. You know, I travel a lot. I mean
rental car companies today are very very good, but I
have had some rentals that are dirty. They're you know,
they smell like weed. You know, it's it's like really
you're you're you're not even trying, you know, to clean
the car. So no, I are the rental car technicians
(28:53):
really paying that much attention to maybe there's a red
stain on you know, the window, you'll ever, No, they're not,
you know. So that's just where we know that there's
a transient population that has been in and out of
this particular car. And so to put any weight on
(29:13):
the blood and that globular mass as being related to
the homicide with the testing that they've done, no, you
can't draw that conclusion that is right now. I think
that's on the level of almost absurdity. They need to
find that evidence and do DNA testing to show it's
(29:34):
from Bob Crane.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Okay, here we go. Let's talk about the trial, and
we do talk about this quote unquote brain matter. So
John Carpenter goes on trial in ninety four. Bob Crane
was murreed in seventy eight, So this is what sixteen
years later, and two pathologists testify for the prosecution. They
say that a piece of human tissue would shrivel up
(29:59):
after a few hours on a hot day and a car.
But based on these photos you know that were taken,
I guess as soon as they found the car, which
would have been a few days later. The sample appeared
fresh more than a day after John turned in the car.
So I think this was not good for the prosecution
because they're saying, we didn't find this car on the
(30:19):
day that his body was discovered. We found it four
or five days later.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Right, And that was my observation. I talked about how
bright red that initial photo was, and then when they
had the close up photo, it's all shriveled up in
like this brown globular It's almost looks like like these
this little globular amber like substance. And you know, this
is where you know, I have to be cautious. I
can't say it's not tissue, but I'm looking at it,
(30:45):
going that doesn't look like what I have personally witnessed
in actual homicide cases where I can test it and
know what it is. You know, It's like I can't
draw any conclusion as to what that mass is.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Yeah, well let me tell you. I mean the prosecution
just gets shamed. I think through this whole trial, there
are technicians they put on the stand who process the
car as a crime scene, and they can't remember hardly
anything about doing this in seventy eight, and they barely
remember seeing any blood even let alone this tissue on
(31:19):
the passenger door. So they're useless. So they're out the door.
The defense then says, you guys can't identify any of
this stuff based on these photos, and they put a
DPS Lieutenant colonel on the stand who is supposedly an expert,
who says, according to the crime Laboratory, even under the
best of circumstances, it's unlikely that stains or substances can
(31:41):
be identified as blood, smears or tissue just by looking
at photographs. Therefore, a confirmation of any stain as being
blood or tissue requires extensive laboratory testing. Therefore, it must
be assumed that personal examination of the door panel did
not reveal tissue, that no evidence was destroyed. So I
don't know what that means, Like, what was that a
(32:03):
kernel of popcorn? I mean, what is he saying?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
No, well, I mean he's saying. What I'm saying is
that you can't draw any conclusions from these photographs. You
have to do testing. The undercurrent about that is for
people like myself and like this Lieutenant colonel out of
Arizona DPS lab. We've seen the spectrum, let's say, of
bloodstains and various colors and forms it takes. And that's
(32:30):
where you can't say, well, hold on, I've got this here,
this mass as an example, and that looks like this,
so therefore it's got to be human tissue. And from
Bob Crane's skulls, there's no way you can jump to
that conclusion. We have also been fooled ourselves when we go, wow,
that really looks like blood and then we test it
and it turns out it's not blood, you know. So
(32:53):
that's fundamentally what he's saying. Now that the last phrase
that you read, I didn't understand the meaning of that.
And what did he say at the end of.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Their So he says, you know, the confirmation of any
stains as being blood or tissue requires extensive laboratory testing.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Which you said golden, yep.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Yes, he says, Therefore it must be assumed that the
personal examination of the door panel did not reveal tissue,
and that there was no evidence that was destroyed because
it wasn't there to begin with, is what he's saying.
