October 9, 2024 • 51 mins
In this episode, the concluding part of a two-parter, Paul and Kate return to 1929 Detroit and continue with the investigation of a slain family. Assessing the patriarch's personal and business life leads to an unexpected aspect that cannot be understated or ignored.
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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. I'm a journalist who's spent the
last twenty five years writing about true crime.
Speaker 2 (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 1 (00:16):
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
compelling true crimes.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is Buried Bones. Hi, Kate, Hey, Paul, you ready
(01:03):
for part two of our story.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I have been waiting all week for this one.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
It's a complicated story with lots of theories, more theories
than forensics. I love both, but I like when we
dig into theories too and try to figure out sequencing.
I know we don't always have the most information, but
I think it's a great talk.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
We always have well, but it's all part of just
the process of solving crimes. Is you have to develop theories,
and you constantly are tweaking a theory or completely throwing
them out. As evidence comes in, forensics comes in, new
theories arise at better fit, you know. So that's just
part of the process.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
What's hard about these old cases is, you know, I
will tell you that police went ahead and release them.
They didn't have enough evidence. There's not enough information, and
we just have to sort of trust the police for
nineteen twenty nine to know what they're doing. And I
realize that when we have a case that is more
ambiguous and we aren't one hundred percent sure what ends
(02:05):
up happening here, that certainly the police might not know
what they're doing and let us suspect go that we
would have never let go, and probably a guilty person.
But we do the best we can based on the
information we have, and sometimes we get some really great
investigators and medical examiners, and sometimes we don't.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
It's a crapshoot, no for sure, you know, And that's
sometimes we just have to trust the information that we have.
But there's been times I know, you've told me some
things and I go, hold on, I don't trust that.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I agree, And we always want photos, so I wish
that we had some more photos in this situation. But
let me go ahead and summarize our story. Nineteen twenty nine, Detroit, Michigan,
a couple of months before the great stock market crash
that happens in October, and we are with the evangeliste
family who been The evangelistis from Italy. He is seemingly
(02:58):
a great family man. The whole family ends up murdered
one night and is discovered the next morning by one
of his colleagues. His head has been decapitated. He's sitting
slumped over at his desk in his chair. His hands
are what they describe as in the prayer position. And
then his wife is dead upstairs with his eighteen month
old son hacked to death. Is I think probably one
(03:20):
of the ways I would describe it. And then three
little girls next door are also dead, and the police
are stymied. They're trying to figure out what happened. This
is a well known case, so you know, getting in
and trying to figure out who the suspects are is
difficult for them and could be difficult for us. We
have very limited forensics. We've got some fingerprints that they're
trying to match to different people. And then I've been
(03:42):
teasing this all along. We have a victim with a
very very different kind of secondary life that's going to
be coming up, and I think we'll throw some intrigue
in here, so I know your interest is peaked at
this point.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
No for sure. And from what I remember is you
were talking about two men in a search of a
barn and some weapons being found. So I'm kind of
curious to see what they found.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
So the police have dismissed Vincent Elias, who was the
man who I told you discovered the bodies. They thought
maybe his thumbprint would match, but they couldn't say conclusively.
There wasn't enough evidence. You and I've already talked about
a contaminated crime scene. I don't know what it would
have been like in nineteen twenty nine. My memory from
(04:28):
American sherlock of crime scenes in the twenties where basically
neighbors showed up and started bringing food when the corner
was still there. Yeah, like examining the body, yep.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
And that's just at any time, especially with older cases.
The older the case, the sort of it's like a
funnel that expands in terms of all the various possible
alterations to the crime scene that have to be taken
into consideration, and now when you're starting to talk about
nineteen twenty nine, it's wide.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Open for sure. They start looking at Bennie's business colleagues,
and they find out that there are two men, as
I had mentioned in the last episode, who were probably
the last people to see him alive, aside from whoever
killed him, if we go down that route. So one
of the men is named Angela Depoli. He's thirty four,
(05:19):
and he is questioned because he and his friend, who's
a forty two year old named Umberto Peccio, had stopped
by Bennie's house on the night of the murders, when
we presume they were murdered that night into the early morning.
