March 26, 2025 • 45 mins
In this first of a two-part episode, Paul and Kate travel to 1920 North Dakota where an observant neighbor notices something off with a nearby farmhouse. Upon closer inspection he finds a horrific crime scene that spans the entire property.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
last twenty five years writing about true crime.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
compelling true crimes.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
This is buried bones.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Hey, Kate, how's it going today?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
It's going well, Paul, how's it going with you?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I'm doing pretty good. The weather's changing.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I know springtime?
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Right?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Do you camp? And I asked this because haven't you
and I both had reservations a little bit about camping,
because of how many stories we've both been involved with
involving people being murdered at camp side. I know they're
going to be camp enthusiast who tell me to stop
saying stuff like that, But that's the facts. That's what
happens sometimes.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, you know, I've consulted on a fair number of
cases that involve people who are out camping, you know,
and of course a lot of bodies are recovered out
discovered by campers, you know, as they're out and about
doing their theme because it's in remote areas.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
But you know, I wasn't a.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Big fan of camping, and then as I got into
the off roading and watching some of these YouTube videos
of these guys that will go on like you know,
week long trips and they're just out in the most
amazing places. They're isolated, gorgeous, you know, just nature and
(02:08):
sitting around a campfire. You know, each one of them
takes turns, you know, cooking up a meal and you know,
having a drink here and there and swapping stories.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
And it was just like, yeah, that's really cool.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
So I spent, oh, I guess, the last year really
building up my jeep for overlanding as well as acquiring
camping equipment. And I got out twice last year, but
I was doing so much travel, I wasn't able to
do a lot of it. But I'm hoping, you know,
now that the weather's changing, I'm hoping to you know,
(02:39):
find a good group out here in Colorado and get
out there and do some of this dispersed camping in
addition to the off roading aspects.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Well, not to be negative here, but are you going
to bring a weapon with you? Because I would absolutely
weapon after everything.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Let's just say that I'll be well protected.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Okay, very good? And is Cora like camping? And does
your wife like camping?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
No?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
And no, this is this is just me myself and
I Okay, all right.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I did not grow up camping. I mean I grew
up kind of on a farm. So I felt like
I was sort of camping just because we were out
in a rural area a lot, and we would stay
out very late, and so I was sort of what
do they call it now, like a sleep under you know,
like when your kid goes out until one in the
morning and you go pick them up and they don't
want to spend the night, but they want to stay
up really late with their friends. Yeah, so I would
(03:32):
sort of sleep under camp. We would just stay out
by the river pitch black as late as possible, but
we'd always sleep inside. So that's kind of my kind
of camping. Okay, but I'm I'm definitely willing to you know,
explore it a little bit more. But I do have
to say I always feel nervous if I can't have
a security system on an Airbnb or anywhere I am,
(03:53):
or a door person or something just you know, because
of the nature of the business that we're in.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah, you know, with kind of the modern gadgets that
are out there, you know, you can somewhat set up
a perimeter, you know, around your campsite using you know,
motion detecting lights and alarms and stuff like that in
order to get at least you know, an alert that
something is happening out if you're in your in your
(04:19):
tent or like of course, the off road rigs often
have you know, we have tools, we have recovery gear,
you know, the cookwar stuff, and so there's a lot
of expense that goes into these supplies and they can
be targets when you're out hiking or if I take
my mountain bike out there, and so having some level
of security is something that I most certainly will have,
(04:43):
and so that that's something you may be unaware of,
you know.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
My biggest fear.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Is is the the big creatures, particularly if I'm going
to be in an area with like a grizzly you know,
because you hear about some some of these campers being attacked,
because you know, in a lot of it is just
knowing what to do with your food and your food
waste and keeping it away from you know, where you
are sleeping, you know, where you know your vehicles are.
(05:10):
There's strategies to try to minimize encountering that wildlife, but
every now and then, maybe some things there's just something
you can't avoid.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yeah, I get it. I don't know if any amount
of security is going to talk me into sleeping in
a tent, even with the burliest of men in other
tents around me, it still leaves me with a vulnerable feeling.
But that's okay. You know, I'm also someone who has
a dead bolt on the cottage here in my own backyard.
(05:39):
You should well, my stepfather said, you know, you don't
want to come home one day and find somebody living
in your cottage. And I said, why would they do that?
And he said, because it's a house and it's unlocked.
And I thought, okay, yeah, a point.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Yeah, no, that is a very real possibility.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Okay, Well, we're talking a little bit about security today.
In our episode, we are going to be in nineteen twenties,
North Dakota. We're back to the farm. Love it, love it,
love a good farm story. But you know what comes
with that we talk about that. What comes with that
is there is sometimes a lack of security, with the
exception of the gazillion guns that are around probably, but
(06:19):
you know, you're isolated and they're vulnerable, and so you know,
we have a family that is under attack. So Paul,
just before we get into the story, you know, we
always like to give listeners and viewers a little bit
of a warning. We are talking about the murders of
children here as well as parents. So I just want
(06:39):
everybody to be aware that there are some kids who
end up being the victims of murder in our story.
Let's go ahead and set the scene. So nineteen twenty
North Dakota. So we are kind of at the beginning
of prohibition, but we're in sort of, you know, a
very religious area of the country. We're on a farm.
(07:02):
So the farm is led by a man named Jacob Wolf.
He is the patriarch. He's forty one years old. He's
married to a woman named Biata and she is thirty
five years old. So they have a bunch of kids.
They have six daughters. I don't know if this is
a situation where Jacob really wanted a son and they
just kept going. But they're close together. The oldest is
(07:24):
twelve and the youngest is eight months old. And there's
a thirteen year old farm hand named Jacob and his
last name is Hoper and he's related to missus Wolfe's
side of the family. So this is April twenty fourth,
it's a Saturday, and this is a tiny community called
(07:44):
Turtle Lake, which is about sixty miles north of Bismarck.
I've never been to North Dakota. I've heard it's beautiful.
Have you been to North Dakota?
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I have not actually never been.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Okay, So we're in Turtle Lake and the scene set
here is that there is a couple named John and
Jesse Kraft. They are driving south toward Turtle Lake. You know,
it's in the morning, Saturday morning, and on their way
toward this area, they passed by the Wolf's family farm.
So they're friends, their neighbors of these people. They think
(08:17):
there's something odd happening. This is historical context. This is
what's interesting, okay, And the reason they think something's wrong
is John says he had done the same route the
day before. It was a rainy day and a rainy night.
So the day that he passed by, there was laundry
(08:38):
hanging out on the lines that I presume missus Wolfe
had put out. Then it started raining sometime after John
had passed, and he thought she was going to go
and collect the laundry, as anybody would. Nobody wants dry
laundry out getting rained on. When he passes by the
family farm the next day with his wife, the laundry
(08:58):
is still hanging there, and it had been soaked all
day rain the day before, all night rain. So isn't
that interesting? I mean, that was what was alarming to
him was he thought, there's no way this is right.
I don't know if that's a kin today that somebody
having their windows on their car rolled down or I
don't know what that would be, but that was a
red flag for him.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, you know, that's interesting. I mean he's very observant,
you know, So he's noticing it in one direction, and
then the next day he noticed it's still up and
he's putting two and two together. So obviously this is
the era that you know we're talking about is that.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
You know, for somebody like me, I wouldn't think.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
About that, but they're living that that life, and they're
recognizing that's not right. It's almost like today, if you
see a window screen off of a front window of
a house, you know most of us would go, that
doesn't look right.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I think I probably told you this story before. I
interviewed a forensic psychologist who did a lot of interviewing
of a f suspects, victims and all of that, and
you know, I was asking her a story. I was
talking to her about a tenfold story where you know,
there's a man who murders his family and he had
been in the eighteen hundreds and he had been just
(10:13):
spouting off really negative things about the Catholics. They're gonna
kill everybody, all this stuff, which sounded to her to be,
you know, like schizophrenia or something, some sort of a mania.
So when I went to a historian with the Catholic
Church and I described what this man was saying, he said,
(10:33):
everybody said that about the Catholics in the eighteen hundreds.
That's not crazy, that's social context. That's exactly what happened.
So then when I talked to her again, the forensic psychologist.
She said, that's why you have to know that what's
crazy in one country. What you would think is, you know,
when they're saying stuff, you're going, well, that person has
to be insane, is not insane?
