343 - This Is Buried Bones

This week, Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes of Exactly Right's newest podcast, Buried Bones, join Karen and Georgia to cover the 1933 death of Allene Lamson.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hello, Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hartstar,
That's Karen Kilgareff.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson and and this is Buried Bones.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Yeah, finally, Yes, this is the super group that everybody's
been waiting for.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
That's right, this is the exactly Right power team.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Yes, we're the traveling Willberris of Exactly Right.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Give me like a parallel universe is going to open up.
I think with all four of us here, we're so excited,
are so excited about this.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
It's like the amateurs versus the professional.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Well, and we're so excited too because Buried Bones has
been in the in the works for a very long time,
highly secret. And yeah, I believe the trailer is out.
But now you guys can actually tell everybody about your
new podcast together.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
So exciting. Paul, why don't you start?

Speaker 4 (01:16):
Well, you know, Barry Bones is really sort of a
brainstorm between Kate and I. Kate came up with this
concept after we recorded a case for her other podcast,
and she had reached out to me and said, hey,
do you have any historic cases.

Speaker 5 (01:30):
Well, I do cold cases, you know, in the oldest cases.

Speaker 4 (01:33):
I typically do are back into the nineteen sixties and
I was like historic cases, and I happened to have
a role in consulting on a nineteen twenty four case
Bessie Ferguson, and so I said, hey, I've got this
one case out of the Bay Area. Well, it turns
out it was a case that Kate had covered in
her book, so she knew it well. And so we
recorded that episode and it was so great, it was

(01:54):
so smooth. We definitely just hit it off in terms
of the dialogue, and we took a look at the
case and Kate is just such a masterful storyteller, and
so now Buried Bones is sort of I would say,
it's sort of that but on steroids, where Kate basically
tells me a story which I know very little about,

(02:16):
and I respond and go, well, this is what I'm
thinking with the information you've told me. And she always
has twists and turns and keeps me on my toes.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Oh yeah, she's so good at that.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
He's given homework which I'm not sure he's taken very
well from me, where I send him a note and
I say, here's kind of what it's about. It's more
of a tease than anything, and you need to know
about mercury in the eighteen hundred, So can you figure out.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Oka, Paul, is it really weird going that far back?
I know that, like you're able to talk to witnesses
and you're able to look at crime scene photos, and
you're not able to do that on some of these
DNA DNA.

Speaker 4 (02:52):
Well, it really is an extension because when I start,
you know, if I'm working cases from the nineteen seventies
nineteen sixties, I often don't have witnesses or suspects, or
physical evidence been destroyed or case files have been lost
or photographs, and so it's kind of within the same
skill set, but it's usually worse.

Speaker 5 (03:13):
I have less information to work.

Speaker 4 (03:14):
Yeah. But what is amazing is is that it doesn't
matter if it was today or from you know, the
eighteen hundreds. You know, fundamentally crime was the same, motives
were the same, and we just you know, take a
look at it a little bit differently. And we have
modern technology that I'll discuss saying, hey, if we could

(03:35):
have done this back in the eighteen hundreds, this is
what it would have shown.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
Yeah, And you guys, it's such a nice because I've
listened to the pilot, and for all the listeners out there,
it's as good as you're hoping it will be. Truly
just a sparkling combination of the two of you doing
what you do best, two true experts. But then at
the same time it feels like eavesdropping on the teachers,

(03:59):
and it's really satisfying in that way where it's like,
you know, you don't gossip or anything, but there is
that it's a casual discussion of well, wait, think about this,
what about that? Oh, don't forget that. Back in the
eighteen hundreds, everyone drink mercury for breakfast or whatever.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
You know, that's not technically right, but that's okay.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
We didn't do our homework.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
That's the way we do our show.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
No, it's just really fun.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
I'm so glad that you guys are having a great
time because it's just so compelling and fun to listen to. Well.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
I think it's fun because when I was a working journalist,
I would sit down with friends of mine who were
with a police department or defense attorneys and prosecutors and
sit down with a story I was working on it,
and I would say, okay, let me just kind of
unroll the story for you and tell me what you think.
And so this is exactly the same thing. And there
are two things that I try to do successfully and

(04:49):
so far, so good with Paul. One is I like
to convince him of these victims and how much they
deserve to have justice, because one thing said to me,
and I think a lot of people feel, is eighteen hundreds.
And I have a couple of cases from the sixteen
hundreds and the seventeen hundreds. It's hard to relate to
those people sometimes, you know, it's a different time period.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
But he's right.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Fundamentally, people kill for the same reason. And so the
more detail that we can give about the victims survivors,
the better it is. And you know, also I like
to surprise him. He knows I withhold some information until.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
Like any good storytelling, it never seems mad at me.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
So that's good. Yet not yet, I've been checked. At
the last taping, I said, are you irritating? He's like, no, no, no,
that's great.

Speaker 4 (05:35):
She walks me down one road and all of a
sudden that would jump we jump over?

Speaker 5 (05:40):
Does I hold on here?

Speaker 1 (05:42):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (05:43):
Love it?

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Well, you guys have a really great We don't know
what story you might have a really great story for
us day.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
It's okay, might not.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
We don't know.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
It's all right.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
Do you want to jump in?

Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (05:53):
I want to jump it's a great story. So there
are several episodes from the podcasts that cover my second book,
which was called American Sherlock, and that book was a
better forensic scientist and he had all of these amazing
cases that made history. And so I've picked one that
I think Paul can really sink his teeth into. And
it's a little gossipy, not for nothing. I'm pretty sure

(06:15):
you two are gonna like the gossipy bit. So we'll
talk about that, and I'm going to stop and get
opinions from everybody. And it's a hefty case. It took
up a good portion of my book, but I'm going
to sort of shorthand expedite things as much as I can.
So this case is set during the Great Depression and
it's in nineteen thirty three Palo Alto, California, and California

(06:38):
is you know a place where you all are now?
Paul once was. I once was in San Francisco. So
this is a case that resonates with me because it's
just two average people. Their names are David and Aileen
Lampson and they were both graduates of Stanford University in
nineteen thirty three. Earlier than that, by nineteen thirty three,
she had become, you know, kind of an a executive worker.

(07:01):
He was one of the executives of Stanford University Printing
Press and very successful. They lived on a place called
Faculty Row, which was where a lot of the kind
of well to do people in Paloowa live. They had
a little cottage there. Super cute young couple in their
late twenties, early thirties. They had a little girl who
was nicknamed bb really cute little girl, two year old.

(07:24):
And they just seem to have a nice life. And
I know that many times our stories, this is the
way they start out. Everything they did, everything seemed okay,
but you know, they really truly did. David and Aalen
seemed to be a really nice couple, and so they
would go to parties and very popular and they particularly
spend a lot of time going to parties during holiday weekends.

(07:45):
So this takes place in Memorial Day weekend in nineteen
thirty three. So they go to a series of parties
and nobody's drinking excessively or anything. I think they had
a great time. And then the very last night, Sunday night,
Aileen comes home and she feels nauseous. She wasn't sure
what it was from, if it was from, you know,
the dessert that was served the night before. But she

(08:07):
came home not feeling well, and they had sent the
little girl out with They had a lemon nanny. They
sent her out to spend the night at the nanny's
house so that they could have some privacy. And they
went to sleep and Aleen didn't feel well. She woke
them with the middle of the night. David took care
of her. He was very sweet apparently. And then the
next morning he said, I'm getting up early, and he

(08:29):
slept in a separate room. He slept in Bibe's room
because he said, I have to get up early early.
She wanted him to clean up part of the backyard.
They had the kind of like a little garden in
the back and he had a lot of stuff that
he had collected, and he wanted to have a bonfire,
which I think was pretty common back then. So he
got up, he went outside eight o'clock in the morning.
He starts this fire He goes back in and she

(08:52):
is awake. Now a Leen's awake, and she says she
wants to take a bath. She still feels crummy, still
has an upset stomach. He runs a bath for her
in the bathroom, which is in the hallway. He helps
her get in. She's tall and thin. She disrobes and
he helps her in the bathtub. He goes back out.
Once she's in the bath, he goes back outside. He's sweaty.