They said, this is a very innocent meeting. One of
the men had recently purchased some property from Bennie and
he was just making a payment. But being Italian, I
(05:42):
think the police were suspicious, and being you know, people
who were in his circle, police were suspicious. So they
find Angelo, the first guy, and they go into his possessions.
They go into his barn and they find a short axe,
a long curved banana knife, both with reddish stains, and
(06:06):
a recently washed pair of shoes in the possession. They
did not conclusively say whether this was blood or rust,
but they did say that this is only about a
half a mile from Benny's house. You know, this is
a barn, so presumably he has animals. And again they
can't even say that this is blood. But Angela was
briefly arrested and released. They don't have enough on him.
(06:28):
So what do you think about that? I mean, they're
really they're trying to they're doing the right thing, right,
They're going after people who had last seen Benny, who
we think maybe have been the main target. But at
the same time, you know, they're coming up empty because
they just don't have enough evidence for anybody.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well on the surface, these two men being there in
the evening, you know, now you have potentially what you'd
call opportunity, especially if they're still there after the family
has you know, Santina and the girls and the eighteen
month old have gone upstairs and these two men are
alone with Benny doing this transaction. You know, one of
(07:06):
the things that I'd want to know is if they're
there to make the payment. Did the investigators find that
payment in Benny's office somewhere in the house, What mode
of payment. Was it was a cash was a check.
That's a significant item that I'm interested in. The weapons
that are found in the bar and I think are interesting.
(07:27):
I like under this scenario, I like the idea of
two offenders inside this house, one with an axe and
one with this banana knife. This banana knife I'm envisioning
is like a machete. That's kind of what I'm thinking.
And this is where that would, in my mind, be
a weapon that could inflict the decapitation to Benny as
(07:48):
he's sitting in this chair versus the axe. And it
sounds like the acts may be more consistent with the
types of injuries that are present on Santina and the children.
On the surface. Right now, I'm intrigued by Angelo and Umberto,
but I have a feeling that you're going to be
telling me that they were somehow eliminated.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Angela was eventually cleared. They talked to Umberto about this case,
but he was never arrested. Angela was briefly brought in
and arrested, but only based on these what could have
been rusty weapons that were found in his barn, and
they couldn't conclusively say that there was blood, which is
(08:29):
a little confusing to me because there would have been
blood tests available now with rust. I mean, I don't know.
I remember in the David Lambson case you and I
talked about on My Favorite Murder, there was some confusion
about a blood test that might have come up with
rust or blood and it was inconclusive. Does that make
sense to you?
Speaker 2 (08:49):
No, it could. I think in nineteen twenty nine it's
possible that there were some of these what we call
catalytic blood tests presumptive tests. Basically, it's a color test,
and so whether it be back then, maybe I could
see it being like benzodine. Today, there's orthotolitine, there's Luca
Malachi Green, there's phenothalene, and all of them have their
(09:11):
their pros and cons and their sensitivities and their cross
reactivity with other substances. But it's usually the first type
of test. If I'm noticing a stain that I think
might be blood, I'll choose one of these tests, and
in essence, blood reacts with the chemical after an oxidizing
(09:31):
agent is put in there, and you get this, like
with benzodine or orthotology, A very apparent or obvious is
a better term. Obvious color change, and it tells you
this could be blood. Rust generally isn't going to react
with these tests, though I wouldn't put it outside the
realm of possibility. But then there are other types of
(09:52):
substances that can so that's why they're considered presumptive. But
they're a good first step. So if the visual appearance
on the axe and the banana knife is more like
a stain, rust, particularly under a microscope, is very obvious,
you know. Let's especially in a fresh case. You know,
you can't have rust form as a result of the
(10:15):
aqueous aspect of the blood on an iron type of object,
but it should be pretty apparent that you're dealing with
a fresh blood stain versus rust on these items. And
then if it reacts with they presumpt a blood test,
then it's like okay, Well, back then they probably couldn't
sort out is a human versus animal, and they most
(10:35):
certainly weren't doing abo testing, you know, to be able
to at least narrow the population. But at least you
know now it's like, oh yeah, blood on these these
items that are consistent with being the types of weapons
used at the homicide seed. Explain it.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
So you know, Angelo is released. I'm assuming you're right
that he was questioned and arrests and then released within
days of all of this happening, because that's immediately where
they went. They wanted to know who found the bodies,
and they looked at Vincent and released him, and then
they wanted to know who saw them last, and so
they eliminated these two guys. I think it would have
(11:14):
been pretty obvious that this was blood or not blood,
because it would have been recent. But and then of
course they were alarmed by the recently pair of you know,
washed pair of shoes, which I thought, if he has
a bar, and of course he's washing shoes all the time.
