March 19, 2025 • 50 mins
In this week's episode, the conclusion of a two-parter, Kate and Paul return to the 1945 Canadian investigation of a family that our victim had married into. With some late-in-the-game uncovered evidence, the trial becomes national news.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm a journalist who's spent the last twenty five years
writing about true crime.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
compelling true crimes.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is buried Bones.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
Hey Paul, Hey Kate, how are you?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I'm fine because I know everything about this story, and
you don't know anything about this story, and I know
you've been thinking about it, haven't you.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Well, yeah, well it's so unusual because walking down this
John an Evelyn relationship and John ends up dead and
partially dismembered, and you're thinking, Okay, you know they took
care of a problem. But then you tell me there's
another body in a suitcase in Evelyn's residence, And now
I'm I'm extraordinarily curious as to where this is going
(01:34):
to go.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I will say this part of the story surprised me
a little bit. So let me go back just in
case people have forgotten the details of the story, which
I cannot imagine you have, but you might have. So
we are in Ontario, Canada. We are in Hamilton, which
is a medium sized city. Nineteen forty six, mid March,
Torso is found partially dressed, and it turns out to
(01:58):
be a man named John Dick. He was a streetcar
driver for a transportation agency in the city. He worked
it sounds like near or with his father in law,
whose name is Donald, and Donald's daughter is John's wife,
and her name is Evelyn. Certainly they had different approaches
to marriage because she admitted that she's been cheating on
(02:22):
him before, during, and after marriage. That their marriage only
lasted a few months. They had a quick romance, a
quick engagement, a quick wedding, and then a quick ending.
After three months, he moved out into his cousin's house
and Evelyn took up with a young man a couple
of years older than her, named Bill. And now the
police want to know about everything that's happening in this house.
(02:47):
She had a car, a packer that had blood in it.
That was Type O, which was John's type. There are
bone fragments and teeth pieces in ashes outside of their house.
The police have now ascended the staircase to the attic
and have found a suitcase that has a body in it.
And that's where I left off with you, because we
(03:11):
weren't sure before we get to that other body. We
weren't sure about the father in law's involvement. Maybe the
mother in law's involved too. We know that John threatened
Evelyn's father, Donald by exposing that Donald has been feeling
I mean, in today's money upwards of two million dollars
from this city department, which was very serious. So now
(03:34):
you've got somebody who's been threatened and he's very clearly
has body parts at this location. They're obviously involved in
some way. The question is how involved is Evelyn? Is
she just covering it up or was she directly involved?
Doesn't matter? I think it will matter how involved she was.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Oh, it absolutely does matter.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
And you know, I think one of the big questions
with the second body in the suitcase is who has
access to this location? You know, is this something where
people like Donald the father can freely come and go.
I completely forgot about Bill, you know, this new boyfriend
of hers, you know, and what is his potential involvement
(04:18):
in John's homicide?
Speaker 4 (04:20):
And then who is the second body is this? You know?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
On one hand, maybe this is all wrapped around Donald
trying to protect his financial interests with this this I'm
assuming an embezzlement type scheme out of the railway.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Or do we have some sort of predator you do?
Speaker 3 (04:39):
We have this female serial killer on the loose, So
I'm very curious to see how this progresses.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yep. And in the check box of where we feel
about Evelyn and Evelyn's involvement in anything criminal other than
being at a house, and it's seemingly covering up this
you know crime. So far, the police have said, well,
you know, they held her on vagrancy charges, which, just
as a little explainer, the vacrancy charges had been everything
(05:08):
from sex work to being homeless to you know, I'm loitering.
I mean, it was like a catch all, and I
don't know if it's still like that now. I know
that vacrancy has been under fire, that sort of you
cannot arrest somebody simply for vagrancy. Is that right? At
this point?
Speaker 3 (05:23):
I think the equivalent statute that I'm aware of out
of California is, you know this six forty seven PC,
which has all sorts of those subdivisions like sex work,
the drunken public. You know, there's various subcategories under six
forty seven. It sounds like this vagrancy statute up there
(05:47):
in Canada.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
It's a big catch all, is my understanding. Yeah, But
they're holding her on these charges, that's why they're you know,
then going in and looking through the attic, they find
the suitcase and they open it up and inside they
find a baby.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Oh that's not where I thought this was.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Going, I know. So remember I told you she had
a series of kids. There was a stillborn baby. There
was a girl who's clearly alive, the one that she
said cut her face, and that's where all the blood
came from. This is Peter. And when Peter left the hospital,
which was this was just a year and a half
to two years ago, the year before she met John.
(06:29):
So John is not the father. When she left the
hospital with Peter, he was ten days old and he
was healthy. She said that she took him to an
adoption agency. And obviously she didn't now what the pathologist says,
and I wish I had more details about this. What
the pathologist said was they believe that Peter had been strangled,
(06:50):
and he had been encased in cement and then put
into this suitcase, and he had been up in the attic.
I'm assuming John didn't know about this for you know,
two years. Sure, so they're surprised, to say the least.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
But it also speaks volumes about Evelyn. Assuming Evelyn is
the one that killed Peter, She's very willing to resort
to homicidal violence to get rid of somebody that is
cramping what I'm going to assume is cramping her lifestyle,
extrapolating that out to John, you know, And then the
big question is is that who else helped Evelyn? Did
(07:29):
anybody else help Evelyn? We know Evelyn is involved in
aspects of John's homicide. She's the one that is getting
that packered that car from the auto place and then
returning that car, you know, so, and that car has
obviously been used to transport John's body to dispose of
the remains. And whether or not John is killed in
(07:50):
that car, he's cut up in that car.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Who knows at this point.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
So Evelyn is involved, but to what extent is she
the killer? Did somebody else kill John? And then Evelyn
helped dispose of the body, maybe even helped with the dismemberment.
Right now, we don't have any information, but you throw Peter.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Into the mix.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
In all likelihood, Evelyn is the one who strangled this
ten day old infant and then try to hide that
body with the cement. But again sloppy. Why is that
body still inside the residence inside a suitcase. There's so
many better ways to go about disposing of that body than.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
That process that nobody had found it true, with the
exception of you know, of course, her being under suspicion
for murdering her husband. And then they go up there
and start looking around, and I don't know how much
her parents know. I do want to go back to
John because they've searched the house, they find this body.
They're stunned by the discovery of this infant baby, and
(08:55):
then of course the bone fragments and the teeth of John.
So then they say, we need to get the hell
over to Donald and Alexandra's house. So Evelyn's parents big
search and this is what they find, and maybe this
will help you figure out the order of things, because
right now I'm curious about the order of events. They
find a pair of John shoes in the basement which
(09:17):
are blood stained, and there is also a large butcher
knife and an axe, neither of which seemed to have
blood on him, you know, according to the media, but
who knows. They also find a thirty two caliber revolver
that a ballistic expert would later say could have caused
the gunshot wounds. Remember, we don't have casings or bullets
or anything on his body. Does that make sense? Can
(09:40):
they kind of eyeball that and say, wow, this looks
like this kind of a bullet could have grazed his
body in this way, so it was probably a thirty
That doesn't seem like hard evidence to me.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
No, I can't really see where they could draw any
type of conclusion. You know, of course, a larger caliber
bullet could potentially leave a larger grazed wound. Dealing with
such an elastic surface in terms of the skin, there's
so many variables at play unless there's something just significantly
(10:09):
unusual that I can't think about. I think all they
could say is is that these appear consistent with the
Gray's wounds from bullets, and there's no way you can
tie a gun or a caliber of weapon to that.
So I think they overstretched on that conclusion.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
I mean, at least it just shows that that Donald
has a gun. You know it's there. Yeah, So they
also find I thought you'd appreciate this. They also find
a magazine called Famous Detective Stories. I think this is
different from the true detective trash stuff we talked about before,
but still there is an article that they has been
(10:51):
here you're marked. That's how to dispose of a corpse
through incineration one oh one, how to do it. I
don't want to blame these magazines. I think it's sort
of silly. But at the same time, you know, we're
not talking about crime porn here. We're talking about how
to on how to get rid of a body. So
it sounds like Donald was doing some research. If we
think that this is connected.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
For sure, you know we see this today. There's reasons
why suspects computers and phones and tablets are confiscated during
an investigation and then searched underneath a warrant to see, well,
what are they looking at and what are they researching
leading up to the you know, the timeframe of a
crime being committed, and oftentimes, as I mentioned before, you know,
(11:34):
most of these offenders have never killed before, and so
now they're trying to find information on how to do it.
And it's just you know, here we're talking nineteen forty six.
You've got the paper magazine that has an article that
just happens to fit with how John's. Part of John's
(11:55):
body was disposed of.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Well, they go back also and continue to do searching
of work the torso was found, because they're hoping to
find more information about whomever this person is who dumped
the torso in the rural area. And they find a
striped shirt that's found in the woods and it's identified
as the one that John was last seen wearing. The
shirt was completely buttoned up as it would have been
(12:19):
when it was worn, and both arms of the shirt
were cut off and the shirt was stained with blood.
I can't even picture what that means. So what happened
that you can tell so far? You know, the shoes,
there's blood, there's a butcher knife at Donald's house, at
her parents' house, and then the incineration. It sounds like
happened at their house, at Evelyn and John's house.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Right, Yeah, Well, and it appears that John is killed
and in all likelihood, like I talked about before, it
probably a gunshot wound to the head, and that can't
be proven because his head is gone and presumably incinerated.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
But it does not appear that whoever.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Is cutting up John is taking the time to take
the clothes off. You know, they're literally just cutting his
arms off, you know, sleeves and all. Now, the pathologists
should be able to determine from the cut ends of
the Let's say that the humorous on both arms, you
know what type of tool was used.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
Was a saw used, you.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Know, based on the tool marks that are present in
the end of the bone, or is it more consistent
with the axe. And that's not necessarily an easy thing.