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Yeah, you know, and I think that's one of the
things that I've learned because, you know, working the older cases,
part of developing an understanding of the cases is understanding
the area where the crime occurred at the time the
crime occurred, you know, forty years prior than today. But
you know, the types of cases that you're talking about,
(11:12):
we've had such dramatic changes in our society. You know,
that's early on. You do such a good job of
at least you know, when you say set the scene,
it's not just okay, this is where we're at. Well,
this is what's going on in history, this is this
you know world, And it helps me kind of start
assessing as you start getting into details of the case. Okay,
(11:34):
this is how they're thinking back in the day, just
like you did with the laundry on the clothesline.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Yeah, and you know, we have done stories about people
drowning in cisterns and wells we don't see a lot
of those these days, so you see that as a
murder weapon much more common. We've done a lot of
acts murder stories. Everybody had an axe because that's what
the wood was the fuel source for a lot of
these communities. So it's interesting to see how crime sort
(12:02):
of moves in sync with wherever we are. You know,
we know that an axe is available in everybody's household
in the eighteen hundred, So if somebody wants to go
and kill someone and wants to use a weapon there,
Sure there are kitchen knives, but you probably know where
to get an axe. So I don't know. I just
I always want to point out things like that, Like, okay,
so that's what made John very alarmed. Was this laundry
(12:25):
hanging outside that was getting soaked that no country woman
would have thought would be a good idea. So let
me tell you a little bit about the wolves. Jacob
is a very successful farmer. Like I said, he's forty one,
well liked in the community. No red flags with Jacob.
He's known for taking immaculate care of his farm and
he uses sort of the latest machinery. He is someone
(12:50):
who seems to be a loving father and a loving husband.
Sometimes we talk about these farmers who are jerks. They're
abusive there, you know, and that does not seem like Jacob.
There doesn't seem to be a lot of negative with
Jacob so far. But we'll see. John Craft, the neighbor,
(13:10):
pulls up to the wolf's farmhouse and looks around the
outside of the house. He hears pigs rooting around in
the barn, and he goes to check it out. And
when he gets to the barn, this is when this
story really starts to unravel. He sees three bodies, partially
uncovered by dirt and hay. The distribution of the bodies
(13:34):
is interesting. So there is Jacob the dad, and he
is dead. Two of his daughters, the nine year old
who is Maria, and the seven year old Edna, are
with him. Of course, John is very, very alarmed. So
if I were John, I would have then hopped in
my car and took off. He does not do that,
and I guess Jesse stays in the car his wife.
(13:56):
He decides to despite I'm sure, feeling very He goes
to the house and in the kitchen. When he walks in,
the table is set for a meal, but the chairs
are disturbed, and there's blood on the floor, and he
walks over. There's a trap door that goes to the
(14:16):
cellar that is in the kitchen, and this was very common, right,
I mean you could kind of like bring things easily
in and out of a trap door through the kitchen,
could store all your produce and everything. I will also
remind you that I have done many stories about people
being murdered and then shoved down a very similar trap
door into the basement area. So I'm sure he's aware
(14:39):
of there being some kind of a danger here.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Yeah, So there's blood on the floor in the kitchen, yep,
chairs are disturbed, as if maybe there was a struggle
in the kitchen.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
But no body's in the kitchen, no, okay.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
He walks over to the trap door that goes to
the cellar and when he looks down, so it's open.
He looks down and there are five more bodies. He
does not seem to go down to the cellar just yet.
He looks through the rest of the house. He goes
(15:14):
to a bedroom and there's a crib. And remember they
had an eight month old. She is there. Her name
is Emma. She's alive, she is freezing. She is soaked.
I think they had the windows open, and of course
it's been this cold rain, April rain, so she is
soaked and she is soiled, and she is very weak,
(15:35):
but she's alive. Police will later say they believe that
she had been on her own for two days with
no food, no nothing. So we've got five bodies. They
are a family of eight plus a farm hand. So
now the Crafts are terrified. Now they leave, They're done
exploring because I think they think everybody's accounted for. So
(15:58):
the only survivor is in eight month old and we
don't know why. Jesse Kraft, the wife, takes Emma. John
takes them both to the house and he drives to
the town of Turtle Lake where there's a phone. Because
it's nineteen twenty, especially kind of in this area, would
have been very surprising for anybody to have a phone
residentially unless they had a lot of money at this point.
(16:20):
So he goes, he finds a phone, and he calls
the sheriff's office in Washburn, North Dakota, which is about
twenty two miles away. And this is a good reminder
of the time period because there is, like I said,
almost no phones around, and then the closest law enforcement
is more than twenty miles away, so things are moving
(16:40):
in slow motion. These people are all dead. It probably
looked clear to John that they were all dead, and
they had been for a long time. But I mean,
lord knows how long it took from him discovering the
bodies for then law enforcement to come from Washburn to
be able to report to this. And that just seems like,
I mean, you know, nowadays, hopefully you have police responding
(17:04):
within minutes in some cases, and this.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Is very different now, you know, And I'm even thinking
within that sheriff's office. It's not like back in the
nineteen twenties they had a dispatch center. Yes, so you're
reliant upon probably an employee of the sheriff's office actually
being in the office and answering the phone, and then
(17:27):
they somehow have to communicate, you know, to the officers
the information, and now the officers have to respond. You know,
I don't know if the sheriff's office had you know,
beats spread across the county or not, or are they
all just centralized up there in Washburn and now they're
having to drive all the way from Washburn down to
(17:48):
the Turtle Lake area.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
I don't know. I mean, I think we do have
quite a few officers responding, so there must have been,
you know, other places, but last twenty two miles is
the closest that tells you how isolated Turtle Lake was.
So we have a sheriff and I'm gonna say his
name once because this is one of those names. It's Scandinavian,
so it's Ula Steath and Rude. So he is actually
(18:14):
with the state's attorney for the county and they have
been traveling together to Bismarck, you know, on a case.
So when the sheriff gets the message, the state's attorneys
goes with him and they go to Turtle Lake. And
when the sheriff gets to the farmhouse, we know what happens. Boy,
I mean, I could say it's the media, but it's not.
The neighbors are everywhere. They're swarming this place, so it's
(18:36):
contamination city, you could tell, all over the place, and
they're there to help. But John says, it's okay. The
bodies are exactly where they were when I found them.
Nobody's touched the bodies, but people are trying to be helpful,
which doesn't surprise me. But you know therein was the
issue that we have is there's no coordinating off this
(18:58):
crime scene. I don't actually think that that ever does happen,
So you know already you have a little bit of
a danger of course, that things are going to get
ruined and not be able to use in court if
they can even track down who did this.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
You know, my initial thoughts are because it's common to
have to deal with a level of crime scene contamination
just because of you know, family friends discovering let's say
the deceased in a residence, possibly moving the body or
checking bidles, first responders, officers, paramedics coming. You know, paramedics
(19:36):
can make a suicide look like a homicide just because
of their life saving measures. So it's normal to have
to When I first would arrive at a crime scene,
I'm asking, so what all has happened since the crime
scene was discovered, so I can take into account those activities.
But at a certain point, like in this case, where
(19:58):
you have multiple neighbors wandering around, you know, from my perspective,
it's really going to be the trampling of critical evidence
that could be interpreted to help understand what happened. As
well as in this day and age, evidence that potentially
could be used to solve the case that you know,
(20:18):
they've just completely obliterated, But it doesn't negate the possibility
of getting still good information, you know, from from the
crime scene.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
And you're talking about two different crime scenes, I'm assuming
because we've got the kitchen the seller, you know, together,
and then we've got the barn. So somehow these three people,
these two little girls and their dad were in the
barn and then the rest of the family is in
the kitchen. So there's so much opportunity for condamnation.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Right, I wouldn't necessarily call it two different crime scenes,
you know, because I would I would be establishing a
crime scene perimeter that would encompass that entire you know,
at least residential aspects and the outlying grounds around where
these two you know, the barn and the family house
is at. But yes, within that perimeter you have where
(21:11):
the bodies are, but we don't know what's transpired yet,
you know, so you could have evidence anywhere within that perimeter,
so it really is one big crime scene.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Well, the sheriff immediately starts interviewing neighbors, figuring out when
was the last time they saw the wolves. That's where
they come up with the idea that Emma had been
by herself crying for two days. That was the last
time two days earlier, when I'm presuming Missus Wolf put
up that laundry. There was you know, the day when
it was raining, and then the next day when they
(21:48):
were discovered. So you know, she's alive and she's being
taken care of by Missus Kraft. But the sheriff and
the coroner put together a corner's jury, and we know
these are generally lay people who come in. Their job
is to try to establish cause of death. Right, Is
that kind of the simplified way of explaining it.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah, you know, the coroner's jury or grand jury. This
is where now the corners puts on the findings and
lays out not only cause of death, but are looking
to the jurors to determined manner of death. You know,
are you dealing with you know, homicide, accidental, natural, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Well, the corner's jury, you know, comes together and they're
gathering information, they're being updated. Let me tell you a
little bit about what the sheriff thinks, and then we
need to talk about how they died, and what the
sheriff thinks the sequencing is This sheriff immediately wonders if
this is a murder suicide, which was not going to
be unheard of in this time period certainly. I mean,
(22:54):
I have read so many accounts of murder suicides, a
husband's killing families or you know, killing their wives in
the nineteen twenties especially and then closer to the thirties,
as we're approaching the Great Depression, in the middle of
the Great Depression. So I understand that way of thinking.
