May 27, 2025 • 36 mins
In this second of three parts, we look the troubled life of Susie Newsom Lynch. A story steeped in paranoia and deceit, it has everything you need from a southern gothic tale.
• Follow Diversion Audio on Instagram
• Explore more: diversionaudio.com
This series is hosted by Mary Kay McBrayer. Check out more of her work at www.marykaymcbrayer.com.
This episode was written by Mary Kay McBrayer
Developed by Scott Waxman, Emma DeMuth, and Jacob Bronstein
Associate Producer is Leo Culp
Produced by Antonio Enriquez
Theme Music by Tyler Cash
Executive Produced by Scott Waxman and Emma DeMuth
Special thanks to:
Carter, Stephen L.. Invisible. Henry Holt and Co.. Kindle Edition.
Pre-order Mary Kay's forthcoming true crime book 'Madame Queen: The The Life and Crimes of Harlem’s Underground Racketeer, Stephanie St. Clair' here
Check out "Bitter Blood" by Jerry Bledsoe here
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Diversion audio. A note this episode contains mature content and
quite graphic descriptions of violence that may be disturbing for
some listeners. I mean it, y'all this episode especially, please
take care and listening. It was Sunday afternoon, May nineteenth,
(00:38):
nineteen eighty five, and Alice asked her husband, Rob Newsome,
what could be keeping her in laws so late. Rob
hadn't realized how late in the day it was. She
was right. He thought his parents would be back home
hours ago, and here it was almost four pm. Rob
and Alice had been living with Rob's pairs it's Florence
(01:00):
and Bob, in their two story, upper class brick house
in Greensboro, North Carolina for two years. Their own three
children stayed in the house as well, and they hadn't
been planning on all of them bunking together for so long.
The situation was always supposed to be temporary. Actually, that's
(01:21):
what Florence and Bob had gone to see about this weekend.
The plan was they'd move in with Bob's beloved widowed mother, Nana,
in Winston Salem to help care for her as she
got on in years. But before they did that, the
house renovations needed to be completed, and you know how
that goes. One contracting fail cascades into another rework job,
(01:45):
until here you are, two years later, having to stand
on top of the professionals to make sure they're actually
showing up while your eighty five year old matriarch cooks
on a hot plate in the breezeway because y'all have
torn up her kitchen without a plan to fix it. Now,
the renovations were only a couple weeks away from being finished,
(02:06):
and Florence and Bob were already carrying some of their
things over in anticipation of their move. But they were
supposed to pick up Rob and Alice's eldest daughter, Page
from her other grandparents in the early afternoon on their
way back into town. So when Alice's mother called around
five to say they hadn't come to get her yet,
Alice was worried. Alice called Nana's house, but no one answered.
(02:31):
Rob drove to his dad's office to check if he'd
just forgotten the plan, but no one was there. They
kept calling for two hours, still no answer. By ten o'clock,
Rob couldn't stand it. I'm going over there, he said,
but Alice said to wait, let's call the Suttons first.
Homer Sutton was the family doctor. If something had happened,
(02:54):
Homer would know about it, and if he hadn't heard anything, well,
the Suttons lived nearby and they could drop by to
check on them much quicker than Rob could get there.
When they called, Homer and Katie Sutton had heard nothing,
and they agreed to drive up to the old brick
shuttered house under the huge oak trees. Homer's headlights fell
(03:16):
across all three family cars, which made him assume all
three of the family were home. Then as they walked
up to the patio, they saw that the storm door's
glass was broken, the steps were covered in its shards.
Homer said, something bad has happened here, and he was
(03:37):
right through the living room window. He saw a lamp
on and the TV was playing softly. Nana lay on
a walnut framed antique sofa in a beige nightgown covered
with a plaid afghan. Florence lay on the floor on
her right side, wearing a white skirt and knit top
(03:59):
with no shoes. She might have been sleeping, but they
knew Florence this wasn't the type of thing she'd do.
She wasn't sleeping. Homer realized all at once that they
were dead. But where was Bob? Was he dead? Was
he the killer? Could the killer still be here? The
(04:20):
Suttons retreated to their car and drove to the closest
neighbor's house to report a multiple murder. Welcome to the
(04:50):
greatest true crime stories ever told. I'm Mary Kay mcbraer.
Today's episode we're calling Family Betrayal the Susie Newsome Lynch Story.
It's part two of our three part story of Susie
Newsom Lynch, and it has everything you'd expect from a
Southern Gothic tale, aristocratic families, Old South racism, paranoia, a feud,
(05:18):
and of course, murder. I'll tell you all about it
after this quick break. Welcome back to Part two of
(05:40):
the Susie Newsom Lynch Story. Listeners, that's right. This episode
is part two of a three part mini series about
this story. So if you haven't heard part one, pause
me here, go back, listen to part one, and then
come back here. I promise you'll be glad you did,
because this story is action packed. When we last left
(06:02):
the Newsoms, Florence and Bob's daughter, Susie, had divorced her
husband Tom Lynch in nineteen eighty. Susie returned to North Carolina,
where she stayed with her parents for a while. With
the boys. Susie got full custody of Jim and John
in the divorce settlement, and Tom got two weeks summer visitation. Naturally,
(06:25):
Tom wanted to see his children more than that, so
he kept asking Susie for more visitation. She responded by
keeping the kids from Tom altogether. At one point in time,
he actually didn't get to see his children for two years.
Tom also never actually asked for custody, He just wanted
more visitation. Plus, back then it was super uncommon for
(06:49):
the father to get any type of custody at all,
no matter the circumstances. More visitation wasn't a lot to ask,
but Susie wasn't allowing it. She told her lawyer to
hold Tom up in court for as long as he
wanted their Lynchpin argument was that the children were too
young to transfer planes on their own, and there were
(07:10):
no direct flights from North Carolina to Albuquerque, so if
Tom wanted to see the kids more, he'd have to
either come to North Carolina himself, which he couldn't do
since he ran his own practice in New Mexico. Or
he could meet the kids at their connection and escort
them to the next flight. Or he could pay to
(07:32):
have Susie fly out to see them on their connection
round trip. Basically, it was going to cost Tom an
extra fortune for the chaperone, and while he was doing
all right financially, it was still a lot of money,
not to mention the court fees. In July of nineteen
eighty four, Tom Lynch's family, his mother, Dolores, and his
(07:53):
sister Janey, were a murdered execution style in their home
in Louisville. Happened while Tom's kids were visiting him in
New Mexico. It was a horrible thing and still unsolved
these months later, and Susie's parents sent Tom a bouquet
of sympathy flowers. That gesture opened communication between them and Tom.