You know, you have to take multiple swings with the
axe in order to be able to hack through the
say the upper upper arm, and there's a good chance
you're going to miss and you're probably going to hit
part of the Torso doesn't sound like you have any
(13:45):
information in terms of the pathologists rendering an opinion on
the type of tool marks present on the bone ends.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
No, no, And you know, like they said that the
axe and the other weapon that they found, it didn't
appear to have blood. I'm sure it did, they just
couldn't see it. Yeah, So what I mean, maybe not,
I don't know what.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
All depends on how how well the tool has been cleaned,
how bloody it got in the first place. You are
dealing with the dead body. So now the heart is
not pumping. You hack through these long bones and the
arms and the legs. I mean, there is going to
be blood that seeps out, but it's not gushing out
(14:22):
because there's no pump present. The heart is done. So
you know, it's possible that, let's say that if this
axe or this butcher knife had been used, you know,
blood staining likely would be present, but it may not
be present where now it's seeping down in between the
blade and the handle and all that they just cleaned
it up.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Okay, well, so far this seems pretty damning. Is this circumstantial?
I mean, how would you label this case so far?
Against You've got Donald and you've got Evelyn. We don't
know anything about Bill just yet, and then we don't
know about them all Alexandra.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Well, there's evidence. I will tell you from a physical
evidence standpoint, it is a strong case that these individuals
are involved. What you don't have is who's doing what
right And so this is where interviewing and it sounds
like if you've got parts of the crime scene at
(15:21):
Donald's house and parts at Evelyn's house, sounds like, well,
we have multiple people involved, and you know, you think
father daughter may be very loyal to each other.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Maybe not.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
You know, you have to kind of play one against
the other in terms of what their statements are and
the jeopardy each one is subjected to. But then is
there a third person? And again I go back to
this new lover of Evelyn's, this Bill Evelyn sounds like
she's somebody who would be willing to seduce a man,
to get that man to commit a crime for her,
(15:56):
and then probably eliminate that man as a witness after
let's say the homicide of John is done.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Let me tell you their theory first, just about the crime,
and then I'll tell you about arrests. So I think
this is what we've been talking about, the theory that
the prosecutors say, once they've gathered all of this information,
they say that John was murdered in the packer, likely
from a gunshot wound too the head, like you said,
but of course the head has been destroyed, presumably in
the fire. It's theorized that he was dismembered at Donald's house,
(16:27):
but the limbs were incinerated in Evelyn's furnace, and then
John's torso was dumped in the woods, probably because it
was too It was actually too big to fit into
the furnace, so I think they went, oh shit, we
got to put it somewhere, so they dumped it, you know,
in this place. That all makes sense to you, I'm
assuming rise or anything you disagree with in the prosecutor's case.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
No, that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I think it's it's interesting that they didn't bother to
further cut up the torso, to incinerate it. It's possible
that once they kind of got to the point where
they did with the dismemberment of John, they're going, oh,
this is unpleasant.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
You know, we just were not going to bother with
the rest of the body.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Let's just go dump it, you know, because it takes
a certain what do you want to say, disposition, you know,
to hack up a body and do it without possibly
having to go throw up or going oh, I wasn't
expecting this.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
I think they abandoned.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
The body disposal process early, considering that Donald had a
magazine article on how to dispose of a body through incineration.
So it seems like they didn't carry out the plan
as far as they could have in terms of getting
rid of the body through incineration.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
We've got some arrests. So remember they were holding Evelyn
on vacrancy charges, really vague vagrancy charges, which to me
it sounded like because she doesn't have a full time job,
maybe you know, I mean stealing money, it was just
a way for her to away from them, to keep
a hold of her for a little bit. Yeap, okay.
So they have brought charges for John's murder against Evelyn
(18:06):
and Donald and the mom Alexandra, who they think was
involved also, and Bill, who is Evelyn's I mean, I
think boyfriend is a pretty loose term for what he
probably was. I think you're right. I think he was
probably a little bit of a patsy. So Evelyn just
starts turning on people, which doesn't surprise me. She implicates
Bill in the murders of John and this baby. I
(18:30):
will not drag this out. She didn't even know Bill
when she was pregnant. I was going to say with Peter,
I mean, what is she thinking. So she's saying he
strangled my kid, and it was easily proven you know
that this was not the case. So I don't know
if she's just throwing she's not smart, she's throwing stuff out,
but she is trying to pin this on everybody but herself.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Sure, you know, and again we've just seen this lack
of awareness and knowledge and how the crime scene has handled,
how sloppy it is. And now her statements are sloppy.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
In many ways.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
You know, this is something that those investigators would be
able to easily see through. And when she's making those
types of statements which are obvious lies, you know, those
are just like ding ding ding, you know, both for
the investigators going okay, you know we're on the right track,
and for the prosecutors who will put that information in
front of a jury.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
You know. So and in part it may just be,
you know, she's what twenty five years old.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
In all likelihood, you know, this homicide of John is
much more complicated than what she thought it was going
to be you know, it's a ten day old infant.
She came up with the excuse of well, the reason
this infant is not Peter's not around anymore is because
I gave him up for adoption, when in reality he's
(19:52):
in case and Cement in a suitcase in her attic.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Well, Evelyn and Bell are charged with the murder of Peter,
and you know Bill will get out of that once
they realize the timeline a little bit. So Donald and
his wife are both charged additionally with John's murder, and
Donald is, on top of that, charged with stealing money
from the transport agency that he worked for. So this
(20:17):
becomes a huge media sensation, as you can imagine, front
page news all across the country. Lots of people show
up trying to grab a seat and they want to
gawk at someone they describe in the newspapers in the
forties as a femfetale, which that really pisses me off.
It's so dismissive. But they of course have photos of
her sort of like lounging in this chair. She is
(20:39):
an attractive woman, she's very hip looking. This sets up
for this media circus because her sex life comes out
all over this trial. And this is the slutshaming that
I was talking about and how it plays into the trial,
because there is, for me, the Evelyn who very clearly
was involved in two murders. But then there is also
(21:00):
the Evelyn who you know, when they put her on
trial it is just like your horror and you did
this because you're a whore. So it's hard to reconcile
the two together. And so I want to talk about
That's what we're heading next, is getting a fair trial.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
In terms of the slut shaming aspect of Evelyn. I
guess I would need to know, Okay, what is being
attributed to how the media is portraying her, and then
what is how is she being portrayed in court? You know,
because in some aspects her relationships do play in to
(21:37):
the people the prosecutors laying the groundwork for motive, if
you will. But is it completely needed, you know, I
think it all depends on how the prosecutors are laying
their case out.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Well, I wasn't going to tell you this until a
little bit later. I'm going to read you this a
little bit from the trial right now, just to give
you an idea of what it was like. She's on
the stand. Now, this is a preliminary hearing, but she
also testified at her trial. She is on the stand
and the prosecutor says, tell the court how many men
(22:12):
you've had sexual intercourse with? And she says maybe one
hundred and fifty. Now, I don't know if she's gigging
him or if that's accurate. Either way, that's her truth.
I want you, this is the lawyer, I want you
to name these men for the court right now. Who
are they? She says, well, his son for one. She's
(22:35):
looking at the judge. The lawyer says, were you indicating
his honor? And she says, yes, the judge's son. The
judge immediately struck the testimony from the record and issued
a restraining order on the publication of the names of
these one hundred and fifty men that she's talking about.
That's where this trial is going. And I'm not saying that.
You know, some parts of this are probably going to
(22:57):
be applicable, but this was pretty blatantly framed around her
being this temptress. So boy, I mean, I don't want
to ever defend Evelyn, but this is sort of a
case where I went this is gross. It felt so
gross reading the transcripts.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
You know, well, that's that's extending out past what I
would say, you know, the nexus of the crime is, yeah,
you know, I think her coming out and admitting that
she ended up having sex with a man within a
few days of being married, you know, really establishing how
she maintained a lifestyle involving multiple men outside of her
(23:34):
relationship with John kind of establishes this dynamic where people
would go, Okay, I can see where she really never
loved or cared for John, you know. So I can
see utilizing the relationships surrounding the crime to underscore sort
of the dynamic between Evelyn and John, but not bringing
(23:56):
in her entire love life from five years four. You know,
that doesn't that doesn't equate. That sounds prejudicial.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Let's switch over to another woman who takes in her
stage here, and that's Evelyn's mother, who flips on her.
So the men in this family seem sort of strangely
loyal or in this story no women or not. Alexandros
flips on Evelyn. She agrees to testify for the prosecutor
in exchange for legal immunity. Okay, so remember they kind
(24:25):
of took a net and arrested everybody and then said
let's sort it out. She does not say too much,
but she does say that even though Evelyn says, yeah,
I got the packer, but I was with my parents
the whole time, she said, there was a long time
when she was not around. On March sixth, and she
said that before the torso was discovered, but after John
(24:48):
had been you know, declared missing, that Evelyn had said
John's dead and you better keep your mouth shut about it.
And that's what she said to her mother. Boy this family.
So this is her mom testifying. This is specifically her trial,
so she's not testifying against her own husband yet, but
this is this is the way this is going. Are
(25:09):
you surprised by that?
Speaker 1 (25:11):
No?