Everybody died of gunshots. Everybody had been shot except the
(23:15):
three year old Martha. She had been hit with the
blunt end of a hatchet. So Martha was not with dad.
She was one of the people who was down in
the cellar, and everybody else had been shot. And I
can kind of give you more details about that, but
I can say that Jacob Hoefer is the fifth body.
(23:40):
That's the farm hand, and then there's the mom and
three girls. So there's the three girls in the basement
with the mom in the farm hand, and then the
two girls in the barn with the dad. And then
the survivor is the sixth daughter, the baby Okay, so
what do you think so far? I mean, that's a
lot of people.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, you know, right now, I really don't have enough
to be able to even.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Start thinking about what occurred. You know, you've got.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Of the eight homicide victims, seven are shot.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Right now.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I don't know is it just one gun that was
used or if we have multiple guns being used.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
You have a three year old girl that's.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Being bludgeoned, and the bodies are distributed. You know, there's
two clusters. You have the father and two girls out
in the barn, and then you have the mother, the
farm hand, and three girls down in the basement. Because
we have these two separate clusters of victims, does that
indicate that these victims were let's say the father and
(24:44):
the two girls were out in the barn doing their
normal farming aspects, whatever that would have been out in
the barn at whatever particular time of day that this
the homicide occurred.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
And then everybody else is inside the house. Is everybody
rounded up? You know?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
And it sounds like there was some disturbance in the kitchen,
and is maybe the mother or the farm hand Jacob,
who's the oldest and is the male of this cluster,
you know, is their resistance by these two larger victims,
you know, and the offender or offenders had to now
you know, inflict some sort of control mechanism causing bleeding
(25:24):
in the kitchen before they're forced downstairs. Right now, I'm
assuming they're killed downstairs, but that is just an assumption
until I get more information. But it seems likely at
this point in time that the distribution of the bodies
possibly is an indication of the time of day in
(25:46):
which the homicide occurred, just because these people were doing
their normal, you know, routine, and that's when the offender
or the offenders attacked.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Well, I have two choices for you to go.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
And the multiple choice it is it's which.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Door do you want? Do you want to hear about
the weapon and the fatal shots with all of these people,
or do you want to see a photo of the kitchen?
And I think an okay shot of the trap door
that shows some of the blood, a real photo.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
You know, I love photos. Let me see the photo.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Okay, here we go. God, I thought you were gonna
I thought you usually liked to go right to the autopsies,
but see you should. This is where I get surprised.
You surprise me. Okay, now I've already kind of blown
it up, but if you want me to blow it
up more, I can.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Can you see it so, you know, one of the
things that that's kind of jumping out at me. And
I see where the trap door is, which is, you know,
towards the back of this photo, and it appears that
there's a doorway of some sort beyond where the trap
door is located. The two chairs that likely have been
(26:58):
pulled away from the table, most likely during crime scene processing.
That there appears to be a saw, the handle of
a saw on one of the chairs, and my suspicion
is is that that that may be something that individuals
involved in investigating the case used in order to be
able to gain greater access downstairs. They possibly saw through
(27:24):
some wood aspect of the door itself. But of note
in the foreground on the floor, now that I can
zoom in on the on the staining on the floor,
you know, of course, because it's black and white, I
can't say, you know, if this is like red staining
consistent with blood, but it has all the appearances of
(27:46):
being stains that are are on this floor. And one
of the stains is a long linear smear. Something is
being drug, most likely a body is being drug along
this floor towards the trap door. You know, like there's
a minor, you know, small pool of blood and it
might be like an area rug that's right on the floor,
(28:09):
right next to the kitchen table.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
It's like burlap almost to me.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Yeah, you know, I would say it's it's it's a
fabric of some sort and there appears to be a
pool on it. There's some nondescript white clumps, which all
I can say is my speculation, considering that we have
a bludgeoning victim, the three year old girl, that those
(28:34):
white clumps could be brain matter, unfortunately, but I can't
say that for sure in this photo, but there's a
fair number of what appeared to be large drops drip patterns,
as well as maybe some contact transfers of some sort
of bloody objects, you know, touching the top of this.
(28:55):
So there is you know, if I'm right, and that's
that's brain matter that's on the floor there. Than the
three year old was hit with the hatchet upstairs and
then you know, taken downstairs. It appears that the trap
door has been removed, and I don't know if that
door was hinged in any capacity.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Or if it just literally lifted up.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
But there is what appears to be a large dark
stain on the side that is facing the camera, you know,
and if that's if that's a blood stain, that would
be consistent with a blood pool, which would indicate that
somebody laid on that location after bleeding for a period
of time.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
But it's disrupted.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
It's right at the edge, and I can't see where
it matches up.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
If there's any.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Stained area on the floor that would indicate that maybe
a bleeding victim was laying motionless for a period of time.
But yeah, there's definitely some bleeding that's occurring up here,
possibly indicative of either somebody was killed or severely incapacitated
before being taken downstairs.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
And it's interesting, you.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Know, you got five bodies inside the residence, and all
five bodies are taken downstairs. So the offender took the
time in essence to hide the bodies. That may be
merely just to delay the discovery, even though the blood
staining would be alarming by anybody walking into this location.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, but he didn't put the door back on the
trap door because John Kraft said, when he walked in,
you know, he went over right over to the trap
door because it was open.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Yeah, you know, and that's that's significant.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
And you know, I don't know if this basement has
another exit where he doesn't have to come back up
into the residence, or you know, he's you know, taking
the bodies downstairs. Maybe something disturbs him. And I'm just
using the heat pronoun and singular just as a matter
of convenience. But if the offender is taking the time
(30:55):
to hide the bodies downstairs, it is inconsistent to leave
the trap door up like that, for sure.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yeah. Well, I thought he just maybe dumped them, like
from the he killed all these people and then pushed
their bodies, dragged them and pushed them down into it,
rather than placing them down. But what do you think
about that.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I'd have to see the distribution of the bodies. But
if that's what he's doing, it's still effort, right, It's
still time. You've got five bodies that he's purposely putting
down into this this hole in the floor in essence,
So why do the effort to do that and not
make further effort to cover up that may be where
(31:32):
you know, he he henks up something outside, there's a
noise outside, and he's going, got no shit, I got
to get out of here. Or his internal clock is
thinking this is taking too long, and he just he bails.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
You know. So the photo itself is pretty high quality.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
This is something I'd be able to throw into photoshop,
enhance it and probably be able to you know, get
more information out of it.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yeah, it always surprises me, hows the photos can be,
you know, I mean American Sherlock. My book took place
between nineteen twenty and nineteen thirty three, and Oscar Heinrich
loved photography and he loved crime scene photography and it
just saved my bacon. Man, there's no better writing than
to be able to do it off of photographs. You
have all that description, and he had so much detail,
(32:20):
and he knew how to blow it up and present
it to you know, he would take pieces of sand
and blow them up so they almost look like boulders
and print them out and or you know, develop them
and take them to jury so that they could understand geology.
So photography is more advancing we think in this time period.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Now, for sure, it always is, you know, and they
were using very large format cameras and those you know,
the larger the format, you know, basically the higher the resolution.
You know, when you're dealing with this film based film
is amazing. You know, my entire crime scene career, all
I did was shoot film, whether it be thirty five
millimeter or I was doing you know, four x.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Five sheet film.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
And you know, digital cameras even today, with the high
resolutions that you see, the high number of megapixels, they
can't touch what film can do because you're talking about
capturing light at the molecular level in film.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Well, I have one crappy photo for you, but I
don't think you're not going to need it to be good.
So look at the next one in that document that
I sent you, and it's the house. It's super isolated.
It just looks like dirt everywhere.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Yeah, so you know this is a photo.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
It says it's outside of the Wolf House on the
day of the funeral, and there's a lot of people
wearing black, you know, kind of congregating in the foreground.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
And the house itself.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
It appears, at least the main part of the house
appears to be two storied. A main floor and then
maybe an attic that has a window in it, you know,
with the pitched roof kind of I've been inside old
houses like this.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
You can go up into the.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Attic and you have to kind of duck down, and
the angle of the inside of the roof, you know,
the ceiling is angled with the angle of the roof
and then attached on the right hand side in the
photograph appears to be a small It almost looks like
an add on to this house single story. I don't
(34:21):
know if that would just be a single room or
if it's subdivided. It appears there might be a chimney
to that, so maybe a living space, a living area.
