388 - Spill the Milk

This week, Karen and Georgia cover the murder of Barbara Finch and the unsolved disappearance of Suzanne Lyall.

For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Us.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hell, Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
That's Georgia Hartstark.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hi, that's Karen kil Gariff.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hello, we're here again to podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
That's right, and nothing else right, not do a single
other thing.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Just podcasting, that's all.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, what more do you need and want from us?

Speaker 1 (00:37):
It can't be much after all this time. You must
know we can't give it to you.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Your expectations at this point should be hello, get low.
Someone commented that when they listen to this podcasts and
the intro stops, they try to get our hello at
the same time as we do.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
It's like say it along with us, yeah, which I
don't even know.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Oh, I don't even I can't even do it right,
So I don't know how someone else is gonna.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Our intro has become the product of podcasting on zoom,
which is the effort of overcoming the delay where it's like,
are we both gonna do this at the same time?

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Body language is impossible to read over zoom, of course.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Although you really make a great conductor's effort. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
I definitely try to lift those arms in the air
and like get it, you know, going hold.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Your mouth open for a little while to show me
that you're about to say something deep breath, gasp or
have a gasp, wide eyes, have scare eyes, and say it.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Well, soon we'll have an office, like an official office.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
A real office with real studios.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yeah, and I'm gonna drive my ass over there and package.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Then I will too. Hey, if you're gonna go there,
then I want zoom into the.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
I mean I feel like that'll lose like three weeks
in and we'll both be like, I don't want to
leave the house. Do you want to leave the house?

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Although, do you remember at the old small studio which oh,
like a little it's like thinking of little house on
the prairie. It's so long ago and precious and also Steven.
But in that studio it was like once we were
sitting there and we I think we both had the
fear of it because it wasn't your apartment, which was like,

(02:23):
oh can we do this? This is so formal, it's
not us. But then suddenly there was this weird new
like to me, it almost felt like professionalism where we're
just like, oh, we're sharpest tax in here?

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Sorry is this a desk course sitting at?

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Because because we're getting good at this, are we on
the Daily Show. What hell you are? You wearing a
blazer and I'm wearing a tie because this is happening.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
I have a brooch on and shoulder paths.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
I'm wearing a hat with net over my face. Oh,
no one can see me.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
The best part of that office was that you, me
and Danielle had a tweezer in the bathroom because their
lighting was so fucking harsh and and like overhead and
terrible in the bathroom there that we all agreed that like,
we need a tweezer permanently there to pluck the hairs
that are just like surprise, that are like you can't

(03:21):
see me anywhere, but everyone else, everybody.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Everyone else on this mirror can It's the mirror that
was telling the ultimate truth. And also we had that
drawer filled with candy from the road.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Oh probably stale. Now did we keep that shit in storage?

Speaker 3 (03:39):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (03:39):
I hope not. There's some like fat mice in a
stage blocker somewhere.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
That's so true, cute getting fat on ailes, Canadian KitKat.
I'm fucking so many Swedish chocolate. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
So if we were like, well, this is the one
thing we're going to make room for and bring it
home the one thing that you can get in America, right,
kit Cata.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
I ate an errant Twix from Paris last night because
like I had brought it home because I was like,
I wonder if this is better from Paris?

Speaker 1 (04:11):
And it was.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
It tasted more natural.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
I don't mean to confront you, okay, but you went
to Paris in May, and are you telling me that
you were able to wait to eat twis for three months?
What are you talking about?

Speaker 2 (04:26):
It's called a special occasion because I'm not allowed to
indulge in enjoy things in a normal way. Oh, like
a normal human being. That's like, oh my trade off. Oh,
it's like this is a special occasion. It has to
be special or I won't do it.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
So you put the Paris twicks away like it was
a piece of wooding cake in your freezer. Yeah oh
I know, but I mean, god, yeah, just I commend it,
thank you. I'm not confronting. I'm commending. But how also
is the other question? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Those are not my binge things. My binge things saltier
like savory like cheese. Oh yeah, you know what I mean,
that's what I can absolutely.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
Well, So what's the report, what's the what's the French
TwixT report?

Speaker 2 (05:10):
It had a like honey, like a honey flavor to it,
almost like a biscuity, more biscuity and honey, yeah, which
I thought was interesting.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
That sounds amazing.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Also, I had like three hard kombucha's but by that point,
so that might have fucked on my taste buds a
little bit.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
So it's like you were just chewing on the arm
of the couch.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
And also the only special occasion was that Vince's out
of town, and I was like, oh, alone sucks.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Was special asterisk sad occasion Exactly.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
It was like, Oh, you deserve this because you're bummed
and have to sleep alone in the scary house and
you're terrified, so you deserve it TwixT.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
That's right, exactly. There's your horror movie that you should write.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
Is it?

Speaker 1 (05:53):
It's a lady a home alone, trying trying to TwixT
her way through some sort of a situation, scary attack.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
Anyway, what's up with you?

Speaker 1 (06:04):
You know, nothing's going on with me except for this weather.
Is it feels today like Florida humid in Los Angeles,
which we don't usually do here.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
It's a why it's like, why what are you doing?

Speaker 1 (06:19):
I feel really guilty because on days like this, I
if I screw around too much in the morning, it'll
get too hot and then I don't want to walk
the dog. Oh my god, same exact same. So then
but then I'm staring at them like I'm making them
go insane, and this is so unfair. So this morning
I got them out there and then they were just
like they were panting and like looking over their shoulder

(06:40):
at me, like why are we doing this? I'm like, see,
this is this is why I'm not doing it. The
other day. I'm torturing you.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Okay. It's like this is the same thing happens to
me because Vince is a responsible pet owner and wakes up,
you know, at a fucking decent hour and takes Cookie out.
But now that he's out of town, it's like me
and Cookie sleeping until like fucking ten o'clock and then
by then it's too hot to take her out. She's
just like I like the other guy, yeah, better than
you a little bit.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
I like mister mister rituals and systems.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
That I'm like, I like him too, Like I don't
function fucking well around here. Either when he's gone.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Hey lady, you're just screaming at the dog. You're not
the only one benefiting from that guy's systems.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
That's right, that's right.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
Did he is there some wrestling festival somewhere.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
There's a wrestling festival and a live his live podcast
in Michigan this week, So he went like see everyone
and do his Oh that's great guy thing, you know,
just like see all the guys, you know what, I like,
see all his best friends from childhood, which I don't
totally understand how that works. So he does his thing.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
Yes, he's Vince Abril's beloved across the nation.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
Oh my god. Yeah, yeah, everyone loves fence. Concluding me,
I was just gonna say, he goes to this barber, like,
you know, like an old school like barber. It's the dudes,
and they like invited him to a Dodger game with them,
and he like went to a Dodger game with like
his barbers and like the owners. Yeah, and now he

(08:09):
has his new friends. I don't know how he does it.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
It's you know what it is. It's a thing where
like it's when he tells you a story, he kind
of hits you on the shoulder. Yeah, he's one of
those guys. He's just kind of like, he's good at
being engaged. He's good at going like, hey, yeah, I
get you, I'm like with you. He's he's that guy.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
Can I read you? My mom literally just text me
this afternoon. She said, what we're texting about? Where Vin says?
She said, Vince is such a good man. I have
grown to care very much about him, Like.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
Did you not in the beginning? I think it's it's
literally been seven years, did you get me? Ten years
since we've met, Janet. You know what your mom's like?
You know what? Turns out he's a keeper. I've decided
a decade in Well, I guess.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
When you have daughters, you're probably skeptical right of there,
like boyfriends, and you're like, sure, what's this guy's you know,
what's his deal? Is he sticking around that kind of thing?

Speaker 1 (09:06):
So it must feel great to finally have Janet's stamp
of approval.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
I should have been like, well, I like your husband too.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
You should be like, oh, I have some notes on yours.
My stepdad, on the other hand, yeah, well that's nice.
That'll carry you through until he gets back home.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Guess what my mom approves of you.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
He's like, I'm getting on the next plane to come
and hug her. You know who else loves Vince Abril
is Chris Fairbanks loves it. Do you Need a Ride? Podcast?
He talks about him quite a bit because they golf together.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
Does he really? Yeah, that's so sweet, not.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
Like a crazy you know, but it's that kind of
thing where he's like, he told the story about somebody
else and then he was like, and you know, I
can't really handle it because then I'll just I'll just
be angry and yelling. And Vince handles it. And I'm like, yep,
that's Vince handles it. Is literally handles it. The biography
that he should write, Vince handles it.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Oh my life, I love it.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
It's pretty nice. Yeah, you got a good one.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Guys hit on people at bars. You never know who
you're gonna meet.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
Wait, was that the original meet cute of you guys? Well?

