Violence in the Valley - Murder at the BBF

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Now the Violence in the Valley Podcastwith retired Parkersburg Chief of Police Bob Newell
and others, brought to you byInterstate Insurance three Generations of Insurance Excellence.
All right, good afternoon. Thisis Blake and I have Bob Newell back
with his podcast Violence in the Valley. We're taking a little bit of a

(00:21):
different approach with today's episode. Bob, how are you doing today and how's
how's it been since you last beenin here. Oh, I've I've been
well. Thank you. Yeah,yeah, thanks for moving along. Staying
busy, working on the working onanother book for the future. But it's
it's hard to make myself sit downand stay on top of on top of
the task. But but yeah,I'm staying pretty busy. So you so

(00:46):
you mentioned a book, So thisis like I mean, I'm this is
probably keeping it close to close toyour chest on that one. We won't
talk about much of that, butI'm interested to see what book you have
coming out now, because you havetwo out, The Violence of the Valley
and the As I Walk Through theValley of Math that's the other one.
Yes, I have not gotten intothat one yet. I f actually read

(01:06):
through the violence of the Valley book. There's a lot there, But there's
a particular case that you've been hintingat and talking to me about for the
past month that you wanted to discuss. In what case is that? Well,
see, everybody refers to it asa BBF murder, and most people
who were around back in those days, well even into the two thousands,
because we tried to prosecute it.Then we'll remember that case just by that

(01:32):
title because it was. It happenedin March of nineteen sixty five. It
was about uh, of course,about seven years before I went on the
police department actually, but it wasas big a case, you know,
in the media and with the publicas any case that we've had in parkersburger
Wood County or the surrounding area,because it was it was a kind of

(01:55):
an execution style robbery murder of ateenager who was working and of course as
a manager of a fast food store. And so it really you know,
murders typically or you know involved familymembers, bar fights, those just all
kinds. But you know, tohave a teenager who was you know,

(02:16):
just out of school working to beshot and killed the way he was,
it caught the attention of a lotof people. It was a big case.
Yeah, so real quick, justfor just because I'm I mean,
granted me being born in ninety three. What exactly is the BBF? I
know, I know a little bitjust from my research, but what exactly

(02:37):
was the BBF back in sixty five. Well, the BBF was, if
it wasn't the first, it wasone of the first chain fast food hamburger
joints, uh, you know,before McDonald's, Wendy's and and those,
and I mean it was a nationalchain. I don't know how far it
went. I know several on Eastcoasts or someone, Ohives and particularly Columbus,

(02:58):
but you know it's a fifteen centsent hamburger and French fries and such,
which with the prices in the inthe nineteen sixties, but that's what
it was. And you know,it's the same setup as today with these
fast food burger places. As yougot teenagers working. He had a lot
of them still in high school.And that's how it was at the BBF.

(03:20):
This one was located on seventh today In Street, just across from
the Kendam Clark Hospital in the middleof downtown. So it was a very
It was a very busy fast foodrestaurant. There was another one in South
Parkersburg later, and I think Idon't know if Maryetta had one or not,
but I don't think they did.I think there's only two around for

(03:42):
the longest time. So going nowthat we kind of have set the scene
of where the BBF was located andwhere it was at, kind of go
into detail of the kind of theevents that led up to this actual murder
robbery type thing, like what doyou remember and what do you know of
what initially started with from this crime. Well, the the victim was again

(04:06):
I said, he was eighteen yearsold. His name was Gary Cowdery,
and he was a man at nightmanager and you know, after everybody left,
he stayed and counted the money intoreceipts, put him in a canvas
bag, and then went on towalk across to the community bank typically where
there's a night deposit, and hewould deposit the money. And when he

(04:30):
came out, of course, keepingmind or no other employees around at that
time, the restaurant was closed,and when he came out of the building,
somebody well the murder had been hidingdown a stairwail at the back of
the building. He went down thestairs that was the locker room and storage
for the BBF, and the personcommitted a crime had actually unscrewed taking the

(04:53):
globe off and unscrewed the light bulbs. It would be dark down there and
go unnoticed. And he just sentthey come up the steps behind mister Calgary
and shot him from behind. Ohwow, how much money is there a
like like a dollar amount or likean amount of money that he ended up
going like this person ended up gettingaway with? Was there that ever,