And then let me tell you what another person says
that gave me a little bit more perspective. Prosecutors can't
explain why police reports in seventy eight didn't mention the
(33:33):
tissue photo or the speck itself, or why there are
no negatives. A jury is going to be asked to
believe that an untold number of investigators and prosecutors for
whom a solution to the famed Crane murder would have
been career crowning as an achievement, never noticed that stinkin photo.
So I don't know where they think the photo came from,
(33:54):
but it doesn't sound like it's even remotely a possibility
that there was a brain spec found in the back
of the car, because that guy would have been under
arrest much sooner most likely.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Yeah, so I'm going back to these these photos. So
one of the things that I'm looking for is definitely
you know, in the lab, when we take photos of
physical evidence, you know will use a scale so you
have a sense for the size of the stain or
whatever you're looking at. But oftentimes the scale will have
(34:25):
the lab number or the case file number and the
item number written on it, so the photograph shows it's
from this case and it's from this item. And so
you know, with what I'm seeing of these photos, there's
a there's a steel ruler that is being used to
show size of various stains. But there's no markings anywhere
(34:46):
in these photos within the photo itself to indicate what
case it's associated with. And that's not to say it's
these photos are from some other case. It's just that
that would be something that I, as a reviewer of
the processing and of the documentation, would be noting. And
I also think it's notable I mentioned it's a steel ruler.
(35:07):
This steel ruler, and this is something you know, back
in the day I'm guilty of, we had plastic ones,
but this is a this is a ruler that is
being used from case to case to case to case.
It's a source of contamination, and this day and age,
we would use something that's disposable so we don't track,
let's say, DNA from a previous homicide into a current
(35:29):
homicide that we're working. But it looks like this this
photo of the car door, the inside panel, you know,
it's so cropped, but it doesn't look like that's currently
attached to the car, So it's like it was removed
and possibly the entire panel, if not, the entire door
was collected. You know, so this is where Okay, they
(35:52):
say they can't find this evidence, Well, is there a
paper trail? You know, where did it go? If it
went to the lab, did it go from the lab
back to property? Where in property was at place? You know?
How rigorously have they looked for this evidence. I've got
my own cases, you know, from back in the day,
in which we can't find the evidence. And then you
(36:13):
find it and it's been placed in the wrong box.
You have to start rolling up your sleeves and start
going through where it most likely is going to be.
Have they done that? This is such a critical These
bloodstains inside Carpenter's rental car are so critical. They have
to exhaust everything in terms of trying to find it
because it could prove the case and show that yes,
(36:35):
if Bob Crane's blood is inside Carpenter's rental car, I'm going, okay, yeah,
he's the killer. But if it comes back and it's
not even Bob Crane's blood, then it's just spurious and
they got nothing on Carpenter to be frank.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah, absolutely, And I think you hit the nail on
the head because the prosecutor's case fell apart and annoinege
On Carpenter is acquitted by the jury.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
You know, and this is this is a problem.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
And this is not the end. Poll hole, So don't
you tell me your statement. But don't think this is
the end. Don't say bye bye. I'm gonna go have
a drink a bourbon now, because there's more of this.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
No, but but this is where, you know, you take
a weak case to court and you get an acquittal,
you're done. Don't take a weak case like this to
court because now, let's say they do test, they find
those those bloodstains out of Carpenter's rental car, and it
comes back to Bob Crane. They can't prosecute him. All
(37:34):
they can say is, well, we now know who the
right killer, the right guy is, but he's free and clear.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Well he was free and clear for four years and
then he dies. So you know, after that, there are
of course lots of people who say that John definitely
was the one who killed Bob with a tripod and
a VCR cord. And you know, he probably took the
tripod and folded it up and put it in his
case and took it back home to LA with them.
(38:02):
And then there are other people who say, listen, the
police really dropped the ball here. I don't know if
they should have called the state police or what, but
that they dropped the ball and they didn't investigate enough.