Speaker 2 (10:13):
Yes, but we were at a friend's party, so like,
and he knew all my friends. I knew all his friends.
Megan Gaan's from the Always It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
It was her birthday party. We both knew her and
then got it talked all night. That's it right, hit
on people. It's my advice.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Hit on people. Why not at this point if the
ocean's heating up, get out there, get out there.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
It's a sauna. It's sauna temperatures in Florida, Yeah, what
the fuck?

Speaker 1 (10:40):
Also, there was some and I had kind of like
I really love TikTok. Obviously I talk about it all
the time, but there are things like there was just
somebody who was shooting a video of their backyard and
it was I think it was thunder and lightning, and
then it said whatever city it was, And I do
apologize because I think it was Alabama, but it was

(11:01):
an a state I can't remember. But they were like,
it's one hundred and six degrees and it's hailing, and
it was a video of that happening. Could it have
been a deep fake? Sure? It's Should we trust our
eyes anymore?

Speaker 2 (11:14):
Never? In Arizona, I saw a photo of the like
the red break light plastic coverings of a car melted, melted.
Oh bad, stop, just let's stop everyone bad vibes. Climate
change is real. It's please fix this shit? Will someone

(11:34):
well the corporations because it's not about your fucking can
of Lacroix that you haven't recycled. No, anyway, not anymore.
Let's not get into almond milk. Let's not do that.
What milk?

Speaker 1 (11:45):
Almond milk? Oh? Oh, I thought you said. Let's not
get into all the milk.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Oh, that's the new tea.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
Let's fill the milk. Let's get into that milk. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
No, Well, you know my therapist her thing is you
can't allow yourself to swallow the good milk. You have
to turn it into bad milk first. And I was like,
what the fuck are you talking about? And it's like
this thing of like someone Let's say someone compliments you
and you have to be like, oh, thank you, you
know what, I've had this forever whatever. That's the only
way you can accept the compliment and the good milk

(12:18):
is by turning it into bad milk first.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
Oh yeah, I get you.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
It feels like it's on par with your twigs. Yeah,
holding off on a Twix for three months. I just
don't understand what part of your purse do you put
that Twigs in that you don't access it. That's my thing.
I love that.

Speaker 2 (12:40):
I love it. You're still thinking about it.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
It's just the most eatable of all candy bars. It's quick,
it's convenient, it's always good.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
Oh good, it's my favorite. All right, all right, all right,
Speaking of Chris Fairbanks, we have Let's do exactly right updates.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
Let's do it this week on I Said No Gifts.
Bridges joined by a Dirk comedian and podcaster Greta Titleman,
also on Wicked Words. Kate's guest is author Katherine Corkran,
who wrote the book In the Mouth of the Wolf,
in which Catherine investigated the silencing of the free press
and government corruption in Veracruz, Mexico.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
And the MFM store has been restocked with two popular items,
including the MFM mood pin. It's the one that's like
a spinny wheel and you land on different phrases, and
then also the I'm probably listening to my favorite murder
license plate frame for your car?

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Did you fucking love? I forgot we even had? I
did too.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
What a great idea that we already had, What a
great idea we had. That's at my favorite murder dot com.
So make sure you go there specifically for all your
merch needs.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
Yes, I think a license plate holder is such a
classy and subtle way of expressing your fanship. Yeah, okay,
I'm first this week, and so I hope you're ready
because I'm going to tell you a story that takes
place a month after the death of George Reeves, which

(14:09):
is the story you just covered. Yeah, and it's also
in Los Angeles, so it's LA nineteen fifty nine. So
that basically, the death of George Reeves has been the
talk of the town in LA until this next local
case overtakes all the newspaper headlines and it actually went national.

(14:29):
Life magazine writer Eric Ambler reported on it back in
nineteen sixty and he said this about it. Quote. This
trial is in the rich tradition of great American courtroom dramas.
It has everything that tradition demands. It has love, lust, passion, greed, hate, adultery, plots, counterplots,
sensational disclosures. It has a cast of characters which includes

(14:53):
beautiful blondes, beautiful brunettes, Hollywood personalities, hired killers, private eyes,
and Perry Mason Attorneys. Los Angeles has given of its
best and is now making the.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
Most of it.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
Totly shit end quote. Right, that's pretty epic. Yeah, this
is the story of the murder of Barbara Finch and
the mid century courtroom circus that made this case one
of the most talked about.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
Crimes of the nineteen sixties.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
Right, So I've never heard of this, no. So. Sources
for today's story are a twenty thirteen Los Angeles Magazine
article titled Murder in Black and White by Stephen Mikulin,
the book Satin Pumps, The Moonlit Murder that mesmerized the
Nation by Steve Cossauf and a nineteen sixty Life Magazine
article by the above quoted Eric Ambler. And the rest

(15:42):
of the sources are in our show notes. All of
this starts in the city of Covena, California.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
You know, well beautiful Covena.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
Coven is twenty miles east of Los Angeles, and in
nineteen eighteen, Raymond Bernard Finch, who will be now known
as Bernard in this story, is born to the wealthy
and powerful Finch family. So Bernard's grandfather, Thomas E. Finch,
is a successful businessman, and he's one of the city's
founding fathers. Writer Steve Cosrouff notes that quote. The Finches

(16:12):
were not only established in Covena. But elsewhere in southern California,
three generations were well known and loved by locals for
their religious faith, civic responsibility, and success as local entrepreneurs.
End quote got it. So Bernard grows up in this
prominent family. He graduates from medical school, he becomes a surgeon,
and he opens a medical clinic in West Covina. And

(16:35):
like his family before him, he's very invested in his community.
He bankrolls youth sports teams, he gives medical lectures at
local churches, and he even throws his weight behind a
rising political start named Richard Nixon who is making a
bid for Congress.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
Ah great man.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
Right, one of the truly, one of the greats, and
apparently not a crook. So when Bernard is in his
early twenties, he marries a woman named Francis. They have
three children. They make their home in Baldwin Park, and basically,
with all this wealth and privilege, Bernard gets a lot
of preferential treatment and attention around town, especially from women,

(17:17):
and before long he cements his reputation as a ladies man.
So in nineteen forty seven, when Bernard's twenty nine, he
gets involved with a married twenty four year old woman
named Barbara Jean Doherty, and here's how they meet his
little meat cute for you, Georgia. Oh god, okay, these
two first cross paths after Bernard delivers one of Barber's children.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
The levels of fucked up initness of.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
That, I mean the first thing I think of, and yeah,
this is gross. So if your screamage, turn away. But sure,
how many women I know that have had kids that
are like, oh, one of the first things you do
is shit on the table, Yeah, you shit? You like
all of your the low of half of your body
is just going buckwild.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
I mean, she must have been something special if he
saw all of that and then was like, you know what,
let's go on a date.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
I don't know, or he's like such a doctor and
surgeon that he's just like that is absolutely natural, right,
no big deal. Everybody does it either way.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
I'm bothered by that. But yes, okay, yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
I think you should be. So he's attracted to her.
She's an incredibly beautiful woman, and she is attracted to
his status. He is a very wealthy and very well
regarded surgeon and kind of like local name. Yeah, so
something to know about Barbara her father owned a successful
custom shoe business in Beverly Hills until the Great Depression

(18:49):
hit and basically left their family with nothing. They end
up having to move to the High Desert, and since then, yeah,
Barbara dreams of getting her old life back and basically
getting to enjoy all the benefits that come with money
and status. That becomes like a real driving force in
her life. Her reality doesn't really fulfill those dreams though.

(19:10):
She and her husband at the time, Lyle, and their children,
they're living a very modest life in Baldwin Park. So
when she meets this surgeon who apparently has eyes for her,
it all kind of clicks. They start having an affair,
and within a year, Bernard buys the house next door
to the Doherty family and moves his own family in

(19:30):
next door.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
No, yeah, they got to keep it separated, you know.

Speaker 1 (19:34):
I mean, And then he hires Barbara to work at
his clinic. So he's messy. And you will see, as
I tell you this story, it's wild how truly messy
this man is. But of course, as time passes, it
becomes harder and harder for the two of them to
hide this relationship, and in nineteen fifty one, they both
get divorced, and then that same year, on Christmas Eve,

(19:57):
they get married to each other, and in a weird ti,
their respective spouses Frances and Lyell, now next door neighbors,
now both heartbroken grieving exes, eventually marry each other.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
Okay, yeah, I like that.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
I know I do too, actually, and it's one of
the last nice things that happens in this story.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
They're not going on any double dates, that's what you're saying.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
No, not at all. No, there's no kind of makeup
later on or anything. So at first the new couple,
Barbara and Bernard seem very happy. He built her a
huge house on a hilltop in West Covina, and they
really are living the life. They rub elbows with the
movie stars at the Elite Los Angeles Tennis Club. Do

(20:41):
you ever play tennis there? When you were down there
in Orange Camp?