And then you know, right where these two structures join,
there's an entry way of some sort. It looks like
you walk in through a door. And this may be
(34:42):
like a little little foyer, sort of like a wet
room if you live in Colorado where I'm at, where
you can take your winter clothes off without bringing you know,
bringing all the you know, the snow and mud into
the inside of the house. But the surrounding area, for sure,
at least with what can be seen in this photograph,
(35:02):
just looks, you know, flat and dirt.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Flat and dirt. Now I have a theory about those
two rooms that you're talking about, because when I saw
this photo, this looked an awful lot like my grandparents
who were in Missouri had a root cellar. It wasn't
attached to their house, but the entryway looked very similar.
Where you walk in and it's above ground. You open
the door, and my grandmother, my granny was what I
(35:27):
called her, would line the shelves with empty cans and
empty glass bottles, but then you went underground and that's
where everything was. So I wonder if this is the
kitchen on the right hand side, okay, and the cellar
and the cellar entry attached, because that would kind of
make sense. I don't know if the kitchen would be
(35:47):
in the main part of the house, but I don't know.
It's hard to tell from any of these photos.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
It looks like there's a chimney on both the main
house as well as this secondary structure, you know, and
there was that what appeared to be that wood burning oven.
So those chimneys would indicate where that oven is located at.
But yeah, I wouldn't dispute your thought on that at all.
It almost appears the main house. Those windows on the
(36:16):
first floor, there's a lot of distance between the bottom
of those windows and the ground, and so that might
be indicative of beneath theirs, where there's a the basement,
but I couldn't say that for sure.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Yeah, and I was going to go back up and look,
you can see windows in the kitchen area. It's just
hard to tell with this. I mean, it's you know,
we need many more photos. But the next photo is
a cutie Patuti baby baby Emma, who I will tie
in love looking at baby photos, even though to be honest,
(36:50):
you know, I am not a baby person. I mean,
I loved my own kids, but the older that my
kids got and the more self sufficient there were, the
more I seem to really appreciate them. But she's so
cute and she recovers and she ends up having a
very long, good life. But this is you know, this
is her. This is a photo looks like she's got
(37:10):
like a little rattle or something.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
So this next one is the last one I want
you to look at. And I am showing you this
image because number one, I think it is really interestingly
composed and it's clear, and it's startling to me, So
why don't you give me your impressions what you see here?
Speaker 3 (37:29):
Well, you know, this is a photo.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
It's showing eight caskets and then a large group of people,
you know, dressed mostly in dark except for appears there's
a few babies that are are.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
In white, and then a building in.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
The background to some sort you know, the caskets. What
you know kind of strikes me first is the two
caskets on either end are dark, and then the caskets
in the middle are all light assuming white or very
light colored. And then the two caskets towards the right,
(38:06):
the two white caskets towards the right next to the
large dark one are They're small. Obviously these are little children,
you know, so it's interesting they had to take the
time to display the caskets like this and then get
this group to pose for a photograph, and then have
a cameraman using film based photography to sit there and
(38:28):
probably take multiple photos of this. I'm not sure it
seems like an unusual photo to take, but you know,
I think the number of caskets, the size of the caskets,
it just indicates, you know, you know, this is a
whole family basically.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Yeah, and I think that this is a town of immigrants,
both like German and Russian, and so this is I think,
a very tight knit community. I don't know if I've
ever shown you any of the death photos that I've used,
the death ones, you know, where they take photographs of
people after they've died in they're in their caskets. I'm
actually surprised we didn't get any of those with this,
(39:05):
but that was such a tradition. Yeah, I think this
image is startling. I mean it shows the impact when
you look at all of these caskets and you just think,
of my god, somebody killed all of these people, right,
it's very sad and to see the tiny caskets. But
I've never actually seen male female designated caskets before. I
think that's what you're saying. It's a little odd, but.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Okay, you know, and I was even thinking, could that
be uh, you know, Jacob and his wife, you know,
the adults, the patriarch and matriarch at the family and
the dark caskets and then their kids. And I'm assuming
would the farm hand be in this? Would Jacob the
farmhand be part of this?
Speaker 1 (39:43):
How many do we have we have eight people totaled,
you have eight caskets.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Yeah, so I think he's also included. And he's he's
a relative on the mother's side, if I remember you right,
say so, Yeah, so he's he's he's included as part
of the family.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Well, let's get out of the photograph area here, let's
get back to the story. So, you know, we don't
often get photographs, so I'm always grateful when we have them.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
I am too.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Yeah, so the sheriff wonders if this is somehow, some
way murder suicide, and then we start getting information back
from the corner. So this was a shotgun and here's
who had which injuries. Jacob the dad, the forty one
year old. He was shot once with a shotgun at
close range from behind and to the side, and that
(40:28):
he was shot in the head, so kind of behind
and to the side. He had also been shot once
from a distance in the back. So I can just
tell you all of these, or you can comment on
each one. So one kind of the back of the head,
close range, one very far back but in the back.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Right, So this is this is Jacob, you know. And
of course when you start thinking about murder suicide, you know,
the most likely perpetrator of that within a family is
going to be the husband father. However, the location of
his shots, once in the back and towards the back
(41:05):
of his head, kind of to the back side of
his head, those locations suggest that somebody else shot him,
and so at this point in time, I don't believe
it's possible to conclude that Jacob shot himself with a shotgun.
And I'm assuming that the shotgun is a standard laying shotgun,
not you know, some super sowd off variant. You know,
(41:29):
that he would be able to potentially wield like a handgun,
So that's interesting, you know, I think that's one thing
I can conclude from that information is Jacob is a
victim and he is not the killer.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Yeah, and oftentimes we do have the patriarch of the
family as the killer, and it takes a while to
sort that out. So injuries in the barn, Maria who's nine,
has been shot in the back of the head at
close range. This was an interesting detail. Her hair was
singed so very close range.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Or does that matter? I mean, doesn't the shotgun singe
everything in sight? Is that the point?
Speaker 2 (42:07):
You know, it's when you start talking about hair being singed.
The shotgun is close enough to which the hot gases
that come out of the end of the barrel. It's
not just the rounds. Whatever type of ammunition was used,
whether it be a bird shot, which is more like
your bebes, right, you have a whole bunch of little bebes,
(42:27):
or you have like what law enforcement uses, your double
ott buck, which is like nine marble sized rounds that
come out. And then sometimes we'll have a slug being used,
which is this very if it's like a twelve gage,
it's this very large single round, so that comes out.
But then you also have the gases that occur during
(42:49):
the combustion of the gunpowder. That's what forces you know,
the rounds out. Also you have unburnt gunpowder, and that's
what caused what you call stippling, how you see gunpowder.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
Embedded in the skin.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
And different guns at different distances will leave evidence of
the distance that they were from their target based on
whatever is present. A shotgun, of course, is going to
you know, project its hot gases out further than a handgun,
but not that much further, you know, So this is
telling me that this is a fairly close range shot.
(43:25):
I'm talking about within several feet again not knowing that
you know, the gauge of the shotgun and the rounds.
But shotguns are devastating weapons. So if you have a
reasonably close shot to somebody's head with a shotgun, these
heads are not in good shape, you know. So this
(43:46):
is a very ugly scene in all likelihood.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
Okay, so now we know we've got Jacob who's been
shot with the shotgun at close range from behind back
of the head. And then we've got Maria and ednae
year old and the seven year old who were apparently
with him, shot in the back of the head at
close range. And then you know, we have more people
that we have to talk about.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Yeah, you know, so we got Jacob and the two
girls who are executed out in the barn. Very curious
to know, you know, what happened to the victims that
are found inside the house down in the basement.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
I think this is such a big story that we're
going to need to address that in the next episode.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Okay, so you're going to make me wait a week then.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
On an autopsy. I don't know if I've ever done
that before, able to tell you what happens next. But yeah,
this is a really intense story and with so many victims,
is one of the probably the largest number that we've had,
so I just want to make sure we take our time,
so I will talk to you about it more next week.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
Okay, Well, I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 4 (44:58):
This has been an exactly right Pa production.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
For our sources and show notes go to exactly Wrightmedia
dot com slash Buried Bones sources.