(08:18):
After a few correspondences, he asked Bob that Susie's dad
if he'd be willing to testify to his character in
the court custody hearing, and Bob agreed to do it
because Susie had been acting really weird. She had always
been a high maintenance snob, but now she was going camping,
(08:40):
and she had gotten way too close to her first cousin,
and as if them being first cousins wasn't reason enough
not to get involved with him, that cousin Fritz was
a weirdo gunfreak survivalist who had been lying about having
medical credentials, and that whole wing of the family was
openly racist. In fact, Susie's mother, Florence, confronted her about
(09:03):
potentially having a romantic relationship with her cousin. Susie was
very offended at the suggestion, and although she found the
idea repulsive, she moved out of her parents' house as
a result of the argument, and then Fritz moved in
with her. So yeah, Bob agreed to testify for Tom. Plus,
(09:26):
they never saw the kids now either, and when they did,
the children looked so sallow and scared that he knew
something had to be off. And now Bob and Florence,
as well as Bob's mother Nana, had been murdered in
their family home, kind of like with the the Inch
(10:00):
murders of Dolores and Janey. Their friends and family didn't
see the Newsoms for a couple of days, and that
was unusual. Bob and Florence did usually stay with Nana
over the weekend, but it was not like them to
come back home so late, let alone without a courtesy
phone call, and much less without any communication at all.
(10:23):
So Robin Alice, their son and daughter in law, tried
to track them down. They sent the Suttons family friends
over to check on them. Through the front window, they
could see that Florence and Nana had been killed, and
then they left to call the police, which is exactly
the right call. I mean, not only would entering the
(10:46):
house have contaminated the crime scene, but they didn't know
where Bob was, or where the killer was, or if
Bob might be the killer, so they went to the
nearest neighbor's house to call it in. It took several
calls and over an hour for the police to show up,
and when they did, it was just a guy in
a patrol car, no siren on or anything. The first
(11:09):
officer was still in the house when four more officers
pulled up. Nobody seemed to be in charge or know
what to do, not until Sergeant Allen Gentry of the
Criminal Investigation Division of the Forsyth County Sheriff's Department arrived
and he put things in order. Just inside the back
(11:30):
door was the body of Bob Newsom. He had been
shot three times in the abdomen, once in the right forearm,
and once in the back of the head. It seemed
like he had been trying to flee when the killer
ended his life. Six inches from Bob's feet was a
hole burned into the carpet. It was thirty inches across
(11:54):
and in the circle there were bits of charred paper
in the ashes. Officers also realized that Florence's throat had
been cut, and she had two stab wounds in the
right side of her neck and one in her right shoulder.
Three more deeper stabbings were in her back, One of
(12:15):
them had severed her aorda. She also had a single
shot in her chest and one in her left temple.
Her wedding band was bent and her ring finger was
cut and broken, like someone had tried to remove it.
Her diamond engagement ring was gone. One thing they would
(12:36):
wonder was why the blatant display of overkill, especially when
the other victims had nowhere near as gruesome deaths. Nana
had been shot three times. One bullet grazed the side
of her head, the second hit her lower right side,
and the third fatal shot entered her right temple and
(12:58):
lodged in her left shoulder. Officers thought that the class
pans under her chin indicated that she had been praying
when the intruder was in her house, but later evidence
showed that she had been staged as praying after her death.
Most of the shots appeared to have been fired from
near the breezeway door. Though Florence's engagement ring had been stolen,
(13:22):
There were wads of cash and clear view and jewelry
where thousands of dollars lay untouched, as well in an
upstairs bedroom, Bob's open briefcase was empty. Bob and Florence's son, Rob,
(13:48):
was the first family member notified, so he was the
first one to arrive at the scene. Sergeant Alan Gentry
had lots of questions that needed answers, like quote, why
was the storm door broken while a key was left
in the back door lock. Had one of the victims
been surprised by the murderer while entering the house. Why
(14:12):
was another set of keys found between the two cars?
Was that footprint in the sand by one of the
new windows at the back of the house. Significant Why
had Florence's Newsom been so savaged a blatant example of overkill?
Why had the fire been set in the hallway? Was
it an attempt to burn down the house and cover
(14:33):
the murders? If so, why hadn't it been fueled by
the paint thinner and other volatile substances so handily available
in the part of the house that was being remodeled.
Had the purpose of the fire been only to burn
a specific item or items? Had the killer or killers
only come to find and destroy such items? Had they
(14:54):
been found in Bob Newsom's briefcase? Why was the briefcase empty?
But he couldn't just ask the bereaved all that point blank.
He started with the easy, matter of fact questions like ages, addresses, occupations,
When did Rob last see them? How had he learned
(15:16):
they had died? Rob recapped all that I just told you.
Then Alan asked if Rob knew why anyone would want
to kill his parents and grandmother. Rob said he didn't know.
Had there been any quote problems or any unusual events
in the family. That's when Rob said, well, last summer
(15:42):
my sister's former mother in law and sister in law
were murdered in Kentucky. Later, Bob and Florence's other children
(16:12):
would walk through the house with detectives. The eldest Frances
met the two agents at the house on Tuesday morning.
They wanted her to tell them if she saw anything
out of the ordinary at the house. I don't mean
to interrupt myself the house. Smart is this move? Get
the eldest girl child to tell you if anything in
(16:32):
her mother and grandmother's house is out of place, because
you know who would know the answer to that for sure,
the eldest daughter. Anyway, Francis did exactly what they asked.
They told her, you talk, will listen, So she narrated
as they guided her straight to her grandmother's bedroom. Just
(16:53):
nine days before, she'd sat there with Nana sifting through
her belongings together. Nana had said, I sure, hope, honey,
that you don't have to come in here and take
care of all this stuff if something happens to me.