(05:15):
like put out to the public.Yeah, I think I think it was
put out to the public at somepoint in time, and it wasn't a
lot of money. I mean again, you know, you go makes so
much off a fifteen cent Hamburger sixties. But for the time, yeah,
it was I think it's less thana couple hundred dollars, which would have
been again, you know, asignificant robbery. I think yeah, given

(05:36):
the time frame and given the likethe importance of money back then. The
I mean obviously because we live ina different time frame now, but the
money would have been a lot morevaluable or well, I wouldn't say valuable,
but it went further. It wentfurther than it did today. Now.
I read also in the book whereyou explained the case and everything,

(05:57):
that there was a stray bullet thatended up going through It was like that
was it the s O or theSEO building or something that was like right
across the street or next door.Yeah, it's just a crossed seventh Street
at the same intersection. The itwas an s O station, which was
a predecessor of Xon okay, andanyhow, of course sort of station was

(06:20):
closed obviously, but yeah, straightboard because there was multiple shots fired and
obviously one missed and went through thewindow. Gotcha. And then you said
there there was also a couple ofgirls. You said, was it the
Parkersburg News and Sentinel that also caughthim? This person leaving or running off

(06:40):
from the actual parking lot of theBBF. Yeah, that's what led to
the identification of the main suspect atthe time. There's a couple of women
actually who worked for the Parkinsburg Newsand Sentinel, And this was, you
know, a little bit before midnight, probably between eleven and midnight, and
they had just left work at thenewspaper office. One of him lived real

(07:01):
close to Sixth and Julianna, andI'm not sure about the other one,
but yeah, they were. Theygot to the intersection on Julianna Street,
they heard the shots, and momentarilya general young man came running towards them
up sixth Street, away from thatdirection, and he was wearing a gray

(07:25):
raincoat even though it wasn't raining,white tennis shoes, and he came in
within a few yards. I mean, they had a pretty good look at
at his face and then they sawhim disappeared behind another meat meat or another
building, I'm sorry. And thenuh, just a few seconds after that
that Carr came screaming out from behindthat building, the black, black and

(07:46):
white Chevy and palla and and reallythat's that was their contribution to the investigation.
I mean, they did see thisperson. They came from that direction
and you know, saw him andthe car got it. Now, whenever
who was the who was the uhthe Onseene officer detective that showed up,

(08:07):
whenever they initially got dispatched for thatcrime, do you know that or was
that put out? Yeah? Yeah, the night turned detective back then was
Arthur Schwain. It called him TowheadSwain. As a matter of fact,
he he was still active in thecase to the end when I when I
was pleased if he came back anddid a deposition. But anyhow, he
Yeah, he was a young detectiveback then, and he was the first

(08:30):
one, first detective to respond.I'm I'm assuming you know uniform officers had
arrived before right at the same time. But he he took the investigation from
the beginning point and worked on itthat night and end the next day.
Now, what kind of what waswhat evidence did they find initially, because

(08:52):
I know that I read in thebook that they they found fingerprints on the
light globe of where the light hadbeen unscrewed or something like that, and
then they found a thirty two calibershellcasing in the parking lot. Kind of
going to detail about how protocol,what is the typical protocol for something like
that way setting up a crime sceneand kind of breaking down the evidence from

(09:15):
there from the initial crime happening.Well, yeah, again, back back
then, things were a bit different, although they were extremely professional even in
today's standard. It's I know,it's hard to believe policing in the sixties
in some places, but Parkelsburg.They were well trained and they had a
lot of talent back in those days. And but the one thing was interesting

(09:39):
is a photographer from w TAP Televisiontook the crime scene photographs. WTAP was
just across the street from the BBFwhen when that happened, before they moved
down to the lower end of Parkersburg. But anyhow, so that's that's the
person who did the photography work.I can't remember his name, but I

(10:03):
mean, weren't really wasn't much muchto it. I mean, it was
the scene, was the parking lot. I mean, it was the body
and what was around it. Andthen and of course, you know,
most of Detective Swain's time was spentinterviewing these these witnesses, because there there
was also a third witness that cameforward that same night who lived above the

(10:24):
community Bank and who heard the shotand looked out the wind and he saw
the two women and he also sawthe same person go up toward them,
and he also saw the car speedaway. So there was plenty to do.
And and of course in those days, uh and even when I was
a detective and we end up,you know, calling out a secretary in