Speaker 2 (20:45):
Oh? Me and tennis? Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
I know how much you love it. So this basically
Barbara's dreams are coming true. It's like it truly is
the turn she was looking for. And then the couple
announces they're expecting a child, but behind closed doors, things
actually aren't going so well. And why Georgia. Do you
think that could be?

Speaker 2 (21:07):
I mean, where do I start with this one?

Speaker 1 (21:10):
Well, just with what you've heard so far, they both
cheated on their spouses. Yeah, so he's already moved on too,
yeah to some new women. Journalist Stephen Mikulin wrote about
this case for Los Angeles Magazine and he says, quote,
a second marriage didn't keep Finch from carrying on with
a congo line of caramels.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
A conga line is so scandalous, right wow?

Speaker 1 (21:36):
And so of course before long there are rumors around
town about his cheating that get back to Barbara. So
she's trying to put on this good face because they
have this beautiful house and they all the things that
she likes, but she's hearing bad stuff. And then she
sees her husband walking with this gorgeous, very young redhead

(21:59):
while holding a bag of groceries, and she's like on
his arm. And so she hires a private investigator named
William S. Lewis to follow her husband around. And when
the report comes back, it's very bad news. Not only
is Bernard having many casual flings with other women, so multiple,
but he has a steady girlfriend and Barbara knows her

(22:21):
personally because it's Bernard's newest married secretary and her name
is Carol Tregoff, the beautiful redhead that he saw her with. Basically,
Bernard got himself a new Barbara, and Carol is twenty
years old, oh my god. And when she first started
working as his secretary, she was eighteen years old. So

(22:45):
as the story kind of progresses, you see that this
medical clinic that he has, like him and his partner
are doing all the hiring and they're basically just like
hiring hot young ladies. So he's basically feeding his own
congo line.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
Of conga line is like something so disturbing about it,
It just yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
So, after eight years of marriage, in January of nineteen
fifty nine, Barbara kicks Bernard out of their house and
files for divorce. Meanwhile, Carol has also filed for divorce
and now she lives in a house at Bernard is
renting for her in Monterey Park. So when Barbara then
kicks him out after finding out that all of her
worst fears are true, Bernard moves in with Carol, but

(23:29):
he becomes extremely angry when he finds out that Barber's
filing for divorce and that anger grows into rage when
a judge decides that Barbara and not him, will have
complete control over the couple's assets during the divorce process.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
Wow, yeah, that seems rare for like that time period too.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
Yes, right, And I think it's maybe because the proof
she had of that this wasn't just you know, irreconcilable differences.
So basically, now Barbara gets to decide how and when
her husband will spend what could arguably be stated as
his money or the money he's made as a surgeon.
But she's like, right, except for that, when you marry

(24:09):
a person, you agree to share all that money, so
now right, right, raising your children, And so that's like yeah, yeah,
so and if that's not bad enough for him, he's
also facing the very real possibility that he's going to
lose a lot in this divorce at the time. California's
divorce laws say that a spouse is entitled to half
of the couple's total assets, but a judge could decide

(24:32):
to give one spouse more depending on the nature of
the separation, and since Bernard is clearly responsible for their
marriage ending because of his arguably compulsive cheating. When the
Finches file for divorce, Barbara will almost certainly get the
bulk of the seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars fortune,

(24:52):
which in today's money is worth eight million dollars. Holy shit, right,
So Bernard Frank just has a couple things to say
about this eight million. He doesn't believe in divorce, so
so Bernard tries to do a little damage control. He
convinces Carol to quit her job at the clinic and

(25:13):
move to Las Vegas. He's like, you need to get
out of town, like that all that argument needs to
go away. She agrees, she moves there, she gets a
job as a cocktail ratress on the strip. And then
next he tries to convince Barbara to give him control
over his spending. When she resists him, he becomes abusive,
and basically there's a story that I read about him

(25:36):
hitting her with the butt of a gun, splitting her eyebrow,
and then taking her into his own clinic to stitch
up her eyebrow himself, Oh my god, and telling everybody
there that she had fallen and hit her head on
a table. So kind of a classic abuse scenario. Barbara
stands firm and in June of nineteen fifty nine, she
gets a restraining order against him, so she's like, none

(25:58):
of this is changing, and stay away from me. But
now she's scared of him, so she calls the private investigator,
william S Lewis, and asks if he knows anyone who
could become her bodyguard, although she never actually hires one
for reasons no one knows. What we do know is
that Lewis tells Barbara that she should buy a gun
for protection, but Barbara is terrified of guns and won't

(26:21):
do it. Louis will later remember her saying quote, I
probably won't be alive by Christmas.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yeah. So a month after Barbara gets her restraining order
against Bernard, on July eighteenth, nineteen fifty nine, a call
is placed from the Finch's house to emergency services, and
when the police arrive around it's like quarter to midnight.
At their house, they find Barbara, who is just six
days shy of her thirty sixth birthday, lying dead in

(26:50):
the yard. She's been shot in the back and there
are contusions on her head.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
Oh god.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Her body's found at the bottom of the outdoor staircase
that leads from their house across to their in law's
house next door, so Bernard's parents live next door to them.
Investigators determined that Barbara was running to their house for
help when she was shot in the back. Yeah, So
then police notice the garage door is open, and inside

(27:17):
they see the barber's car is parked in its usual spot,
but there are signs of a struggle, including dents on
the walls and blood on the floor, and her purse
is missing, So on its face, this looks like a
robbery gone wrong. But then police talked to the Finch's
nineteen year old Swedish au pair whose name is Marie
Ann Lynnholm, and she tells them that Bernard was at

(27:39):
the house that night. He held a gun to Barber's head,
he beat Barbara, he assaulted Marie Anne, and that basically
she was a witness to the entire evening. The next morning,
police find a medical bag at the scene that contains,
among other things, a rope, a large knife, syringes, and
the sedative's second off and this bag belongs to doctor

(28:02):
Bernard Finch. So investigators are now searching for Bernard, and
soon they learned that after Barber's shot, Bernard runs through
the neighborhood around their house until he finds a car.
It's an unlocked Ford station wagon with the keys inside,
and he steals that car. He drives around a little bit,
he stops. He finds another car. This one's a Cadillac

(28:26):
that also has the keys in the ignition because it's,
you know, nineteen fifty nine, so people were doing that
back then. I guess. He steals that Cadillac and he
drives it back to Carol's apartment in Las Vegas and
goes to bed Jesus. He's arrested there the next day.
So Carol will later claim that she was also at

(28:47):
the Finch's house on the night of the murder and
that Bernard left her there.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
Wait, the girlfriend in Vegas was with him.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
Oh, when all of this took place, she was there.
So she claims that she hid in some Bougainvilla bushes
while the police were scanning the property and searching everything.
She just stayed there frozen for six hours, and when
the police finally left, she got up, walked to her

(29:16):
car that they had parked down the street at the
South Hills Country Club like a block away, and then
she drove back to Vegas and when she got to
her apartment. She finds Bernard there and she tells him
Barber's dead. He tells her he can't discuss it, and
then she goes to her cocktailing job that same afternoon,

(29:37):
and Bernard is arrested at that apartment the next day. Okay,
so Carol's taken into custody a week later, and at
Bernard Finch's preliminary hearing, Carol admits to having an intimate
relationship with Bernard, and then both Carol and Bernard are
charged with Barber's murder. Of course, when this case hits

(29:59):
the papers, it is huge. It's covered for months around
the world, and when it's announced that Bernard and Carol
will have a joint murder trial, they actually have to
move the trial to a larger venue to accommodate such
a huge crowd. And because of the Finch's connections at
the celebrity, very celebrity centric Los Angeles Tennis Club, many
noteworthy people attend the trial, including Gail Patrick, who's a

(30:23):
producer of the TV show Perry Mason, and the famous
columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, who investigated the jfk assassination and covered
the trial of doctor Sam Shepard. Wow which you covered
on this show. Yes, so this thing was big, big, big.
And also it's that classic thing of like when somebody,

(30:43):
like a doctor, when rich people commit murder, everybody starts
paying attention. It has those elements to.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
It, and a couple that did it together, a woman's
you know, a woman age. Yes, it's salacious.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
It's the most salacious. It's that kind of what are
people doing behind closed doors? And what are rich people
doing closed doors? And like, oh, finally they're the ones
that are the bad guys, right, all that kind of stuff.
So the Finch murder case has all the salaicious details
that make a true crime story, compelling, adultery, greed, a
successful doctor, two beautiful women, so the public is hooked.