Speaker 4 (45:06):
Our senior producer is Alexis Emosi.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 4 (45:13):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 4 (45:18):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark and Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Barry Bones Pod.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
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
Speaker 1 (45:36):
Now, and 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 true crimes.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
This is buried bones.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Hey, Kate, how's it going today?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
It's going well, Paul, how's it going with you?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I'm doing pretty good. The weather's changing.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I know springtime?
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Right?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Do you camp? And I asked this because haven't you
and I both had reservations a little bit about camping,
because of how many stories we've both been involved with
involving people being murdered at camp side. I know they're
going to be camp enthusiast who tell me to stop
saying stuff like that, But that's the facts. That's what
happens sometimes.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, you know, I've consulted on a fair number of
cases that involve people who are out camping, you know,
and of course a lot of bodies are recovered out
discovered by campers, you know, as they're out and about
doing their theme because it's in remote areas.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
But you know, I wasn't a.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Big fan of camping, and then as I got into
the off roading and watching some of these YouTube videos
of these guys that will go on like you know,
week long trips and they're just out in the most
amazing places. They're isolated, gorgeous, you know, just nature and
(02:08):
sitting around a campfire. You know, each one of them
takes turns, you know, cooking up a meal and you know,
having a drink here and there and swapping stories.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
And it was just like, yeah, that's really cool.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
So I spent, oh, I guess, the last year really
building up my jeep for overlanding as well as acquiring
camping equipment. And I got out twice last year, but
I was doing so much travel, I wasn't able to
do a lot of it. But I'm hoping, you know,
now that the weather's changing, I'm hoping to you know,
(02:39):
find a good group out here in Colorado and get
out there and do some of this dispersed camping in
addition to the off roading aspects.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Well, not to be negative here, but are you going
to bring a weapon with you? Because I would absolutely
weapon after everything.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Let's just say that I'll be well protected.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Okay, very good? And is Cora like camping? And does
your wife like camping?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
No?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
And no, this is this is just me myself and
I Okay, all right.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I did not grow up camping. I mean I grew
up kind of on a farm. So I felt like
I was sort of camping just because we were out
in a rural area a lot, and we would stay
out very late, and so I was sort of what
do they call it now, like a sleep under you know,
like when your kid goes out until one in the
morning and you go pick them up and they don't
want to spend the night, but they want to stay
up really late with their friends. Yeah, so I would
(03:32):
sort of sleep under camp. We would just stay out
by the river pitch black as late as possible, but
we'd always sleep inside. So that's kind of my kind
of camping. Okay, but I'm I'm definitely willing to you know,
explore it a little bit more. But I do have
to say I always feel nervous if I can't have
a security system on an Airbnb or anywhere I am,
(03:53):
or a door person or something just you know, because
of the nature of the business that we're in.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah, you know, with kind of the modern gadgets that
are out there, you know, you can somewhat set up
a perimeter, you know, around your campsite using you know,
motion detecting lights and alarms and stuff like that in
order to get at least you know, an alert that
something is happening out if you're in your in your
(04:19):
tent or like of course, the off road rigs often
have you know, we have tools, we have recovery gear,
you know, the cookwar stuff, and so there's a lot
of expense that goes into these supplies and they can
be targets when you're out hiking or if I take
my mountain bike out there, and so having some level
of security is something that I most certainly will have,
(04:43):
and so that that's something you may be unaware of,
you know.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
My biggest fear.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Is is the the big creatures, particularly if I'm going
to be in an area with like a grizzly you know,
because you hear about some some of these campers being attacked,
because you know, in a lot of it is just
knowing what to do with your food and your food
waste and keeping it away from you know, where you
are sleeping, you know, where you know your vehicles are.
(05:10):
There's strategies to try to minimize encountering that wildlife, but
every now and then, maybe some things there's just something
you can't avoid.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yeah, I get it. I don't know if any amount
of security is going to talk me into sleeping in
a tent, even with the burliest of men in other
tents around me, it still leaves me with a vulnerable feeling.
But that's okay. You know, I'm also someone who has
a dead bolt on the cottage here in my own backyard.
(05:39):
You should well, my stepfather said, you know, you don't
want to come home one day and find somebody living
in your cottage. And I said, why would they do that?
And he said, because it's a house and it's unlocked.
And I thought, okay, yeah, a point.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Yeah, no, that is a very real possibility.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Okay, Well, we're talking a little bit about security today.
In our episode, we are going to be in nineteen twenties,
North Dakota. We're back to the farm. Love it, love it,
love a good farm story. But you know what comes
with that we talk about that. What comes with that
is there is sometimes a lack of security, with the
exception of the gazillion guns that are around probably, but
(06:19):
you know, you're isolated and they're vulnerable, and so you know,
we have a family that is under attack. So Paul,
just before we get into the story, you know, we
always like to give listeners and viewers a little bit
of a warning. We are talking about the murders of
children here as well as parents. So I just want
(06:39):
everybody to be aware that there are some kids who
end up being the victims of murder in our story.
Let's go ahead and set the scene. So nineteen twenty
North Dakota. So we are kind of at the beginning
of prohibition, but we're in sort of, you know, a
very religious area of the country. We're on a farm.
(07:02):
So the farm is led by a man named Jacob Wolf.
He is the patriarch. He's forty one years old. He's
married to a woman named Biata and she is thirty
five years old. So they have a bunch of kids.
They have six daughters. I don't know if this is
a situation where Jacob really wanted a son and they
just kept going. But they're close together. The oldest is
(07:24):
twelve and the youngest is eight months old. And there's
a thirteen year old farm hand named Jacob and his
last name is Hoper and he's related to missus Wolfe's
side of the family. So this is April twenty fourth,
it's a Saturday, and this is a tiny community called
(07:44):
Turtle Lake, which is about sixty miles north of Bismarck.
I've never been to North Dakota. I've heard it's beautiful.
Have you been to North Dakota?
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I have not actually never been.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Okay, So we're in Turtle Lake and the scene set
here is that there is a couple named John and
Jesse Kraft. They are driving south toward Turtle Lake. You know,
it's in the morning, Saturday morning, and on their way
toward this area, they passed by the Wolf's family farm.
So they're friends, their neighbors of these people. They think
(08:17):
there's something odd happening. This is historical context. This is
what's interesting, okay, And the reason they think something's wrong
is John says he had done the same route the
day before. It was a rainy day and a rainy night.
So the day that he passed by, there was laundry
(08:38):
hanging out on the lines that I presume missus Wolfe
had put out. Then it started raining sometime after John
had passed, and he thought she was going to go
and collect the laundry, as anybody would. Nobody wants dry
laundry out getting rained on. When he passes by the
family farm the next day with his wife, the laundry
(08:58):
is still hanging there, and it had been soaked all
day rain the day before, all night rain. So isn't
that interesting? I mean, that was what was alarming to
him was he thought, there's no way this is right.
I don't know if that's a kin today that somebody
having their windows on their car rolled down or I
don't know what that would be, but that was a
red flag for him.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, you know, that's interesting. I mean he's very observant,
you know, So he's noticing it in one direction, and
then the next day he noticed it's still up and
he's putting two and two together. So obviously this is
the era that you know we're talking about is that.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
You know, for somebody like me, I wouldn't think.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
About that, but they're living that that life, and they're
recognizing that's not right. It's almost like today, if you
see a window screen off of a front window of
a house, you know most of us would go, that
doesn't look right.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I think I probably told you this story before. I
interviewed a forensic psychologist who did a lot of interviewing
of a f suspects, victims and all of that, and
you know, I was asking her a story. I was
talking to her about a tenfold story where you know,
there's a man who murders his family and he had
been in the eighteen hundreds and he had been just
(10:13):
spouting off really negative things about the Catholics. They're gonna
kill everybody, all this stuff, which sounded to her to be,
you know, like schizophrenia or something, some sort of a mania.
So when I went to a historian with the Catholic
Church and I described what this man was saying, he said,
(10:33):
everybody said that about the Catholics in the eighteen hundreds.
That's not crazy, that's social context. That's exactly what happened.
So then when I talked to her again, the forensic psychologist.
She said, that's why you have to know that what's
crazy in one country. What you would think is, you know,
when they're saying stuff, you're going, well, that person has
to be insane, is not insane?