(10:46):
the middle of the night to takethe statements of Shorthand and they transcribed and
they were not recorded on tape backin the day. But anyhow so,
you know, a lot of hisdetective time had been spent doing that.
And then the following morning that casewas handed over to a couple other detectives,

(11:09):
Dale Eating and Bob Barrows, whoreally became the main investigators, I
believe from everything I read and wellI talked to Dale Eating about it several
times several years ago. And butin these type of cases, I've written
about this in my book several times, there's never really just one or two

(11:31):
guys on these major cases. Everybodyat some point in time, and the
detective Beer certainly gets involved in theinvestigation. They all have a hand in
it, right because just so manypeople, they're just so much to do.
And that was that was kind ofthe problem with with this case.
I mean, well, for example, you know, getting back to the
bullet being found in the fingerprint,you know, when this happened, just

(11:54):
on the description the other employees atthe BBF, they identified one of their
former employees, one of their colleagues, as always wearing a great raincoat,
always wearing white tennis shoes, whetheragain the raincoat, whether it's raining or
not. He had recently left employmentthere reasons unknown, but nevertheless, and

(12:15):
he fitted, he fit the descriptionand by the way, he pretty exactly
fit the composite that was drawn.So and then on top of that,
the same employees had found an unspentthirty two caliber shell bullet in the locker
employee's locker room and the state policeeventually mashed at as being now the same

(12:39):
lot of bullets as the one thatwent that killed mister Calgary. But on
top of that, you know,again, as I mentioned, the murderer
had taken a globe down, unscreweda light bulb, and there was one
identifiable fingerprint, and it turned outbelonging to the same person. His name

(13:00):
was Toby Johnson employee and and coincidentally, he owned a black and white chevallet
just like the one that was seenspeeding from the scene that night. So
there's a lot of things, there'sa lot of things pointing at one individual,
and it sounds simple, and againit really kind of goes to the

(13:22):
professionalism I believe of the detective you'reback way back in those days, is
they always felt that there was theycould still find more number one, and
they didn't rush out and arrest theguy. And but there were some other
things that came into play that madehim hesitate as well, and one of
those was the fact that there wasa person who lived about one hundred feet

(13:48):
from the back of that restaurant thathad been on the police radar before also
and he was known to be involvedin some minor crimes basically, but just
you know, due to where helived lived with his mother. As a
matter of fact, he quickly goton the radar of the police department.
They questioned him and and he volunteeredto take a light detector test and he

(14:13):
failed it, which she even putmore suspicion on him. So now you
know, now you've got you gottasomeone taking away from the initial suspect in
this that you you really have tofollow that all the way through. And
the problem with the problem with gettingback to that, you know, you'd
think, well, maybe he didit well, and maybe he did at

(14:35):
the time they might have thought so, but you light detectors back then are
as accurate as they are now andare still not accurate enough to be to
be used in court, right becauseI don't. You know, people don't
realize. You know, light detectorsdon't measure lives. They measure emote.
They measure emotion, they measure heartrate, you know, blood pressure,

(14:56):
those type of things. And so, you know, I talked to Dale
Eaten years later, and he feltthe reason this guy failed to polygraph was
not because he committed to murder.He felt it he had been thinking or
planning to break into that building.And something like that will trigger a polygraph.
Now could could nerves and being nervousjust because you're being interviewed like that

(15:18):
caused the polygraph to go off.Well, again, it's it's emotion,
it's heart rate, it's blood pressureagain, you know, the with the
rate of your heart beating, it'sperspiration on your on your hands. I
mean, it picks up breathing isthe other one. And it picks up
all the things that when you whena person lies, typically unless you're a

(15:39):
sociopath, and that's the other problem. Typically it makes you. It makes
you nerve, it makes you,it scares you. Basically, you know,
and and and so you get thisreaction and so and again. You
know, if you are let's say, for example, there're a question about
this murder, and you know inyour mind you've been planning to break in

(16:03):
unrelated to this that comes to yourmind, and and that'll that'll trigger that'll
trigger reaction. Right now, theindividual that lived one hundred yards from the
BBF, what was his original alibibefore you guys interviewed him, Like,
did he have a place that hewas at during the crime happening or was
there any sort of like him sayingthat he was in a particular place that