(09:12):
He takes his shirt off. Neighbors are poking their heads
over the fence and talking to him all morning. He
talks about simonizing someone's car, and I mean he does
all kinds of stuff. He's having a great time with
the neighbors. So a real estate agent and a woman
popped their head unexpectedly over the fence and BB with
the little girl was having sinus infections, and they said, listen,

(09:36):
the doctor said, after Memorial Day weekend, why don't you
guys just take her to the mountains. It'll probably help,
and you can just sublet out your cottage, which is
what they were trying to do. So the real estate
agent comes over on this day and says, I know,
I'm just popping in and interrupting, but can I show
my client your cottage? And he said sure, so he
puts his shirt on, he goes in, and the real
estate agent and the client go to the front door

(09:58):
and they hear, they said, the most tremendous, terrible scream
they had ever heard. And they go to the door.
They start knocking, and within about one to two minutes,
they say, he comes to the door, flings it open
and says, my wife's dead. And they walk in and
Aileen Lambson is slumped over the front of the bathtub.

(10:21):
You know, of course, naked blood all over the ground
and then splatters on the walls, and you know, the
police are called, the neighbors come. It's an uncontrolled crime
scene from the beginning, and within fifteen minutes he is
under arrest for killing his wife. Under fifteen minutes.

Speaker 4 (10:39):
So when the real estate agents heard a scream, was
it a male or a female's voice.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
No, it was him screaming, oh my god, oh my god. Okay,
she's dead, she's dead. And he had blood on his shirt,
but it was blood from he said, because now I
need to start saying that. He said that he picked
her up, he found her in the back. He doesn't
know in what position, so that's kind of key. He
doesn't know in what position. He just sort of almost
blacked out. He picked her up, he tried to see

(11:08):
what was going on. He realized she was dead. He
heard the knocking. He put her down in the position
where we have the photo that we'll talk about in
a little bit. And so he's got this, you know,
kind of diluted water blood on his shirt. And then
the investigators come and they start figuring out a bunch
of different things. But I know probably all three of

(11:28):
you have some questions.

Speaker 4 (11:30):
So for well, you know, I think you know first
is he is His early statements are she is actually
in the tub dead and the tub is full of water.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
It is pink water, okay.

Speaker 4 (11:41):
And then when the first responders arrive, what year is
this again?

Speaker 5 (11:46):
This is in the nineteen thirties.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
This is thirty three. So they did do a liver
temp if that's what you're gonna ask next.

Speaker 4 (11:53):
Actually, I was just kind of curious in terms of
when crime scene photography started in this case. You know,
is this something that first responders arrived, they checked the body.
It sounds like they did a liver temp and then decided, okay,
she's dead, and they backed out, and that's when crime
scene processing occurred.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
You know, I don't know what order it occurred in.
I know that if this tells you anything, that that
photo of her slumped over the edge of the tub
became really key evidence in court because it was the
way that they had said, well, you know, the way
the defence portrayed this is not the way it happened,
based on where she was laying. But he is saying,

(12:35):
that is not how I found her. I don't know
how I picked her up. He tried to describe it.
I picked her up. So it's unreliable, you know, depending
on I don't know who you believe.

Speaker 5 (12:45):
But he's arrested, so oh yeah, and he goes to trial.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
He does, He goes to trial. He's arrested.

Speaker 3 (12:51):
Can I just before we go to trial? I just
want to say, a guy who's hanging out in the
backyard and people are poking the hit their head over
his fence. He's he's entertaining all comers. It's not like
he's like I need private time, acting weird, you know,
anything like that. And then when they say can we
come through? How how like, beyond would you have to

(13:13):
be to invite people into your house knowing there was
a crime scene inside, right.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Or be like here's my chance in killing her in
that moment?

Speaker 2 (13:21):
So, you know, I see the look on Paul's face.
This is a big smile, and I think he's about
to He's about to tell you exactly how that. Sorry, sorry, sorry,
tell us you know.

Speaker 4 (13:31):
Well, this is where I think it's going to come
down to. If he's arrested, he's under suspicion for some
reason by early investigators. And right now, I don't know
if Kate has information as to why he fell under
suspicion so quickly, but if he was the one responsible
for a Leen's homicide or death, then he's already put

(13:55):
mechanisms in place with the expectation that somehow the body
is going to have to be found. This is showing
this is this part of this organized defender if that's
what happened. But I'm not necessarily going to hang my
hat on that just yet, because I know Kate's probably
going to tell me some more details.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
Well, there's immediate suspicion, I think for a couple of reasons.
One is the tremendous amount of blood to them seemed
like there's no way this in any way could this
have been an accident? And he literally said, I don't
know what happened. I don't know what to do. I
have a friend of mine who's a really good defense attorney,
and he said, the worst client you can get is
a innocent one because they're useless. They can't tell you anything.

(14:41):
They I mean, he's like, what did I do? I
don't know. I just found her. So I think that
the blood on the shirt, on his shirt, even though
he explained what happened, was one thing. I think he
couldn't answer questions. And it wasn't that he was stoic.
He just was sort of in a daze, which who
wouldn't be, But so who else would have done it?

(15:01):
If this is murder? I just I think they looked
at the amount of blood all over the place, splatters
on the walls and on the ground, and just thought
there's no way somebody didn't beat this woman to death.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
Well, I guess that's the question now, right, is like,
what's the autopsy? You say? Because I feel like a
head wound bleeds excessively, you know, slip and fall. What's
what's the deal? Or is it murder? One hundred percent?

Speaker 2 (15:24):
Well, I mean, Paul, what do you think about So,
you know, Georgia said, which I think is a great
observation head wounds. Do head wounds always bleed that much?

Speaker 4 (15:33):
Well, it depends on when they occur. You know, you
could have post mortem head wounds in which you don't
have a lot of bleeding because the heart is no
longer pumping. But typically head wounds both the scalp as
well as if this you know, if the skull is
fractured and there's damage to the you know, the arterial
supply into the brain, they bleed heavily. So this is

(15:55):
where you know, getting into the autopsy result. Always, when
I'm evaluating a case, I always need to know, well,
what happened to the victim, what are the injuries, what
are the bleeding injuries, what's the cause of death? And
then I can go from there to assess the crime scene.
So what does the autopsy say in this case?

Speaker 2 (16:12):
Well, hold on, let me pull this up because I
sent it to you the exact what I wrote in
the book actually, which I think is going to be
very helpful because I told Paul I said, should you
just read part of this book? And he said, no,
are you going to plagiarize yourself right now? And then
Sue usked, that's a great idea. I love that I do.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
Right the ultimate. By the way, if you haven't read
American Sherlock, I just need to say it's one of
my favorite true crime books. It's so satisfying. Maybe also
because I'm from the Bay Area, but I really love
this book. So if you are interested in any kind
of thing like that, American Sherlock is about essentially the
first forensic scientist criminologists in America who.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
Might have made a big mistake in this case. I
guess we're going to find out on a little bit. Yeah,
said the twists and turn, Well, let me read you this.
So this is what I wrote that the autopsy report
said four lacerations on the back of the head, covering
the occipital protuberance and surrounding it. And then three of

(17:21):
said lacerations were somewhat horizontal indirection, two being somewhat curved,
one depressed fracture of the skull, as well as an
undepressed stellate. Is that right stellate Paul stell eight fracture.
Everybody said, one hard hit and then lots of little
cracks like an egg. What do you think, Paul, Okay,

(17:44):
this is the PowerPoint. This is when the PowerPoint comes out.