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Yeah, you know, and I think that's one of the
things that I've learned because, you know, working the older cases,
part of developing an understanding of the cases is understanding
the area where the crime occurred at the time the
crime occurred, you know, forty years prior than today. But
you know, the types of cases that you're talking about,
(11:12):
we've had such dramatic changes in our society. You know,
that's early on. You do such a good job of
at least you know, when you say set the scene,
it's not just okay, this is where we're at. Well,
this is what's going on in history, this is this
you know world, And it helps me kind of start
assessing as you start getting into details of the case. Okay,
(11:34):
this is how they're thinking back in the day, just
like you did with the laundry on the clothesline.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Yeah, and you know, we have done stories about people
drowning in cisterns and wells we don't see a lot
of those these days, so you see that as a
murder weapon much more common. We've done a lot of
acts murder stories. Everybody had an axe because that's what
the wood was the fuel source for a lot of
these communities. So it's interesting to see how crime sort
(12:02):
of moves in sync with wherever we are. You know,
we know that an axe is available in everybody's household
in the eighteen hundred, So if somebody wants to go
and kill someone and wants to use a weapon there,
Sure there are kitchen knives, but you probably know where
to get an axe. So I don't know. I just
I always want to point out things like that, Like, okay,
so that's what made John very alarmed. Was this laundry
(12:25):
hanging outside that was getting soaked that no country woman
would have thought would be a good idea. So let
me tell you a little bit about the wolves. Jacob
is a very successful farmer. Like I said, he's forty one,
well liked in the community. No red flags with Jacob.
He's known for taking immaculate care of his farm and
he uses sort of the latest machinery. He is someone
(12:50):
who seems to be a loving father and a loving husband.
Sometimes we talk about these farmers who are jerks. They're
abusive there, you know, and that does not seem like Jacob.
There doesn't seem to be a lot of negative with
Jacob so far. But we'll see. John Craft, the neighbor,
(13:10):
pulls up to the wolf's farmhouse and looks around the
outside of the house. He hears pigs rooting around in
the barn, and he goes to check it out. And
when he gets to the barn, this is when this
story really starts to unravel. He sees three bodies, partially
uncovered by dirt and hay. The distribution of the bodies
(13:34):
is interesting. So there is Jacob the dad, and he
is dead. Two of his daughters, the nine year old
who is Maria, and the seven year old Edna, are
with him. Of course, John is very, very alarmed. So
if I were John, I would have then hopped in
my car and took off. He does not do that,
and I guess Jesse stays in the car his wife.
(13:56):
He decides to despite I'm sure, feeling very He goes
to the house and in the kitchen. When he walks in,
the table is set for a meal, but the chairs
are disturbed, and there's blood on the floor, and he
walks over. There's a trap door that goes to the
(14:16):
cellar that is in the kitchen, and this was very common, right,
I mean you could kind of like bring things easily
in and out of a trap door through the kitchen,
could store all your produce and everything. I will also
remind you that I have done many stories about people
being murdered and then shoved down a very similar trap
door into the basement area. So I'm sure he's aware
(14:39):
of there being some kind of a danger here.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Yeah, So there's blood on the floor in the kitchen, yep,
chairs are disturbed, as if maybe there was a struggle
in the kitchen.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
But no body's in the kitchen, no, okay.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
He walks over to the trap door that goes to
the cellar and when he looks down, so it's open.
He looks down and there are five more bodies. He
does not seem to go down to the cellar just yet.
He looks through the rest of the house. He goes
(15:14):
to a bedroom and there's a crib. And remember they
had an eight month old. She is there. Her name
is Emma. She's alive, she is freezing. She is soaked.
I think they had the windows open, and of course
it's been this cold rain, April rain, so she is
soaked and she is soiled, and she is very weak,
(15:35):
but she's alive. Police will later say they believe that
she had been on her own for two days with
no food, no nothing. So we've got five bodies. They
are a family of eight plus a farm hand. So
now the Crafts are terrified. Now they leave, They're done
exploring because I think they think everybody's accounted for. So
(15:58):
the only survivor is in eight month old and we
don't know why. Jesse Kraft, the wife, takes Emma. John
takes them both to the house and he drives to
the town of Turtle Lake where there's a phone. Because
it's nineteen twenty, especially kind of in this area, would
have been very surprising for anybody to have a phone
residentially unless they had a lot of money at this point.
(16:20):
So he goes, he finds a phone, and he calls
the sheriff's office in Washburn, North Dakota, which is about
twenty two miles away. And this is a good reminder
of the time period because there is, like I said,
almost no phones around, and then the closest law enforcement
is more than twenty miles away, so things are moving
(16:40):
in slow motion. These people are all dead. It probably
looked clear to John that they were all dead, and
they had been for a long time. But I mean,
lord knows how long it took from him discovering the
bodies for then law enforcement to come from Washburn to
be able to report to this. And that just seems like,
I mean, you know, nowadays, hopefully you have police responding
(17:04):
within minutes in some cases, and this.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Is very different now, you know, And I'm even thinking
within that sheriff's office. It's not like back in the
nineteen twenties they had a dispatch center. Yes, so you're
reliant upon probably an employee of the sheriff's office actually
being in the office and answering the phone, and then
(17:27):
they somehow have to communicate, you know, to the officers
the information, and now the officers have to respond. You know,
I don't know if the sheriff's office had you know,
beats spread across the county or not, or are they
all just centralized up there in Washburn and now they're
having to drive all the way from Washburn down to
(17:48):
the Turtle Lake area.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
I don't know. I mean, I think we do have
quite a few officers responding, so there must have been,
you know, other places, but last twenty two miles is
the closest that tells you how isolated Turtle Lake was.
So we have a sheriff and I'm gonna say his
name once because this is one of those names. It's Scandinavian,
so it's Ula Steath and Rude. So he is actually
(18:14):
with the state's attorney for the county and they have
been traveling together to Bismarck, you know, on a case.
So when the sheriff gets the message, the state's attorneys
goes with him and they go to Turtle Lake. And
when the sheriff gets to the farmhouse, we know what happens. Boy,
I mean, I could say it's the media, but it's not.
The neighbors are everywhere. They're swarming this place, so it's
(18:36):
contamination city, you could tell, all over the place, and
they're there to help. But John says, it's okay. The
bodies are exactly where they were when I found them.
Nobody's touched the bodies, but people are trying to be helpful,
which doesn't surprise me. But you know therein was the
issue that we have is there's no coordinating off this
(18:58):
crime scene. I don't actually think that that ever does happen,
So you know already you have a little bit of
a danger of course, that things are going to get
ruined and not be able to use in court if
they can even track down who did this.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
You know, my initial thoughts are because it's common to
have to deal with a level of crime scene contamination
just because of you know, family friends discovering let's say
the deceased in a residence, possibly moving the body or
checking bidles, first responders, officers, paramedics coming. You know, paramedics
(19:36):
can make a suicide look like a homicide just because
of their life saving measures. So it's normal to have
to When I first would arrive at a crime scene,
I'm asking, so what all has happened since the crime
scene was discovered, so I can take into account those activities.
But at a certain point, like in this case, where
(19:58):
you have multiple neighbors wandering around, you know, from my perspective,
it's really going to be the trampling of critical evidence
that could be interpreted to help understand what happened. As
well as in this day and age, evidence that potentially
could be used to solve the case that you know,
(20:18):
they've just completely obliterated, But it doesn't negate the possibility
of getting still good information, you know, from from the
crime scene.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
And you're talking about two different crime scenes, I'm assuming
because we've got the kitchen the seller, you know, together,
and then we've got the barn. So somehow these three people,
these two little girls and their dad were in the
barn and then the rest of the family is in
the kitchen. So there's so much opportunity for condamnation.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Right, I wouldn't necessarily call it two different crime scenes,
you know, because I would I would be establishing a
crime scene perimeter that would encompass that entire you know,
at least residential aspects and the outlying grounds around where
these two you know, the barn and the family house
is at. But yes, within that perimeter you have where
(21:11):
the bodies are, but we don't know what's transpired yet,
you know, so you could have evidence anywhere within that perimeter,
so it really is one big crime scene.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Well, the sheriff immediately starts interviewing neighbors, figuring out when
was the last time they saw the wolves. That's where
they come up with the idea that Emma had been
by herself crying for two days. That was the last
time two days earlier, when I'm presuming Missus Wolf put
up that laundry. There was you know, the day when
it was raining, and then the next day when they
(21:48):
were discovered. So you know, she's alive and she's being
taken care of by Missus Kraft. But the sheriff and
the coroner put together a corner's jury, and we know
these are generally lay people who come in. Their job
is to try to establish cause of death. Right, Is
that kind of the simplified way of explaining it.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah, you know, the coroner's jury or grand jury. This
is where now the corners puts on the findings and
lays out not only cause of death, but are looking
to the jurors to determined manner of death. You know,
are you dealing with you know, homicide, accidental, natural, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Well, the corner's jury, you know, comes together and they're
gathering information, they're being updated. Let me tell you a
little bit about what the sheriff thinks, and then we
need to talk about how they died, and what the
sheriff thinks the sequencing is This sheriff immediately wonders if
this is a murder suicide, which was not going to
be unheard of in this time period certainly. I mean,
(22:54):
I have read so many accounts of murder suicides, a
husband's killing families or you know, killing their wives in
the nineteen twenties especially and then closer to the thirties,
as we're approaching the Great Depression, in the middle of
the Great Depression. So I understand that way of thinking.