(16:25):
he wass to not put him atthe crime. Well, he's he was
home with his mother one hundred feetaway basically. Okay, So yet to
answer your question, yes, okas, did mister Johnson have an alib
by with his family? Yep?It's said in there that he what was
it that his all his family memberscorroborated that he was at the house the
entire night or something like that,I believe at the time. Yes,

(16:48):
yep. So that also kind ofputs a little bit of a hampering on
trying to figure everything out, becauseif you've got your entire family saying that
you're at home, was there anylike information that came out to confirm that
he was home? The entire nightor was it just kind of was that
unfounded? Well, I mean itwas just on the word of the family
and there was really no way todispute it. But but again, you

(17:12):
know, there was another issue thatthat arose as well. You know when
the money bag was a canvas bagthat was taken and it was later found
in a little bit of a illegaldump site off of Lower Creek Road,
which is out Old Saint Mary's Pike. I mean it's out, it's out
in the country. It's a longway from where mister Johnson or anybody else

(17:33):
lives or downtown Parkersburg. And mypoint is is whoever you know took that
bag had dumped it out there.Well, the that that that began another
problem because there was a gang ofburglars that operated around town that had broken
into a building and had stolen asafe previously that were suspects. They hadn't

(17:57):
been arrested either, but Detective bureauknew who they were but couldn't prove it.
But nevertheless, they had dumped atsafe in the same spot. So
now you have to look at youknow, if these burglars, these criminals,
and they were quite capable of murderas well. They were thugs.

(18:18):
You know, you have to lookat the fact that if they if they
you know, still you know,if they were capable of still unsafe and
dumping it there, maybe they didthe robbery and dumped it in the same
place because it was a very desolatearea and kind of still is right out
there. So Johnson wasn't like goingback to kind of the the back to
the case on that one. Johnsonwasn't the only one that was being looked

(18:41):
at for this entire crime. Therewas multiple different people that were being looked
at at that current time frame.From what I'm gathering, there was there's
there's multiple pieces of evidence pointing awayfrom Johnson possibly, And and the issue
is is you know, you're requiredand it's been a Supreme Court for years
and years and years, but youyou are required as an investigator and a

(19:03):
prosecutor that if you have evidence showingthat someone else may have committed or the
person here after may not have,it's called a sculpratory others you have to
shoot. You have to give thatto the jury. So now that you
know that's what you're thinking when you'reinvestigating these type of cases is what is
the jury going to hear and youknow, are they going to have reasonable
doubt when you start talking about theseother things that played into the investigation,

(19:27):
Right, So that was one ofthe other reasons. I you know clearly
that that case was never brought forthat the time, right, and there
was no you the murder weapon wasnever found. I'm assuming, I'm assuming
whoever did this, assuming what weknow that the gun that was used to
shoot Gary Cowdery was never recovered atthat current current point in time, not

(19:51):
at that point, not at thatpoint, but knowing what had happened,
it said that it went cold afterthat. Well, well, an the
other piece that getting back to thegun was, you know, the the
John's family did have a thirty twocolored ber pistol and they voluntarily gave that
up and the state police did theballistics in Charleston. And you know the

(20:15):
problem with the bullets at the timethat was taken out of the victim's body
where they were they were significantly damagedon at least one side. And there
has to be so many lands andgrooves for the laboratory expert to get on
the stand and say as an expertthat that is you know, the same

(20:36):
gun that shot that bullet, andthere wasn't enough of those. He felt.
He always felt it, you know, the side that was good matched,
but still he You know, it'slike a fingerprint, you know,
there's several several points that have tomatch, you know, the print taken
from the person and print taken offof the glass globe for example, that
have to match. I think it'sI can't remember now, thirteen fourteen points.