Speaker 5 (17:47):
Yes, here we go.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
Okay, okay.

Speaker 4 (17:49):
So this is a sketch at the back of Aileen's
head and the pathologist has now noted these lacerations in
this horizontal manner that are to the back and somewhat
down below the skull the back of her head. Now,
laceration is a very specific term. It's a type of wound.

(18:12):
It's caused by when the skin is crushed between a
blunt object and the bone underneath, and so that causes
the skin to split. You see this with boxers when
they're boxing and they get to that punch to the
eyebrow and the eyebrow splits. That is technically a laceration.

(18:33):
It's not an abrasion, it's not an incision. So these lacerations,
this becomes absolutely critical because you have multiple lacerations. Now,
if the defense is saying she merely slipped in the
tub and hit the back of her head, you'd have
one laceration. Maybe you have multiple lacerations that are occurring

(18:55):
to this skin. This is indicating multiple events causing the
skin in to split where this blunt object hit the
back of her head and then the skull fractures that
they are talking about. The skull is very robust until
it basically is compromised. So you can have a blow

(19:18):
or several blows that aren't going to break the skull
itself refracture the skull. But once that skull is fractured,
then subsequent blows have an easier time fracturing it. The
idea that they're saying that the fractures to the skull
as well as the last rations indicates one blow from
what I can see in this sketch, is absolutely wrong.

(19:40):
You have multiple blows that are occurring to the back
of her head. So this now starts to bring up Okay,
so was this an accident?

Speaker 5 (19:50):
You know?

Speaker 4 (19:51):
Is it possible for her to have you know, slipped
and fallen and have her head hit on multiple surfaces
during that slip and fall. But that's where I need
to take a look at that one photo that we
talked about selling her in, you know, slumped over in
the bathtub. You know, first I kind of want to

(20:11):
set this up because you know, as Kate mentioned, I
kind of, you know, like to be critical if you will,
of this Oscar Heinrich, who did some good work and
then did some some goofy things. And here's a couple
of photos of Heinrich, you know, being called in and
taking a look at this scene. And what you see,

(20:31):
I mean, this is obviously so posed for the camera
with his team, and he's looking at this tiny little
blood drop above the doorknob, or he's using a stereo
microscope looking at something on the floor. This is now
where you're making mountains out of mohills. This is where
he is probably over interpreting blood patterns at the scene.

(20:54):
The blood pattern discipline is actually a very legit discipline.
It's the best type of evidence in order to determine
events that happened at the scene. But sometimes examiners start
focusing in on my new show without looking at the
big picture. So now I'm going to go and take
a look at the big picture, and this is going

(21:15):
to be Can I.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
Ask you about something about that really quickly, because we've
been hearing a lot lately about how blood spatter evidence
is bunk. It's not a real science. So you're saying
it totally is when used correctly.

Speaker 5 (21:27):
It absolutely is.

Speaker 4 (21:29):
And this is where when I have reviewed cases in
which there has been let's say, faulty testimony related to
blood patterns, it always comes down to is the examiner
competent and in many instances the examiner is not competent
or did the examiner overinterpret the blood evidence? And this

(21:52):
is where I mean, just to give a very easy example,
Let's say you had blood on your hand and you
just smeared your hand across the wall. Going to create
a type of pattern. Right, Let's say it blood on
your finger and you flick your finger. That's going to
create a different type of pattern. Is there any way
to confuse those two types of events that would create

(22:14):
those patterns?

Speaker 2 (22:15):
No?

Speaker 5 (22:15):
No, it's very straight forward.

Speaker 4 (22:18):
But what ends up happening, like what we see with
Heinrich here is he's got this goofy eyeglass magnifier and
he's looking at the single drop and it's like, no,
you know, this is not going to make a difference
in terms of assessing what really happened in this case.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
I think this is all performative. I promise all of
this is him just trying. He loved photography. It was
just him trying to get stuff for his portfolio.

Speaker 5 (22:44):
Oh it's all it's all posed and it's it.

Speaker 4 (22:47):
But what he's doing is really illustrating where people fall
into traps with evidence at the scene. So this next photo,
and this is the one Karen and George, is just
like you know, you'll see a little bit of the victim.
But I'm going to put it up on the screen
now here. I just want to point out. You know,
what I've done is I've zoomed in on that one photo.

(23:09):
We can see a Leen's arms and then this braided
ponytail right here. And then as Kate mentioned, this very
large amount of blood that's on the floor.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
That is a lot of so much blood, like they
said it estimated half of her blood, which I didn't
even think was possible.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
Chilling.

Speaker 4 (23:29):
Now it's also diluted with water, and we hear from
the husband that you know, he came in and you
know she was in the bathtub and he picked her up,
and so you could see where water might splash, but
you also have undiluted blood pools that are on the floor.
In addition, and there's going to be some things that
I will point out a little bit later, but on

(23:52):
the floor, maybe a towel in the foreground. It's a
little out of focus. And this is where I'm asking, Okay,
what did first respond unders do because I need to
know in order to assess how this scene was changed
after the victim was found.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
Well, I can tell you one note is they in
trial referred to that she had her hand. Those are
her bedroom slippers. There's one slipper there that's blood soaked.
I think they took the photo exactly as when they
came in they found her. But I'm not one hundred
percent sure, Paul, because this was such a cluster of
contaminated scene. I mean, there were neighbors trying to clean

(24:28):
up blood in the kitchen, everybody was walking through. I
mean it was a big mess.

Speaker 4 (24:33):
Forensically, sure, but you know this photo shows there's no
evidence of clean up here. Yeah. And I'll get into
some other aspects about this as we get further into
the story, but I just want to point out we
have two gloves on the floor right here. We have
a right hand glove and a left hand glove. They
look like leather gloves. So whose gloves are those?

Speaker 2 (24:52):
Well? They were probably his because he was working outside.
He was working with BlackBerry brushes, and he was getting
scratched all over the place, so he had They said
that he had no shirt on because they were joking
that he was doing two jobs at the same time,
cleaning up the backyard and getting a tan. He had
no shirt on and he had leather gloves on. If
I'm playing a devil's advocate, you know, David Lambson's innocent.

(25:15):
I think he probably ran in, saw her, took off
his gloves, stroom on the ground, grabbed her, and the
rest proceeded from there. But again, you know, because he
picked her up and he put her down in a
different position. He says, we don't know. We don't even
know what position she was in, and that was another
problem with the trial. But well we can talk about
that too.

Speaker 4 (25:32):
Yeah, and I'll circle back around to some other things
in this photo because there's actually quite a lot of
information in here I haven't brought up yet.

Speaker 5 (25:38):
So why don't you proceed cake?

Speaker 2 (25:40):
Okay, So you know, there's enough for the police to say,
how else could she have died rather than being you know,
hurt by her husband? So he's under arrest. They start
searching the house. They look inside the bonfire and they
find a ten inch long iron pipe. It's in the fire.
This wouldn't have been the first time he stuff like
that before. He burned things from his garage that people

(26:02):
just burned anything they wanted in the thirties, I guess.
And they test it. There's no blood, it's inconclusive. There's
you know, rust on it, there's some foreign matter. But
they don't know what's happening. So when the prosecutor gets
the case, he theorizes a couple of things. One he
thinks that Aileen and David got home. She wasn't feeling well.

(26:26):
He wanted to have sex. She said no, she said,
I'm on my period. That's probably why I don't feel well.
They wake up the next morning, she takes a bath
and he realizes somehow like maybe he doesn't see a
Maxi pad in the trash can, and he realizes that
she's not on her period, and he flies into a

(26:47):
rage and beats her to death with a pipe.