And then there are more developments. But what I can
tell the way you sit up that usually I can
When you sit up like that, that's how I usually
can tell you've got something to say.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Well, I think you know. This is where agencies need
to recognize what they're good at and what they might
want to reach out for help, you know, and this
case was not handled right based off of what you
told me. But I'm not going to cast I'm not
going to say bad things about Scottsdale PD from nineteen
seventy eight, but I can guarantee that the agency right
(38:43):
next to them, Phoenix PD, has very experienced investigators, very
experienced csis. This is where you have agreements when you're
a smaller agency, recognize your weaknesses and get MOUs in
place with the resources that you can pull in when
you have a case like this. And you know, this
(39:05):
is something that I've seen over and over again, and notably,
let's say John Bene Ramsay, where you have a smaller
inexperienced agency who probably should have called in Denver homicide
to be frank, you know, kind of a similar type
of scenario where from the very beginning, it really underscores
that you have to do it right from the very beginning,
(39:26):
otherwise you can possibly just completely kill the case.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Well, let me tell you, you know, John Carpenter dies and
this case goes very cold. So in the mid two
thousand tons, the reporter I told you about, John Hook,
who wrote the book, was given permission to submit the
blood samples from John's car using you know more updated
or using updated DNA processes in which were available during
(39:50):
earlier phases, which were not available during earlier phases of
the investigation. So according to Hook, this is what the
testing concluded, and this is from him. John Hook really
did think that John Carpenter was responsible for this. The
DNA found on the door of John Carpenter's mental car
is not from Bob Crane. The test actually picked up
(40:12):
two DNA profiles, a major contributors from a man we
don't know who he is. The second is from a
partial profile too degraded to reach any conclusions. So what
John hook says, is I still think he's the guy
John Carpenter, But I mean the DNA detected and our
test might be completely unconnected to the crime, might have
(40:32):
been depositive before after you know, who knows. It's unlikely
this has anything to do with the crime in general.
But that was the conclusion. And just as a note, Paul,
they said that. And I don't know if you want
to call somebody and double check that this is the
truth or not, but they said that all of the
samples in Bob's case are done and can't use him anymore.
They've all been used up, so there's no further DNA
(40:55):
testing possible.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Well, and I you know, when you start talking about
DNA tech technology in the mid twenty ten range, we're
talking modern DNA technology. This is where now you have
the discriminating power. At least with the sample that they
got results on, they've eliminated Bob Crane as being a
contributor to that bloodstain. Just like what I say it
(41:17):
was saying before, it's like it's somebody else's. It could
be somebody else's. It's a rental car. So you know,
it's unfortunate if they've completely consumed the samples that they
don't have results on. Because the technology from a sensitivity
standpoint has greatly improved since the twenty ten timeframe, it's
possible with the current law enforcement type of DNA testing
(41:40):
that maybe they could get a result. I guess my
question would be is why are they saying it's now consumed.
It's because they consumed the entire extract. Have they consumed,
you know, the swab that they used to collect it.
Do they still have let's say, the door panel. Can
you go back and reswab that area? But absent being
(42:01):
able to do that, I think that one test in
and of itself pretty much in all likelihood. Okay, you've
got a bleeder inside this rental car. That's and that
blood is not coming from Bob Crane. Well likely the
other blood stains which have very similar color appearance, you know,
they don't look like they you know from a temporal
(42:22):
standpoint that some of these stains have been there much
longer than other stains. Likely all those stains are from
that same bleeder that's not Bob Crane, you know. So
this is where the physical evidence against Carpenter, at least
from that rental car is you know, you have to
throw all of that out. You can't rely upon that
at all, you know, the circumstantial case he is, he's
(42:43):
a suspect. I just don't think that they have enough
to be confident he is one responsible. Do you know
did they ever go out to LA and search Carpenter's residents?
I have an issue maybe with Carpenter bringing a murder
weapon back home with him flying it. You know, I
(43:03):
would think he would have gotten rid of that somewhere
in the you know, Scottsdale, Phoenix area.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Yeah, And I was thinking, Paul, what would make those
stains in the car? Like I guess the theory is
is that he uses a tripod he beats Bob Crane
to death. It's not that he's using a knife and
he's cut his hands. It's that the blood was transferred
from the tripods somehow in the car. But do the
(43:30):
patterns that you saw make sense for flinging a tripod
into the back of a car. And would he do that?