(21:00):
And if you don't have enough ofthat print, then you can't say
it's his. And that's the samewith the bullet it was and knowing having
just a little bit of knowledge andhow ballistics and stuff works when you're talking
about lands and grooves, you're talkingabout the the how the bullet exits the
barrel of a gun, and whatthe markings of that barrel cause on the
bullet. Correct, Yes, okay, yep, I just want to make

(21:22):
sure I was just for anybody thatdoesn't have that knowledge of what we're you're
referring to as the lands and grooveson that well, and and and one
of the ways one of the reasonsthey're able to match it to a specific
gun is is, uh, youknow, as you shoot a gun,
those change and so so the bulletsbecome uh where they do match a particular
gun. And so because you knowthere's there's hundreds of these thirty two kliber

(21:47):
pistoles out here. But again it'syou know, the way that it changes
for a particular gun if you shootit enough, is how they match it
to one gun. Okay, gotcha? Now where does where does a Gary
Kohn fault like come into this thing? Because I know you mentioned it in
the book and this was about twoyears after the initial crime had taken place

(22:10):
at sixty five. Where does GaryKuhne fit into all of this? Well,
Gary kone at the time of thiswas a part of a little another
crime gang basically, and you haveto understand, I mean it's a little
bit different than now, I think. You know. Back then, these

(22:30):
guys go to prison, they allmeet up in prison or from Parkersburg.
They come back and they know theyend up running together. And Jack Hart
was one of those people who kindof had a little bit of a gang
around town. He and his dad, Dooey Hart, and Gary Kuhne was
associated with that little operation. Andand and not that they there was never

(22:55):
any evidence to show that they wereinvolved in this. But Harry Kuon was
murdered by Jack Hard he thought hewas going to kill him or he thought
he was going to write him outbasically to the police, and that's where
he put it. And you know, he showed him buried him face down
a shallow grave because that's the wayhe thought ratch should be buried. Right.

(23:18):
And well, Kuon's brother worked atthe BBFT or the BBF at the
time, so there's always that andand that brother had never been any any
trouble. There's no reason to thinkthat he had had anything in it.
Still isn't a bit, But nevertheless, you know, now they have to
look at that. It's just anotheravenue that you know, throws a little

(23:40):
bit of metal in the investigation thatthey have to get through. Right And
now, speaking of throwing mud onthe investigation, with anything that kind of
happens with like a murder that doesn'tgo solid for a few years, then
it starts to like just even now, it still happens. But the fact
that it could have been a copthat did it, granted we're not we
don't point blame at cops. Wedon't believe cops. Anybody's capable of doing

(24:03):
anything. But where does that rumorkind of play into this case in a
sense, Well, you're you're exactlyright. I mean, I think it
may be a little bit worse nowthan it was because social media, but
anytime, and in the current caseunfolding Parkersburg now is a good example.
I mean, you know, peopleget on Facebook, there's all kinds of

(24:25):
rumors and they're you know, ninetynine point nine percent unfounded. It's it's
a lot of craziness. But youknow, back in those days it would
be gossip as well. And youknow, we had an unfortunate incident a
couple of years later when one ofthe our detectives in the sixties had murdered

(24:45):
his wife and murdered her boyfriend.They were divorced, but it was it
was just a domestic dispute that youknow, goes on a lot, whether
you're a policeman or a doctor whatand anyhow, it was unfortunate that that
happened. But uh, this detective, his name was Clement Burdette. I

(25:07):
mean, it's it's not a secret. I mean it was, it's a
well known issue and from all actuallymy father was a friend of his.
You know, my father had aservice station. He knew him. Everybody
said, he's a great guy's agreat policeman, he's a great detective,
great family man. But it's justone of those unfortunate situations that happened in
families where you know, if thingsget out of hand. And Uh,

(25:32):
in long story short, he endedup shooting his wife and killing her and
then and then finding his or hernew boyfriend again they were divorced on West
Virginia Avenue and got him to pullover and shot and killed him as well,
and then he killed himself. Andit was a you know, a
significant another significant case going on,but that got the rumor started, and

(25:56):
it's it's just purely out of outof mean. I think that he had,
you know, he had something todo with the BBF murder and that's
why all this other stuff happened.Well, I don't think the Department did
a very good job of dispelling itback in the day. I don't think
they addressed it, which might havebeen a mistake. You know, we
would probably address it better these days. But I investigated this case as well

(26:21):
later in the seventies, and thisis one of the reasons uh, and
it's you know, we debunked thatseveral times. First of all, wasn't
even the same type of gun,period, right, you know it,
Uh, police guns are guns.They carried were thirty eights and this was
a thirty two, and it wasa piece of you know, it was
a junkie thirty two. I meanthere were these old al's had thirty twos.