Speaker 1 (26:52):
That's their theory, the maxi pad. That's that's one theory.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
And also he had a female friend who he denied
and she denied that they were in a relationship and
Aileen knew they went to college together, but he had
set this friend flowers at one point. She was doing
something for I think maybe good Housekeeping. It was one
of those types of magazine. She was a photographer, and
he said he sent her flowers just to she was
a family friend. But they made that into something even

(27:15):
though everybody denied it more context to their relationship. I
had her journal, her diary. I read through it. There's
just nothing suspicious at all. I know that doesn't mean anything,
but when there's something in there that's suspicious, it does
mean something. There's nothing in there about acrimony in any way.
They seem to have a really nice relationship. She said,

(27:35):
he's very romantic. He bought her something really nice on
Valentine's Day. He's a great dad. They went hiking, so
you know, if there is any type of an affair,
I don't think that she knew about it, or maybe
she would have found out about it that night. What
is interesting to me that I'd like to hear from
you all about is this idea that he flew into
a rage over this missing Maxi pad, and so he

(28:00):
came in put two and two together and became very angry.
With her, and he was just happening to carry this
ten inch iron piece of pipe with him, and that
was a commune. It just it's a little weird. It
doesn't make sense to me. It seems like a pretty
weak motive.

Speaker 5 (28:16):
I wander around my house with pipe all the time.

Speaker 3 (28:20):
Like a prison guard.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
This is a guy thing. Oh yeah, keep those kids
in line, Paul, Oh my goodness. I mean the pipe
thing for me is weird because everyone knows it's not
going to burn, so why would he try to get
rid of it in the burn thing?

Speaker 2 (28:34):
Yes, it makes you less suspicious of him or more suspicious.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
Less everyone would think that's a dumb way to get
rid of a lead pipe, you know.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
But then why would you put it in a bonfire
to begin with? I mean, either way, he's not that
smart obviously. I mean, maybe I know somebody's probably going
to message me and say, don't you know the best
way to do something something with the pipe is but
I just didn't. Either way, it doesn't make sense that
he put it in that fire. Paul being a man.

Speaker 4 (28:58):
Paul, Well, you know, from my perspective, if this pipe
had been used in a bludgeoning like this, it would
have a fair amount of blood on it and probably
it hearing hair and possibly other tissues. So you throw
it in the fire and then that evidence would be removed.
Now it's not going to destroy the pipe, but you
destroy the evidence that would suggest that the pipe was.

Speaker 5 (29:19):
The murder weapon.

Speaker 3 (29:20):
It was inconclusive, just to counter weapons wise, because I'm
an expert to say this was what was happening and
he was guilty, and therefore that was his pipe and
he was there doing it. His inches away from a
much better solution, which is put that pipe in the
bathwater and get everything off of it and then go

(29:40):
put it in your pipe pile like they had in
the thirty pipe pile. But I mean, like the idea
of I feel like it goes against normal human processes
to burn blood as opposed to wash it off. And
he's in a bathroom. To me, that feels like they're
trying to really tie things together that maybe truly aren't together.

(30:01):
And he did just have like if he had a
box of garbage and he dumped it all in there
was a pipe in there or I don't know, something
like that.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Well, I think they're looking for a weapon, and a
pipe is certainly a good weapon. Yeah, I have to
explain how she ended up with, you know, cracks in
the back of her head.

Speaker 4 (30:15):
And I will say, based on the sketch, I'd like
to see photos, but at least with the sketch of
her injuries, that a pipe is consistent with the.

Speaker 5 (30:24):
Type of injury she has to the back of her head.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
Well, let me give you more details about what happens.
So the prosecutor hires Heinrich. She comes in. He looks around,
he looks at the blood, and he looks at the
droplets and the amount of blood and where it was,
and he looks at the sink and he says, I
can't work for you. I don't believe that this was murder.
I think she slipped and fell and hit her head
on the sink based on the wound patterns I know.

(30:47):
So if you guys at home could see Paul's forehead
right now, because either are higher than they probably ever had.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
He's truly shocked.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
He is shocked.

Speaker 4 (30:56):
See, oh, I'm chopping at the bit.

Speaker 5 (31:00):
I'm going to let you keep telling the story.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
So he is hired by the defense, of course, and
he says, if you look at the way the patterns
are Now this part makes sense to me, Paul, if
you look at the back of the head and the
parallel lines feel very even, right his argument, and actually
a couple of pathologists I've spoken to modern pathologists say
that when you're hitting someone on the back of the

(31:23):
head with a pipe, they're moving and you're not going
to have these three or four perfectly parallel marks. She's
not just lying on the ground. So that was one
of his arguments about blood. And then I'll tell you
in a little bit, Georgia, what do you think about that?

Speaker 1 (31:35):
That's a great point. Also, the wounds being horizontal to
me signify a slip and fall more likely than being
hit personally in my amateur opinion.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
Wait, well, let's see what's Karen's vote. Karen, what do
you vote?

Speaker 3 (31:48):
I feel like I've been highly influenced by the amount
of blood on that floor, because I wish it were
a slip and fall, and there's nothing indicating in her
person diary that there's any strife whatsoever, but the amount
of blood that there is, there's several I want to say,
contucious laceration lacerations. Yeah, there's not one looking consistent, looking parallel,

(32:14):
like you're saying it just doesn't seem accidental. It seems
like it has a lot of intention based on her head.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
Can I ask, are there bruises on her body at all?

Speaker 2 (32:23):
Not that I read, Paul, What did you read something?

Speaker 5 (32:25):
No, I didn't read anything.

Speaker 4 (32:26):
All I could assess was that one photo that shows
her body, and I'm not seeing any defensive injuries.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
There's no defensive injuries that I read about.

Speaker 4 (32:33):
Now, now, you know addressing the parallel marks of the
lacerations to the back of her head. You know, I've
worked bludgeoning cases, and I'll one case in particular, which
is going to be a Golden State killer case, which
Gregor Sanchez was bludgeoned to death by Joseph DiAngelo, and
he has multiple clusters of linear lacerations on the back

(32:58):
of his head are clustered just like this. But also
you see change in directionality with these clusters. So one
cluster will have a grouping that are all parallel, and
then another cluster had another grouping all parallel, et cetera.
And this is showing that yes, the offender was able
to strike multiple blows with the weapon and the victim's

(33:23):
head in the same alignment. And then at some point
another cluster occurred with the weapon and the victim's head
in a different alignment. It absolutely is possible for an
offender to strike a victim multiple times in the head,
the weapon being an alignment. In this particular case, the

(33:45):
very first blow, you know, we're talking about blows that
the pathologist is saying occipital protuberance. This is now the
lower bone in your skull, right above where your neck is.
This is a devastating area to receive a blow. You
know ice skaters who you know they slip and fall
it hit the back of their head on the ice.
Sometimes that proves to be fatal because of where it's that.

(34:08):
Imagine the first blow could have been fatal or causing
absolute unconsciousness, and now the victim is no longer moving
for the subsequent blows that finish her off. What I
kind of take a look at is when you look
at the dynamics of combat between the offender and the victim,
A feature that stands out to me about a lean

(34:29):
is that braided ponytail. Isn't that such a great handle
for an offender to grab And could you imagine while
she's standing up, the offender grabs at and now brings
her head down and while she's in a bent over position,
that first blow is delivered. So this is part of

(34:50):
trying to assess the dynamics of offender victim interactions during
the infliction of violence these blows. There's blood spatter in
this case that we have don't really talked about it. Well,
I'm not going to go into detail outside of the
fact that the blood spatter in this case is all
out in the bathroom area where the sink is, where
the door into the bathroom is. It's not in the bathtub,

(35:15):
so I will get into that a little bit later.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
So we are going to trial and Heinrinch is testifying
on behalf of David Lambson, and Heinrinch's argument is that
she slipped and fell and it's hard to tell, but
it's a very small, small bathroom. So he had many
arguments here. One is that there simply didn't seem to
be enough room for David to get behind her with

(35:40):
this pipe. There wasn't enough room to get back too.
Every wall had bits of blood on it, including a jacket.
It's not a robe, but it was kind of a
jacket bathroom jacket that was hanging on the inside of
the door. So when she was in the bathtub, she
closed the door where there was a crack there, right,
So if this is a slip and fall, the blood

(36:02):
went up his jacket as well, So on every wall,
there's no void for where the killer would have been.
The blood touched every wall, according to Heinrich in these photographs.
So his argument was, well, why did David lambson? First
of all, where's the cast off blood? Right when you
hit someone and the blood comes backwards, where's all that?
There's little droplets and most of the blood is contained

(36:24):
on the ground. So when he took the stand, that
was his major argument.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
Are you guys watching Paul's face right now?