(31:20):
Twenty year old Carol in particular, is a magnet for
the media, as reporters of the day describe her facial
features and the shape of her body and disturbing detail.
Press photographers constantly are taking her picture, so she's almost
like she just kind of becomes a starlet in a way.
She also makes a few questionable decisions that seem like

(31:41):
they're kind of playing to this press attention. For example,
one day, she wears to court an expensive fur trimmed
dress suit that the friends of the Finch's claim belong
to Barbara. Oh dear, which is like, that's insane or
did she even know? Did he give it to her?
Ooh right?

Speaker 2 (32:01):
Who knows?

Speaker 1 (32:02):
Of course, the drama's only heightened when each side presents
its case. So the defense argues that Barber's death was
an unfortunate accident.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
You know, when you accidentally get shot in the back
while you're running a wife from your house.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
Just listen to this, because I think this is also
one of the reasons it was so it got so big,
is because it's truly insane, and it's that kind of
thing of when people lie and you can tell, oh,
these are people that are used to being believed right
no matter what, so they don't know what a bad
lie sounds like. Right. So basically, the defense argues that Barbara,
not Bernard or Carol, was the aggressor, and the couple's

(32:38):
attorneys say that Bernard and Carol just wanted to talk
to Barbara that night to convince her to move to
Las Vegas for six months, and that way her living
there would qualify the Finches for a quickie divorce and
they that's all. They were just there to say that. Sure.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
Bernard testifies that it was an innocent conversation that spiraled
out of control, and that while the three were talking
in the girl, Barbara pulled a gun on him. Bernard
becomes emotional as he tells the courtroom that he was
forced to beat his wife's head against the floor because
he was fighting for control of the weapon. So that's
how she got the head injury, Jesus, and that's why

(33:15):
the blood was on the floor. He also claims that
during this altercation, the aau pair Marie Ann rushes into
the garage and therefore he is forced to gently restrain
her as he's trying to explain to her what's going on,
And as he is forced to do this, that's when
Barbara grabs the gun back and points it at Carol.

(33:38):
Bernard testifies that he and Barbara fought over the gun
a second time before he was finally able to wrestle
it out of Barbara's hands and just kind of throw
it off into the distance. But when the gun hits
the ground, it goes off and shoots Barbara in the back.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
Come on, dude.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
I mean, just gross. But he's so emotional, and at
this point he starts crying. He tells the quote that
his wife's dying words are quote, wait, I'm sorry, I
should have listened, don't leave me, take care of the kids.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
Oh my god, what a fucking monster.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
Yeah, so gross. Yeah, Eric Ambler writes in Life magazine, quote,
not only was doctor Finch weeping, but jurors were weeping
with him at that moment. It was difficult to believe
that he could be acting or that this emotion was simulated.
End quote. But as convincing as those emotions may have been,

(34:35):
not everyone is buying his story. Bernard's entire testimony rubs
many onlookers the wrong way. At one point during the trial,
he justifies his many affairs by calling his now dead
wife quote sexually frigid end quote. There's also plenty of
suspicion about Barber's dying words being I'm sorry to a

(34:57):
man who cheated on, abused, and harassed her. Also, people
very much doubt the suggestion that Barbara would brandish a gun,
since she was so afraid of them, And one of
the most obvious problems with Bernard's testimony involves the murder
weapon itself. His whole crazy story of tossing the gun,
it lands in the yard, it shoots Barbara in the back.

(35:18):
But then when the cops are searching the property, they
never find a gun in the yard. They don't find
a gun anywhere. And then there's Bernard's insistence that this
was all an innocent meeting gone wrong, and the idea
that Bernard and Carol right after she takes out a
restraining order against him. It doesn't make sense that Bernard
would say Barbara would be able to have a conversation

(35:40):
when they're surprising her at midnight in her garage.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
It's just nonsensical.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
All of it is very stupid. So nothing in Bernard
and Carroll's defense adds up really, And as Stephen Mickuln
points out in Los Angeles Magazine, Bernard's testimony doesn't explain why, quote,
they parked long block away at the South Hills Country
Club carrying with them a case that contained, among other things,

(36:06):
a carving knife, syringes, second all, and a rope.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
Oh you know what's in my purse at all times
on a fucking Tuesday.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
I mean, the cops at the time called it a
murder kit. I mean, like there's kind of no question, do.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
You think Carol was really there? Because I'm questioning, like
she faking it to give him an alibi in a way,
Like was she even there? Is what I'm wondering.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
No, she Well, I believe she was there based on
the things that I've read. But this is and my
completely ignorant and unprofessional opinion. This is a girl who
started having an affair with like a forty year old
surgeon when she was eighteen. Yeah, and now she's twenty,
So I think she's very much under his influence. I

(36:48):
think he has told her all the things she wanted
to hear.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
Totally.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
She was in an unhappy marriage, so he got her
out of that, and now all the promises of this
is the kind of man I think that said anything
to any woman to get them into bed and to
get what he wanted, and then after the fact, it
was like, oh, now you're making problems for me. Totally,
So I think he made her go with him. Well,
because there's more to the story, but I believe she

(37:14):
was there because I believe he left her there after.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
The fact, which is okay, tell me more.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
This is yeah, okay. The prosecution of course is able
to mount a strong case thanks to two star witnesses, so,
of course, the first is Marie Ann Lindholm, the Finch's
teenage oa pair who's from Sweden. Marie Anne testifies on
July eighteenth, Barbara was out at a local restaurant for
dinner while Marie Anne was at home with the Finch
children watching them as Universe pageant, and when that ended,

(37:43):
she put the children to bed, and not long after that,
she hears Barbara's car pull up the driveway and into
the garage. And at that point it was some time
after eleven thirty, and then she hears Barbara screaming for help.
Marie Anne says that she ran through the house, she
burst in the garage. She turns on the lights. She
sees Barbara on the ground, alive but bleeding from the head,

(38:06):
and Bernard is over her. When Bernard sees Marie Anne,
he walks over, grabs her by the face, and slams
her head into the garage wall so hard it leaves
a dent in the plaster. And there's actually a picture
of that dent with Marie Ann standing next to it
in the Life magazine article that I've been quoting from.
Holy Shit yes, So this is like, this is not

(38:31):
one of those really mysterious murder cases. This is something
that I think part of the sensation and part of
the salaciousness had to do with the fact that it
was kind of all right there, like it's like, why
does this man here, He's going to get.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Away, right, You're trying to lie in this obvious fucking case. Yeah,
it makes no sense. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:50):
So Marie Anne then testifies Bernard ordered both women to
get in the backseat of Barber's car. Marie Anne tells
the court how terrified she was in that moment because
she genuinely thought she was going to die. She had
witnessed Bernard's abusive and threatening behavior towards Barbara before, and
Barbara had once told her that Bernard threatened to quote

(39:11):
put her in a car and run her over a
cliff fuck end quote. So Marie Anne was convinced that
Bernard was about to make good on that threat with
the two of them in the car, but she testifies
that before the car leaves the garage, Barbara throws herself
out of the back seat and sprints through the garage door,
running across their yard in the direction of her in

(39:33):
law's house, and that's when Bernard chases after her, and
Marianne sees her chance to escape, runs back into the
Finch's house and calls the police, And as she's dialing
the phone, she hears a gunshot outside. So he probably
was going to fucking do that. He probably was, And
actually Barbara kind of sacrificed her I mean, unknowingly sacrificed

(39:56):
her life and saved Marianne's life.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (39:59):
The interesting thing is Marianne never saw Carol the girlfriend. Huh,
So I don't think Carol was in the garage with them, Okay,
but but we don't know. Marianne's testimony has obvious weight
to it. She has no reason to lie about what
happened that night, and she also has letters to back
up her claims about Bernard's abuse, because she was so

(40:20):
disturbed by the domestic violence that she had witnessed at
the Finch home that she wrote about it in letters
to her parents, Wow, to Sweden. Yeah, And they were
sent several months before Barbara's death. One letter even documents
Bernard's claim that he has quote a man in Las
Vegas who he would pay thousands of dollars to kill Barbara.