(26:44):
They were dime a dozen here inthe sixties. Yeah. But anyhow,
but nevertheless, that that rumor wasgoing around as a matter of fact,
to mention that when I first gotinvolved in actually investigated, I'd read
the case years before when I wasa cadet and a detective bureau. I

(27:06):
worked three to elevens. It wasslow. We had a dead file,
or the detective bureau had a deadfile. It was like a five drawer
file captain cabinet that had nothing init but files on murder, suicide,
unusual accidents, not not natural desk. And but anyhow, you know,
over a period of several months,I went through every one of those,

(27:27):
every single file in there, andsome of them stuck out and the BBF
was one of them. So Iknew it the case already, and in
like nineteen seventy eight, there wasa state trooper or sergeant Russ Miller.
He was a coon hunter and hewas out. You know they they go

(27:47):
out with a bunch of other guysthat have coon dogs, they run their
dogs. Well, one night hewas out with a group and one of
them started talking about that case andhad said, you know, they thought
policeman did it and and named thatthat unfortunate incident. Well it ticked off
Miller, I mean, you know, he did not like policeman be abashed.

(28:10):
But and this guy had thrown outa name of a suspect or a
witness that would have information. Soanyhow, I got a sign to open
that up since it was our case, and Miller and I did some work
on it again in the late seventiesand and again more importantly, we reviewed
the case again. We had hadballistics look at the bullet again, couldn't

(28:32):
find the guy that this coon hunterwas talking about. So at that point
in time it it went nowhere again. You know, that money bag when
they found it, had had somehair, just real fine pieces of hair,
like somebody just got in a haircut, which the suspect in this case
had That same day and fibers onit, mashed the fibers of floor matte

(28:56):
of chevies back then, but noneof that was definitive. Is similar and
well the State by the by theseventies or late seventies, the state police
had lost those at the laboratory stillhad the bullet. They still do as
a matter of fact, I think. But anyhow, it again went nowhere.

(29:18):
And then a couple of years later, Larry Gibson, Larry was a
detective back when that happened, hewould have had some minute. He was
not to lead investigator. He hadbeen young, but now he's the chief
of detectives, and he decided toopen it up yet again and have a
couple of weather guys take a lookat the case. And they again reopened

(29:42):
it. They went to approach misterJohnson and he wasn't home, and and
after that he just he had lefttown. He moved out, and so
nothing nothing happened at that time.Right now, kind of just getting him
a little bit more context, whatdoes it necessarily take to get a case
reopen and say, if it's beenit's been cold for two years or however

(30:03):
long, the time frame would bethat there's no new evidence coming in or
anything like that. What does ittake to get a case reopened like this,
Well, there's no procedure, Imean, there's nothing you have to
do. Well, one thing youhave to do is you have to get
the prosecutor interested in and prosecuted oryou know, going forward with it if

(30:26):
if we do find more evidence,but it takes more evidence, and uh,
generally to get one open doesn't haveto you can just open them up.
And quite frankly they should. Coldcases should be reviewed consistently, but
you don't even need a cold caseunit. I mean they although those are
nice, and I'll explain the reasonthose are nice here in just a minute.

(30:48):
But the fact of matter is thesethese cases should be reviewed every couple
of years, and hopefully by somebodydifferent than reviewed it before. Now.
I went through it twice, andand you know that a third person go
through it after that, and they'llsee something that maybe I didn't see.
And what you're looking for is,you know, back during the original investigation,

(31:11):
somebody went out and was going tointerview a particular person, and they
have in their notes are in thereport at the person wasn't home. I'll
check back later and then there's nothingelse ever in the in the further reports
where it shows they went back andactually interviewed that guy. So this is
the kind of thing you're looking forto catch and and you can redo.

(31:34):
But when, of course I openedit up when I was chief after you
know, there's a couple of guysinterested in looking at it, and the
prosecutor was interested in opening as well. Jenny Conley, she was a prosecuting
attorney at the time, and shewas interested in spending some money on,
you know, some some more moderntechniques to see if we could further that

(31:56):
case at the time. But there'sno there's no formal process in our department
to open one. Yep. It'sjust a matter of having enough to get
the prosecutors interest piqued, of saying, okay, we have one new perspective
on this. And then now thatyou mentioned being police chief in two thousand

(32:16):
and two, kind of start fromthere and with your interest of the case
and wanting to solve the case andget the case closed, what did you
do from that point of beingcoming policechief in two thousand and two on,
because I know you established a newunit. I saw that, and then
from there what took off with thiscase after that, well you mentioned it.