So that had to have been a horrific recovered memory.
(17:14):
Francis noticed an expensive gold and pearl bracelet on the
floor that she knew to be worth thousands of dollars,
so her intuition had been right. This was no robbery.
When they guided her upstairs, she noticed her dad's open,
empty briefcase on the floor. She said, it's empty. He
(17:35):
would never carry an empty briefcase. What was in here?
They didn't know. Later they would surmise that it might
have been the papers the killer set on fire at
Bob's feet. While Francis walked through the house, her eldest daughter, Nancy,
noticed a stack of letters and nan knitting basket. They
(17:57):
were copies of exchanges between Tom and Kathy Lynch, her
grandmother Florence, and her aunt Louise. Nancy didn't know about
the upcoming custody hearing, but as she read through the letters,
she learned that her grandparents had been planning to testify
on Tom's behalf. Francis said to detectives, here it is
(18:20):
this is it? Take these? This is the motive right here?
Have you read these? The detectives had been hoping one
of them might notice. While tending to her after learning
(18:42):
the news of her family's deaths, one of Susie's friends
asks if someone needed to call to notify Tom Lynch.
Susie said, that son of a bitch can learn it
from his lawyers, and that was exactly how Tom learned
the news. Tom actually called his lawyers to make sure
(19:02):
the custody hearing was still on. He hadn't bought his
plane ticket yet because he expected some kind of fuckery
from Susie. When his lawyer told him someone had been
killed at the Newsome house in Winston Salem, Tom hung
up immediately and called Rob. After talking to Rob, he
knew that Susie and Fritz were responsible. It was too
(19:26):
big a coincidence. Then he called the Kentucky State Police.
The agent who took Tom's call was excited. He connected
with the North Carolina Police to compare notes. Sergeant Allen
and Gentry in North Carolina was following up on all leads.
(19:50):
When he tried to coordinate an interview with Susie, she said, sorry,
not today, but she sounded quote perfectly chipper, and he
thought that was weird. If his parents and grandmother had
just been murdered, he'd have at least moved his other
appointments around. She had also seemed hyperactive to her sister Francis.
(20:14):
At the funeral home, Alan talked to Tom Lynch too,
and Tom told him all about the murders of his
mother and sister, as well as how much Susie loathed
his mom. He also mentioned that Bob was supposed to
testify in the upcoming hearing. Plus, Susie was acting weird
and she had an unusual relationship with her first cousin, Fritz.
(20:38):
And although he didn't really know Fritz, he did know
he was a survivalist and a gun collector who thought
of himself as both a doctor and a military man,
although he was in fact neither. Maybe the detective should
check him out. This was the first time Alan had
heard of Fritz. He deaf planned to look into that lead. First,
(21:03):
he asked Rob if anyone in the family had an
unusual interest in guns. He thought it was weird that
that was the first time Rob had mentioned Fritz, but
at the time, Fritz was still hanging around Rob's house,
still a potential danger to his family. When it came
down to it, Nancy, Susie's niece, and her brother and
(21:27):
sister all told police they thought Susie was somehow responsible
for the murders. They had even thought someone should have
questioned Susie about the lynch murders back when they happened.
Nancy said, nobody ever asked us, so we thought we
were crazy. Alan, Gentry and another detective went to Susie's
(22:02):
apartment to interviewer. They were very friendly because they wanted
her to talk. Susie was charming, they said, bubbly, bouncy.
She invited them into the living room and introduced her cousin, Fritz.
The detectives noticed Fritz wore a folded knife on his belt.
(22:23):
They were also shocked about the incredible clutter of the apartment,
big piles of military field gear. They asked Susie to
recount her weekend, and she did as if nothing at
all was bothering her, like nothing had happened to her.
On their way out, the front door was rigged with
(22:44):
a motion detector and booby trapped with a huge floodlight
and strobe to blind intruders. There was a gas grenade
above the door. Alan asked for Fritz's contact information. Fritz
gave him his mother's address and number. Alan asked, what
kind of work do you do? Fritz said, I'm a physician,
(23:07):
but I'm not licensed in this state right now. Naturally,
the detectives followed up with Fritz's mother, Annie Hill. She
(23:32):
told them that the boys were what caused the break
between Susie and her mother. Now Annie Hill was more
like Susie's mother too. Annie Hill said that her husband
had helped out Susie and her kids financially when he
was alive, but not so much after death since he
hadn't had any investments. Now Fritz was trying to help them,
(23:55):
and she gave no thought to the idea that there
was more to their relationship. Not even she knew. Fritz
stayed at Susie sometimes, it was just to look after them.
Detectives thought he might belong to some mercenary or commando group,
so they asked Annie Hill about it. She was completely
(24:15):
snowed over. She said, no, it's government. Annie Hill also
said that she thought they went out of town to
Atlanta one weekend during the boy's visitation with Tom. Detectives
noted that would have left Susie available to go to
Kentucky with Fritz too, and what about this past weekend?
(24:37):
Annie told them Fritz came by on Friday to tell
her he was going camping in Virginia with Ian, the
son of a family friend from down the street. Ian
called her to say Fritz hadn't arrived at Roanoke Mountain,
and then Fritz called to say he couldn't find Ian,
and Annie Hill told him that Ian was going on
(24:58):
to the hotel room and then on Sunday he went
to eat with Susie and the kids. He'd probably have
a credit card receipt for that. Fritz's alibi was convenient,
too convenient. Toward the end of the interview, Annie Hill
mentioned that the only commonality between the two murder cases
(25:20):
was Susie's children. Alan wanted to talk to Ian Perkins
right away, but the lead State Bureau of Investigation agent
in Winston Salem, Tom Sturgell, said maybe they should hold off.
He said, let's let Fritz tell us his alibi rather
than just taking his mother's word for it. Sergeant Alan,
(26:09):
Gentry and Tom Sturgell arrived at Susie's house unannounced on
the morning of May twenty eighth, ten days after the
multiple murder. They wanted to talk to Fritz. Susie invited
them in, and Fritz came out of the bedroom yawning
in a flight suit when they told him they wanted
(26:29):
to interview him. He changed into khakis, sheathed a knife
on his belt, and stuck a flashlight into his back pocket.