(40:41):
It was. It's that thing where it's like, oh, behind
closed doors, things aren't going well. Behind closed doors. It's
a nightmare. What a monster? Yeah? Okay, So this is
when the second star witness comes onto the trial scene,
and it is a man named Jack Cody, and Jack
Cody is a nine year old con man who met

(41:02):
Carol through a mutual friend in Vegas. And Cody has
a very long rap sheet which he very matter of
factly admits to on the stand. He's been charged with
drunken disorderly conduct, robbery, battery, and fraud. But putting somebody
as risky as a witness on the stand as he
is actually ends up being a very smart move by

(41:24):
the prosecution. Because he's so charming and kind of flirtatious.
He has this very unusual effect on the courtroom, and
writer Eric Ambler describes that effect for Life Magazine, saying, quote,
Cody belongs to that rare and remarkable subdivision of the
human species, the amoral realists, with no illusions about their

(41:45):
own frailties and no sense of guilt. The odd thing
about such men is that, having no pretensions to being
any less odious than they are, they sometimes achieve a
kind of honesty. Such a man is a defense attorney's nightmare.
He can admit to the basest behavior without the least
trace of embarrassment. It's hard to discredit the testimony of

(42:05):
a witness who stipulates so cheerfully to his own infamy.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
Wow, that makes total sense. Yeah, it's like you're willing
to admit to all that shit you've done.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
Why would you.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
Be lying about this other thing?

Speaker 1 (42:17):
Right?

Speaker 2 (42:18):
I like that.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
And this part of the story is where it gets
a little bit Cohen Brothers e because so Jack. Cody
testifies that weeks before Barbara's death, Bernard and Carol had
hired him to murder her, and Cody says he was
supposed to stage the scene to look like a botch robbery,
but Cody's not a hit man. Even still, he decides

(42:39):
to hear them out. So he testifies the couple gave
him a photo of Barbara, they drew a map of
the Finch's house, they picked a date, which was the
fourth of July weekend, and he even testifies he was
told to quote say this is for Bernard before he
shot her.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
Ew. Wow.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
So Cody testifies Bernard and Carol gave him a down
payment of three hundred and fifty dollars, which is worth
around thirty seven hundred dollars today.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
And then they said you'll get the rest when the
job is done. So Cody says he did travel to
California for the Fourth of July, but he had no
intention of going through with the couple's plan. He just
wanted to take their money and he basically took his
girlfriend on an LA getaway on their dime. And when
he went back to Las Vegas, he told Bernard and

(43:26):
Carrol that the job was done, and they gave him
another eight hundred and fifty dollars, which is worth nine
thousand dollars in today's money.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
Holy shit. Con he's a con man. He's not a hitman.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
He's not a hit man. He's a con man. So
there it is that funny thing where it's like, oh,
I guess there is a little bit of like, yeah,
you're admitting what your limit is.

Speaker 3 (43:46):
Right.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
Sure, I stole the money from them, but I'm not
going to kill somebody. It doesn't take long for Bernard
and Carol to find out that Barber is still alive,
and Cody testifies the couple demanded an explanation, so Cody
tells them, oh, he must have killed the wrong woman,
and he promises to return to West Covina and finish
the job. But to do that, he's going to need

(44:08):
a couple hundred more dollars. So they do, in fact
give him another payment, and this time he pockets that
money and he just stays in town.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
So he's just in Las Vegas. This is very comen, Brothers,
It's right. It would play him in your mind.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
I feel like someone you know, like Leonardo DiCaprio, if
he wanted to just do a fun cameo. Yeah, like
a young, messy, good looking yeah, you know, charming in
a way. Gosling ask Goslin could do it. Yeah, absolutely, yeah,
if you like, he would have like super slicked back hair.
Maybe we ask him to die it round.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Some stubble, definitely stubble, and then smokes like hand rolled.

Speaker 1 (44:46):
Cigarettes, absolutely, and probably wears cowboy boots because you know
that Vegas, that Vegas vibe. Yeah, little cowboyish fifties Vegas.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:55):
So so then the couple hears through a friend that
Jack Cody's still in town, and so Cody testifies that
he told a couple everything's under control because his partner
is already in West Covina following Barbara, and that he's
going to catch a flight out there himself once his
partner tracks her down.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
Still, a couple more days go by, and then Bernard
and Carol learn again that Cody's still in Las Vegas.
So in cross examination, the defense realizes they can't tear
jack Cody's testimony apart he has nothing to lose. Every
time he opens his mouth, he digs Bernard and Carol
into a deeper hole. The defense argues that Cody was

(45:37):
simply mistaken. They claim that Carol and Bernard never wanted
Barbara dead. They only hired him to follow her around
and dig up some dirt that could help Bernard in
the divorce negotiations. Sure, the lawyers also say that if
Cody couldn't find any dirt, he was supposed to seduce
Barbara himself, and then that would give Bernard the chance
to accuse her of infidelity. But Cody doesn't buckle on

(46:00):
under this cross examination pressure. Even when the defense attorneys
go for the jugular and really press him, he never wavers.
He's insistent that Carol and Bernard explicitly hired him to
murder Barbara Finch, So in their closing arguments, the prosecution
lays out its theory for what happened on the night
of July eighteenth. They say, after getting fleeced by Jack Cody,

(46:20):
Bernard and Carol decide to take matters into their own
hands and they drive to West Covina with the sole
intention of murdering Barbara, which is evident in the kill
kit left behind at the scene. So from there they
tried to make it look like a bungled robbery, which
explains why Barbara's purse was missing, and over the course
of the trial, Bernard admits that he did take her

(46:42):
purse and never explains why. No one makes him explain why.
The prosecution theorizes that their master plan was interrupted when
Marie Anne came into the garage, and this is when
they realized that they were in over their heads. Carol panics,
rushes outside and hides in the bushes, and Bernard decides
he has to murder both Barbara and Marie Anne, and

(47:05):
from there it all unravels. Bernard kills Barbara, he steals
the two cars, he ditches the gun somewhere on the
drive back to Vegas and he is either unaware or
simply doesn't care that he left Carol behind at the scene.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
Yeah, that's weird.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
It's crazy, right, because I think he didn't like once
he shot Barbara in the back, he realized, like this
is all gone to hell, and he ran. He ran alone,
knowing he brought Carol there, ran alone and jumped into
a car and drove himself away, didn't drive back to
pick her up like ran And in this apparently in

(47:44):
this trial, when he is cross examined by the prosecution
and he's asked about these other women that he's at
all these affairs with, and the prosecution asks him, did
you tell them that you loved them? And he has
all these smarmy remarks it like, well, that would be
the thing you would have to do. Like he's saying
stuff like that, and she's sitting there like, goat going

(48:08):
down for this murder. Yeah, basically realize That's how she
realizes she has a bad boyfriend. Like, imagine the bad
boyfriend you had at age twenty and that reveal coming
during a murder trial that you are going down.

Speaker 2 (48:22):
Absolutely not.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
So the evidence against the two of them is overwhelming,
but in a shocking twist, after six days of deliberation,
the jury announces that it's deadlocked. Sources report that there
was infighting unrelated to the case that was going on
among the jurors, and that it was racially based. So
there was a Hispanic jar and there was a black juror.

(48:45):
Like that was a problem within the jury because they
were on the jury.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
Right and they were being targeted. Uh huh.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
So others suggest that some of them were swayed by
the defendant's social status, their good looks, and most importantly,
they're extreme fame during the proceedings because these people became,
you know, the real Housewives of West Covina essentially during
this whole thing. Yeah, so either way, a second trial

(49:11):
is set. The second trial also ends in a mistrial.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
What the fuck?

Speaker 1 (49:15):
Yeah, it takes until nineteen sixty one for the state
to take the couple to court for the third time.
But now the atmosphere around this case is very different
because Bernard and Carol are no longer tabloid stars. In fact,
another murderer has taken over the spotlight. Do you remember
the grandma from Hell? I have a Kroger that I
talked about Sacramento. No, No, she was in Santa Rosa.