Speaker 3 (25:12):
You know, I think it really comes down to the
family dynamics, because you know, when we started talking about
Evelyn and her upbringing and how it sounded like she
had an abusive childhood with Donald and Alexandra, I kind
of wonder what the relationship between Donald and Alexandra was, Like,
maybe he's abusive to her obviously, you know, with mom
(25:35):
flipping at this point, it's self preservation and her self
preservation is superseding any mother daughter feelings that she has
with Evelyn.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Well, and it sounds like I don't know how much
knowledge Alexandra had, but enough to be able to say, well,
I'm I'm not gonna risk my own skin for my daughter.
Evelyn's not particularly helping herself. She keeps changing her story
a lot. Time magazine reported on it, and they said
that at some point she said a gang from another
town must have killed him. She said that also the
(26:10):
gang was hired by Bill the boyfriend, and that actually
Bill did the killing, but her father, Donald was the
one who strong harmed him into it. And you know
Donald hated John. So who else you know, would have
been responsible for this. So the one thing she does
admit to is she says, you know, I did drive
(26:31):
that packer to the location where we dumped the Torso
so she's admitting to be I guess it would it
be an accessory, is at what she's admitting to if
if she's kind of covering it up.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Yeah, you know, she's she's minimizing her role. That's what
it sounds like. You know, all these statements that seem
to conflict about you know, who actually is doing what.
You know, it's pointing fingers at the other players and
not her right, she's saying, well, I only did this
everybody else, did you know the really bad stuff? And
(27:05):
she's kind of taking a shotgun approach with her statements.
She's conflicting herself multiple times. You know, this just all
speaks to she's making things up on the fly with
hope something sticks.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Yeah, she really is, and not being very smart about it. So,
you know, a lot of this case covers the evidence,
and we've talked about their physical evidence, their circumstantial evidence,
but we do talk a lot about the slut shaming
that happens. There is a lot about her black book,
and the black book has all of these very important
(27:39):
men who she's supposedly slept with. You know, that's why
there's a huge media circus around this as people want
to hear those names. And I think that the attorneys
on both sides are just constantly trying to keep the
names out because these are very important men in the
area at the time. So as we move forward, do
you think of these people? So we've got Alexandra, who
(28:02):
I guess it doesn't matter. She has gotten immunity, so
she's not going to be held or she won't be
convicted no matter what. But with Evelyn and Donald and Bill,
which we don't know very much about these three people,
who is the strongest case against Do you think it's Evelyn?
I mean, if we're looking at first degree murder, obviously
(28:22):
this was planned kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
It seems like you have equivalent cases against both Donald
and Evelyn, and a lot of that has to do
with you know, you have the physical evidence found at
Donald's place. He also the gun, which you can't conclude
is a murder weapon, but appears that he had the
ability or Evelyn did at Donald's place to shoot John.
(28:50):
And maybe Bill did you know, I don't know how
he's factoring into this at this point. But then you
also have all the evidence at Evelyn's place, you know,
And I think it really just comes back down to, well,
doesn't sound like Donald can alibi himself and say I
wasn't there. Of course, my daughter can go into my basement,
(29:10):
you know, and spend time down.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
There in terms of hacking up John. But as I.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Mentioned earlier in this story, is well, who benefits from
this homicide? And the reality is is Donald probably financially
benefits the most because he's preserving his criminal operation through
the rare way and then buzzling two million dollars, and
(29:37):
with the level of income that Evelyn seems to possess
without actually having a job to point to as being
the source of the income, suggests that she's getting the
pass through money from her father, so she's financially benefiting.
And John became sort of a problem and he was eliminating.
(30:00):
So I think you have equal cases against both Evelyn
and Donald.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
I don't know about Bill.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Yeah, right now, we're just gonna deal with Evelyn because
this is her trial, and whatever the jury heard was
enough to convict her of his murder. There's still more
to this story, but she is given the death penalty,
which is something for a woman in nineteen forty six
in Canada. I was pretty surprised.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
Yeah, I'm surprised. Okay, So before we.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Talk about what happens after that, let me kind of
clean up everybody else. Bill is released of all charges
for everything. He wasn't dating her or sleeping with her
when Peter was born. They've proven that, and there's zero
evidence that he was involved at all with John's murder. Now,
he might have been, but they don't have enough evidence
(30:46):
and so ultimately they just let him go. I'm assuming
you agree with that. I mean, I think we just
think there's what is there he might have done something,
but there is nothing that says other than her word,
that he did anything.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Yeah, you know, it doesn't sound like they have any
type of case against Bill, and you know, I don't
know if he had any role in it. But I
also think that potentially Evelyn and Donald being arrested possibly
saved Bill's life.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I agree. I mean he could have been well, he
could have been a patsy. They could have killed him.
I mean, we don't know. Yeah, you're right. I mean
they're very dangerous people. Donald. I don't agree with this.
He's found guilty of being an accessory to John's murder
five years, He's given five years, plus another five years
for robbing you know, the transport agency, and he's released
(31:35):
from prison in nineteen fifty one. I mean, he is out.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
I'm surprised at that.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
I'm a little bit too. And I don't know, it
doesn't sound like Alexandra, his wife, testified against him. It
sounds like they just didn't have enough evidence and maybe
I don't know. I mean, between the witnesses saying she
had the car. They're putting her with that car. She's
admitting she drove the car, and I think Donald probably
just said, listen, just because this stuff is at my
place doesn't mean I had any involvement, and they couldn't
(32:01):
prove anything. Yeah, you know, I mean his daughter has
access to his house. Likewise, he and his wife have
access to her house.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
So and I think that that's when in assessing Donald,
it really does come down to what could they prove
in terms of where he was at at the time
John went missing, was likely killed. What kind of freedom
of movement does Evelyn have into and out of John's house? So,
(32:29):
you know, on that front, I can kind of see, Yeah,
maybe they don't have as strong of a case against Donald.
I just go back to who benefited the most from
John's homicide, and it really is Donald.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Well listen to the rest of this. She is given
the death penalty, but right after her sentencing she gets
mystery money together. It's not her dad. I don't know
where she's getting this money from, but she hires a
well known attorney.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
I think she has probably multiple wealth.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
The men that, based on past relationships, are concerned that
she might divulge that they were, you know, having a
sexual affair with her or whatever that they're now saying, Okay,
we'll give you money in order to keep your mouth
shut about our relationship together.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Yeah, so she hires a guy named John Robinette. He
appeals her conviction. Of course, he cites twenty five procedural
issues in her case. He says many of the statements
used against Evelyn and Court were improperly obtained by police.
He says that they did not adequately caution her after
(33:38):
charging her with murder. Remember they held her on vagrancy
charges where they cautioned her. So they don't have Miranda
warnings in Canada, but they have something very similar and
they did it for vagrancy apparently, but not for the
murder charges. And I would not be telling you about
appeals points if it did not work. And it worked.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
On my other podcast, we interviewed a Canadian law enforcement
officer and they have a at least during the course of
his career, which is more recent than nineteen forty six.
They definitely have a very very similar requirement to what
we know as Miranda here in the United States. And
(34:19):
I can't remember what he called it. And so I
can see where Evelyn is taken into custody and they
basically let her know her rights now that she's in custody,
and then she never leaves custody and is now in
essence arrested and charged with murder because of her custodial
(34:43):
status at least here in the United States, you know,
that's where she needs to be told what her rights are.
In addition, there's also a scenario where because she's in
custody and she's represented by an attorne, then law enforcement
interviewing her for more charges can sometimes get a little dicey.
(35:07):
And I know, you know, because currently there's been some
people I'd like to go in and talk to who
have been convicted and possibly we're involved in other crimes.
But the DA's involved in the conviction are saying, don't
not well, he's represented and he's got an appeal going on, right,
(35:28):
And this is not Joe DeAngelo Golden State killer. It's
another guy, you know. But now her defense attorney is basically,
you know, probably doing a pretty decent job in terms
of going look at you know, law enforcement, the prosecutor's side,
whatever they're called up there you know, they they misstepped m.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Yeah, and this is a successful argument, and Evelyn is retried,
and this time her attorney so she keeps this attorney.
Robinette emphasiz this the possibility that Donald the dad, not Evelyn,
killed John, and he is very convincing that, just like
(36:10):
what you said, who really had the motive here, who
had threatened John in the past, who was going to
be exposed and arrested and fired and publicly humiliated in
all of that stuff, when John was going to come
out and report this, and John had already gone to
the police. So Robinette says all of this, and it worked,
(36:30):
and she has found not guilty of murdering her husband.
In this second trial, she pleads guilty to being an
accessory after the fact, but she is only then sentenced
to four years in prison. And it's not over yet.
But I will say, I mean, boy, when you have
a good attorney, they can work wonders. And he knew
exactly where to go with this. And I don't agree
(36:51):
with this either.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
I don't necessarily agree with the outcome, but I think
I agree with the strategy. Yeah, yeah, because all Robinette
has to do for Evelynce is create reasonable doubt at
least that would be the term here in the United States,
and imagine it's a similar criteria, you know, for the
Canadian court process, and that's what he could do because,
(37:14):
you know, particularly in terms of the physical evidence side,
I'm trying to think of, is there anything that there
would be things that I'd be looking for, let's say,
during the crime scene investigation that would support let's say
Evelyn's presence, you know, at the time of the homicide,
you know, gunshot. There might be something as an example,
(37:36):
And this is just kind of fabricating based on the
circumstances the type of evidence I'd be looking for. If
John were truly shot in the head and possibly shot
in the head multiple times, the shooter potentially could have
backspatter from the entry wounds of the gunshots, in which
blood and brain matter can spatter back onto the gun
(37:57):
as well as the shooter's hand, the sleeves down on
the pants leg. You could have shattered hair if it's
a close enough shot to the head where that shattered
hair would end up depositing on the shooter. So of course,
trying to collect let's say Evelyn's clothing and Donald's clothing.