I mean, the proximity of these two guys the night
of the murders couldn't be ignored. So definitely put them.
Just know, the police in nineteen twenty nine cleared them.
(11:36):
That doesn't mean we have to clear them.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Sure, and they very well could be what we run
into all the time. These red herrings were, oh, this
is interesting. Things are kind of adding up, but it
turns out not to be the case.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
We have now three levels of odd stories. I'll go
weird and then weirder than off the wall for me. Okay.
So there is a theory by a writer named Jess
Willard who wrote about this, and Jess says that there
were a number of notes that police discovered in the
evangelist home that indicate that the family might have been
(12:09):
threatened by a local criminal group called the Black Hand. So,
before you remember what we just talked about a couple
of episodes ago, this is not don't confuse this with
the Black.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Glove, okay, because I just had deja vu.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Was like, what it's the glove hand, Glove Hand. So
black Glove was different, and that's that was the woman
who was weighted down with the massive rock in the cistern.
This is a group called the Black Hand. They were
known for targeting and praying on Italian Americans who had
earned a lot of wealth since they had come to
the United States. During the investigation, they find the most
(12:47):
recent letter from the Black Hand and includes this line,
this is your last chance, but it's dated six months
before the murders. I think the big issue that Jess
points out, because I think you're gonna say, Tome doesn't
really matter to people who are focused in on a vendetta.
She says, By nineteen twenty nine, the Black Hand was
basically defunct, she says, having evolved into a traditional moblike
(13:11):
structure of typical organized crime. The enterprise was no longer
getting itself mixed up with extorting money from Italian immigrants.
Of course that doesn't mean anything, but there is this
six month old letter that seems very threatening, and it's
definitely from the Black Hand, which is an anonymous society.
(13:32):
So what do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
I think that's very interesting. You know, the six month
timeframe doesn't concern me at all, even with this Black
Hand right, not Glove Hand, right, even with this Black
Hand group being somewhat defunct and possibly being absorbed into
more of the traditional mafia. And we know this era,
(13:56):
you know, the Italian mafia was prevalent, I don't know
specifically Detroit, but the Chicago for sure. You know, we're
talking about days of al Capone, you know, and during
this era in some ways, and this is where we
get into, why is the entire family wiped out and
(14:16):
with no nothing apparently taken or anything else. This could
be a message, you know, this outfit could potentially be
conducting similar operations against other families. And this is a
way to, in essence, underscore that this outfit is serious
about their threats. We will come and kill you, and
we'll take out your entire family. So that theory right now,
(14:39):
I think is interesting. You know, so I want to
hear what other theories you've got.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah, now, I thought it was interesting that Jess says
there's a Jess Willard says a number of notes. I
don't have information on what the disagreement was. I mean,
it's obviously some kind of an extortion scheme benefits right
into the demographic and right you could have a wayward
black Hand person who wants to keep up with this.
We don't really know, But I do have a question.