(49:39):
She was in the town right by Petaluma.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
Yes, yes, to me, it's like vaguely Sacramento area.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
Yeah, Sacramento's inland. Got where we're on the coast, got it.
But the iver Kroger case, the Grandma from Hell case
they called it at the time, was all anyone was
talking about. Wow. So this third trial, these two, like
the jury probably had no idea who they were, right,
and it was kind of like they got a clean
slate when the jury comes back. At the end of

(50:09):
this trial, Bernard is convicted of murder in the first degree,
Carol is convicted of murder in the second degree, and
they're both given life sentences with the possibility of parole
after seven years. It only takes ten years before both
Bernard and Carol are released on parole. Come on, but
you know that's everything to do with Yeah, he's a surgeon,

(50:30):
they're both white. Yeah, this is you know, this is money.
This is what lawyers can get you if you have
the money to buy them. This is all that.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
It's just so such bullshit that it's like ten years,
like to take someone's life entire fucking.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
Life ten years for this man to kill his children's mother.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, who was terrified of him because
he was a monster. Yeah, and legitimately did shit wrong.
Like what the foh my god.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
Yeah, it's horrifying. So at this point they have nothing
to do with each other, obviously. The second Carol gets
out of jail, she changes her name, She gets a
job in the medical field, and by the early nineteen nineties,
she's become a respected supervisor at a southern California hospital.
One of Carol's colleagues actually tells Los Angeles Magazine in

(51:20):
the story that they did about this case that quote,
she was a wonderful boss. She was very kind, fair
and compassionate.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
I wonder if she had any idea when they were
going over that his plan was to kill them, Like
did she know that? Did he lie to her and
say we're going to scare her? Which isn't okay either.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
But I mean, it feels like that can't be possible
if she got Jack Cody involved and the whole the
whole agreement was a hit.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
Man for hire, she knew.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
Yeah, there's yeah, she's complicit, but it doesn't mean that
she's this on the same level as he is.

Speaker 2 (51:54):
In my opinion, Yeah, I thought, I get what you're saying.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
It's like she's kind of been brought under the spell
of this obvious kind of psychopath who just does whatever he.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
Wants to whoever he wants.

Speaker 1 (52:07):
When Bernard's released, there's a flurry of media interest and
journalists immediately start badgering him. Meanwhile, his California medical license
has been revoked. He ends up getting licensed in Missouri
and moving there to practice medicina. Yep, he immediately violates
his probation by quote setting up a California girlfriend in

(52:29):
an apartment in a nearby town end. Quote. So then
news of that violation drums up even more publicity of
the around the now infamous doctor. He at one point
tells a journalist, quote, this type of thing just seems
to follow me around.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
Okay, dude, come.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
I mean, it's so wild. It's just like the entitlement
of a person. This just like, Wow, you really see
yourself as the victim here? Yeah? Yeah, yeah. Within a
few years, Bernard's medical license in California is reinstated. Come on,
what is crappening? Yeah? As Stephen Michelen points out, this

(53:12):
is surprising given quote his apparent intent to use medical
equipment to kill his wife. Dude, Yeah. Bernard eventually returns
to southern California. He spends the rest of his life
in Palm Springs, and in nineteen ninety five he dies
of natural causes. But the La Times that so relentlessly
covered his murder trial notably does not publish his obituary. Okay,

(53:38):
it's unclear what happens to the other people involved with
and in this case, like Jack Cody, we just no
one knows what happens to most of them, although we
do know that after Barber's death Marianne Lindholm, she temporarily
lives with Gail Patrick, the Perry Mason producer. Oh, but
she eventually does return home to Sweden, but she never

(53:59):
stops thinking about Barbara Finch. And in nineteen seventy three,
Marie Anne receives her final paycheck for seventy five dollars
from the Finches in the mail. It was sent all
this time later because Barbara's bank account had finally been unfrozen. Wow, weird,
And Marie Anne says, quote, I still dream of missus

(54:19):
Finch and the children having breakfast on the patio. It
was seriously unreal for me. This beautiful family and their
happiness destroyed in a second. And that is the story
of the murder of Barbara Finch and the murder conviction
of her husband, Bernard Finch, and his girlfriend Carol Tregoff.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
Wow, what a tragic mess. Horrible, that's just horrible because
of this monster. Wow. I'd never heard of that, and
it was like a huge news story.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
That's wild, and a huge LA news story too.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
Yeah. I wonder if, oh, my grandma would have remembered that.
That's crazy.

Speaker 1 (54:56):
Maybe your mom would.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
I can't remember what year she was born. Yeah, maybe, yeah,
she might, she might. All right, well, today I'm gonna
tell you. Listen, it's an unsolved disappearance. Your favorite it's cold,
I know, or not that's not your favorite, And I

(55:18):
understand it.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
You know what, it's important to talk I think these cases,
especially when they come up later and something happens and
it like it is important. And that's we're talking about
my dumb preference of feeling unsatisfied by not getting answers. Yeah,
but the truth is it's really important to talk about
these cases.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
Yeah, I totally get where you're coming from.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
Well and the thing that's been happening lately where then
something comes up and it's been fifteen years and then
it's like, remember you covered the Boy in the box
and they suddenly have an identification.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
They're getting solved. It's fucking amazing.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
They're getting solved.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
Yeah, this one is fucked up and just sad, but
there is a theory in it that I I find
very interesting and I think you will too, Okay, because
it's a theory has to do with someone you've covered
in the past. Okay, So this is the unsolved disappearance
of a college student named Suzanne Lyle in nineteen ninety eight,

(56:17):
and my main sources for the story is a twenty
twelve episode of the investigation Discovery show Disappeared, which is
so good. And also there's two podcasts that kind of
cover this more in depth, and those are a podcast
called Upstate Unsolved and also one called True Crime Bullshit.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
Yes, True Crime Bullshit is the Israel Keys case. That's
the Israel Keys podcast. Oh okay, okay, okay, I'm doing
my Holy and my arm thing, yeah fully and yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
The rest of the sources can be found in our
show notes. So I'm going to tell you about Suzanne.
She is known by her family and friends as Susie,
so I'm going to call her that from now on.
She's born in nineteen seventy eight Mary and Doug Lyle
grows up in the small town of Bellston, SPA, New York.
It's near Saratoga Springs. If that means anything to you,
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
I don't either.

Speaker 2 (57:10):
The only reason I know about this stuff is because
she ends up going to the same college as my
ex So I'm like in upstate New York, Sunny Oneana
whatever he sucked, So I don't care. But yes, okay,
Susie's a very intelligent child. As a teenager, she becomes
interested in computers. And this is the nineties mid nineties,

(57:31):
so like, computers are not not a thing that a
lot of people are really interested in, but she's one
of those people who is who's find them fascinating. And
she also builds her own computers by taking apart computer
adding things to it to make it better. So she's
obviously so she's really brilliant and probably would have had
this incredible career in computer sciences. You know, she is shy,

(57:54):
she doesn't have the easiest time socializing in high school,
and she as an outlet, was writing poetry. Her mom
says about her once that while she was in the shower,
she jumps out of the shower it's still running, she
has shampoo in her hair, and her mom's like, what
are you doing? And she basically tells her mom while
she was in the shower she got a poem in
her head and how to get out to write it down.

(58:17):
So like, very sweet, very lovely an artist. Yeah, but
she does find friends online and is able to connect
with other teenagers nearby who are into computers. She's asked
to join a local computer club, which meets in a
coffee shop in her hometown. Oh the nineties, Oh the nineties.

Speaker 1 (58:37):
I mean it's coffee shops. And like the idea that
you would meet online and then make a plan immediately
to meet in real life, because that's it's so charming.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
Like now you have known someone for fifteen years on
Instagram and have never met them in person, you know
what I mean?

Speaker 1 (58:53):
Yep, but you really love them as a real you.

Speaker 2 (58:56):
Know more about them than their like real life friends too, probably,
so yeah, it's very weird. Yeah, of course her parents
at the time. It's the Internet in nineteen ninety eight.
They're like, I don't think you're going to go meet
these random people. Her dad takes her to the meeting
and realizes it's just a bunch of teenagers interested in computers.
Very innocent. Yeah. So the president of the computer club

(59:18):
is a boy named Richard Condon. He likes Susie immediately
and has to kind of convince her by pursuing her
for a couple of months to go out with him,
but they do start dating. Susie's sixteen, Richard is seventeen.
They fall in love. Susie graduates from high school with
honors and goes to college at Sunny Oneonta, but eventually

(59:39):
she transfers to the University of Albany. She says it's
because they have a better computer program, but also it's
closer to her boyfriend Richard. Oh so you know how
it is back then with the boyfriend's first boyfriend. Absolutely so.
Then on Monday March second, nineteen ninety eight, during her
second semester at all, Susie takes a midterm exam. After

(01:00:03):
the test, she goes to her job at the nearby
Crossgates Mall. She has a job at a store called Babbage's,
which sells software and video games. It's just can you
everything's like beige in the nineties, gray and beige, Yeah, computers.
Her boss says she had been nervous about the mid

(01:00:23):
term test, so when she comes in she's a little subdued.
She says she thinks she did okay, just normal, her
normal life she's living in. She works at the store
until closing time at nine pm, and leaves them all
at about nine twenty to take the bus back to campus.
So the bus driver remembers seeing her get on the
bus but didn't notice when she got off. But someone

(01:00:45):
else comes forward later and says that they did see
her on the bus and get off at her stop,
which was Callen Circle around nine forty five, so people
did see her. But the next day, Tuesday, March third,
Susie's boyfriend, Richard, calls her pan parents to tell them
that she never came back to her room the night before.
Richard goes to a different college, also in the Albany area,

(01:01:09):
and he says usually Susie would have called or emailed
him when she got back for the night, but he
says he had been trying to get in contact with
her since the night before and not and has not
been able to get in touch, so just calls her
parents immediately because he knows how out of character this
is for her. Susie's father calls the University of Albany
campus police. The police are very dismissive and say it's

(01:01:31):
a college student. Of course she's not showing up. That's
like what they do, you know, and they kind of
blow them off. But her parents and her boyfriend, as
I said, no, something is not right with this. Susie
is like so fucking reliable. So Susie's father, Doug, gets
in the car and makes the half hour drive to Albany,
and at the family's insistence, the police go into Susie's room.