(32:38):
I mean, it's just a littletwo man unit. Steve Holland was
in charge of it and Blaine Richiewas his assistant. It was actually for
the purpose of doing special investigations thingsto detective Bureau either didn't have time to
do or you know, they justthere's so many cases coming in they can't

(33:01):
keep going back themselves looking at things. And those two guys were actually interested
in looking to this case as well, and so that's you know, so
yeah, I was very happy tomake sure that he got everything they needed
to do that. And the reasonwe got to prosecutor involved is because we

(33:21):
wanted to send the the bullet someplaceelse for another opinion. The sergeant at
the State Police Lab had and hewas a good guy. I mean he
was He was in charge of ballisticsfor years and years and years, but
he had retired and I'm not evensure if he's living at that time,
and we just thought it was agood opportunity to have a another entity look

(33:44):
at it. But it was gonnabe expensive and she agreed to pay for
that. So anyhow, we hadthis bullet sent to and I don't remember
if the guy's name actually but theythey around him. He was a military
expert on ballistics. He did ballisticswork for the military as a matter of

(34:05):
fact, and considered a national expert. And so the bullet was delivered to
him. And then the other thingwe did at the time was we you
know, decided to let it beknown that we had opened his case up
yet again because we figured that wordwould get around. And we located the
original suspect and and put a wiretap on his phone and that was done

(34:30):
at a high because that's where hewas living, right, So we ran
a wire tap for several days atthe time out of the Bell Prie Police
Department. Bell Priy helped us withthat part of it. Did anything come
out of the wire tap? ChanceNo, His parents had deceased. He
talked to one relative and it wasbasically a conversation of you know, you

(34:50):
remember BB at home and and sheher comment was, well, I really
do, because it had been fortyyears before that, so I really was
of little value. So so no, and I think come out of the
water tap of any value. Nowwith the ballistics, I know, I
know something came out of the ballistics, And what exactly came out of the

(35:12):
ballistics that when you send it offto that the new expert that you hired,
Well, his expert opinion was afterexamining it, was that it did
match the gun that was taken fromthe Johnson's back in the day. And
and of course I asked him,I said, what you know, what
is you're seeing different? What youdo different? And and his response was
he had soaked the bullets, uh, because we again we'd retrieved him from

(35:37):
state police and delivered them to himand just really cleaned the bullets up well
better there was you know, therewas still dirt matter whatever you want to
call it, in the lands andgrooves of the bullet. Soaking that and
and revealing those gave him more ofthose lands and grooved to be able to

(35:59):
say, you know, as anexpert, I believe this is the bullet.
So it definitively he said that hecould confirm that that was the bullet
that was that matched what was atthe crime scene, or it just matched
in general. Basically that was hisexpert opinion. Yep. Yes, So
after that confirmation and you got allthat evidence, what then what was the
procedure then after that? Because Iknow that you guys did some things afterwards.

(36:22):
What came out of that after thebullet was confirmed. Well, again,
you know, the prosecutor worked prettyuh closely with us on that,
and we had we had statements thatDetective Swayne had taken. And again back
then the the uh the statements weretaken in shorthand, and that was the
proper way of doing at time.I mean, it was acceptable legally acceptable

(36:43):
way, is what I'm trying tosay. They were. The accuracy was
and canny really how well they coulddo that. But nevertheless, they stood
their time as records. And eventhough those witnesses were gone, there had
been some case law Supreme Court rulingsthat you know, archive evidence they called

(37:05):
it could be could be used infuture trials if the witness isn't available,
and you had to meet certain criteria, but it could be done. And
in this case, she felt thathaving Towhead Swain come up from Florida where
he'd retired to and verifying, vlidifyingthose statements as once he took testified hearings

(37:28):
such that we might be able toget those in and be able to use
those old statements without the people beingpresent and that was that was her thought,
and coupled with the ballistics, wefelt we'd had a case. We
could just go for broke one wayor the other, just take a trial
and let the chips fall where theymay. But unfortunately the judge in the

(37:52):
case didn't feel that that fit asarchive evidence and it was still too much
based on hearsay and I wouldn't allowt. So that that ended the case quite
frankly, because you guys went overthere and you actually like found him,
charged him and brought him into jailand extradited him back to West Virginia at