Even though it was late morning. He corroborated his mother's story.
The previous weekend, he went camping with Ian Perkins at
Roanoke Mountain. He used his credit card to call his
(26:50):
mother and said he was running late. That's when she
told him that Ian had gone back to Lexington. They
drove out to the park afterward and set up camp
near dawn. He had the campground receipt in his wallet
on his person. They slept till two pm, ate lunch
at the lodge, and then took a night hike. They
(27:14):
didn't get back to the campsite till after midnight. Next day,
he ate lunch with Susie and the boys right after.
That is when they learned about the murders. The detectives
knew something was off, especially when he proclaimed himself a
gun enthusiast and collector and he had a handcuff key
(27:35):
on his keyring. They then asked about Ian. Were they
close They'd gotten close in the past year or so.
He said they went camping together and such. So the
detectives went to Ian and they weren't really sure what
they'd find from the Reedsville Police Department. The detectives called
(28:08):
Ian's house. His mother answered. She said he was at school,
and she realized who was calling. She asked, this doesn't
have anything to do with the newsome murders, does it.
Ian Perkins had joined the National Guard as a freshman
at Washington and Lee University. He was patriotic and religious,
(28:30):
and when he ran into Fritz shortly after his training
in nineteen eighty four, he told him all about it.
Fritz spent hours quote instructing Ian on what he should
have learned but wasn't taught. His mother said, Ian looked
up to Fritz like an uncle. They were eleven years
apart in age. When Ian said he was interested in
(28:52):
going into intelligence work after college, Fritz took Ian to
Lee Chapel and told him that he was a contract
agent for the CIA, that he'd been recruited a long
time ago. Fritz swore him to secrecy, and Ian obliged.
He wanted to be a company man too. Maybe he'd
(29:12):
want to accompany Fritz on a mission, a sort of
test run that could help Ian prove himself worthy. It
would be support only he wouldn't have to do any
of the killing himself. Oh, this is what Ian confessed
(29:35):
to the detectives. Almost immediately. He with them too. The
car lit a cigarette, and as he smoked it through
his jitters, he told his version of the story. It
was very close to Fritz's, only the times were off.
Alan Gentry said, something's wrong here. Fritz claimed that y'all
(29:57):
left out on your hiker about eight. You said five.
Fritz said that yelled and go to bed. When you
got back that you just laid around and talked. You
said you went to sleep. Which way is it? After
a pause, he continued, in the time you say it
took for this hike, y'all could have driven to Winston Salem,
murdered three people, and returned to Virginia. Ian started sobbing.
(30:23):
Neither detective expected him to cave this easily. Usually they
had to get a little rough, a little ugly, but
this kid spilled right away. Ian said it was true
that they had gone to Winston Salem that night, but
he didn't know about a plan to murder the newsoms.
He recounted the whole story of how he wanted to
become a secret agent and Fritz invited him on a
(30:45):
CIA mission. The detectives kept looking at each other, but
Ian was so sincere that neither detective doubted him. After
questioning him further about times and locations, they were able
to put together the exact route Fritz took across Winston Salem.
Ian even told them about Fritz getting pulled over by
(31:07):
a police car, and that was really exciting. Surely there
would be some record of that, and maybe the officer
would remember Fritz after the mission. Fritz had told Ian
his bosses at the CIA were impressed with how he'd
handled himself, and he changed the slide on the pistol
he gave Ian. The detectives thought Fritz might have put
(31:30):
the slide from the murder weapon into Ian's pistol, and
they resolved to check it against the ejection markings on
the casings found at the Newsome home. The officers followed
up with the policeman on patrol in the area of
(31:50):
Winston Salem before midnight on May eighteenth. He had no
idea where they were taking him. He had no idea
why they were talking to him, whether he was in trouble,
or what they had to treat him like. The witness
he was. He didn't remember anything until they mentioned the Blazer,
the car Fritz was driving. Yes, he had stopped a
(32:14):
Blazer going especially slow. The driver said it was engine problems,
and he remembered the motor knocking. He wasn't able to
run a license or car tag because his computer was down,
but he couldn't pick Fritz out of a lineup. He
also didn't know that under his windbreaker Fritz had held
a forty five that he planned to shoot Hull in
(32:35):
the head with if he had asked him to step
out of the vehicle. Without much to go on, detectives
turned to Fritz. Maybe Ian could help them gather more evidence.
They told Ian they believed him, however incredulous his story was,
(33:00):
but they didn't think a jury would believe his story
when the case inevitably went to court. It might strengthen
Ian's case if he could help them out more. Would
Ian be willing to wear a wire? Ian couldn't agree
fast enough. Here was the plan. Ian would call Fritz.
(33:21):
He'd say that three detectives had come to question him
on Friday. They told him to take a polygraph test,
and he was to tell Fritz that he was scared.
He needed to talk, and Ian asked to meet Fritz
in the mall's parking lot. Meanwhile, for his protection, five
unmarked police cars would be standing by, and an observation
(33:43):
plane would be overhead. They'd also send undercover detective Steve
Cardan to pose as Ian's friend from college, since he
looked young enough to pass as a student. The officers
told Ian that Fritz would be less likely to harm
Ian if he knew someone else knew about the meeting.
(34:04):
Ian had a recorder taped to his back under his
shirt and a tiny transmitter on his belt. The officers
informed Ian of the risk he was taking. If Fritz
learned about the devices, he could possibly kill Ian before
anyone could get to him to do anything about it.
Ian knew this, and he was eager to atone for
(34:25):
his part in the crime. When officers asked for a
check of Ian's transmitter, Ian said, say a prayer for me,
and then they were off to the races. Join me
(35:04):
next week on the Greatest true crime Stories Ever told
for our third episode, the finale of the story of
Susie Newsom Lynch, the ultimate Southern Gothic tale full of
everything you'd expect from the Southern Gothic. I'd like to
shout out my main source for this episode series Jerry
(35:24):
Bledsoe's nonfiction book Bitter Blood, a true story of Southern
family pride, madness, and multiple murder. I really can't recommend
it enough. It is incredible. I also heavily drew from
the episode Kissing Cousins of the docu series Southern Fried Homicide.