(01:01:51):
Nothing is a miss, there's nothing out of place, and
they also go to her class that she's supposed to
be in that day, but she's not there either, again
totally not like her. So Susie's mom calls the bank
to ask if Susie's ATM card had been used, and
the person from the bank tells her that it actually
had just been used in the past couple of minutes

(01:02:13):
to withdraw twenty dollars. Oh, so that happens at about
four pm, around nineteen hours after Susie was last seen.
The withdrawal is at a Stuart's convenience store about two
miles from campus, which is in an area that Susie's
known to frequent. So it's not until Wednesday, two days
after Susie is last seen, and after she's missed another

(01:02:34):
midterm that finally the campus police call the New York
State Police to assist with their investigation. So like, so
long after yeah, so long. Once the police do get involved,
they put flyers up all over Albany and search three
hundred acres in the area around campus, but they don't
find anything. The biggest clue, of course, is at ATM Trenchaction.

(01:02:56):
Surveillance cameras at the Stuart's store record a man in
a Nike he had around the time the transaction took place,
but he's like interviewed, he's later found not to be
a suspect, and there's no security cameras pointed at the ATM,
so they could just see who was like in the
store and it apparently wasn't this guy, okay, But also

(01:03:17):
the bank records show that Susie's pin was entered correctly,
and the only two people who knew the pin to
her ATM card was Susie and her boyfriend Richard. Right.
And the other thing is so only twenty dollars was
taken out. She had like one hundred and hundred fifty
dollars in the bank, and Susie's mother says that her
daughter always took only twenty dollars at a time, like

(01:03:39):
that was the way she operated. You don't take out more.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
Than that, Yeah, well, according to my dad, you absolutely should,
because if they're going to charge you a fee, then
you should be taking out the maximum amount.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
But Vince says that too, and I never did that before.

Speaker 1 (01:03:53):
But I think that's a complete habit of being a student.
You're constantly like, you don't want to take any more
out because you'll spend it if you.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
Take it out. It's like you need money for this
and that. If you only have a little bit in
there anyways, yeah, you'll spend it. And at the time
in life, you couldn't use an ATM to pay for
shit like a normal like a credit.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
Card, remember, oh right, you could only get cash out.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
I feel like that was just not a lot of
places that took debit.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
Cards, not until later in the nineties.

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
I would say, yeah, okay. So another clue comes two
months later in May, when Susie's employee ID from the
computer store is found on the ground near the bus
stop at Colin's Circle, which is the one she always
got off on that someone saw her get off on.
Her fucking employee IDA is found there, like in the grass,
and it's not found by the police. It's found by

(01:04:44):
a couple students who saw it there. So of course
this raises a lot of questions about the thoroughness of
the initial police investigation. Yeah, it's a very bad look
and the card is a little beat up, like it
looks like it's been through the elements and been sitting
out there for quite some time, so like it was
there originally.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
Yeah, not good.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
And because it's been sitting out there so long, they're
not able to lift any forensic evidence from it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:09):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
So, one of Susie's co workers at the mall tells
investigators that Susie said she was being stalked. This happened
about a month before her disappearance. She said it was
a person Susie didn't know but that Susie didn't seem
to be that afraid of this person. But that's the
only information about this that we have, just so random.
In the weeks after Susie's disappearance, as I said, around

(01:05:32):
three hundred acres are searched, a total of like two
hundred and seventy leads are followed up on, but no
other evidence has ever turned up. That's fucking it. She's
must be so frustrating. Let me tell you about this
theory that's come up. There's a lot of theories that
have come up, not a ton. Some people think Richard,
her boyfriend, is involved. Some people think his parents like

(01:05:54):
help cover it up allegedly. There's just you know, some
questions around that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:59):
But well, it's sounds like the kind of theorizing that
is allowed to happen when there's very little information and
people are kind of grasping at straws and trying to
make things add up.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
Right, like one of the issues that they have with
the boyfriend and the parents, or that the parents wouldn't
allow the boyfriend to talk to the police without their presence,
which as we know, is like should be protocol. Yeah,
you should be with you should have a lawyer or
you know, someone there with.

Speaker 1 (01:06:28):
You, so right, they're smart enough probably to know that,
like the boyfriend or the husband is the first person
anyone looks at. So he's in it's his serious conversation
if he's going to have it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
Yeah, So as you said, of course Israel Keys comes
into play, which when I read this story initially I
was like, I just got the facts of it, and
then I like looked it up on Reddit and then
that's when all this fucking Israel Key shit comes up
that I was like, holy fucking shit.

Speaker 1 (01:06:56):
Can I just say right now? I was listening to
true crime bullshit around Bristmas time, and I remember Josh Hallmark,
who is the host, Yeah, talking about this particular victim.
Really yes, And I just have to say, if you
are into true crime and you are into this kind
of like real investigation, really victim centric problem solving, Josh

(01:07:21):
Hallmark is doing amazing work. He literally is trying to
solve these cases for the families because there is potentially
missing people that can be tied back at least to
the movements of your Israel Keys, and he's just trying
to take those theories and then he's worked with that

(01:07:43):
older couple that searches for bodies in bodies of water. Yes,
I covered that. Yeah. Like he basically takes like the
theories that he's put together, really does like intense research
and investigates and calls people and talks to them. He
has a team of research. I can't believe the work
that Josh Hallmark is doing. And if you like, if

(01:08:04):
you have any interest in all in any of that
kind of stuff, you have to listen to True Crime Bullshit.
It's an incredible podcast and he's been doing it for years.

Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. And the other one, Upstate Unsolved.
Their entire first season is about this case and they'd
like interview people from the case, including the detective why
original detective. So like, yeah, there's a lot going on.
It's really fascinating. So let me just tell you a
couple of the things about Israel Keys and why people
think that he's involved with it. People should know Israel

(01:08:36):
Keys is a serial killer. He killed himself in prison
and he was only I think it was three or
four like confirmed murders, but it's thought that there were
a lot more. He's a fucking monster. In fact, what
was the book about him called American monster Monster. Yeah,

(01:08:56):
he's just a nightmare.

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
Actually, if you if if you are interested in the
Israel Key story, please go start listening to True Crime
Bullshit season one, because that is a person who is
doing this story so correctly and in minute detail, with
every theory being explored.

Speaker 2 (01:09:15):
It's incredible. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
So at the time, Israel Keys lived about three hours
away from Albany in Constable, New York, however, which is
like far and up. It's like close enough to be like,
that's weird that he was in the area, but far
enough away to be like yeah, but like you can't
just tie it together on that alone. However, he joined
the army that same year that Susie went missing, and

(01:09:39):
he joined out of the Albany Recruitment Center, Oh, which
was on the same road, like down the street from
the mall she worked at.

Speaker 1 (01:09:48):
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
Yeah, And I guess it's confirmed, and I'm sure Josh
Hallmark has a lot of this info. He was there
sometime between January and March because he had you know,
it's not you don't just go and sign up, you
have to go and take tests and do all this shit.
So he was there during that time, right, which is
like a college girl goes missing and Israel fucking Keys

(01:10:10):
is in town at that time, right, Like that is bad.

Speaker 1 (01:10:13):
Yes, it is. And also it's bad because any distance away.
The thing that he became known for was that he
would he lived in Alaska, he would fly in to
one city, rent a car, and then drive hours and
hours murder people, and then drive back. So he had
the full consciousness of how people get caught, how police

(01:10:35):
track people down, and he was intentionally making moves to
seem like tote him. And that's what's so creepy about
that story.