In this day and age, that would be a form
(38:18):
of evidence to try to determine who actually was the shooter. Now,
John could have been shot from a distance, and you
don't have any of that back spatter coming back onto
the shooter, you know, And then now you have to
rely on the interviews and statements and finger pointing as
to well, who really is the shooter in this case?
Speaker 2 (38:36):
But if he's shot from a distance, wouldn't that have
done damage to the packer, which the owner didn't mention
any kind of damage except hey, where's my cover to
this seat? Wouldn't there a bullet have gone somewhere?
Speaker 4 (38:47):
Right?
Speaker 3 (38:48):
So when I say a distant you know, with a
thirty two caliber revolver, the back spatter is going to
be relatively minimal, you know. So you're talking about a
very close range shot, you know, and I'm just going
to throw out, like, you know, within two feet, and
unless there's actual shooting, we would do what's called distance determinations.
(39:10):
But you'd also try to get a sense for the
power of this this particular handgun and this particular ammo.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
Of course, the more powerful the weapon, the more gases
that are discharged.
Speaker 3 (39:22):
From the weapon, let's say, like a three fifty seven magnum,
there's a greater likelihood of having more blood brain matter
coming back, either as backspatter or from the rupture of
the skull itself. And now you see the shooter get
a fair amount of biological evidence on them. Okay, thirty
two caliber is not a very powerful weapon, but it's
(39:42):
something that when I say a distance, I'm talking yeah,
like the shooters actually within the vehicle that's where John
is shot, got it, but not up close.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
It sounds like John's settled. So you know, you've got
Donald who has been the scapegoat for Robinette, and as
an accessory, she has been given four years in prison.
The prosecutors are pissed off, and so she goes on
trial for murdering her infant son. Robinette does not have
(40:13):
anything clever except to say, we've got to get her
out of the death penalty, because they were going to
go for the death penalty here. And he could not
figure out a way to say somebody else did it.
It's clear she did it, so he said, because of
her trauma and abuse at the hands of her parents
as a child, she had been emotionally stunted. She didn't
(40:36):
understand that there were consequences for her actions, and the
jury buys it, and she has found guilty of manslaughter
and she's given a life sentence, right, so she spared
the death penalty. She's supposed to be spending life in prison.
But I think you probably know I'm heading down a
road where she does not spend life in prison for this.
(40:57):
So now she's been implicated and involved in two murders.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
I guess, you know, I just don't know what criteria
up in Canada is used to justify the death penalty.
You know, I'm really struggling to see, you know, the
death of the infant's son, how there would be an
argument for, you know, first degree murder with special circumstances
(41:22):
if in fact Peter was strangled that show's intent. Does
this come down to Peter is crying, Evelyn is just
getting so frustrated with this baby crying that she just
acts in sort of in the heat of the moment
and strangles Peter. This would be more kin to like
(41:43):
a second degree murder type of scenario in California. Manslaughter.
Speaker 4 (41:49):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
I'm not having too much issue with what Evelyn is
ultimately convicted of. I'm surprised that if it's a manslaughter
of this ten day old infant, that would be a
life sentence, right.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
I don't know why that was a sentence. I will
tell you she does not serve life. She only serves
around eleven years total. In nineteen fifty eight, she's paroled.
She's only thirty eight years old. She gets a new
identity and totally falls off the radar. She's fully pardoned
in nineteen eighty five. According to this newspaper, I mean,
(42:24):
I have no idea. This is what it says. Her
government file remains sealed after she was granted a royal pejorative.
I guess is that what I would say?
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Yeah, I have to rely on the attorneys in the
no to describe what that means.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Yeah, I would say, okay. Her government file remain sealed
after she was granted a pardon in eighty five, a
special pardon that is awarded an exceptional cases of substantial
injustice or undue hardship, which would not seem to apply
an Evlyn Dick's case. But many believe she had friends
in high places who helped her get this pardon. As
a wider strategy to muzzle stories about the people she
(42:59):
was having sex with. Yeah, so we're back to the
Little Black Book. You know, this is when she's now
sixty five and she gets this full pardon where her
case is basically you know, sealed, so nobody knows anything
about it. And this is decades later.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
I mean, gosh, that's what it sounds like to me,
you know, because it seems like that, you know, the
Christ well, she was actually acquitted of John's homicide, right
or of his murder.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
She was given four years as an accessory.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Accessory murder, okay, and then and then life for Peter's murder.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Right.
Speaker 4 (43:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Again, it's it's it's it's hard for me to to
to figure out the life sentence, which seems like it
might be excessive, just depending upon you know, what kind
of case the prosecutors laid out.
Speaker 4 (43:50):
But yeah, the.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Black Book, the people in the Black Book, sounds like
she had some a at least one deep pocketed person
that was supporting her to be able to hire the
fancy attorney. There may be multiple depocketed people who, of course,
over time, you know, probably continue to have influence and
(44:11):
at any point if Evelyn ever felt that she had
been betrayed by any of them. She could have divulged
her secrets and so they're just trying to protect their asses,
would be my guess.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Yeah. There were, of course rumors of where she went.
People have been trying to figure out where she went,
who she became afterwards, reporters and biographers. They said some
people thought she moved to Winnipeg under the name Betty.
Other people thought she married a wealthy man and left town.
That actually seems on brand, and others insist she stayed
(44:43):
somewhere in Ontario. I don't really care what she did
after she got out of prison. What I care about
is a statement that you made long long ago, which
was when we found out that Peter had been strangled
and then encased in cement into a suitcase. This baby,
(45:03):
this newborn baby, she did that, and she participated somehow
in the murder of her husband. This is someone who
is capable of removing an obstacle that is stopping her
from living the life she wants to live. And that
makes me concerned for whomever she was, whomever she encountered
(45:25):
after she left the life of Evel and Dick. And
that's that we don't know if she killed other people
because we don't know who she is.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
Yeah, she's a dangerous woman. She was thirty eight when
she gets out.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Yeah, she would be one hundred and four last year.
I would think not, but I mean, listen, she lived
to at least sixty five because she got an official pardon,
but nobody knew where she was when that happened.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
Yeah, because I'm just thinking, Okay, how would I figure
out who?
Speaker 4 (45:56):
You know, who she became?
Speaker 3 (45:58):
And you know, one way, is she still a child
bearing age at age thirty eight when she gets out?
Does she have any children? Have they had any children?
Are they up in the genealogy databases? You know, would
we be able to triangulate back and identify Evelyn via
That means, you know, if there was a reason, you know,
(46:20):
a justifiable reason to track her down, that's an avenue
to pursue.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
You know.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Of course there's the investigator side, but I think just
through genetics, just through genealogy, there's a way to identify
what ended up happening to Evelyn.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Well, it's possible that her daughter, Heather is still alive
because she was born in forty one, but we don't
know what happened to Heather, And I don't know if
there would be a reason. It's interesting to hear that
if there needed to be a reason, there are possibilities,
and Heather might have had children, you know, yep.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
Most early, and you know that there is a source
that could be used for genealogy and you could potentially
we identify Evelyn using DNA.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
It's interesting to bring up things like the slut shaming
and finger pointing and the black books and stuff like that.
And normally for me, I feel like it's focusing on
the victims and the prosecutor or the media or the perpetrator,
the offenders being the ones who are doing the slut shaming.
Who are you know, retraumatizing survivors, revictimizing victims, all of that,
(47:26):
But to have the offender who clearly is an offender
for me to say, God, I don't like the way
this trial's going. I mean, I know, ultimately you have
to go down different roads, but this was a pretty
ikey road for the prosecutors. At some point when you
go above and beyond explaining somebody's sex life, I think
that having that on display with a very messy case
(47:49):
involving a family and threats and everything. Nobody's perfect in
this story. We almost never have perfect people, Paul.
Speaker 3 (47:57):
Well, crime is messy, right, No, I kind of along
those lines. You know, this is where you know, there's
there's reasons why prior cases, prior behaviors by the defendant
don't get admitted into court because they're overly prejudicial. This
(48:18):
is where the judge has to, you know, step in
and the defense attorneys need to object. So you know,
there is attempts at protection from what ended up happening
to Evelyn in terms of her sexual relationships with all
these men. A lot of at least the way you're
telling it to me, doesn't seem to have any bearing
(48:39):
on the crime itself. It really is just prejudicial. And
of course that also could potentially influence jury selection.
Speaker 4 (48:48):
You know, if the media is portraying this, you.
Speaker 3 (48:50):
Know, after prelim and now they have to select a
jury and they've seen the headlines about you know, this,
this woman and her relationship, how is that going to
impact a fair trial? So I think I definitely agree
with you. It appears that Evelyn, as a defendant, her
(49:11):
right to a fair trial was potentially violated and ultimately
She ended up getting an attorney that was able to
get her conviction overturned.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
Mm hmm, and let a very very, very dangerous woman
out into the world to do god knows what. Hopefully
Jos live a quiet life and be done with it,
but I somehow doubt it. I don't know. Next week,
Let's hope we have a less dangerous woman. If they
are the offender, will see. We'll see that's unlikely. Female
(49:45):
offenders are some of the most dangerous I have found.
Speaker 4 (49:48):
They're the most conniving for sure.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Okay, I will see you next week.