(35:50):
The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told is a production
of Diversion Audio. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer and I hosted
this episode. I also wrote this episode. Our show is
produced by Emma Dumouth and edited by Antonio Enriquez. Theme
music by Tyler Cash. Executive producer Scott Waxman
Diversion audio. A note this episode contains mature content and
quite graphic descriptions of violence that may be disturbing for
some listeners. I mean it, y'all this episode especially, please
take care and listening. It was Sunday afternoon, May nineteenth,
(00:38):
nineteen eighty five, and Alice asked her husband, Rob Newsome,
what could be keeping her in laws so late. Rob
hadn't realized how late in the day it was. She
was right. He thought his parents would be back home
hours ago, and here it was almost four pm. Rob
and Alice had been living with Rob's pairs it's Florence
(01:00):
and Bob, in their two story, upper class brick house
in Greensboro, North Carolina for two years. Their own three
children stayed in the house as well, and they hadn't
been planning on all of them bunking together for so long.
The situation was always supposed to be temporary. Actually, that's
(01:21):
what Florence and Bob had gone to see about this weekend.
The plan was they'd move in with Bob's beloved widowed mother, Nana,
in Winston Salem to help care for her as she
got on in years. But before they did that, the
house renovations needed to be completed, and you know how
that goes. One contracting fail cascades into another rework job,
(01:45):
until here you are, two years later, having to stand
on top of the professionals to make sure they're actually
showing up while your eighty five year old matriarch cooks
on a hot plate in the breezeway because y'all have
torn up her kitchen without a plan to fix it. Now,
the renovations were only a couple weeks away from being finished,
(02:06):
and Florence and Bob were already carrying some of their
things over in anticipation of their move. But they were
supposed to pick up Rob and Alice's eldest daughter, Page
from her other grandparents in the early afternoon on their
way back into town. So when Alice's mother called around
five to say they hadn't come to get her yet,
Alice was worried. Alice called Nana's house, but no one answered.
(02:31):
Rob drove to his dad's office to check if he'd
just forgotten the plan, but no one was there. They
kept calling for two hours, still no answer. By ten o'clock,
Rob couldn't stand it. I'm going over there, he said,
but Alice said to wait, let's call the Suttons first.
Homer Sutton was the family doctor. If something had happened,
(02:54):
Homer would know about it, and if he hadn't heard anything, well,
the Suttons lived nearby and they could drop by to
check on them much quicker than Rob could get there.
When they called, Homer and Katie Sutton had heard nothing,
and they agreed to drive up to the old brick
shuttered house under the huge oak trees. Homer's headlights fell
(03:16):
across all three family cars, which made him assume all
three of the family were home. Then as they walked
up to the patio, they saw that the storm door's
glass was broken, the steps were covered in its shards.
Homer said, something bad has happened here, and he was
(03:37):
right through the living room window. He saw a lamp
on and the TV was playing softly. Nana lay on
a walnut framed antique sofa in a beige nightgown covered
with a plaid afghan. Florence lay on the floor on
her right side, wearing a white skirt and knit top
(03:59):
with no shoes. She might have been sleeping, but they
knew Florence this wasn't the type of thing she'd do.
She wasn't sleeping. Homer realized all at once that they
were dead. But where was Bob? Was he dead? Was
he the killer? Could the killer still be here? The
(04:20):
Suttons retreated to their car and drove to the closest
neighbor's house to report a multiple murder. Welcome to the
(04:50):
greatest true crime stories ever told. I'm Mary Kay mcbraer.
Today's episode we're calling Family Betrayal the Susie Newsome Lynch Story.
It's part two of our three part story of Susie
Newsom Lynch, and it has everything you'd expect from a
Southern Gothic tale, aristocratic families, Old South racism, paranoia, a feud,
(05:18):
and of course, murder. I'll tell you all about it
after this quick break. Welcome back to Part two of
(05:40):
the Susie Newsom Lynch Story. Listeners, that's right. This episode
is part two of a three part mini series about
this story. So if you haven't heard part one, pause
me here, go back, listen to part one, and then
come back here. I promise you'll be glad you did,
because this story is action packed. When we last left
(06:02):
the Newsoms, Florence and Bob's daughter, Susie, had divorced her
husband Tom Lynch in nineteen eighty. Susie returned to North Carolina,
where she stayed with her parents for a while. With
the boys. Susie got full custody of Jim and John
in the divorce settlement, and Tom got two weeks summer visitation. Naturally,
(06:25):
Tom wanted to see his children more than that, so
he kept asking Susie for more visitation. She responded by
keeping the kids from Tom altogether. At one point in time,
he actually didn't get to see his children for two years.
Tom also never actually asked for custody, He just wanted
more visitation. Plus, back then it was super uncommon for
(06:49):
the father to get any type of custody at all,
no matter the circumstances. More visitation wasn't a lot to ask,
but Susie wasn't allowing it. She told her lawyer to
hold Tom up in court for as long as he
wanted their Lynchpin argument was that the children were too
young to transfer planes on their own, and there were
(07:10):
no direct flights from North Carolina to Albuquerque, so if
Tom wanted to see the kids more, he'd have to
either come to North Carolina himself, which he couldn't do
since he ran his own practice in New Mexico. Or
he could meet the kids at their connection and escort
them to the next flight. Or he could pay to
(07:32):
have Susie fly out to see them on their connection
round trip. Basically, it was going to cost Tom an
extra fortune for the chaperone, and while he was doing
all right financially, it was still a lot of money,
not to mention the court fees. In July of nineteen
eighty four, Tom Lynch's family, his mother, Dolores, and his
(07:53):
sister Janey, were a murdered execution style in their home
in Louisville. Happened while Tom's kids were visiting him in
New Mexico. It was a horrible thing and still unsolved
these months later, and Susie's parents sent Tom a bouquet
of sympathy flowers. That gesture opened communication between them and Tom.