(38:15):
that time, and he was injail up until that decision came down.
Yeah, as far as I recall, he was, I he was.
He stayed in jail until until itwas dismissed from probably was stayed in jail
until the trial had it not beendismissed. But but do you know,
there's some other things in play,you know, reading a book with you

(38:36):
know one one guy who had beena play with Bill Rhodes. He'd been
a policeman back in the sixties whenhappened, although he was not one of
the investigators, but he was nowworking for Bill Kiger the attorneys representing the
suspect, and you know, Billwas still convinced that this guy lived across
the street, did it only becausehe he uh failed a polygraph you know,

(38:59):
forty years before, for right,and in spite of all the evidence
otherwise. But so they operated onthat theory. And but you know,
at the end of the day,they really didn't have to. I mean,
mister Johnson, I think, gavea statement at some point in time
to to the news meeting. Hesaid that, you know, he didn't
do it. You know that Calgarywas a friend to his and so that

(39:23):
was again that was that would theend of the investigation. And you know,
it's not likely that it would everever come up again. I mean,
it's you know, there's just nothingelse to do on this, yep.
And if they're not willing to openup any of the the statements that
Swain took and everything like that,or use those as evidence or anything like

(39:44):
that, I don't think this willever come to a resolution at any point.
No. So, But other thanthat, is there anything anything else
though you want to cover on that? Is there anything like kind of like
some other information that you want toexplain about that? No, not really
like I say it was. Youknow, the the the case was horrendous
for its time. It still is. You know, we every every five

(40:07):
seven years. I mean, wedo have a crime here in the Middle
High Valley that that sticks out.I mean, you know, just just
after that, you know, wehad the Bailey fire, which with the
huge murder still the still the singlelargest family homicide in US history. It
happened in parkas Broke. Then amonth after that, we had the sniper

(40:30):
uh downtown that shot and killed afew people. And you know, so
you know, time just keeps onmarching. Then you know when we had
the gym a dots in case afew years after that. So uh,
you know, after time, thosealder cases get lost, ye get lost
in time. And but now it'sit's I think all those cases should be

(40:52):
constantly constantly under review and are notconstantly but consistently I should say, just
annually annually checked every so after solong, like maybe like a year or
two maybe maybe two years, justto be safe. Yeah, and you
know the sad part was a fewyears after you know, when we started

(41:14):
you know, digitizing or microfilming records. When I say we the Department uh,
you know, those those cases thatwere all centered in one place,
what I referred to as a deadfile, you know, kind of got
dispersed through all the criminal files,you know, because of the different dates
and which which I think was amistake, and so you know, it

(41:36):
was all those should I think shouldalways be kept in one place for the
rely accessible in all cold cases orall unsolved cases should be in one place
as well, so they can beas you said, you know, just
annually, annually urope or or astime permits, you know, at least
every couple of years. So andand uh, you know, we have

(41:58):
several one solve cases. We've talkedabout him in the podcast before, and
you know, and I think peoplelook at him. I know State Police
have at least one Cindy Ball case. I think they revisit it from time
to time and and and others.Yep. But it seems like for the
time being, this particular case seemsto be one of the ones that's going

(42:22):
to be as the as they wouldput it, the one that's going to
get away for the time being,just based off of the evidence in what
transpired in the early two thousands whenthe judge hammered down that no, you
can't use that. So yeah,yeah, not ruling, and I don't
think will change. I mean,I'm not saying that judge was wrong,
you know, I think it was. It obviously didn't meet the proper criteria

(42:45):
and and you can't make it atthis point. And unfortunately, uh TOE
had Swayne passed away a couple ofyears ago, so he's not available,
and and you know, it'll benot too long that most people well most
people probably don't even remember this caseanyhow, more more than likely. But

(43:06):
other than that, I think thatpretty definitively wraps up the case, Bob.
I want to appreciate you talking aboutthe case with me. I appreciate
you being a part of the departmentfirst and foremost. But the next case,
hopefully we'll get that out to youpretty soon, and you will,
you'll get in touch with me onwhen the next case is and what you
want to cover. Absolutely, butI appreciate everybody listening to this, and

(43:29):
we'll see you next time. TheViolence in the Valley podcast has been brought
to you by Interstate Insurance three Generationsof Insurance Excellence. For even more details,
get a copy of the book atAmazon dot com,