Speaker 2 (36:29):
Yeah, he's really.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
I wish you could see it listeners, because he is.

Speaker 5 (36:35):
Not at all, not at all.

Speaker 4 (36:39):
I'm trying to think of what I should address at
this point in time. One of the things that I
do want to address is, you know, the photos that
Kate herself acquired show the blood spatter on multiple surfaces
out in the bathroom. In order to produce blood spatter,
you have to have a blow to a pool o

(37:00):
blood source. So I'm going to walk you through a
hypothetical scenario. And I use this when I talk to
citizens academies all the time. I could take a baseball bat.
This is a high energy weapon. I could hit you
in the head as hard as I could. I am
not going to produce blood spatter because there's no pooled

(37:21):
blood source. I could would kill you with that blow.
But now that I've hit you, I've created that laceration,
maybe I've crushed the skull in. I've now got cerebral
arterial blood also bubbling to the surface. The next time
I hit you with that bat, now you get the poof.

(37:43):
That's where you get the blood spatter. So think about
the scenario of an accident. She slips in the bathtub
and hits the back of her head. Is there a
pooled blood source at that point? No, no, no way
is that going to produce spatter. It would require another
slip and another fall into that same area on her

(38:06):
head to produce blood spatter. But she's under this theory.
She's in the bathtub area. There's no spatter from the
photos that are available to me to show that there's
spatter in the bath to area. It's all out in
the bath room area. This is a problem for the
slip and fall theory that Heinrich is proposing.

Speaker 3 (38:30):
Ladies, what do you think I love to learn? Honestly,
I'm justing, Wait, it doesn't. You're right, it doesn't. It wouldn't.
The first the first hit to the head wouldn't produce that.
It's fascinating.

Speaker 4 (38:46):
Yeah, the caveat is the only time it does is
with explosive level energies like a gunshot or a bomb. Obviously,
where there's massive disruption and blunt objects have different I
will call them energy levels. A short pipe is different
than a baseball bat. A baseball bat is so much

(39:07):
more devastating, the blood spatter from that, and the injuries
to the victim are so much more magnified than from
a shorter, less energetic weapon.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
Is there any Whirlpaul in which you think this could
have been an accident? Or are you looking at these
photos and high wrenches, drawing and just saying conclusively like
you would be comfortable presenting this to a prosecutor and
saying go out to this guy.

Speaker 4 (39:30):
Well, right now, I am comfortable definitively saying this is
a homicide, and then I will give you information as
to why I think somebody close to her is responsible
for the homicide.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
Okay, very mysterious. Usually I'm the mysterious one.

Speaker 5 (39:47):
I'm turning the tables on you.

Speaker 4 (39:49):
Now, you gave me enough information to kind of play
around with this.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
Okay, Well, let's say now that David Lambson took the stand.
He was terrible. He just he was not good on
the stand. He was not charming. He had no idea
what happened. He just said, I miss my wife, and
that's pretty much it. And people did question a lot
of things. They questioned how he could have a conversation

(40:16):
about simonizing a car in the backyard and the liver
temp test and frankly they could feel the water and
it confirmed that within an hour she had died of
the police arriving, So that fit into his timeline, and
that he could kill her and come outside and within
an hour out there having conversations with people and then

(40:39):
have this woman unexpectedly show up and let her in,
and it just seemed all too much for some people.
The prosecutor reminded people that David was an actor. He
was I mean, he was a community theater actor. So
I'm not quite sure that's going to be something that's
going to convince people that this man was really trying
to get one over on the jury. But regardless, at

(41:01):
the end of the whole trial, the jury went back
and you know, immediately took a vote and it was
eleven to one to convict, eleven to one. Well, so
this is what happens. And maybe Paul, you have a
nifty story about this, and you might not, but you know,
later on, after the trial ended and after they rendered

(41:22):
a verdict, one of the people in the jury, the
person who was hanging the jury was a woman who
came and later said that she was going to essentially
assue the state because she had been threatened and pressured
in the jury room to change her vote, right, And
it was admitted that that's what they did. So they
all spent three days pressuring her to change her vote.

(41:43):
I can't believe you're doing this. They were threatening her
and saying, don't you know what happened to the last
guy who hung a jury and then this murderer went
free and people burned down his house, and so she
was really intimidated. They didn't even really discuss the evidence.
What they did was which I thought, Paul, you would appreciate.
Is they tried to recreate the accidental fault. Oh that's

(42:06):
really that's really ballsy to try to do that. They
had people standing on a table and falling backwards and
trying to figure out in which way she would have
hit her head to do to reinact. I mean, that's
crazy to me.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
I have a question, did it ever come up that
someone else was the murderer? Why is it that an
option if we all think it's murder.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
Well, because the only two people at the time, since
they were able to say she had died within an
hour of the police arriving, no one had seen anybody
else at the house except for the real estate agent
and the person there, and it was David and that
was it. So, you know, I had found there were
a lot of instances on Stanford bro There had been
a whole rash of burglaries and some peeping toms and

(42:48):
stuff that had happened. Nothing definitively, It just was, you know,
David was the most likely suspect and the husband did it.
You all say that all the time.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
We don't say it all the time. Every single crime
show we watched this all the time.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
It was simply the numbers right, it is. And so
eventually this woman on the jury is worn down and
she finally says okay, and he's convicted, and he is
sentenced to death and sent to San Quentin. And as
you know, that's not the end of the story.

Speaker 4 (43:18):
Oh so okay, so this is interesting to me then. Obviously,
first when you say this one juror who was holding
out was threatened and intimidated, was that by the prosecution
at all? Or was it by the other jurors other jurors? Okay,
pressure within the jury room. Yeah, and this is California.
They had death on the table for this case.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
It did.

Speaker 4 (43:41):
I am not familiar with the murder statutes from the
nineteen thirties in California. Do you know how they had
delineated special circumstances to justify the death penalty or did
they back then?

Speaker 3 (43:54):
No?

Speaker 2 (43:54):
They didn't. Okay, yeah, okay, Now he was called I
think execution row. He went right there.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
It was.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
It was very swift. He didn't say anything, he had
no comment. Essentially, Can I just point one thing out sure?

Speaker 3 (44:06):
In how we were saying he was out there, she
had died within the hour. He was talking to neighbors
call me this point earlier. But if this was planned
in any way, talking to neighbors would be the best
thing you could do to be out. I'm being casual,
my shirt's off, I'm doing some yard work, most innocent

(44:26):
thing you could be doing. You get witnesses. So look
at you having a normal day, whether you just did
it or are planning to do it. Wouldn't you say
your average sociopath or psychopath could have those conversations with
no one catching on that something either bad is about
to happen or did happen, Like wouldn't that be part
of the plan. He knows the real estate agent might

(44:49):
pop by, right, that could be you're all playing into
his scheme.

Speaker 4 (44:53):
Okay, Well, from my perspective, yes, you know. And there's
plenty of examples, and I think a notable example in
some ways the case out here in.

Speaker 5 (45:01):
Colorado with Christopher Watts right here.