Speaker 4 (49:56):
Rust up, all right, We'll do take care.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
Thanks. This has been an exactly right production for our
sources and show notes go to Exactlyrightmedia dot com slash
Buried Bones sources.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
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Speaker 2 (50:43):
And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life solving America's
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I'm Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm a journalist who's spent the last twenty five years
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Speaker 3 (00:09):
And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
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Speaker 3 (00:21):
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
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cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is buried Bones.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
Hey Paul, Hey Kate, how are you?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I'm fine because I know everything about this story, and
you don't know anything about this story, and I know
you've been thinking about it, haven't you.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Well, yeah, well it's so unusual because walking down this
John an Evelyn relationship and John ends up dead and
partially dismembered, and you're thinking, Okay, you know they took
care of a problem. But then you tell me there's
another body in a suitcase in Evelyn's residence, And now
I'm I'm extraordinarily curious as to where this is going
(01:34):
to go.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I will say this part of the story surprised me
a little bit. So let me go back just in
case people have forgotten the details of the story, which
I cannot imagine you have, but you might have. So
we are in Ontario, Canada. We are in Hamilton, which
is a medium sized city. Nineteen forty six, mid March,
Torso is found partially dressed, and it turns out to
(01:58):
be a man named John Dick. He was a streetcar
driver for a transportation agency in the city. He worked
it sounds like near or with his father in law,
whose name is Donald, and Donald's daughter is John's wife,
and her name is Evelyn. Certainly they had different approaches
to marriage because she admitted that she's been cheating on
(02:22):
him before, during, and after marriage. That their marriage only
lasted a few months. They had a quick romance, a
quick engagement, a quick wedding, and then a quick ending.
After three months, he moved out into his cousin's house
and Evelyn took up with a young man a couple
of years older than her, named Bill. And now the
police want to know about everything that's happening in this house.
(02:47):
She had a car, a packer that had blood in it.
That was Type O, which was John's type. There are
bone fragments and teeth pieces in ashes outside of their house.
The police have now ascended the staircase to the attic
and have found a suitcase that has a body in it.
And that's where I left off with you, because we
(03:11):
weren't sure before we get to that other body. We
weren't sure about the father in law's involvement. Maybe the
mother in law's involved too. We know that John threatened
Evelyn's father, Donald by exposing that Donald has been feeling
I mean, in today's money upwards of two million dollars
from this city department, which was very serious. So now
(03:34):
you've got somebody who's been threatened and he's very clearly
has body parts at this location. They're obviously involved in
some way. The question is how involved is Evelyn? Is
she just covering it up or was she directly involved?
Doesn't matter? I think it will matter how involved she was.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Oh, it absolutely does matter.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
And you know, I think one of the big questions
with the second body in the suitcase is who has
access to this location? You know, is this something where
people like Donald the father can freely come and go.
I completely forgot about Bill, you know, this new boyfriend
of hers, you know, and what is his potential involvement
(04:18):
in John's homicide?
Speaker 4 (04:20):
And then who is the second body is this? You know?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
On one hand, maybe this is all wrapped around Donald
trying to protect his financial interests with this this I'm
assuming an embezzlement type scheme out of the railway.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Or do we have some sort of predator you do?
Speaker 3 (04:39):
We have this female serial killer on the loose, So
I'm very curious to see how this progresses.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yep. And in the check box of where we feel
about Evelyn and Evelyn's involvement in anything criminal other than
being at a house, and it's seemingly covering up this
you know crime. So far, the police have said, well,
you know, they held her on vagrancy charges, which, just
as a little explainer, the vacrancy charges had been everything
(05:08):
from sex work to being homeless to you know, I'm loitering.
I mean, it was like a catch all, and I
don't know if it's still like that now. I know
that vacrancy has been under fire, that sort of you
cannot arrest somebody simply for vagrancy. Is that right? At
this point?
Speaker 3 (05:23):
I think the equivalent statute that I'm aware of out
of California is, you know this six forty seven PC,
which has all sorts of those subdivisions like sex work,
the drunken public. You know, there's various subcategories under six
forty seven. It sounds like this vagrancy statute up there
(05:47):
in Canada.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
It's a big catch all, is my understanding. Yeah, But
they're holding her on these charges, that's why they're you know,
then going in and looking through the attic, they find
the suitcase and they open it up and inside they
find a baby.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Oh that's not where I thought this was.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Going, I know. So remember I told you she had
a series of kids. There was a stillborn baby. There
was a girl who's clearly alive, the one that she
said cut her face, and that's where all the blood
came from. This is Peter. And when Peter left the hospital,
which was this was just a year and a half
to two years ago, the year before she met John.
(06:29):
So John is not the father. When she left the
hospital with Peter, he was ten days old and he
was healthy. She said that she took him to an
adoption agency. And obviously she didn't now what the pathologist says,
and I wish I had more details about this. What
the pathologist said was they believe that Peter had been strangled,
(06:50):
and he had been encased in cement and then put
into this suitcase, and he had been up in the attic.
I'm assuming John didn't know about this for you know,
two years. Sure, so they're surprised, to say the least.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
But it also speaks volumes about Evelyn. Assuming Evelyn is
the one that killed Peter, She's very willing to resort
to homicidal violence to get rid of somebody that is
cramping what I'm going to assume is cramping her lifestyle,
extrapolating that out to John, you know, And then the
big question is is that who else helped Evelyn? Did
(07:29):
anybody else help Evelyn? We know Evelyn is involved in
aspects of John's homicide. She's the one that is getting
that packered that car from the auto place and then
returning that car, you know, so, and that car has
obviously been used to transport John's body to dispose of
the remains. And whether or not John is killed in
(07:50):
that car, he's cut up in that car.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Who knows at this point.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
So Evelyn is involved, but to what extent is she
the killer? Did somebody else kill John? And then Evelyn
helped dispose of the body, maybe even helped with the dismemberment.
Right now, we don't have any information, but you throw Peter.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Into the mix.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
In all likelihood, Evelyn is the one who strangled this
ten day old infant and then try to hide that
body with the cement. But again sloppy. Why is that
body still inside the residence inside a suitcase. There's so
many better ways to go about disposing of that body than.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
That process that nobody had found it true, with the
exception of you know, of course, her being under suspicion
for murdering her husband. And then they go up there
and start looking around, and I don't know how much
her parents know. I do want to go back to
John because they've searched the house, they find this body.
They're stunned by the discovery of this infant baby, and
(08:55):
then of course the bone fragments and the teeth of John.
So then they say, we need to get the hell
over to Donald and Alexandra's house. So Evelyn's parents big
search and this is what they find, and maybe this
will help you figure out the order of things, because
right now I'm curious about the order of events. They
find a pair of John shoes in the basement which
(09:17):
are blood stained, and there is also a large butcher
knife and an axe, neither of which seemed to have
blood on him, you know, according to the media, but
who knows. They also find a thirty two caliber revolver
that a ballistic expert would later say could have caused
the gunshot wounds. Remember, we don't have casings or bullets
or anything on his body. Does that make sense? Can
(09:40):
they kind of eyeball that and say, wow, this looks
like this kind of a bullet could have grazed his
body in this way, so it was probably a thirty
That doesn't seem like hard evidence to me.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
No, I can't really see where they could draw any
type of conclusion. You know, of course, a larger caliber
bullet could potentially leave a larger grazed wound. Dealing with
such an elastic surface in terms of the skin, there's
so many variables at play unless there's something just significantly
(10:09):
unusual that I can't think about. I think all they
could say is is that these appear consistent with the
Gray's wounds from bullets, and there's no way you can
tie a gun or a caliber of weapon to that.
So I think they overstretched on that conclusion.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
I mean, at least it just shows that that Donald
has a gun. You know it's there. Yeah, So they
also find I thought you'd appreciate this. They also find
a magazine called Famous Detective Stories. I think this is
different from the true detective trash stuff we talked about before,
but still there is an article that they has been
(10:51):
here you're marked. That's how to dispose of a corpse
through incineration one oh one, how to do it. I
don't want to blame these magazines. I think it's sort
of silly. But at the same time, you know, we're
not talking about crime porn here. We're talking about how
to on how to get rid of a body. So
it sounds like Donald was doing some research. If we
think that this is connected.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
For sure, you know we see this today. There's reasons
why suspects computers and phones and tablets are confiscated during
an investigation and then searched underneath a warrant to see, well,
what are they looking at and what are they researching
leading up to the you know, the timeframe of a
crime being committed, and oftentimes, as I mentioned before, you know,
(11:34):
most of these offenders have never killed before, and so
now they're trying to find information on how to do it.
And it's just you know, here we're talking nineteen forty six.
You've got the paper magazine that has an article that
just happens to fit with how John's. Part of John's
(11:55):
body was disposed of.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Well, they go back also and continue to do searching
of work the torso was found, because they're hoping to
find more information about whomever this person is who dumped
the torso in the rural area. And they find a
striped shirt that's found in the woods and it's identified
as the one that John was last seen wearing. The
shirt was completely buttoned up as it would have been
(12:19):
when it was worn, and both arms of the shirt
were cut off and the shirt was stained with blood.
I can't even picture what that means. So what happened
that you can tell so far? You know, the shoes,
there's blood, there's a butcher knife at Donald's house, at
her parents' house, and then the incineration. It sounds like
happened at their house, at Evelyn and John's house.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Right, Yeah, Well, and it appears that John is killed
and in all likelihood, like I talked about before, it
probably a gunshot wound to the head, and that can't
be proven because his head is gone and presumably incinerated.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
But it does not appear that whoever.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Is cutting up John is taking the time to take
the clothes off. You know, they're literally just cutting his
arms off, you know, sleeves and all. Now, the pathologists
should be able to determine from the cut ends of
the Let's say that the humorous on both arms, you
know what type of tool was used.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
Was a saw used, you.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Know, based on the tool marks that are present in
the end of the bone, or is it more consistent
with the axe. And that's not necessarily an easy thing.