(15:05):
I don't remember if I asked you this. Do you
think that the person who did this had to have
any kind of a knowledge of the house, which is sprawling.
If you look at that photo, it's a big house.
It just seems risky to me to be a member
of the Black Hand, who I'm presuming has maybe they've
never visited. I can't imagine they would ever visit the
home of somebody who they were extorting. Would it be
(15:27):
difficult in a large house to do what you're saying
you want to do if you're unfamiliar with the house at.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Night, I don't think so, okay, you know, not knowing
the complexity of the layout of this house. But my
when I've been in homes like this from the you know,
kind of the same vintage. You know, the staircase that
leads upstairs is usually a significant staircase in the center
of the home. You know, you have an offender who
goes in, you know, sees a light on in Benny's
(15:56):
office and goes straight there there's somebody there before going upstairs.
Once Benny is taken care of, the offender is confident
there's nobody else on the first floor, then he can
take his time to go upstairs potentially. But there's also
I mean, some of these offenders will go into the
(16:18):
house ahead of time to get a feel for the layout.
They burglarize the house. They're not taking anything, they're literally
just breaking in seeing the layout, and then now they
make their strategy so when they do go in and attack,
they can do it efficiently. So I'm not overly concerned.
Even though this is a large house that suggests that
(16:41):
the offenders had to have prior knowledge of the layout.
Of the house in order to commit this crime.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Is this the use of an axe or a banana
knife or whatever this weapon was, which was obviously probably
pretty large and sharp and heavy or something. You said
there was going to be a lot of blood. Is
this not risky to be an outsider coming in killing
these people, getting blood all over the place and all
(17:09):
over yourself, leaving fingerprints behind, leaving shoe prints behind, walking
out a side door or back door out of the
kitchen into the night, potentially covered in blood. That seems
risky to me? Why not do some? I don't know?
Is it not risky?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Well, it all comes down to what the offender's knowledge is.
Most killers don't understand what they're getting into in terms
of like the amount of bloodshed that can happen or
may not happen. This is often a huge misperception of
the general public. And I'm going to bring up the
(17:46):
OJ Simpson case where you see the photos where Nicole
and Ron Goldman were killed, and you see all this blood.
What people don't recognize is that most that blood happened
after the offender left, and offenders don't understand when they
go in, you know, they may not understand would he
(18:08):
decapitate somebody that, yeah, you potentially are going to have
arterial spurts occurring, where next thing they know, they've got
this gush of blood that has landed on them, versus
somebody going in and stabbing somebody who's fully clothed. And
if there's just a few stab wounds, it's not a
very bloody scene at all. So you know, this is
just where it may be. You know, they choose these
(18:32):
weapons first. These these are weapons that aren't making a
lot of noise from a gunshot type of perspective. They
are weapons that, if this was the intent, are very
intimidating weapons. And this is where you can see where
there could be a level of control before the violence starts.
But this is also during this era, as we've had
with the other cases. This seems to be a more
(18:55):
common thing back in the nineteen twenties than in the
twenty and twenties.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
But if I'm picturing the mafia, the mob doing this,
or these are people who are apparently evolving into that
sort of criminal it just seems so messy. And you
have to carry around a weapon. I mean, they didn't
find the weapons, so you have to carry around a
weapon and it just seems I don't know, it seems
(19:20):
more haphazard than I would think a group that is
moving towards being an organized crime would be. But I
know you can also say, well, you've got these you've
gotten them nuts in every group, I mean, there are
people who don't know what they're doing in every organized crime,
you know group.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Well, And part of it is there's probably less risk
back in nineteen twenty nine with them walking away with
the murder weapons than potentially today. They don't have you know,
cops and patrol cars on a beat, you know, roving
around back then, at least not with the same type
of volume that we see today. And you know, part
of the use of these weapons may, if it is,
(19:57):
let's say, to send a message to other families that
they're extorting. The use of this weapon is going to
be a very strong message. You know, if you don't
do what we say, you're going to end up like
this family and it's going to be a horrible time
for you.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Well, well put a pin in that theory. So we've
got several pens happening. We've got the two guys with
the axe and the banana knife, and then we've got
the Black Hand, not to be confused with the Black
Glove Society extorters. Now we've got a very similar crime
that happened two weeks before Benny's family and he were murdered.