(08:18):
After a few correspondences, he asked Bob that Susie's dad
if he'd be willing to testify to his character in
the court custody hearing, and Bob agreed to do it
because Susie had been acting really weird. She had always
been a high maintenance snob, but now she was going camping,
(08:40):
and she had gotten way too close to her first cousin,
and as if them being first cousins wasn't reason enough
not to get involved with him, that cousin Fritz was
a weirdo gunfreak survivalist who had been lying about having
medical credentials, and that whole wing of the family was
openly racist. In fact, Susie's mother, Florence, confronted her about
(09:03):
potentially having a romantic relationship with her cousin. Susie was
very offended at the suggestion, and although she found the
idea repulsive, she moved out of her parents' house as
a result of the argument, and then Fritz moved in
with her. So yeah, Bob agreed to testify for Tom. Plus,
(09:26):
they never saw the kids now either, and when they did,
the children looked so sallow and scared that he knew
something had to be off. And now Bob and Florence,
as well as Bob's mother Nana, had been murdered in
their family home, kind of like with the the Inch
(10:00):
murders of Dolores and Janey. Their friends and family didn't
see the Newsoms for a couple of days, and that
was unusual. Bob and Florence did usually stay with Nana
over the weekend, but it was not like them to
come back home so late, let alone without a courtesy
phone call, and much less without any communication at all.
(10:23):
So Robin Alice, their son and daughter in law, tried
to track them down. They sent the Suttons family friends
over to check on them. Through the front window, they
could see that Florence and Nana had been killed, and
then they left to call the police, which is exactly
the right call. I mean, not only would entering the
(10:46):
house have contaminated the crime scene, but they didn't know
where Bob was, or where the killer was, or if
Bob might be the killer, so they went to the
nearest neighbor's house to call it in. It took several
calls and over an hour for the police to show up,
and when they did, it was just a guy in
a patrol car, no siren on or anything. The first
(11:09):
officer was still in the house when four more officers
pulled up. Nobody seemed to be in charge or know
what to do, not until Sergeant Allen Gentry of the
Criminal Investigation Division of the Forsyth County Sheriff's Department arrived
and he put things in order. Just inside the back
(11:30):
door was the body of Bob Newsom. He had been
shot three times in the abdomen, once in the right forearm,
and once in the back of the head. It seemed
like he had been trying to flee when the killer
ended his life. Six inches from Bob's feet was a
hole burned into the carpet. It was thirty inches across
(11:54):
and in the circle there were bits of charred paper
in the ashes. Officers also realized that Florence's throat had
been cut, and she had two stab wounds in the
right side of her neck and one in her right shoulder.
Three more deeper stabbings were in her back, One of
(12:15):
them had severed her aorda. She also had a single
shot in her chest and one in her left temple.
Her wedding band was bent and her ring finger was
cut and broken, like someone had tried to remove it.
Her diamond engagement ring was gone. One thing they would
(12:36):
wonder was why the blatant display of overkill, especially when
the other victims had nowhere near as gruesome deaths. Nana
had been shot three times. One bullet grazed the side
of her head, the second hit her lower right side,
and the third fatal shot entered her right temple and
(12:58):
lodged in her left shoulder. Officers thought that the class
pans under her chin indicated that she had been praying
when the intruder was in her house, but later evidence
showed that she had been staged as praying after her death.
Most of the shots appeared to have been fired from
near the breezeway door. Though Florence's engagement ring had been stolen,
(13:22):
There were wads of cash and clear view and jewelry
where thousands of dollars lay untouched, as well in an
upstairs bedroom, Bob's open briefcase was empty. Bob and Florence's son, Rob,
(13:48):
was the first family member notified, so he was the
first one to arrive at the scene. Sergeant Alan Gentry
had lots of questions that needed answers, like quote, why
was the storm door broken while a key was left
in the back door lock. Had one of the victims
been surprised by the murderer while entering the house. Why
(14:12):
was another set of keys found between the two cars?
Was that footprint in the sand by one of the
new windows at the back of the house. Significant Why
had Florence's Newsom been so savaged a blatant example of overkill?
Why had the fire been set in the hallway? Was
it an attempt to burn down the house and cover
(14:33):
the murders? If so, why hadn't it been fueled by
the paint thinner and other volatile substances so handily available
in the part of the house that was being remodeled.
Had the purpose of the fire been only to burn
a specific item or items? Had the killer or killers
only come to find and destroy such items? Had they
(14:54):
been found in Bob Newsom's briefcase? Why was the briefcase empty?
But he couldn't just ask the bereaved all that point blank.
He started with the easy, matter of fact questions like ages, addresses, occupations,
When did Rob last see them? How had he learned
(15:16):
they had died? Rob recapped all that I just told you.
Then Alan asked if Rob knew why anyone would want
to kill his parents and grandmother. Rob said he didn't know.
Had there been any quote problems or any unusual events
in the family. That's when Rob said, well, last summer
(15:42):
my sister's former mother in law and sister in law
were murdered in Kentucky. Later, Bob and Florence's other children
(16:12):
would walk through the house with detectives. The eldest Frances
met the two agents at the house on Tuesday morning.
They wanted her to tell them if she saw anything
out of the ordinary at the house. I don't mean
to interrupt myself the house. Smart is this move? Get
the eldest girl child to tell you if anything in
(16:32):
her mother and grandmother's house is out of place, because
you know who would know the answer to that for sure,
the eldest daughter. Anyway, Francis did exactly what they asked.
They told her, you talk, will listen, So she narrated
as they guided her straight to her grandmother's bedroom. Just
(16:53):
nine days before, she'd sat there with Nana sifting through
her belongings together. Nana had said, I sure, hope, honey,
that you don't have to come in here and take
care of all this stuff if something happens to me.
So that had to have been a horrific recovered memory.
(17:14):
Francis noticed an expensive gold and pearl bracelet on the
floor that she knew to be worth thousands of dollars,
so her intuition had been right. This was no robbery.
When they guided her upstairs, she noticed her dad's open,
empty briefcase on the floor. She said, it's empty. He
(17:35):
would never carry an empty briefcase. What was in here?