To begin with? Why would he do that? It's a
rental car, you know.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
You know you have one blood stain where obviously you
have a finger that has blood on it that is
being used to operate the window switch, right, that's obvious,
you know. So I would say that chances are as
those blood stains are being transferred because the person has
(44:00):
blood on their hands, and not so much that it's
because you've got a bloody tripod that's being flung back there.
It's not going to be touching that part. If it's
a tripod that's leaving those linear those parallel linear stains
on the bedsheet, that's a significant amount of blood on
the legs of that tripod. And if that is not
(44:20):
cleaned off and that's thrown in the trunk or that's
you know, thrown into the back seat or something, you'd
probably see some fairly significant transfers if those particular legs
with blood on them are contacting surfaces within the car versus.
What I'm seeing in those photos is more consistent with
(44:41):
somebody transferring blood from their fingers. And it may not
be the person's own blood. It could be somebody else,
you know, maybe this car was used in a different homicide,
who knows, you.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Know, or someone with a bloody nose. My kid gets
bloody noses a lot, so who knows, you know.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Sure you know they've got if they put a bloody
nose and transfer that onto their fingers. But right now
that blood is irrelevant. It's not related to the crime
per modern DNA testing. So now it's okay, you think
it's John Carpenter. How do you prove it's John Carpenter
in this day and age, you know, are they going
to get any further circumstantial evidence against him? You know
(45:23):
it's going to be tough.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Yeah, and I don't see that. I'm assuming they did
Search's apartment and didn't find anything. They never found the
tripod which was Bob Crane's tripod, if that's what was used,
and so you know, this just becomes a big mystery,
and that's why it's an unsolved case. I guess the
big movement would be if somebody like a Pole Hooles calls,
you know, Scottsdale PD and says, do you guys still
(45:46):
have any biological evidence anywhere, any kind of evidence at
all from this Bob Crane case.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Well, and that's where I would be going back to
the original. You have to go to the origin of
the crime, which is Bob Crane's body, where Bob Crane
is killed, and then an outer circle, if you will,
is whatever they collected out of their apartment, how much
Layton processing did they do? Do they have any latents
that are unidentified? Today we always get Layton's out of
(46:15):
houses if we do a decent job, and we always
find Layton's that we can never identify because you have
so many people that flow in and out of that apartment.
But we have technology today that if they have unidentified latents,
they could identify that person and go that person was.
You know, like I had one case in GSK where
we got super excited because in the bottom of the
(46:35):
victim's phone there was an unidentified Layton, and one of
the examiners identified, you know, forty some odd years later,
and then investigation showed that turned out to be a
telephone repairman. That's why his Layton is on that phone.
It's not GSK. But you have to go through those motions.
And so this is where if I were to look
at this case today, it's like I want everything. I
(46:58):
need to see the entire case file, and I need
to see the entire evidence list of what was collected
back in the day, which should be in the case file.
I would also need to go to property and start
auditing the property room, like my old property room. For
these old cases, they use three by five index cards
really kind of a pretty pretty good file system for
(47:19):
back in the day that wasn't computerized. Do you still
have those cards? And on the back of the card
would be written information as to this evidence was destroyed
on such and such a date whatever, you know, so
you establish a paper trail. If you don't have the
paper trail, that's like, well, where would this evidence normally
be kept in the property room? And are there cases
from this era that are in this area. Have you
(47:41):
guys opened up the boxes to see is there bob
crane evidence that got just put somewhere else where it
shouldn't be. You know, that's just the reality of what
happens with these old cases. And so this is part
of if I get involved in the case, that's all
part of the step to compile the current state of
the case at this point in time, in the current
state of the evidence that exists, and then make decisions
(48:04):
on how to proceed from there.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
It's been a while since I think you've gotten this
excited about a case, and I understand why. You know,
I'm always trying to think about what the lesson is
when we do these cases, things that I think about,
you know, with historical cases, and sometimes I put them
in a couple of different categories. There's one category where
it's clear the police in the eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds,
(48:29):
or even in the nineteen seventies want to do everything
they can. They know they don't have the technology to
solve this. Now, they collect everything in the best way
they know how. And then there are the investigators and
the prosecutors who are doing things that where they should
know better and they're not doing them. And we've talked
about climbing over the body to shave it right then
(48:52):
and there, you know, putting on a case that is
clearly weak based on a photograph that's not going to
lead you anywhere, and ruining any chance of being able
to prosecute this guy later on. So you know, there
are these balances where I look at the investigators in
the past and just go, man, I'm so sorry that
(49:12):
you will that you had to attach a magnet to
a fishing line to try to find a gun in
a river. I mean that was fortitude. But then there
are other times where I just think, yeah, you really
didn't even think about what was going to happen. What
consequences were of your decisions.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
I don't want to just call out incompetence. I think
oftentimes you have very well meaning individuals that are working
a case, but they don't have the experience, they don't
have the expertise. And that goes back to when you
say the message, you know, this case here, if properly done.