Speaker 4 (45:04):
This guy is horrible, case killed his wife and I
think there were daughters.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
Two little girls.

Speaker 4 (45:10):
You know, but if you watch them, you know, when
he's being interviewed by media, you know, he comes off
as being poor me, I'm missing my wife and my daughters,
and he's the killer.

Speaker 5 (45:21):
Yeah, these guys are.

Speaker 4 (45:23):
Able to be convincing and taking on this role and
they go into the case thinking they can do this.
These are the types of individuals that will represent themselves
at trial. They're narcisstic, so they think they're better than anybody.
They can fool anybody. And I don't know about the
husband in this case, and I can't say based on

(45:45):
what I'm seeing that there was a ton of planning
for this homicide. I can't say if this was in
a fit of rage versus this was, you know, showing
a lot of malice a forethought. But it does not
surprise me that if he is the one that killed
a Leen, that he would be able to pull off
convincing others. Hey, I was just out working in my
yard and now I have to let out this blood

(46:08):
curdling shriek, you know, to convince the people outside that
I just walked in on something horrific.

Speaker 3 (46:14):
Yeah, because there is something very performative to a shriek
so loud that you would hear it all the way
through the house into the you know, Like I'm just
trying to picture, there would be almost like an implosion
for me of like frozen silent gas being not being
able to breathe. That kind of thing is I mean,
obviously we have talked about there's no right way to

(46:34):
do anything, especially in these extreme and totally bizarre circumstances.

Speaker 4 (46:39):
But as a man in the nineteen thirties, that seems
to be sort of an unusual reaction, whether it's you know,
nature or environmental you know, upbringing, I never have the
impulse to scream, no matter what I'm dealing with, you know,
And I think that's probably most men, at least in
our society today.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
Well, so where do we stand. Let's take a straw
poll right now. Where do we stand with what happened
with David Lampson. So if we're pulling these two guilty
and not guilty things apart, in the guilty column, we
think he's guilty. Is the lacerations of the cracks in
the back of the head where the blood landed, and
she had these braids. Maybe that's what gave her these

(47:21):
even parallel lines on the back of her head. That
he had an opportunity. There were the only two people
in the house, he had an alibi of sorts. He
was able to disappear in and out, there were people outside.
Maybe the scream, the cry was performative and then on
the other side, not guilty, as you have. Several experts,

(47:42):
at least in the thirties say this actually to us
looks more like the markings that fit perfectly the ridges
of the sink, that's what they think.

Speaker 4 (47:51):
And the sink hold on the sink, not the bathtub,
even though she's fouled in the bathtub.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
Yes, she's found in the bathtub, but the sink is
about two feet from her. So Heinrich's idea was that
she slipped and fell and there's three ridges on the
Are we having to go back and redo this whole episode? Paul,
tell me, we're not going to freaking do that.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
Man, Why didn't we know about this our deco sink.

Speaker 3 (48:14):
This is the the courthouse revealed.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
Can we all say what we think so far and
then well and then you'll give us the rest. Yes,
tell me, I don't think there's enough evidence to bring
it to trial. Okay, I think it's slip and fall.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
Do you think it's slip and fall? Okay?

Speaker 3 (48:29):
And Karen, you're more cynical. I'm more cynical. Also, just
alcomes razor, like you said it the simplicity of it,
where the other option, aside from a slip and fall,
is that a third party came into the house at
the perfect time, killed her silently without David hearing in
the backyard, and then went back out and didn't take

(48:51):
anything or didn't. I don't know if they investigated that part,
but like that, to me, everything else seems a little
out there, And the slip and fall, well, I just
don't think they would go one, two, three four the
way they are on that autopsy. Even if you were falling,
it feels like it would be in different areas of
your head. It looks like she perfectly fell down. I

(49:13):
don't know, I'm not sure, but it just seems like
it's so hard. The reason I like True Crime is
because the possibility of him actually doing it, which is
there's a monster hiding in plain sight, talking with neighbors
and raking up his leaves while then he just does
this thing and thinks he's going to get away with it,
is what I'll always pick because.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
It's more interesting. Yeah, well, this story gets a little
bit more interesting at the end too, so you'll get
to hear that, Paul, what do you think now, Because
Heinrich's argument was she fell, she hit the sink with
the two or three ridges, and that to him it
matched up with the back of her head and then
she fell. But the sink was very close. I lived
in a place in New York where literally I could

(49:52):
take a bath and spit in the sink at the
same time, and it was no big deal. And it
sounds like it was that kind of a bathroom. Yeah,
but still the pathologist so I spoke to, said, that's
a lot of blood for slip and fall. I don't know.
So what do you think, Paul? You're you are. I
don't want you to ever doubt you are my number
one forensic scientist, dude. So whatever you say, I'm going with.

Speaker 3 (50:12):
That's really beautiful.

Speaker 4 (50:14):
So so, this wash basin is two and a half
feet away from the bathtub. So imagine if you're in
the bathtub and you slip and fall to where now
you're hitting your head on that wash basin. Where is
your body mass located, where's the center of your mass.

(50:35):
You're not going to fall back into that bathtub. You
are going to be falling onto the floor. Karen and Georgia,
I'm not going to divulge how tall each of you are.
But you're not tall people.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
I wish you would thank you.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
Yeah, sensitive about their height, very tiny even me.

Speaker 5 (50:53):
You know, I'm five ten.

Speaker 4 (50:55):
If I were to slip and fall out of this
bathtub to a point where I'm hitting the back of
my head on something, and I'm not going to be
standing right on the edge of this bathtub, I'm going
to be standing in the middle of the bathtub, so
something that's three to three and a half feet away,
I'm not falling into the bathtub.

Speaker 5 (51:13):
And it's oriented wrong.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
But he grabbed her.

Speaker 4 (51:15):
You do have an alteration to the scene for sure, But.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
He wouldn't put her back in the bathtub and like
slump her over.

Speaker 4 (51:23):
No, Well, the wash basin for me is a huge
miss under this theory. And I don't know if it
was Heinrich that was the one that proposed it, but
I don't see that as even an option. The only
option from the slip and fall would be the side
of the bathtub itself. But again I go back to

(51:45):
the injuries, multiple lacerations. You have blood spatter that is
out by the door to the bath room to where
the towel rack is, which is now a distance away
from the bathtub. This is indicating blows are occurring to
a pooled blood source out in the bathroom, not in

(52:08):
the bathtub. Multiple blows occurring out in the bathroom. For me,
this is definitively a homicide, and based on what I'm
seeing in that photo, I'm absolutely confident that the homicide
was committed by somebody who naturally thought they would be

(52:29):
a suspect. And is this a time where I can
maybe divulge a little bit?

Speaker 1 (52:34):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (52:35):
Please? This is such an unfamiliar role for me because
usually I'm divulging uncomfortable.

Speaker 4 (52:44):
So I can share my screen here, all right, so
everybody can see what I'm looking at now, all right, So,
as as I mentioned before, there is a tremendous amount
of blood that's all the bathroom floor. Yeah, and it's
been diluted with water. You can see over here by

(53:05):
the victim's hands, where you know this blood pool which
has been disrupted. There's water that's intermixed. But you can
see over near the bathtub where you have blood that
has flowed from the pool and has accumulated, showing that yes,
this is a you have a significant amount of bleeding

(53:27):
that has occurred onto this bathroom floor. Now, our victim,
whose bleeding injuries are to the back of her head,
she's in the bathtub.

Speaker 5 (53:35):
Take a look.

Speaker 4 (53:36):
At these kind of very dilute rivulets going down the
side of the bathtub. Six streaks. These are dilute flows
of blood. This is bloody water that's gone down the bathtub.
Her bleeding injury is up high here. And now we
know that the husband did move her body, but she

(53:58):
was in the bathtub when he goes.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
In, right, Yeah, this is what he said.