They didn't know. Later they would surmise that it might
have been the papers the killer set on fire at
Bob's feet. While Francis walked through the house, her eldest daughter, Nancy,
noticed a stack of letters and nan knitting basket. They
(17:57):
were copies of exchanges between Tom and Kathy Lynch, her
grandmother Florence, and her aunt Louise. Nancy didn't know about
the upcoming custody hearing, but as she read through the letters,
she learned that her grandparents had been planning to testify
on Tom's behalf. Francis said to detectives, here it is
(18:20):
this is it? Take these? This is the motive right here?
Have you read these? The detectives had been hoping one
of them might notice. While tending to her after learning
(18:42):
the news of her family's deaths, one of Susie's friends
asks if someone needed to call to notify Tom Lynch.
Susie said, that son of a bitch can learn it
from his lawyers, and that was exactly how Tom learned
the news. Tom actually called his lawyers to make sure
(19:02):
the custody hearing was still on. He hadn't bought his
plane ticket yet because he expected some kind of fuckery
from Susie. When his lawyer told him someone had been
killed at the Newsome house in Winston Salem, Tom hung
up immediately and called Rob. After talking to Rob, he
knew that Susie and Fritz were responsible. It was too
(19:26):
big a coincidence. Then he called the Kentucky State Police.
The agent who took Tom's call was excited. He connected
with the North Carolina Police to compare notes. Sergeant Allen
and Gentry in North Carolina was following up on all leads.
(19:50):
When he tried to coordinate an interview with Susie, she said, sorry,
not today, but she sounded quote perfectly chipper, and he
thought that was weird. If his parents and grandmother had
just been murdered, he'd have at least moved his other
appointments around. She had also seemed hyperactive to her sister Francis.
(20:14):
At the funeral home, Alan talked to Tom Lynch too,
and Tom told him all about the murders of his
mother and sister, as well as how much Susie loathed
his mom. He also mentioned that Bob was supposed to
testify in the upcoming hearing. Plus, Susie was acting weird
and she had an unusual relationship with her first cousin, Fritz.
(20:38):
And although he didn't really know Fritz, he did know
he was a survivalist and a gun collector who thought
of himself as both a doctor and a military man,
although he was in fact neither. Maybe the detective should
check him out. This was the first time Alan had
heard of Fritz. He deaf planned to look into that lead. First,
(21:03):
he asked Rob if anyone in the family had an
unusual interest in guns. He thought it was weird that
that was the first time Rob had mentioned Fritz, but
at the time, Fritz was still hanging around Rob's house,
still a potential danger to his family. When it came
down to it, Nancy, Susie's niece, and her brother and
(21:27):
sister all told police they thought Susie was somehow responsible
for the murders. They had even thought someone should have
questioned Susie about the lynch murders back when they happened.
Nancy said, nobody ever asked us, so we thought we
were crazy. Alan, Gentry and another detective went to Susie's
(22:02):
apartment to interviewer. They were very friendly because they wanted
her to talk. Susie was charming, they said, bubbly, bouncy.
She invited them into the living room and introduced her cousin, Fritz.
The detectives noticed Fritz wore a folded knife on his belt.
(22:23):
They were also shocked about the incredible clutter of the apartment,
big piles of military field gear. They asked Susie to
recount her weekend, and she did as if nothing at
all was bothering her, like nothing had happened to her.
On their way out, the front door was rigged with
(22:44):
a motion detector and booby trapped with a huge floodlight
and strobe to blind intruders. There was a gas grenade
above the door. Alan asked for Fritz's contact information. Fritz
gave him his mother's address and number. Alan asked, what
kind of work do you do? Fritz said, I'm a physician,
(23:07):
but I'm not licensed in this state right now. Naturally,
the detectives followed up with Fritz's mother, Annie Hill. She
(23:32):
told them that the boys were what caused the break
between Susie and her mother. Now Annie Hill was more
like Susie's mother too. Annie Hill said that her husband
had helped out Susie and her kids financially when he
was alive, but not so much after death since he
hadn't had any investments. Now Fritz was trying to help them,
(23:55):
and she gave no thought to the idea that there
was more to their relationship. Not even she knew. Fritz
stayed at Susie sometimes, it was just to look after them.
Detectives thought he might belong to some mercenary or commando group,
so they asked Annie Hill about it. She was completely
(24:15):
snowed over. She said, no, it's government. Annie Hill also
said that she thought they went out of town to
Atlanta one weekend during the boy's visitation with Tom. Detectives
noted that would have left Susie available to go to
Kentucky with Fritz too, and what about this past weekend?
(24:37):
Annie told them Fritz came by on Friday to tell
her he was going camping in Virginia with Ian, the
son of a family friend from down the street. Ian
called her to say Fritz hadn't arrived at Roanoke Mountain,
and then Fritz called to say he couldn't find Ian,
and Annie Hill told him that Ian was going on
(24:58):
to the hotel room and then on Sunday he went
to eat with Susie and the kids. He'd probably have
a credit card receipt for that. Fritz's alibi was convenient,
too convenient. Toward the end of the interview, Annie Hill
mentioned that the only commonality between the two murder cases
(25:20):
was Susie's children. Alan wanted to talk to Ian Perkins
right away, but the lead State Bureau of Investigation agent
in Winston Salem, Tom Sturgell, said maybe they should hold off.
He said, let's let Fritz tell us his alibi rather
than just taking his mother's word for it. Sergeant Alan,
(26:09):
Gentry and Tom Sturgell arrived at Susie's house unannounced on
the morning of May twenty eighth, ten days after the
multiple murder. They wanted to talk to Fritz. Susie invited
them in, and Fritz came out of the bedroom yawning
in a flight suit when they told him they wanted
(26:29):
to interview him. He changed into khakis, sheathed a knife
on his belt, and stuck a flashlight into his back pocket.
Even though it was late morning. He corroborated his mother's story.