(20:36):
Now the police are wondering if this happened. This is
ten miles outside of Detroit. I don't have a lot
of information. I mean, the researchers did digging. I did digging.
This did not turn into a massive story. There was
a family called the Chapinski family. It was a mother
and her three children, and the newspapers say they were
mutilated with the same they say the savage ferocity, which
(21:00):
characterizes the Saint Alban slangs. So axe murders woman and
her three children two weeks earlier, but not in Detroit.
They have bloody prints from that scene. To the police
compare the Chapinski scene with the Saint Alban murder scene,
and they don't match at all, and they can't find
(21:21):
that killer either.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
They compare the bloody prints.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
At both crime scenes from.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
The two cases. Yep, that doesn't mean much to me
because you can't say that the bloody fingerprints from either
case are from the same parts of the offender's hands.
You know, as an example, you know, you could have
a bloody you know, left pinky at one scene and
you can have a bloody thumb print at the other scene. Now,
(21:49):
of course they don't match, you know, unless they the
Layton examiner, the fingerprint examiner is able to see enough
of the hand, you know, like let's say three fingerprints
or two fingerprints side by side at one scene and
form okay, this is an index in the middle, and
then they see something similar at the other scene, and
(22:10):
then now they have confidence I'm comparing the same fingers
and if they don't match them, you could potentially eliminate.
But typically you don't have that, and so now I'm like, okay,
So if they're just going off of they can't make
a comparison between the bloody fingerprints at these scenes, you know,
absent that there's a sufficient detail to know they're comparing
(22:32):
apples to apples in terms of the parts of the hands. Yeah,
I don't put any weight on that whatsoever. You know,
it is interesting that a mother and kids are hatcheted
or acts to death a couple months or a couple
of weeks before the Saint Aubin's.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Case, two weeks ten miles away.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah, in the distance. I mean, that's that's nothing, you know,
So now it's something that has to be paid attention to.
And then is there overlap in the victimology you know?
Or are you now dealing with something that maybe I
talked about early on. Are you dealing with a psychotic
offender and this is what that psychotic offender needs to do,
(23:11):
you know, in order to answer whatever mental state that
offender is in.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
So if we look at black Hand, it doesn't seem
like a mother and three children, where the mother might
be a widow, we don't know much about her. You know,
this is not somebody they would be extorting money from.
So if they're trying to connect to those two cases
through the black Hand group, I don't think that works.
I will tell you there's a little bit more of
a definitive thing down here. So here's an interesting theory.
(23:40):
Tell me what you think about this. Benny has a
very good old friend he hasn't talked to for a
long time, but an old friend named Aurelius Angelino. This
is something that the police start to focus in on.
In the nineteen tens, Aurelius was convicted of murdering who's
two children with an axe. He was convicted and sent
(24:00):
to prison. So six years before Benny's murder and his
family's murders are really as Angelina escaped and they never
found him again. So what they're saying is, you know,
of course they are looking back at Bennie's history and saying,
maybe this guy came back, maybe they had a beef,
and it's the same method. But good lord, I mean,
how many I've talked about, so many axe murders spanning
(24:24):
hundreds of years. I don't know if a guy killing
his children with an axe is going to translate to
going to his friends. But this was another three they explored.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yeah, that one's wide open. Yeah, as I've mentioned, you know,
it's all in the offender's mind and their perceptions. So
Aurelius and Benny may never have had a beef. Orrelius
gets convicted of acting his two kids to death, and
now he's in prison, and he ultimately learns of Benny's
success and becomes jealous. And now because he's he's a
(24:57):
warped mentality, he decides, well, I'm gonna take my anger
of having lost you know, my half, my life of
being convicted on these cases out on Benny and his
family for whatever reason. You know, it's it's speculative, you
know it is. It looks like it's roughly twenty years
prior that All really has committed this crime against his kids.