Everybody died of gunshots. Everybody had been shot except the
(23:15):
three year old Martha. She had been hit with the
blunt end of a hatchet. So Martha was not with dad.
She was one of the people who was down in
the cellar, and everybody else had been shot. And I
can kind of give you more details about that, but
I can say that Jacob Hoefer is the fifth body.
(23:40):
That's the farm hand, and then there's the mom and
three girls. So there's the three girls in the basement
with the mom in the farm hand, and then the
two girls in the barn with the dad. And then
the survivor is the sixth daughter, the baby Okay, so
what do you think so far? I mean, that's a
lot of people.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, you know, right now, I really don't have enough
to be able to even.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Start thinking about what occurred. You know, you've got.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Of the eight homicide victims, seven are shot.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Right now.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I don't know is it just one gun that was
used or if we have multiple guns being used.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
You have a three year old girl that's.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Being bludgeoned, and the bodies are distributed. You know, there's
two clusters. You have the father and two girls out
in the barn, and then you have the mother, the
farm hand, and three girls down in the basement. Because
we have these two separate clusters of victims, does that
indicate that these victims were let's say the father and
(24:44):
the two girls were out in the barn doing their
normal farming aspects, whatever that would have been out in
the barn at whatever particular time of day that this
the homicide occurred.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
And then everybody else is inside the house. Is everybody
rounded up? You know?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
And it sounds like there was some disturbance in the kitchen,
and is maybe the mother or the farm hand Jacob,
who's the oldest and is the male of this cluster,
you know, is their resistance by these two larger victims,
you know, and the offender or offenders had to now
you know, inflict some sort of control mechanism causing bleeding
(25:24):
in the kitchen before they're forced downstairs. Right now, I'm
assuming they're killed downstairs, but that is just an assumption
until I get more information. But it seems likely at
this point in time that the distribution of the bodies
possibly is an indication of the time of day in
(25:46):
which the homicide occurred, just because these people were doing
their normal, you know, routine, and that's when the offender
or the offenders attacked.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Well, I have two choices for you to go.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
And the multiple choice it is it's which.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Door do you want? Do you want to hear about
the weapon and the fatal shots with all of these people,
or do you want to see a photo of the kitchen?
And I think an okay shot of the trap door
that shows some of the blood, a real photo.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
You know, I love photos. Let me see the photo.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Okay, here we go. God, I thought you were gonna
I thought you usually liked to go right to the autopsies,
but see you should. This is where I get surprised.
You surprise me. Okay, now I've already kind of blown
it up, but if you want me to blow it
up more, I can.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Can you see it so, you know, one of the
things that that's kind of jumping out at me. And
I see where the trap door is, which is, you know,
towards the back of this photo, and it appears that
there's a doorway of some sort beyond where the trap
door is located. The two chairs that likely have been
(26:58):
pulled away from the table, most likely during crime scene processing.
That there appears to be a saw, the handle of
a saw on one of the chairs, and my suspicion
is is that that that may be something that individuals
involved in investigating the case used in order to be
able to gain greater access downstairs. They possibly saw through
(27:24):
some wood aspect of the door itself. But of note
in the foreground on the floor, now that I can
zoom in on the on the staining on the floor,
you know, of course, because it's black and white, I
can't say, you know, if this is like red staining
consistent with blood, but it has all the appearances of
(27:46):
being stains that are are on this floor. And one
of the stains is a long linear smear. Something is
being drug, most likely a body is being drug along
this floor towards the trap door. You know, like there's
a minor, you know, small pool of blood and it
might be like an area rug that's right on the floor,
(28:09):
right next to the kitchen table.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
It's like burlap almost to me.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Yeah, you know, I would say it's it's it's a
fabric of some sort and there appears to be a
pool on it. There's some nondescript white clumps, which all
I can say is my speculation, considering that we have
a bludgeoning victim, the three year old girl, that those
(28:34):
white clumps could be brain matter, unfortunately, but I can't
say that for sure in this photo, but there's a
fair number of what appeared to be large drops drip patterns,
as well as maybe some contact transfers of some sort
of bloody objects, you know, touching the top of this.
(28:55):
So there is you know, if I'm right, and that's
that's brain matter that's on the floor there. Than the
three year old was hit with the hatchet upstairs and
then you know, taken downstairs. It appears that the trap
door has been removed, and I don't know if that
door was hinged in any capacity.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Or if it just literally lifted up.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
But there is what appears to be a large dark
stain on the side that is facing the camera, you know,
and if that's if that's a blood stain, that would
be consistent with a blood pool, which would indicate that
somebody laid on that location after bleeding for a period
of time.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
But it's disrupted.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
It's right at the edge, and I can't see where
it matches up.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
If there's any.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Stained area on the floor that would indicate that maybe
a bleeding victim was laying motionless for a period of time.
But yeah, there's definitely some bleeding that's occurring up here,
possibly indicative of either somebody was killed or severely incapacitated
before being taken downstairs.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
And it's interesting, you.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Know, you got five bodies inside the residence, and all
five bodies are taken downstairs. So the offender took the
time in essence to hide the bodies. That may be
merely just to delay the discovery, even though the blood
staining would be alarming by anybody walking into this location.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, but he didn't put the door back on the
trap door because John Kraft said, when he walked in,
you know, he went over right over to the trap
door because it was open.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Yeah, you know, and that's that's significant.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
And you know, I don't know if this basement has
another exit where he doesn't have to come back up
into the residence, or you know, he's you know, taking
the bodies downstairs. Maybe something disturbs him. And I'm just
using the heat pronoun and singular just as a matter
of convenience. But if the offender is taking the time
(30:55):
to hide the bodies downstairs, it is inconsistent to leave
the trap door up like that, for sure.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yeah. Well, I thought he just maybe dumped them, like
from the he killed all these people and then pushed
their bodies, dragged them and pushed them down into it,
rather than placing them down. But what do you think
about that.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I'd have to see the distribution of the bodies. But
if that's what he's doing, it's still effort, right, It's
still time. You've got five bodies that he's purposely putting
down into this this hole in the floor in essence,
So why do the effort to do that and not
make further effort to cover up that may be where
(31:32):
you know, he he henks up something outside, there's a
noise outside, and he's going, got no shit, I got
to get out of here. Or his internal clock is
thinking this is taking too long, and he just he bails.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
You know. So the photo itself is pretty high quality.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
This is something I'd be able to throw into photoshop,
enhance it and probably be able to you know, get
more information out of it.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yeah, it always surprises me, hows the photos can be,
you know, I mean American Sherlock. My book took place
between nineteen twenty and nineteen thirty three, and Oscar Heinrich
loved photography and he loved crime scene photography and it
just saved my bacon. Man, there's no better writing than
to be able to do it off of photographs. You
have all that description, and he had so much detail,
(32:20):
and he knew how to blow it up and present
it to you know, he would take pieces of sand
and blow them up so they almost look like boulders
and print them out and or you know, develop them
and take them to jury so that they could understand geology.
So photography is more advancing we think in this time period.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Now, for sure, it always is, you know, and they
were using very large format cameras and those you know,
the larger the format, you know, basically the higher the resolution.
You know, when you're dealing with this film based film
is amazing. You know, my entire crime scene career, all
I did was shoot film, whether it be thirty five
millimeter or I was doing you know, four x.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Five sheet film.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
And you know, digital cameras even today, with the high
resolutions that you see, the high number of megapixels, they
can't touch what film can do because you're talking about
capturing light at the molecular level in film.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Well, I have one crappy photo for you, but I
don't think you're not going to need it to be good.
So look at the next one in that document that
I sent you, and it's the house. It's super isolated.
It just looks like dirt everywhere.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Yeah, so you know this is a photo.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
It says it's outside of the Wolf House on the
day of the funeral, and there's a lot of people
wearing black, you know, kind of congregating in the foreground.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
And the house itself.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
It appears, at least the main part of the house
appears to be two storied. A main floor and then
maybe an attic that has a window in it, you know,
with the pitched roof kind of I've been inside old
houses like this.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
You can go up into the.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Attic and you have to kind of duck down, and
the angle of the inside of the roof, you know,
the ceiling is angled with the angle of the roof
and then attached on the right hand side in the
photograph appears to be a small It almost looks like
an add on to this house single story. I don't
(34:21):
know if that would just be a single room or
if it's subdivided. It appears there might be a chimney
to that, so maybe a living space, a living area.