Speaker 5 (54:02):
These flows.

Speaker 4 (54:05):
In no way, shape or form can account for the
amount of blood pooling on the bathroom floor. In addition,
we see these these coagulated masses of blood. When blood pools,
it congeals, you know, and so the outside of the
blood that's exposed to the oxygen and a thick blood

(54:26):
pool will start to just kind of form a skin,
and then the entire thickness of the blood pool we
eventually kind of congeal. What we see all the time
is we have somebody laying in the middle of the street.
Let's say it's a gang bang homicide, and we have
a huge pool of blood around the victim's head and
that blood is congealed. When we move that body to

(54:48):
place into the body bag, that disrupts this congealed blood.
What I'm seeing here is that I had a blood
pool that was on this floor where the blood had
congealed and then was disrupted, And I cannot account for
the blood pool forming on the floor with the victim
in the bathtub.

Speaker 5 (55:08):
This tells me the.

Speaker 4 (55:10):
Victim was laying on the floor for a period of
time bleeding out from her head injuries, long enough for
the blood to congeal, and then she was moved into
the bath tub. This is a staged crime scene, and
anytime an offender stages a scene, that means that offender

(55:31):
in his mind feels that he naturally would be a suspect,
so he's trying to make the scene look like something
it's not. In this case, it's trying to make a
homicide look like an accident. So now we go down
to who had access inside this house that morning.

Speaker 3 (55:52):
Paul can ask one question absolutely, how long does it
usually take blood to congeal after it starts to pool.

Speaker 4 (55:58):
Well, it depends on environmental conditions. You know, if you're
you're outside in the cold, it's going to be slower
than if you're if it's outside in you know, a
warmer environment, if you're inside. You know, this is what
Palo Alto. I don't know a time of year, but
it takes some time. But the initial aspects of the

(56:20):
blood congealing, it actually starts right away. That thin skin
starts to form on the outside, and then as the
blood sits there, it starts to harden it. And I've
had to dig through it many, many times to try
to recover bullets or other forms of evidence within this
blood pool. I'm very, very familiar with this. So when
I'm looking at this scene, I'm going, Okay, she died

(56:42):
on that bathroom floor. The blood spatter in this bathroom
tells me she was beat hit on the head multiple
times out in the bathroom, not in the bathtub, and
then she was placed in that bathtub and some of
the water that in that bathtub ended up flowing down
onto the floor once her body was placed in there

(57:04):
and disrupting this blood pool staged crime scene. And right
now husband, he's in the house, he's out in the yard.
For me, husband's number one suspect based on what I
am seeing.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
By it, I'm on board now. Changed my mind.

Speaker 2 (57:25):
You flip flop really well, it's your job. I mean,
I like that.

Speaker 1 (57:29):
Is there anything to do with the fact that her
hair isn't wet and if she were bleeding initially out
from that position she's in, her hair would be way
more bloody than it is.

Speaker 2 (57:39):
It's hard to tell from that photo.

Speaker 5 (57:41):
You know, it is a good question, and it is
a limited photo.

Speaker 4 (57:44):
You know, the original photo that Kate provided shows not
much more of her. You know, for me, the absolute
lack of blood on her arms, with maybe the exception
of smears, is significant, almost as if maybe clean up
occurred at some point. You think about her, she's bleeding
heavily in this bloody bath water, You're going to have

(58:08):
that adhering and it's going to be present on their arms.

Speaker 5 (58:11):
Her arms look dry to me.

Speaker 4 (58:13):
You know, this idea that he's actually coming in and
lifting her up after he finds her dead in the bathtub,
I'm calling bs on that. I'm saying that once she
was dead and he placed her in the bathtub, he
placed her in this position, and she stayed in that position.
He didn't have to, from a performative standpoint, go through

(58:35):
the physical act of actually touching her. Chances are the
blood on his shirt was from the original Homicide Act
and nobody noticed it until after he comes out, and
he comes up with the story. I thoroughly dispute Heinrich's theories.

Speaker 5 (58:56):
And conclusions on this case.

Speaker 4 (58:59):
This is the it'sfinitively a homicide, and it's a staged homicide,
and prime suspect is husband.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
Okay, Well, I think David Lambson was certainly, unfortunately for him,
convicted and sentenced to San Quentin and never particularly talked
about this right and his family stood by him. He
had two sisters who stood by him. He always talked
about how much he loved Aileen, his daughter. BB stayed

(59:28):
with his sister for a very long time, and she
essentially began raising her just as a kind of conclusion
to the story and a little bit of a I
wonder what happened. David Lampson had a lot of friends
who were very powerful, who thought he was innocent, and
they wrote a book full of the evidence, full of

(59:50):
pathologists who independent pathologists who said, listen, we really do
think this was a slip and fall. But of course
we're hearing from Paul why that was incorrect and maybe
they were just limited knowledge. In the nineteen thirties, certainly
there was.

Speaker 4 (01:00:03):
Well, let me address that real quick, because of course pathologists,
you know, because they have medical training, people put a
lot of weight on their statements. Very few pathologists actually
have crime scene reconstruction expertise. Very few actually go to
crime scenes. Their expertise is pathology. Yeah, so they're not

(01:00:24):
taking into account all this other evidence that is present
that people that are involved in homicide investigation and crime
scene investigation see day in and day out. I never
put any weight on a pathologist rendering an opinion as
to what happened at the crime scene outside of tell

(01:00:46):
me what the injuries the victim had, and then I
will correlate how those injuries impact the physical evidence at
the crime scene.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
So what ends up ultimately happening is this is appealed.
Of course, it goes all the way to the California
State Supreme Court. The justices there discuss it, they disagree,
they're split kind of down the middle. They actually also,
strangely tried to do a reenactment, which they're also not
allowed to do. You're not allowed to do a reenactment,

(01:01:17):
just a random reenactment in the jury room. The justices
also did that and essentially said, we can't do a
reenactment without killing someone with a slip and fall. So
they actually gave him a new trial. So he went
to trial again and Pinrich was allowed to do a
reconstruction with the accident theory. It hung the jury, and

(01:01:38):
so we officially have a hung jury. And the prosecutor
looks at the case and says, I can't do this again.
This is we're not coming up with new evidence. Nothing
ends up shaking loose for him. There's no new evidence
of anything, and so they decline to prosecute him again.
David Lambson, while he was in prison, was a very

(01:01:59):
smart man. And while he was in prison he wrote
a lot about the other death row inmates who were
with him. He wrote a book, was a non fiction book.
It was actually pretty good and it became a New
York Times bestseller and it was widely reviewed. And he
wrote a fictional book, and then he became a screenwriter

(01:02:19):
and he lived a really quiet life. He raised his daughter.
He got remarried three or four years later and his
daughter said, you know, he never said anything unkind about
my mom, And he said that was it, so he
lived it turned out to live a very quiet life after.
He was not prosecuted any any longer for this crime.
So what do you think about that poll?

Speaker 5 (01:02:43):
I don't like it.

Speaker 4 (01:02:44):
I know, I don't think you know, Like I said,
I can't determine whether or not there's what in this
day and age would amount to first degree murder with
special circumstances based on what I know, But at least
with what I'm assessing, I think he is a prime
suspect in this homicide. And you know, if he was

(01:03:05):
responsible for a Leen's bludgeting, then he should never have
had that opportunity at a second life.

Speaker 5 (01:03:12):
You know. That's that's my position.