(25:20):
But he's showing a propensity to commit a similar type
of violence and has a relationship or had a relationship
with Benny. So he's at least somebody that can't be
dismissed outright. God, there's a lot of things going on
in Benny's life.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Oh buddy, you don't even know. Get ready, I hope
you have your whiskey or whatever you're drinking.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
I'm starting. You can see I've got a pretty good
poor going here.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
So all right, you were drinking water in the last episode.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
So yeah, well I knew this episode was going to
get me, so I decided to Oh, oh gosh, we're
going to go full leated on this one.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Yeah, this is going to be interesting. So we're going
to rewind to when investigators find the body. They go
down into this sprawling house has a basement. They go
into the basement, and I know you're thinking, I'm gonna
say that Benny killed a bunch of people and stored
the bodies down there, and it's like the family's seeking revenge.
(26:14):
That would be interesting. But now the walls of this
basement are covered with a bulky green cloth, and there's
a large card placed in the window and the card
says great Celestial Planet Exhibition. Okay, the police go, what
the hell? The Detroit Free Press does a great job
describing this scene. It is the weirdest altar ever uncovered
(26:40):
in Detroit. He did this, Benny did this. Eight or
ten wax figures, each hideously and grotesque to the extreme.
They're suspended on an altar in a circle by wires
from the ceiling, and among them was a huge eye
electrically lighted from the inside. Benny Evangeliste is very interested
(27:04):
in the occult, and he is in fact identified by
a lot of people in the neighborhood as an all
divine prophet religious leader.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Okay, so would he have gatherings down in the basement?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Oh yeah, animal sacrifice. Do you need to take a drink?
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yes? I do.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
I mean so, I'll show you a photo while you're
doing that. Mighty another one. The only photo I have
of this bizarro scene is the creepiest mobile I've ever seen.
This is not what you would put on over your
kid's crib, hanging paper dolls. That is what Benny had
called to people his sanctuary. So I want to show
(27:46):
you this that police were petrified when they saw it
because they thought it was the weirdest thing ever. So
hang on. So now things get weird when anytime you
introduce the occult, I think you can pretty much say,
now we really have to pay attention to this. Let
me show you you see why I save this.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Theory for the last Yeah, So I'm looking at a
photo which has a caption the ghoulish set of dolls
suspended from the ceiling and Evangelie's basement were said to
be the rulers of his religious world. Benny's into some
weird shit here.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Oh yeah, I mean I have a lot more details just.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Off off the top of my head. You know, this
is where it becomes very important to understand Benny's religious philosophy,
the commitment and dedication of his followers. So when I
initially heard about, you know, the totality of the scene
and how Benny was found, and one of the theories
(28:44):
I put out there is is it possible that Benny
had somebody who would come in, And if Benny's the
one that killed his family, would he have somebody that
could come in kill him and then stage it to
take it look like somebody from the outside must have
come in and killed everybody, right now, Do you have
(29:06):
somebody within this cult that Benny is a leader of
that is willing to do something that Benny directs him
to do, you know? And is Benny of the mindset
that death to his family is going to free their
souls and they go on to a better life or
this and that, you know? So I'm kind of curious
to hear more about this thing that Benny's involved with.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Hold on, I'll show you now, I guess is a
good time. Well, you've no idea how much I've been
jumping around on my document. I've been moving around more
than I ever had. So I have been withholding something
from you about what was found around Benny's body because
it's too weird, and I needed you to hear all
of the other stuff first before you jumped right into
(29:51):
this theory, because this is certainly the most fascinating theory
to me. So I had teased this before Benny he
and his wife had had a child who had died.