And then you know, right where these two structures join,
there's an entry way of some sort. It looks like
you walk in through a door. And this may be
(34:42):
like a little little foyer, sort of like a wet
room if you live in Colorado where I'm at, where
you can take your winter clothes off without bringing you know,
bringing all the you know, the snow and mud into
the inside of the house. But the surrounding area, for sure,
at least with what can be seen in this photograph,
(35:02):
just looks, you know, flat and dirt.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Flat and dirt. Now I have a theory about those
two rooms that you're talking about, because when I saw
this photo, this looked an awful lot like my grandparents
who were in Missouri had a root cellar. It wasn't
attached to their house, but the entryway looked very similar.
Where you walk in and it's above ground. You open
the door, and my grandmother, my granny was what I
(35:27):
called her, would line the shelves with empty cans and
empty glass bottles, but then you went underground and that's
where everything was. So I wonder if this is the
kitchen on the right hand side, okay, and the cellar
and the cellar entry attached, because that would kind of
make sense. I don't know if the kitchen would be
(35:47):
in the main part of the house, but I don't know.
It's hard to tell from any of these photos.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
It looks like there's a chimney on both the main
house as well as this secondary structure, you know, and
there was that what appeared to be that wood burning oven.
So those chimneys would indicate where that oven is located at.
But yeah, I wouldn't dispute your thought on that at all.
It almost appears the main house. Those windows on the
(36:16):
first floor, there's a lot of distance between the bottom
of those windows and the ground, and so that might
be indicative of beneath theirs, where there's a the basement,
but I couldn't say that for sure.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Yeah, and I was going to go back up and look,
you can see windows in the kitchen area. It's just
hard to tell with this. I mean, it's you know,
we need many more photos. But the next photo is
a cutie Patuti baby baby Emma, who I will tie
in love looking at baby photos, even though to be honest,
(36:50):
you know, I am not a baby person. I mean,
I loved my own kids, but the older that my
kids got and the more self sufficient there were, the
more I seem to really appreciate them. But she's so
cute and she recovers and she ends up having a
very long, good life. But this is you know, this
is her. This is a photo looks like she's got
(37:10):
like a little rattle or something.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
So this next one is the last one I want
you to look at. And I am showing you this
image because number one, I think it is really interestingly
composed and it's clear, and it's startling to me, So
why don't you give me your impressions what you see here?
Speaker 3 (37:29):
Well, you know, this is a photo.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
It's showing eight caskets and then a large group of people,
you know, dressed mostly in dark except for appears there's
a few babies that are are.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
In white, and then a building in.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
The background to some sort you know, the caskets. What
you know kind of strikes me first is the two
caskets on either end are dark, and then the caskets
in the middle are all light assuming white or very
light colored. And then the two caskets towards the right,
(38:06):
the two white caskets towards the right next to the
large dark one are They're small. Obviously these are little children,
you know, so it's interesting they had to take the
time to display the caskets like this and then get
this group to pose for a photograph, and then have
a cameraman using film based photography to sit there and
(38:28):
probably take multiple photos of this. I'm not sure it
seems like an unusual photo to take, but you know,
I think the number of caskets, the size of the caskets,
it just indicates, you know, you know, this is a
whole family basically.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Yeah, and I think that this is a town of immigrants,
both like German and Russian, and so this is I think,
a very tight knit community. I don't know if I've
ever shown you any of the death photos that I've used,
the death ones, you know, where they take photographs of
people after they've died in they're in their caskets. I'm
actually surprised we didn't get any of those with this,
(39:05):
but that was such a tradition. Yeah, I think this
image is startling. I mean it shows the impact when
you look at all of these caskets and you just think,
of my god, somebody killed all of these people, right,
it's very sad and to see the tiny caskets. But
I've never actually seen male female designated caskets before. I
think that's what you're saying. It's a little odd, but.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Okay, you know, and I was even thinking, could that
be uh, you know, Jacob and his wife, you know,
the adults, the patriarch and matriarch at the family and
the dark caskets and then their kids. And I'm assuming
would the farm hand be in this? Would Jacob the
farmhand be part of this?
Speaker 1 (39:43):
How many do we have we have eight people totaled,
you have eight caskets.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Yeah, so I think he's also included. And he's he's
a relative on the mother's side, if I remember you right,
say so, Yeah, so he's he's he's included as part
of the family.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Well, let's get out of the photograph area here, let's
get back to the story. So, you know, we don't
often get photographs, so I'm always grateful when we have them.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
I am too.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Yeah, so the sheriff wonders if this is somehow, some
way murder suicide, and then we start getting information back
from the corner. So this was a shotgun and here's
who had which injuries. Jacob the dad, the forty one
year old. He was shot once with a shotgun at
close range from behind and to the side, and that
(40:28):
he was shot in the head, so kind of behind
and to the side. He had also been shot once
from a distance in the back. So I can just
tell you all of these, or you can comment on
each one. So one kind of the back of the head,
close range, one very far back but in the back.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Right, So this is this is Jacob, you know. And
of course when you start thinking about murder suicide, you know,
the most likely perpetrator of that within a family is
going to be the husband father. However, the location of
his shots, once in the back and towards the back
(41:05):
of his head, kind of to the back side of
his head, those locations suggest that somebody else shot him,
and so at this point in time, I don't believe
it's possible to conclude that Jacob shot himself with a shotgun.
And I'm assuming that the shotgun is a standard laying shotgun,
not you know, some super sowd off variant. You know,
(41:29):
that he would be able to potentially wield like a handgun,
So that's interesting, you know, I think that's one thing
I can conclude from that information is Jacob is a
victim and he is not the killer.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Yeah, and oftentimes we do have the patriarch of the
family as the killer, and it takes a while to
sort that out. So injuries in the barn, Maria who's nine,
has been shot in the back of the head at
close range. This was an interesting detail. Her hair was
singed so very close range.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Or does that matter? I mean, doesn't the shotgun singe
everything in sight? Is that the point?
Speaker 2 (42:07):
You know, it's when you start talking about hair being singed.
The shotgun is close enough to which the hot gases
that come out of the end of the barrel. It's
not just the rounds. Whatever type of ammunition was used,
whether it be a bird shot, which is more like
your bebes, right, you have a whole bunch of little bebes,
(42:27):
or you have like what law enforcement uses, your double
ott buck, which is like nine marble sized rounds that
come out. And then sometimes we'll have a slug being used,
which is this very if it's like a twelve gage,
it's this very large single round, so that comes out.
But then you also have the gases that occur during
(42:49):
the combustion of the gunpowder. That's what forces you know,
the rounds out. Also you have unburnt gunpowder, and that's
what caused what you call stippling, how you see gunpowder.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
Embedded in the skin.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
And different guns at different distances will leave evidence of
the distance that they were from their target based on
whatever is present. A shotgun, of course, is going to
you know, project its hot gases out further than a handgun,
but not that much further, you know, So this is
telling me that this is a fairly close range shot.
(43:25):
I'm talking about within several feet again not knowing that
you know, the gauge of the shotgun and the rounds.
But shotguns are devastating weapons. So if you have a
reasonably close shot to somebody's head with a shotgun, these
heads are not in good shape, you know. So this
(43:46):
is a very ugly scene in all likelihood.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
Okay, so now we know we've got Jacob who's been
shot with the shotgun at close range from behind back
of the head. And then we've got Maria and ednae
year old and the seven year old who were apparently
with him, shot in the back of the head at
close range. And then you know, we have more people
that we have to talk about.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Yeah, you know, so we got Jacob and the two
girls who are executed out in the barn. Very curious
to know, you know, what happened to the victims that
are found inside the house down in the basement.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
I think this is such a big story that we're
going to need to address that in the next episode.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Okay, so you're going to make me wait a week then.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
On an autopsy. I don't know if I've ever done
that before, able to tell you what happens next. But yeah,
this is a really intense story and with so many victims,
is one of the probably the largest number that we've had,
so I just want to make sure we take our time,
so I will talk to you about it more next week.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
Okay, Well, I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 4 (44:58):
This has been an exactly right Pa production.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
For our sources and show notes go to exactly Wrightmedia
dot com slash Buried Bones sources.
Speaker 4 (45:06):
Our senior producer is Alexis Emosi.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 4 (45:13):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 4 (45:18):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark and Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Barry Bones Pod.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
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
Speaker 1 (45:36):
Now, and 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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