You know, you have to take multiple swings with the
axe in order to be able to hack through the
say the upper upper arm, and there's a good chance
you're going to miss and you're probably going to hit
part of the Torso doesn't sound like you have any
(13:45):
information in terms of the pathologists rendering an opinion on
the type of tool marks present on the bone ends.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
No, no, And you know, like they said that the
axe and the other weapon that they found, it didn't
appear to have blood. I'm sure it did, they just
couldn't see it. Yeah, So what I mean, maybe not,
I don't know what.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
All depends on how how well the tool has been cleaned,
how bloody it got in the first place. You are
dealing with the dead body. So now the heart is
not pumping. You hack through these long bones and the
arms and the legs. I mean, there is going to
be blood that seeps out, but it's not gushing out
(14:22):
because there's no pump present. The heart is done. So
you know, it's possible that, let's say that if this
axe or this butcher knife had been used, you know,
blood staining likely would be present, but it may not
be present where now it's seeping down in between the
blade and the handle and all that they just cleaned
it up.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Okay, well, so far this seems pretty damning. Is this circumstantial?
I mean, how would you label this case so far?
Against You've got Donald and you've got Evelyn. We don't
know anything about Bill just yet, and then we don't
know about them all Alexandra.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Well, there's evidence. I will tell you from a physical
evidence standpoint, it is a strong case that these individuals
are involved. What you don't have is who's doing what
right And so this is where interviewing and it sounds
like if you've got parts of the crime scene at
(15:21):
Donald's house and parts at Evelyn's house, sounds like, well,
we have multiple people involved, and you know, you think
father daughter may be very loyal to each other.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Maybe not.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
You know, you have to kind of play one against
the other in terms of what their statements are and
the jeopardy each one is subjected to. But then is
there a third person? And again I go back to
this new lover of Evelyn's, this Bill Evelyn sounds like
she's somebody who would be willing to seduce a man,
to get that man to commit a crime for her,
(15:56):
and then probably eliminate that man as a witness after
let's say the homicide of John is done.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Let me tell you their theory first, just about the crime,
and then I'll tell you about arrests. So I think
this is what we've been talking about, the theory that
the prosecutors say, once they've gathered all of this information,
they say that John was murdered in the packer, likely
from a gunshot wound too the head, like you said,
but of course the head has been destroyed, presumably in
the fire. It's theorized that he was dismembered at Donald's house,
(16:27):
but the limbs were incinerated in Evelyn's furnace, and then
John's torso was dumped in the woods, probably because it
was too It was actually too big to fit into
the furnace, so I think they went, oh shit, we
got to put it somewhere, so they dumped it, you know,
in this place. That all makes sense to you, I'm
assuming rise or anything you disagree with in the prosecutor's case.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
No, that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I think it's it's interesting that they didn't bother to
further cut up the torso, to incinerate it. It's possible
that once they kind of got to the point where
they did with the dismemberment of John, they're going, oh,
this is unpleasant.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
You know, we just were not going to bother with
the rest of the body.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Let's just go dump it, you know, because it takes
a certain what do you want to say, disposition, you know,
to hack up a body and do it without possibly
having to go throw up or going oh, I wasn't
expecting this.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
I think they abandoned.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
The body disposal process early, considering that Donald had a
magazine article on how to dispose of a body through incineration.
So it seems like they didn't carry out the plan
as far as they could have in terms of getting
rid of the body through incineration.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
We've got some arrests. So remember they were holding Evelyn
on vacrancy charges, really vague vagrancy charges, which to me
it sounded like because she doesn't have a full time job,
maybe you know, I mean stealing money, it was just
a way for her to away from them, to keep
a hold of her for a little bit. Yeap, okay.
So they have brought charges for John's murder against Evelyn
(18:06):
and Donald and the mom Alexandra, who they think was
involved also, and Bill, who is Evelyn's I mean, I
think boyfriend is a pretty loose term for what he
probably was. I think you're right. I think he was
probably a little bit of a patsy. So Evelyn just
starts turning on people, which doesn't surprise me. She implicates
Bill in the murders of John and this baby. I
(18:30):
will not drag this out. She didn't even know Bill
when she was pregnant. I was going to say with Peter,
I mean, what is she thinking. So she's saying he
strangled my kid, and it was easily proven you know
that this was not the case. So I don't know
if she's just throwing she's not smart, she's throwing stuff out,
but she is trying to pin this on everybody but herself.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Sure, you know, and again we've just seen this lack
of awareness and knowledge and how the crime scene has handled,
how sloppy it is. And now her statements are sloppy.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
In many ways.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
You know, this is something that those investigators would be
able to easily see through. And when she's making those
types of statements which are obvious lies, you know, those
are just like ding ding ding, you know, both for
the investigators going okay, you know we're on the right track,
and for the prosecutors who will put that information in
front of a jury.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
You know. So and in part it may just be,
you know, she's what twenty five years old.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
In all likelihood, you know, this homicide of John is
much more complicated than what she thought it was going
to be you know, it's a ten day old infant.
She came up with the excuse of well, the reason
this infant is not Peter's not around anymore is because
I gave him up for adoption, when in reality he's
(19:52):
in case and Cement in a suitcase in her attic.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Well, Evelyn and Bell are charged with the murder of Peter,
and you know Bill will get out of that once
they realize the timeline a little bit. So Donald and
his wife are both charged additionally with John's murder, and
Donald is, on top of that, charged with stealing money
from the transport agency that he worked for. So this
(20:17):
becomes a huge media sensation, as you can imagine, front
page news all across the country. Lots of people show
up trying to grab a seat and they want to
gawk at someone they describe in the newspapers in the
forties as a femfetale, which that really pisses me off.
It's so dismissive. But they of course have photos of
her sort of like lounging in this chair. She is
(20:39):
an attractive woman, she's very hip looking. This sets up
for this media circus because her sex life comes out
all over this trial. And this is the slutshaming that
I was talking about and how it plays into the trial,
because there is, for me, the Evelyn who very clearly
was involved in two murders. But then there is also
(21:00):
the Evelyn who you know, when they put her on
trial it is just like your horror and you did
this because you're a whore. So it's hard to reconcile
the two together. And so I want to talk about
That's what we're heading next, is getting a fair trial.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
In terms of the slut shaming aspect of Evelyn. I
guess I would need to know, Okay, what is being
attributed to how the media is portraying her, and then
what is how is she being portrayed in court? You know,
because in some aspects her relationships do play in to
(21:37):
the people the prosecutors laying the groundwork for motive, if
you will. But is it completely needed, you know, I
think it all depends on how the prosecutors are laying
their case out.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Well, I wasn't going to tell you this until a
little bit later. I'm going to read you this a
little bit from the trial right now, just to give
you an idea of what it was like. She's on
the stand. Now, this is a preliminary hearing, but she
also testified at her trial. She is on the stand
and the prosecutor says, tell the court how many men
(22:12):
you've had sexual intercourse with? And she says maybe one
hundred and fifty. Now, I don't know if she's gigging
him or if that's accurate. Either way, that's her truth.
I want you, this is the lawyer, I want you
to name these men for the court right now. Who
are they? She says, well, his son for one. She's
(22:35):
looking at the judge. The lawyer says, were you indicating
his honor? And she says, yes, the judge's son. The
judge immediately struck the testimony from the record and issued
a restraining order on the publication of the names of
these one hundred and fifty men that she's talking about.
That's where this trial is going. And I'm not saying that.
You know, some parts of this are probably going to
(22:57):
be applicable, but this was pretty blatantly framed around her
being this temptress. So boy, I mean, I don't want
to ever defend Evelyn, but this is sort of a
case where I went this is gross. It felt so
gross reading the transcripts.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
You know, well, that's that's extending out past what I
would say, you know, the nexus of the crime is, yeah,
you know, I think her coming out and admitting that
she ended up having sex with a man within a
few days of being married, you know, really establishing how
she maintained a lifestyle involving multiple men outside of her
(23:34):
relationship with John kind of establishes this dynamic where people
would go, Okay, I can see where she really never
loved or cared for John, you know. So I can
see utilizing the relationships surrounding the crime to underscore sort
of the dynamic between Evelyn and John, but not bringing
(23:56):
in her entire love life from five years four. You know,
that doesn't that doesn't equate. That sounds prejudicial.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Let's switch over to another woman who takes in her
stage here, and that's Evelyn's mother, who flips on her.
So the men in this family seem sort of strangely
loyal or in this story no women or not. Alexandros
flips on Evelyn. She agrees to testify for the prosecutor
in exchange for legal immunity. Okay, so remember they kind
(24:25):
of took a net and arrested everybody and then said
let's sort it out. She does not say too much,
but she does say that even though Evelyn says, yeah,
I got the packer, but I was with my parents
the whole time, she said, there was a long time
when she was not around. On March sixth, and she
said that before the torso was discovered, but after John
(24:48):
had been you know, declared missing, that Evelyn had said
John's dead and you better keep your mouth shut about it.
And that's what she said to her mother. Boy this family.
So this is her mom testifying. This is specifically her trial,
so she's not testifying against her own husband yet, but
this is this is the way this is going. Are
(25:09):
you surprised by that?
Speaker 1 (25:11):
No?
Speaker 3 (25:12):
You know, I think it really comes down to the
family dynamics, because you know, when we started talking about
Evelyn and her upbringing and how it sounded like she
had an abusive childhood with Donald and Alexandra, I kind
of wonder what the relationship between Donald and Alexandra was, Like,
maybe he's abusive to her obviously, you know, with mom
(25:35):
flipping at this point, it's self preservation and her self
preservation is superseding any mother daughter feelings that she has
with Evelyn.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Well, and it sounds like I don't know how much
knowledge Alexandra had, but enough to be able to say, well,
I'm I'm not gonna risk my own skin for my daughter.