Speaker 2 (01:10:44):
Yeah, so creepy. There's also a credible witness who comes
forward later when she sees like a documentary that Israel
Keys and says that she believes he was the man
who was stalking her while she was in a Marshall's
car park and approached her and like said some creepy shit.
And she saw, you know, years later his photo and

(01:11:07):
got chills and was like, that's the fucking guy who
like creeped me out. And that Marshall's car park was
very close to the mall as well. Yes, and we
have to remember that Israel Keys was an early online
like Internet user and also a fucking gamer, yeah, which
Susie was as well. So him having been in that

(01:11:29):
area gone to the mall, it makes total sense that
he would have gone into the store where she worked,
which is a computer store yep.

Speaker 1 (01:11:36):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:11:37):
And later when the investigators did a like a laptop
search on Israel Keys's computer, it was discovered that some
of his victims had been met through online gaming. So
it's just fucking adds up.

Speaker 1 (01:11:51):
It's adding up. Yeah, this to me is like so creepy.

Speaker 2 (01:11:54):
The night that he kidnapped the victim, Samantha Koenig, he
took her ATM card, He made her give him the password.
He took the card to the ATM and took out
twenty dollars to make sure she hadn't lied about her
pin number. Twenty fucking dollars, right, Like, why would anyone
have just taken out twenty Like that doesn't make any sense, right, Like,

(01:12:16):
you take out as much as you can at an ATM.
That's like when you're it's about robbery, that's what you do,
Oh the robber.

Speaker 1 (01:12:22):
Yes, sorry, I thought you were saying it sounded like
you were saying where I'm like, wait, we just talked
about why she would take out only twenty dollars, but
you mean why would he take out Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
Okay, right, like that's an mo. That's a totalm O. Yes, okay,
This to me is the most compelling after Israel Keys died.
Investigators found forty four matches between image files on his
computer that also showed up in the name US database,
which of course we know is missing people and so

(01:12:53):
he had basically looked up Susie on NamUs. That is compelling,
you know, oh yeah, yeah. So other than the fact
that the FBI says his murders began in two thousand
and one, so they don't totally believe it, and he
also said he killed us amount of people, it's like, well,
can we believe this fucking monster? You know.

Speaker 1 (01:13:12):
Well, also, there's a lot of theories, and now I'm
so afraid to say anything because I think any theory
I'm about to postulate right now is absolutely Josh Hallmark's
theory that I've heard, and then it's kind of settled
in the back of my mind. But I believe one
of the things is if he was involved in her murder,
maybe it was the very beginning of him actually moving

(01:13:35):
to murder. It could have been assault before, it could
have been other attacks before. But if he murders her
and then immediately signs up for the army just to
get out of town, just to get out of the country,
that is another piece as well, where it's his early days.
They only caught him at the end and then everything
is a backwards build. So those early days of how

(01:13:57):
he actually went from who he was, you know, as
a teenager in his twenties to yeah, the serial killer
he became is a mystery.

Speaker 2 (01:14:07):
And I think he started killing after he got out
of the army, so like maybe this was like, I know,
I'm about to go in the army for a long time.
I want to do this thing. I have to do
it now, and then it'll be harder to accomplish when
I'm in the army and being watched and constantly.

Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
Around people, and it's the perfect I'm getting shipped out,
so I just won't be suspected and I will be
around to be Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
That's really compelling evidence. I just absolutely and I don't
want to take it away. I don't want to take
away from the fact that it's you know, it's the
husband did it. The husband and the boyfriend are always suspicious, Like,
let's not totally rule that out, but this stuff is weird.

Speaker 1 (01:14:46):
Yes, for sure. An infamous and very prolific serial killer
being in the area needs to be front and center
in this discussion, for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:14:58):
Definitely. So the aftermath is that the Lyles bless them.
They turn their grief into action. They're instrumental in getting
several laws passed addressing campus safety and missing persons. The
first is in New York law that requires universities to
file prompt reports on missing students, as opposed to just

(01:15:19):
assuming they'll turn up, as they did with Susie. It
also requires that they have detailed plans in place for
the investigation of violent felonies. The bill is known as
Suzanne's Law and passes April sixth, nineteen ninety nine, which
would have been Susie's twenty first birthday. Oh wow, So
these are the people that you know, you're just in
awe of because they're grieving, they're going through so much shit,

(01:15:42):
but they channel that to help other people and other
families and other victims. It's amazing. And now April sixth
is which was Susie's birthday is known as Missing Person's
Day in New York.

Speaker 1 (01:15:54):
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (01:15:54):
Yeah. But they don't stop with the state law. They
also lobby for a federal Suzanne's Law, and this one
raises the age limit for when local police must report
missing persons cases to the National Crime Enforcement Center. So
previously the age was seventeen when they were required to report,
and because of Suzanne's Law, it changes to twenty one

(01:16:15):
years old. And so Doug and Mary also found an
organization called the Center for Hope, with their mission being
to provide resources to support families of missing persons and
help them cope with all the pain and uncertainty surrounding
the disappearance of a loved one. Susie's father, Doug Lyle,
unfortunately dies in twenty fifteen. His obituary details even more

(01:16:36):
of the projects he's spearheaded to advocate for the missing.
He had like coasters made of missing persons that he
would give to bars to put out, and also like
the playing cards of cold cases that they would deliver
to prisons, which is incredible. He also wrote a guide
for families called What to Do If a loved One
Goes Missing? Because like those, resources don't exist for people, right,

(01:17:01):
it's incredible. This past April marked the twenty fifth anniversary
of Susie's disappearance. Mary Lyle told a reporter that she's
never given up hope, saying, quote, every time we went
on a conference, everywhere we went, I'd be sitting in
that airport looking at every single face. I'm still hoping.
And that is the story of the disappearance of Suzanne

(01:17:21):
Lyle and the resilience and perseverance of the Lyle family. Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:17:26):
Great, one fucked up right well, just the idea that
this is a thing that happens so often and so
often in this country and now, like ye, there are
luckily people like Dereka Natalie Wilson at the Black and
Missing Foundation who are dedicating all of their time, one
hundred percent their jobs every day to bring these cases

(01:17:49):
to light that the press doesn't cover, and the media
doesn't cover obviously the missing and murdered Indigenous women, which
is a scourge. It's not just something that's happening. It's
like happening in numbers that are shocking and have to change,
and there's people that are focused and trying to do
something about it in this way, but it's there is

(01:18:12):
such this gray area that people just get. It's a
purgatory that the families get stuck in. Yeah, just such
a horrible kind of unending tragedy place that they're in.

Speaker 2 (01:18:22):
Totally. Yeah, And I think it's important to shine a
light on those You know, there's so many podcasts like
in your own backyard and up and Vanished that if
those podcasts hadn't brought some light to these cold cases,
I don't think they're solved now, and I don't think
they would have been. It's just wild.

Speaker 1 (01:18:39):
It's so important, it's incredible. All those people that do
that work are totally incredible people.

Speaker 2 (01:18:46):
We are here to support you with our blather and
our stories.

Speaker 1 (01:18:50):
And our money. Let's give ten thousand dollars to one
of those places. Yes, let's do it.

Speaker 2 (01:18:55):
Let's get ten thousand dollars to the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children. Their mission is to find missing children,
reduce child sexual exploitation, and prevent child victimization. They are
at missingkids dot org if you want to join us
in donating many perfect.

Speaker 1 (01:19:14):
Yeah, I mean that's a good it's a good one.
But it's like like every one of these stories where
it's just like leaves you with the pit.

Speaker 2 (01:19:21):
In your stomach totally, totally.

Speaker 1 (01:19:25):
Well, well, it's nice sometimes to substitute the pit you
already had in your stomach with something about someone else
and then think, Okay, what can I do to help? Yeah,
that's a way to go about pits in your stomach
in this world.

Speaker 2 (01:19:38):
An actionable pit. Yeah, that's what we need. That's what
we're a that's what we're trying to do. That's right,
all right, Well, thanks for listening this week. Thank you,
We appreciate you as always, and stay sexy and don't
get murdered. Go bye bye bye, Elvis, Do you want
a cookie?

Speaker 1 (01:20:03):
This has been an exactly right production.

Speaker 2 (01:20:05):
Our producer is Alejandra Keck.

Speaker 1 (01:20:07):
Our senior producer is Hanna Kyle Kriton.

Speaker 2 (01:20:10):
This episode was edited and mixed by Leoni Scolacci.

Speaker 1 (01:20:13):
Our researchers are Maren mcclashan and Ali Elkin.

Speaker 2 (01:20:16):
Email your hometowns and fucking rays to My Favorite Murder
at gmail dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:20:20):
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my Favorite
Murder and Twitter at my favor Murder. Gaybye