Speaker 1 (01:03:13):
Fascinating. I keep coming back to the no shirt outside,
shirt inside immediately has blood on it, and Paulin you said,
I think that blood was there before, and the fact
that he didn't have a shirt on outside kind.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
He had a shirt on. He went outside, the shirt
was clean, he hung it up on the fence, he
got super sweaty. Then the real estate agent came and
then he put the shirt on to go back. No, No,
I mean, I think that's a good point. There are
a lot of little details about the case that you know,
seemingly And that's what I think is so interesting about
this case is that, you know, we can talk about

(01:03:46):
him being a great actor or him, you know, being
how could you ever have done that and then gone
on and talked about cutting down weeds? It just seems,
you know, is the sociopath is in the psychopath. I mean, really,
what this comes down to is what does the evidence
tell you? And that's really what what I say all
the time is it doesn't really matter what we think,

(01:04:07):
it's what we prove, right, And so's one of the
things that's so enlightening to me about these historical cases
is when you have somebody like Paul who has all
of this depth of knowledge, incredible knowledge, particularly in this
case the crime scene reconstruction, I think is very important,
then I did that too. I mean, I think it's
just nature. You're saying, why did this happen? Or why

(01:04:30):
did that happen? Don't we think this is weird? But
really it is looking at the evidence, the forensic evidence,
and saying, Okay, well this is what the evidence is saying. Yeah,
So I mean, is that right, Paul?

Speaker 4 (01:04:40):
Well no, that's what it comes down to. But it's
also making sure that the individuals that are interpreting the
evidence have the experience and expertise to do it properly
correct And that's where you know, I've seen it over
and over again. You know, the failings within the various
forensic disciplines is that you have individuals that don't have

(01:05:03):
the experience or expertise and like somebody like with Heinrich,
who possibly has you know, a fair amount of laboratory
expertise based on you know, nineteen thirties era technology, But
how many homicide scenes was he called out to in
the middle of the night as an active CSI or

(01:05:25):
homicide investigator. This is not it's we're not getting into
where it's forensic science. This is where we are talking
about a type of expertise that is developed by those
of us that actually did that, and that expertise plays
into the ability to properly interpret what we are seeing

(01:05:45):
based on what we have experienced before, you know, And
this is where we get into and Kate and I
record an episode talking about you know, forensic science and
junk science and stuff, but there is an aspect to
expertise that plays into these cases, and that expertise also

(01:06:06):
plays into the trial aspect. And so this is where
you pull in a forensic scientist who's worked in an
academic institution but has never been on a homicide scene
in his life from just being called out in the
middle of the night and actually watching the blood pool form.

(01:06:27):
He doesn't have the experience, and now he's using magnifying
glass to look at a single droplet in this crime scene.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
Listen, holds you back off of my forensic scientists a
little bit, Buddy.

Speaker 4 (01:06:42):
I tell you, this case is really you know, it's
really kind of taken him down a notch in my eyes.

Speaker 3 (01:06:48):
Oh no, wait a second. But the point of this
book is that this was the dawn of forensics at all. Right,
so like this was still the time, and we've all
talked about this and like the old stories that we've
done on the road or whatever. But the idea that
they didn't know not to let the neighbors in to

(01:07:09):
the crime scene, I mean, that's to me what is
so compelling about historical true crime is what they were
up against because they didn't know about these these detailed
scientific things that so they were it was almost like
it was partially scientific and then partially they were still
completely in the dark. I mean, that's what I loved.

(01:07:30):
Where like Heinrich's big enemy was the guy who was
always saying you could identify criminality in handwriting, and so
he would always bring up handwriting and it would drive
Heinrich crazy because he's like, that's not scientific. It was
like basically the battle he was in at the time
when it was just so early days for everything, where

(01:07:51):
it was like, okay, now now let's get the photographer
in here. All right, now, lady one will come in.

Speaker 2 (01:07:56):
And wash everything, and anybody could be an expert.

Speaker 4 (01:07:59):
Yeah, but just like anything, this is an evolution, you know.
And what I did back in the early nineties versus
how I would approach a case today is different. No
on the It's on the spectrum for sure. And then people,
you know, twenty years from now will take a look
at what I did and go, oh god, you know,
they don't help me going Poles really screwed this up,

(01:08:22):
like I'm saying Hybrid really screwed this up. But I
will say, in this case, I'm on solid ground.

Speaker 1 (01:08:28):
So what this shows us more than anything is what
a great podcast faried Bones is. If I can bring
it all back to the beginning.

Speaker 3 (01:08:37):
For real, what's more interesting than this conversation. I mean, like, truly,
look at what the detectives in the thirties or the
eighteen hundreds or the sixteen hundreds had to basically even
approaching trying to solve crime. What they were up against.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
Well, I'll tell you, I spent three years researching that book,
the American troll Up Book. And you know when you
spend that much time on a ca and I've read
two three thousand word transcript for David Lambson, and you
read through all of that stuff, and you think you
know the case, and then you bring an expert in
like Paul, who sheds a whole new light on it.

(01:09:13):
So I think that it's really it's so beneficial for
somebody like me, who knows a lot about the history
of forensics to talk to someone who knows so much
about the present day forensics. And I think that's what
makes it exciting for me. And Paul likes history a lot,
and I think that he missions to me though, that
he doesn't have a particular time period, he's not as

(01:09:34):
attached to the people in that time period. So I
think in the next probably in about five months, I'm
going to ask him if he has now a favorite
time period of history, because maybe we'll have exposed him
to so many different people in different life situations. But really,
is it all just keeps coming back around to we
can learn things from these stories. And I love telling
him a good story. That is, just like I get

(01:09:55):
a kick out of hearing him gas in the most
manly way possible, Paul.

Speaker 4 (01:10:03):
Now you know, but but Kate does a great job,
and she keeps me on my heels, and and of
course these cases are amazing and they're older cases. But
the reality is is when you start taking a look
at him, there's no difference from what happened to the
victims back then, you know, what the offender did, what
the fender's motives were, to what's happening today, you know.

(01:10:27):
So it's it's it's absolutely relevant for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:10:29):
It's just great to listen to it. Really, we are
so glad when you guys first pitched this idea, we
were just like, oh my god, hell yes, like what
what could be better? So it's so exciting that you
guys that it's happening. It's on its feet. You guys
have several in the can at this point, and now
we just get to plug it and we get to
bring it out to the world because it's really it's

(01:10:51):
just really fascinating. Of course I already plugged American Sherlock.
That's on you. But Kate's latest book, All That Is Wicked,
a Gilded Age story of murder and the race to
decode the criminal mind. It's a whole book about Edward Ruloff.
And that's available for pre order right now. Everybody knows
listening to this podcast, the pre order really matters for books,

(01:11:14):
so go order it. It comes out October fourth.

Speaker 1 (01:11:17):
And of course, Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life
solving America's Cold Cases, is out now. It is so incredible.
Everyone is raving about it. Paul. Great job.

Speaker 5 (01:11:28):
Oh, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:11:28):
Make sure you check that out. You guys are doing
a great job. And thank you for being on the
show today with us.

Speaker 1 (01:11:33):
Great Carried Bones, you guys at premieres on Wednesday, September fourteenth,
right here on exactly right, So make sure you follow
wherever you listen to podcasts. Is that the right wording?
Then you can listen to the trailer which is out now.

Speaker 3 (01:11:46):
Yeah, go listen to the trailer and then Buried Bones
on Wednesdays. It's your new favorite podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:11:51):
That's right. Thanks so much for being on.

Speaker 2 (01:11:53):
Thank you, We appreciate it.

Speaker 5 (01:11:55):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
Thanks you guys, Elvis.

Speaker 1 (01:11:59):
Do you want to click?

Speaker 3 (01:12:07):
This has been an exactly right production.

Speaker 1 (01:12:09):
Our senior producers are Hannah Kyle Crichton and Natalie Wrinn.

Speaker 3 (01:12:13):
Our producer is Alejandra Kech.

Speaker 1 (01:12:15):
This episode was engineered and mixed by Andrew Eben.

Speaker 3 (01:12:18):
Our researcher is Maren McGlashan.

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
Email your hometowns and fucking her ads to My Favorite
Murder at gmail dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:12:24):
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