Evelyn's not particularly helping herself. She keeps changing her story
a lot. Time magazine reported on it, and they said
that at some point she said a gang from another
town must have killed him. She said that also the
(26:10):
gang was hired by Bill the boyfriend, and that actually
Bill did the killing, but her father, Donald was the
one who strong harmed him into it. And you know
Donald hated John. So who else you know, would have
been responsible for this. So the one thing she does
admit to is she says, you know, I did drive
(26:31):
that packer to the location where we dumped the Torso
so she's admitting to be I guess it would it
be an accessory, is at what she's admitting to if
if she's kind of covering it up.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Yeah, you know, she's she's minimizing her role. That's what
it sounds like. You know, all these statements that seem
to conflict about you know, who actually is doing what.
You know, it's pointing fingers at the other players and
not her right, she's saying, well, I only did this
everybody else, did you know the really bad stuff? And
(27:05):
she's kind of taking a shotgun approach with her statements.
She's conflicting herself multiple times. You know, this just all
speaks to she's making things up on the fly with
hope something sticks.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Yeah, she really is, and not being very smart about it. So,
you know, a lot of this case covers the evidence,
and we've talked about their physical evidence, their circumstantial evidence,
but we do talk a lot about the slut shaming
that happens. There is a lot about her black book,
and the black book has all of these very important
(27:39):
men who she's supposedly slept with. You know, that's why
there's a huge media circus around this as people want
to hear those names. And I think that the attorneys
on both sides are just constantly trying to keep the
names out because these are very important men in the
area at the time. So as we move forward, do
you think of these people? So we've got Alexandra, who
(28:02):
I guess it doesn't matter. She has gotten immunity, so
she's not going to be held or she won't be
convicted no matter what. But with Evelyn and Donald and Bill,
which we don't know very much about these three people,
who is the strongest case against Do you think it's Evelyn?
I mean, if we're looking at first degree murder, obviously
(28:22):
this was planned kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
It seems like you have equivalent cases against both Donald
and Evelyn, and a lot of that has to do
with you know, you have the physical evidence found at
Donald's place. He also the gun, which you can't conclude
is a murder weapon, but appears that he had the
ability or Evelyn did at Donald's place to shoot John.
(28:50):
And maybe Bill did you know, I don't know how
he's factoring into this at this point. But then you
also have all the evidence at Evelyn's place, you know,
And I think it really just comes back down to, well,
doesn't sound like Donald can alibi himself and say I
wasn't there. Of course, my daughter can go into my basement,
(29:10):
you know, and spend time down.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
There in terms of hacking up John. But as I.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Mentioned earlier in this story, is well, who benefits from
this homicide? And the reality is is Donald probably financially
benefits the most because he's preserving his criminal operation through
the rare way and then buzzling two million dollars, and
(29:37):
with the level of income that Evelyn seems to possess
without actually having a job to point to as being
the source of the income, suggests that she's getting the
pass through money from her father, so she's financially benefiting.
And John became sort of a problem and he was eliminating.
(30:00):
So I think you have equal cases against both Evelyn
and Donald.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
I don't know about Bill.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Yeah, right now, we're just gonna deal with Evelyn because
this is her trial, and whatever the jury heard was
enough to convict her of his murder. There's still more
to this story, but she is given the death penalty,
which is something for a woman in nineteen forty six
in Canada. I was pretty surprised.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
Yeah, I'm surprised. Okay, So before we.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Talk about what happens after that, let me kind of
clean up everybody else. Bill is released of all charges
for everything. He wasn't dating her or sleeping with her
when Peter was born. They've proven that, and there's zero
evidence that he was involved at all with John's murder. Now,
he might have been, but they don't have enough evidence
(30:46):
and so ultimately they just let him go. I'm assuming
you agree with that. I mean, I think we just
think there's what is there he might have done something,
but there is nothing that says other than her word,
that he did anything.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Yeah, you know, it doesn't sound like they have any
type of case against Bill, and you know, I don't
know if he had any role in it. But I
also think that potentially Evelyn and Donald being arrested possibly
saved Bill's life.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I agree. I mean he could have been well, he
could have been a patsy. They could have killed him.
I mean, we don't know. Yeah, you're right. I mean
they're very dangerous people. Donald. I don't agree with this.
He's found guilty of being an accessory to John's murder
five years, He's given five years, plus another five years
for robbing you know, the transport agency, and he's released
(31:35):
from prison in nineteen fifty one. I mean, he is out.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
I'm surprised at that.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
I'm a little bit too. And I don't know, it
doesn't sound like Alexandra, his wife, testified against him. It
sounds like they just didn't have enough evidence and maybe
I don't know. I mean, between the witnesses saying she
had the car. They're putting her with that car. She's
admitting she drove the car, and I think Donald probably
just said, listen, just because this stuff is at my
place doesn't mean I had any involvement, and they couldn't
(32:01):
prove anything. Yeah, you know, I mean his daughter has
access to his house. Likewise, he and his wife have
access to her house.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
So and I think that that's when in assessing Donald,
it really does come down to what could they prove
in terms of where he was at at the time
John went missing, was likely killed. What kind of freedom
of movement does Evelyn have into and out of John's house? So,
(32:29):
you know, on that front, I can kind of see, Yeah,
maybe they don't have as strong of a case against Donald.
I just go back to who benefited the most from
John's homicide, and it really is Donald.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Well listen to the rest of this. She is given
the death penalty, but right after her sentencing she gets
mystery money together. It's not her dad. I don't know
where she's getting this money from, but she hires a
well known attorney.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
I think she has probably multiple wealth.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
The men that, based on past relationships, are concerned that
she might divulge that they were, you know, having a
sexual affair with her or whatever that they're now saying, Okay,
we'll give you money in order to keep your mouth
shut about our relationship together.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Yeah, so she hires a guy named John Robinette. He
appeals her conviction. Of course, he cites twenty five procedural
issues in her case. He says many of the statements
used against Evelyn and Court were improperly obtained by police.
He says that they did not adequately caution her after
(33:38):
charging her with murder. Remember they held her on vagrancy
charges where they cautioned her. So they don't have Miranda
warnings in Canada, but they have something very similar and
they did it for vagrancy apparently, but not for the
murder charges. And I would not be telling you about
appeals points if it did not work. And it worked.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
On my other podcast, we interviewed a Canadian law enforcement
officer and they have a at least during the course of
his career, which is more recent than nineteen forty six.
They definitely have a very very similar requirement to what
we know as Miranda here in the United States. And
(34:19):
I can't remember what he called it. And so I
can see where Evelyn is taken into custody and they
basically let her know her rights now that she's in custody,
and then she never leaves custody and is now in
essence arrested and charged with murder because of her custodial
(34:43):
status at least here in the United States, you know,
that's where she needs to be told what her rights are.
In addition, there's also a scenario where because she's in
custody and she's represented by an attorne, then law enforcement
interviewing her for more charges can sometimes get a little dicey.
(35:07):
And I know, you know, because currently there's been some
people I'd like to go in and talk to who
have been convicted and possibly we're involved in other crimes.
But the DA's involved in the conviction are saying, don't
not well, he's represented and he's got an appeal going on, right,
(35:28):
And this is not Joe DeAngelo Golden State killer. It's
another guy, you know. But now her defense attorney is basically,
you know, probably doing a pretty decent job in terms
of going look at you know, law enforcement, the prosecutor's side,
whatever they're called up there you know, they they misstepped m.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Yeah, and this is a successful argument, and Evelyn is retried,
and this time her attorney so she keeps this attorney.
Robinette emphasiz this the possibility that Donald the dad, not Evelyn,
killed John, and he is very convincing that, just like
(36:10):
what you said, who really had the motive here, who
had threatened John in the past, who was going to
be exposed and arrested and fired and publicly humiliated in
all of that stuff, when John was going to come
out and report this, and John had already gone to
the police. So Robinette says all of this, and it worked,
(36:30):
and she has found not guilty of murdering her husband.
In this second trial, she pleads guilty to being an
accessory after the fact, but she is only then sentenced
to four years in prison. And it's not over yet.
But I will say, I mean, boy, when you have
a good attorney, they can work wonders. And he knew
exactly where to go with this. And I don't agree
(36:51):
with this either.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
I don't necessarily agree with the outcome, but I think
I agree with the strategy. Yeah, yeah, because all Robinette
has to do for Evelynce is create reasonable doubt at
least that would be the term here in the United States,
and imagine it's a similar criteria, you know, for the
Canadian court process, and that's what he could do because,
(37:14):
you know, particularly in terms of the physical evidence side,
I'm trying to think of, is there anything that there
would be things that I'd be looking for, let's say,
during the crime scene investigation that would support let's say
Evelyn's presence, you know, at the time of the homicide,
you know, gunshot. There might be something as an example,
(37:36):
And this is just kind of fabricating based on the
circumstances the type of evidence I'd be looking for. If
John were truly shot in the head and possibly shot
in the head multiple times, the shooter potentially could have
backspatter from the entry wounds of the gunshots, in which
blood and brain matter can spatter back onto the gun
(37:57):
as well as the shooter's hand, the sleeves down on
the pants leg. You could have shattered hair if it's
a close enough shot to the head where that shattered
hair would end up depositing on the shooter. So of course,
trying to collect let's say Evelyn's clothing and Donald's clothing.
In this day and age, that would be a form
(38:18):
of evidence to try to determine who actually was the shooter. Now,
John could have been shot from a distance, and you
don't have any of that back spatter coming back onto
the shooter, you know, And then now you have to
rely on the interviews and statements and finger pointing as
to well, who really is the shooter in this case?