The previous weekend, he went camping with Ian Perkins at
Roanoke Mountain. He used his credit card to call his
(26:50):
mother and said he was running late. That's when she
told him that Ian had gone back to Lexington. They
drove out to the park afterward and set up camp
near dawn. He had the campground receipt in his wallet
on his person. They slept till two pm, ate lunch
at the lodge, and then took a night hike. They
(27:14):
didn't get back to the campsite till after midnight. Next day,
he ate lunch with Susie and the boys right after.
That is when they learned about the murders. The detectives
knew something was off, especially when he proclaimed himself a
gun enthusiast and collector and he had a handcuff key
(27:35):
on his keyring. They then asked about Ian. Were they
close They'd gotten close in the past year or so.
He said they went camping together and such. So the
detectives went to Ian and they weren't really sure what
they'd find from the Reedsville Police Department. The detectives called
(28:08):
Ian's house. His mother answered. She said he was at school,
and she realized who was calling. She asked, this doesn't
have anything to do with the newsome murders, does it.
Ian Perkins had joined the National Guard as a freshman
at Washington and Lee University. He was patriotic and religious,
(28:30):
and when he ran into Fritz shortly after his training
in nineteen eighty four, he told him all about it.
Fritz spent hours quote instructing Ian on what he should
have learned but wasn't taught. His mother said, Ian looked
up to Fritz like an uncle. They were eleven years
apart in age. When Ian said he was interested in
(28:52):
going into intelligence work after college, Fritz took Ian to
Lee Chapel and told him that he was a contract
agent for the CIA, that he'd been recruited a long
time ago. Fritz swore him to secrecy, and Ian obliged.
He wanted to be a company man too. Maybe he'd
(29:12):
want to accompany Fritz on a mission, a sort of
test run that could help Ian prove himself worthy. It
would be support only he wouldn't have to do any
of the killing himself. Oh, this is what Ian confessed
(29:35):
to the detectives. Almost immediately. He with them too. The
car lit a cigarette, and as he smoked it through
his jitters, he told his version of the story. It
was very close to Fritz's, only the times were off.
Alan Gentry said, something's wrong here. Fritz claimed that y'all
(29:57):
left out on your hiker about eight. You said five.
Fritz said that yelled and go to bed. When you
got back that you just laid around and talked. You
said you went to sleep. Which way is it? After
a pause, he continued, in the time you say it
took for this hike, y'all could have driven to Winston Salem,
murdered three people, and returned to Virginia. Ian started sobbing.
(30:23):
Neither detective expected him to cave this easily. Usually they
had to get a little rough, a little ugly, but
this kid spilled right away. Ian said it was true
that they had gone to Winston Salem that night, but
he didn't know about a plan to murder the newsoms.
He recounted the whole story of how he wanted to
become a secret agent and Fritz invited him on a
(30:45):
CIA mission. The detectives kept looking at each other, but
Ian was so sincere that neither detective doubted him. After
questioning him further about times and locations, they were able
to put together the exact route Fritz took across Winston Salem.
Ian even told them about Fritz getting pulled over by
(31:07):
a police car, and that was really exciting. Surely there
would be some record of that, and maybe the officer
would remember Fritz after the mission. Fritz had told Ian
his bosses at the CIA were impressed with how he'd
handled himself, and he changed the slide on the pistol
he gave Ian. The detectives thought Fritz might have put
(31:30):
the slide from the murder weapon into Ian's pistol, and
they resolved to check it against the ejection markings on
the casings found at the Newsome home. The officers followed
up with the policeman on patrol in the area of
(31:50):
Winston Salem before midnight on May eighteenth. He had no
idea where they were taking him. He had no idea
why they were talking to him, whether he was in trouble,
or what they had to treat him like. The witness
he was. He didn't remember anything until they mentioned the Blazer,
the car Fritz was driving. Yes, he had stopped a
(32:14):
Blazer going especially slow. The driver said it was engine problems,
and he remembered the motor knocking. He wasn't able to
run a license or car tag because his computer was down,
but he couldn't pick Fritz out of a lineup. He
also didn't know that under his windbreaker Fritz had held
a forty five that he planned to shoot Hull in
(32:35):
the head with if he had asked him to step
out of the vehicle. Without much to go on, detectives
turned to Fritz. Maybe Ian could help them gather more evidence.
They told Ian they believed him, however incredulous his story was,
(33:00):
but they didn't think a jury would believe his story
when the case inevitably went to court. It might strengthen
Ian's case if he could help them out more. Would
Ian be willing to wear a wire? Ian couldn't agree
fast enough. Here was the plan. Ian would call Fritz.
(33:21):
He'd say that three detectives had come to question him
on Friday. They told him to take a polygraph test,
and he was to tell Fritz that he was scared.
He needed to talk, and Ian asked to meet Fritz
in the mall's parking lot. Meanwhile, for his protection, five
unmarked police cars would be standing by, and an observation
(33:43):
plane would be overhead. They'd also send undercover detective Steve
Cardan to pose as Ian's friend from college, since he
looked young enough to pass as a student. The officers
told Ian that Fritz would be less likely to harm
Ian if he knew someone else knew about the meeting.
(34:04):
Ian had a recorder taped to his back under his
shirt and a tiny transmitter on his belt. The officers
informed Ian of the risk he was taking. If Fritz
learned about the devices, he could possibly kill Ian before
anyone could get to him to do anything about it.
Ian knew this, and he was eager to atone for
(34:25):
his part in the crime. When officers asked for a
check of Ian's transmitter, Ian said, say a prayer for me,
and then they were off to the races. Join me
(35:04):
next week on the Greatest true crime Stories Ever told
for our third episode, the finale of the story of
Susie Newsom Lynch, the ultimate Southern Gothic tale full of
everything you'd expect from the Southern Gothic. I'd like to
shout out my main source for this episode series Jerry
(35:24):
Bledsoe's nonfiction book Bitter Blood, a true story of Southern
family pride, madness, and multiple murder. I really can't recommend
it enough. It is incredible. I also heavily drew from
the episode Kissing Cousins of the docu series Southern Fried Homicide.
(35:50):
The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told is a production
of Diversion Audio. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer and I hosted
this episode. I also wrote this episode. Our show is
produced by Emma Dumouth and edited by Antonio Enriquez. Theme
music by Tyler Cash. Executive producer Scott Waxman
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!