(49:50):
In nineteen seventy eight, sexual assault case were being done
on victims' bodies, Fingernail scrapings were being collected, crusty material
from pub care was being collected out of you know,
the agency I worked for in the Bay Area. If
they didn't do that, this is where you go, Okay,
they were in over their heads. And that's where agencies
(50:11):
just need to know what they don't know and be
prepared when they have to recognize I've got a case
that my agency cannot fully handle. I need outside help
in order to do this right from the very beginning.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
So that's maybe a better takeaway. The better takeaway here
is get over yourself about taking the lead on a
case because it's your jurisdiction or it's your town, and
call and help when you need it. Here, they call
the Texas Rangers. Also, you know, I mean there are
resources that everyone has certainly more than they used to have,
I'm assuming. So okay, I like that too. So you know,
(50:46):
as we move along in our seasons here, I want
to definitely keep an eye on the really good performances
that we see, the impressive people. Sometimes you say, I
didn't know that pathologist figure that out, And I've done
that too, So I'm surprised sometimes and then sometimes I go,
don't what is going on with these people? So it's
(51:07):
good for you to tell me the difference between just
people who are malicious or don't give a shit versus
the people who just clearly are sort of drowning in
a case that has you know, more to it than
they can handle.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
Yeah, no, that's for sure, you know. And and most
certainly there are just negligent individuals and law enforcement that
purposely are just lazy and they don't try, you know.
But oftentimes what I see, you know that the general
population is going to blame that. But oftentimes it's what
I think is going on here is that you know,
it's an experience. Yeah, and maybe you know certain things
(51:45):
like you know, evidence tracking within the evidence room, property
room could have been more robust back in the day
than what it sounds like they have, you know, but
I'm not convinced just because I've seen it before. Where
and it's it's because of experience? Is that? Nope, we
can't find the evidence. So the case is done. And
I was like, did you really look, you know? Or
(52:07):
is your property technician just telling you, hey, there's nothing
on the shelf under that case file number. Then I'd go, well,
you need to go back and you need to look.
It didn't look well.
Speaker 1 (52:17):
Next week? Can I guarantee you that we're not going
to have lazy investigators?
Speaker 2 (52:23):
No?
Speaker 1 (52:24):
I can't. Will there be investigators, yes, that's about the
only thing I can say that. We will have people
looking into a crime. And that's it. But every week
to week, I'm always interested in seeing how you rate
these people, and you know, some of them I press
for sure. So we'll see what happens next week.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
All right. Again, I'm looking forward to it, and thank
you again for bringing this case to me.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
You got it. This has been an exactly right production
for our sources and show notes go to exactly right
dot com, slash Buried Bones sources. Our senior producer is
Alexis Emirosi.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1 (53:10):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1 (53:15):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2 (53:17):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Barry Bones Pod.
Speaker 2 (53:27):
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, and
Speaker 1 (53:33):
Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life solving America's Cold
Cases is also available now
Hosts And Creators
Kate Winkler Dawson
Paul Holes
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