Speaker 2 (38:36):
But if he's shot from a distance, wouldn't that have
done damage to the packer, which the owner didn't mention
any kind of damage except hey, where's my cover to
this seat? Wouldn't there a bullet have gone somewhere?
Speaker 4 (38:47):
Right?
Speaker 3 (38:48):
So when I say a distant you know, with a
thirty two caliber revolver, the back spatter is going to
be relatively minimal, you know. So you're talking about a
very close range shot, you know, and I'm just going
to throw out, like, you know, within two feet, and
unless there's actual shooting, we would do what's called distance determinations.
(39:10):
But you'd also try to get a sense for the
power of this this particular handgun and this particular ammo.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
Of course, the more powerful the weapon, the more gases
that are discharged.
Speaker 3 (39:22):
From the weapon, let's say, like a three fifty seven magnum,
there's a greater likelihood of having more blood brain matter
coming back, either as backspatter or from the rupture of
the skull itself. And now you see the shooter get
a fair amount of biological evidence on them. Okay, thirty
two caliber is not a very powerful weapon, but it's
(39:42):
something that when I say a distance, I'm talking yeah,
like the shooters actually within the vehicle that's where John
is shot, got it, but not up close.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
It sounds like John's settled. So you know, you've got
Donald who has been the scapegoat for Robinette, and as
an accessory, she has been given four years in prison.
The prosecutors are pissed off, and so she goes on
trial for murdering her infant son. Robinette does not have
(40:13):
anything clever except to say, we've got to get her
out of the death penalty, because they were going to
go for the death penalty here. And he could not
figure out a way to say somebody else did it.
It's clear she did it, so he said, because of
her trauma and abuse at the hands of her parents
as a child, she had been emotionally stunted. She didn't
(40:36):
understand that there were consequences for her actions, and the
jury buys it, and she has found guilty of manslaughter
and she's given a life sentence, right, so she spared
the death penalty. She's supposed to be spending life in prison.
But I think you probably know I'm heading down a
road where she does not spend life in prison for this.
(40:57):
So now she's been implicated and involved in two murders.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
I guess, you know, I just don't know what criteria
up in Canada is used to justify the death penalty.
You know, I'm really struggling to see, you know, the
death of the infant's son, how there would be an
argument for, you know, first degree murder with special circumstances
(41:22):
if in fact Peter was strangled that show's intent. Does
this come down to Peter is crying, Evelyn is just
getting so frustrated with this baby crying that she just
acts in sort of in the heat of the moment
and strangles Peter. This would be more kin to like
(41:43):
a second degree murder type of scenario in California. Manslaughter.
Speaker 4 (41:49):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
I'm not having too much issue with what Evelyn is
ultimately convicted of. I'm surprised that if it's a manslaughter
of this ten day old infant, that would be a
life sentence, right.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
I don't know why that was a sentence. I will
tell you she does not serve life. She only serves
around eleven years total. In nineteen fifty eight, she's paroled.
She's only thirty eight years old. She gets a new
identity and totally falls off the radar. She's fully pardoned
in nineteen eighty five. According to this newspaper, I mean,
(42:24):
I have no idea. This is what it says. Her
government file remains sealed after she was granted a royal pejorative.
I guess is that what I would say?
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Yeah, I have to rely on the attorneys in the
no to describe what that means.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Yeah, I would say, okay. Her government file remain sealed
after she was granted a pardon in eighty five, a
special pardon that is awarded an exceptional cases of substantial
injustice or undue hardship, which would not seem to apply
an Evlyn Dick's case. But many believe she had friends
in high places who helped her get this pardon. As
a wider strategy to muzzle stories about the people she
(42:59):
was having sex with. Yeah, so we're back to the
Little Black Book. You know, this is when she's now
sixty five and she gets this full pardon where her
case is basically you know, sealed, so nobody knows anything
about it. And this is decades later.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
I mean, gosh, that's what it sounds like to me,
you know, because it seems like that, you know, the
Christ well, she was actually acquitted of John's homicide, right
or of his murder.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
She was given four years as an accessory.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Accessory murder, okay, and then and then life for Peter's murder.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Right.
Speaker 4 (43:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Again, it's it's it's it's hard for me to to
to figure out the life sentence, which seems like it
might be excessive, just depending upon you know, what kind
of case the prosecutors laid out.
Speaker 4 (43:50):
But yeah, the.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Black Book, the people in the Black Book, sounds like
she had some a at least one deep pocketed person
that was supporting her to be able to hire the
fancy attorney. There may be multiple depocketed people who, of course,
over time, you know, probably continue to have influence and
(44:11):
at any point if Evelyn ever felt that she had
been betrayed by any of them. She could have divulged
her secrets and so they're just trying to protect their asses,
would be my guess.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Yeah. There were, of course rumors of where she went.
People have been trying to figure out where she went,
who she became afterwards, reporters and biographers. They said some
people thought she moved to Winnipeg under the name Betty.
Other people thought she married a wealthy man and left town.
That actually seems on brand, and others insist she stayed
(44:43):
somewhere in Ontario. I don't really care what she did
after she got out of prison. What I care about
is a statement that you made long long ago, which
was when we found out that Peter had been strangled
and then encased in cement into a suitcase. This baby,
(45:03):
this newborn baby, she did that, and she participated somehow
in the murder of her husband. This is someone who
is capable of removing an obstacle that is stopping her
from living the life she wants to live. And that
makes me concerned for whomever she was, whomever she encountered
(45:25):
after she left the life of Evel and Dick. And
that's that we don't know if she killed other people
because we don't know who she is.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
Yeah, she's a dangerous woman. She was thirty eight when
she gets out.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Yeah, she would be one hundred and four last year.
I would think not, but I mean, listen, she lived
to at least sixty five because she got an official pardon,
but nobody knew where she was when that happened.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
Yeah, because I'm just thinking, Okay, how would I figure
out who?
Speaker 4 (45:56):
You know, who she became?
Speaker 3 (45:58):
And you know, one way, is she still a child
bearing age at age thirty eight when she gets out?
Does she have any children? Have they had any children?
Are they up in the genealogy databases? You know, would
we be able to triangulate back and identify Evelyn via
That means, you know, if there was a reason, you know,
(46:20):
a justifiable reason to track her down, that's an avenue
to pursue.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
You know.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Of course there's the investigator side, but I think just
through genetics, just through genealogy, there's a way to identify
what ended up happening to Evelyn.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Well, it's possible that her daughter, Heather is still alive
because she was born in forty one, but we don't
know what happened to Heather, And I don't know if
there would be a reason. It's interesting to hear that
if there needed to be a reason, there are possibilities,
and Heather might have had children, you know, yep.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
Most early, and you know that there is a source
that could be used for genealogy and you could potentially
we identify Evelyn using DNA.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
It's interesting to bring up things like the slut shaming
and finger pointing and the black books and stuff like that.
And normally for me, I feel like it's focusing on
the victims and the prosecutor or the media or the perpetrator,
the offenders being the ones who are doing the slut shaming.
Who are you know, retraumatizing survivors, revictimizing victims, all of that,
(47:26):
But to have the offender who clearly is an offender
for me to say, God, I don't like the way
this trial's going. I mean, I know, ultimately you have
to go down different roads, but this was a pretty
ikey road for the prosecutors. At some point when you
go above and beyond explaining somebody's sex life, I think
that having that on display with a very messy case
(47:49):
involving a family and threats and everything. Nobody's perfect in
this story. We almost never have perfect people, Paul.
Speaker 3 (47:57):
Well, crime is messy, right, No, I kind of along
those lines. You know, this is where you know, there's
there's reasons why prior cases, prior behaviors by the defendant
don't get admitted into court because they're overly prejudicial. This
(48:18):
is where the judge has to, you know, step in
and the defense attorneys need to object. So you know,
there is attempts at protection from what ended up happening
to Evelyn in terms of her sexual relationships with all
these men. A lot of at least the way you're
telling it to me, doesn't seem to have any bearing
(48:39):
on the crime itself. It really is just prejudicial. And
of course that also could potentially influence jury selection.
Speaker 4 (48:48):
You know, if the media is portraying this, you.
Speaker 3 (48:50):
Know, after prelim and now they have to select a
jury and they've seen the headlines about you know, this,
this woman and her relationship, how is that going to
impact a fair trial? So I think I definitely agree
with you. It appears that Evelyn, as a defendant, her
(49:11):
right to a fair trial was potentially violated and ultimately
She ended up getting an attorney that was able to
get her conviction overturned.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
Mm hmm, and let a very very, very dangerous woman
out into the world to do god knows what. Hopefully
Jos live a quiet life and be done with it,
but I somehow doubt it. I don't know. Next week,
Let's hope we have a less dangerous woman. If they
are the offender, will see. We'll see that's unlikely. Female
(49:45):
offenders are some of the most dangerous I have found.
Speaker 4 (49:48):
They're the most conniving for sure.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Okay, I will see you next week.
Speaker 4 (49:56):
Rust up, all right, We'll do take care.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
Thanks. This has been an exactly right production for our
sources and show notes go to Exactlyrightmedia dot com slash
Buried Bones sources.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
Our senior producer is Alexis Emosi.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 2 (50:19):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 4 (50:22):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 3 (50:27):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgaroff, Georgia hard Stark, and Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook. At
Ary Bones.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
Pod Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a
Gilded Age story of murder and the race to decode
the criminal mind, is available now
Speaker 2 (50:43):
And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life solving America's
cold cases, is also available now
Hosts And Creators
Kate Winkler Dawson
Paul Holes
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