Police found three photos of a child. This is the
kid who died who they had and presumably I would
think died of natural causes. A child in a coffin
(30:14):
on the floor of the office. So three photos of
a child in a coffin, his kid on the floor
of the office near his corpse. They ultimately identified these
as death portraits, you know, which were very common, particularly
in the eighteen hundreds, but definitely early nineteen hundreds, of
the son that they had several years ago. So they're
(30:35):
kind of surrounding him. And that's why I kept asking
you about suicide. It just is such a weird scene.
And of course I can tell you there's a lot
more about his religion. He wrote a book.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Yeah, at least based on the description of Benny in
his decapitated head. He didn't do that to himself. But
could it be an assisted suicide? Absolutely, the picture of
his dead child in a coffin placed around him, you know,
it's possible he put those there, or it's possible whoever
(31:08):
assisted him with his own suicide, if you will, basically
did this as part of Benny's wishes, you know, So
Benny is for whatever reason. Again, it's all coming down
into you know, what Benny's personal philosophy is is that
he needs to have his entire family, his wife, all
(31:29):
the kids in the house that are alive dead. He
also needs to be whole with this process, his dead
child to be present in this photo montage, if you will.
And then he also has to die. And it's interesting
that it's through the use of you know, this decapitation,
(31:51):
you know, and is this part of the philosophy that
this is how everybody needs to die in terms of
being hacked to death or to let's say, move on
to the next world or the next life or whatever
he believed in you know, I have a case in
which I believe this is exactly what the victim wanted.
(32:12):
This is the you know, I have an audible out
there called the Riddle of Them and Bodfish. And to
move on from this blue demon conscience that she had
that was making her life miserable. She recognized that she
had to die an unexpected and violent death and she
needed to be bludgeoned in the head where this demon resided,
(32:36):
because she writes in her diary, I need to move
on to my next life because she believed in reincarnation
with her religious beliefs. Is this what's going on with
Benny in terms of I need to kill my entire
family and we have a better life that will also
bring back our dead child to be part of the
(32:58):
family again. You know, I'm now kind of speculating, but
I can say from experience, this is a very real mentality,
and with Benny's bizarro cult stuff going on, I think
it becomes very realistic.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Well, here we go. The family. Doctor's a guy named
alf E Thomas said he is insane. He thinks Benny
is insane. And the friends around the neighborhood, even though
they thought that Benny was nice, say this guy was
a confirmed religious fanatic. And I say that because these
are our witnesses who have no dog in the fight.
(33:38):
They're sort of just observing. They're not involved. They're not
his clients. And I'll explain what I mean by clients
in a second. But you've got a doctor, and you've
got neighbors who say, this guy seems way off the
rails and his wife is just along for the ride,
is what it sounds like. Now let me tell you
about what he does. So he is someone who people
(34:00):
can pay money to and he will do certain services
for He provides client services like hexes herbs. He has
carried out the ritualistic sacrifices of animals, and he claims
to have cured people of curses. He calls himself an
all divine prophet of a religion that he invented. Of course,
(34:21):
he claims that he receives visions directly from God. He
has even written a bible explaining his theory, the one
I told you that's on the internet called the Oldest
History of the World. There were multiple volumes that he
self published in nineteen twenty nine. Marin has a note
for you, our researcher. She said that in the nineteen
twenty nine he was referred to as a cult leader,
(34:43):
but neither of us can find evidence that he actually
had this like following. But that was the vibe he
was giving. He was charging people money. He would get
ten dollars for private readings, during which he called upon
the powers of his own cult to heal various ills
or spiritual ills, physical ills of which patients were afflicted.
(35:06):
That's two hundred dollars a pop. So he had a
legitimate business. And then he had this business, but what
alarmed me was all divine profit of a religion he invented,
and receiving visions from God also sort of perked up
my ears a little bit. What do you think about.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
All of that?
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Oh, I have a term for this nutjob religious fanatic
for real.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
You think about this. You know, it's one thing to
be fanatical about a religion, but think about the personality
that can be discerned from the descriptors of how you know,
he seems to have this cult like following these people
who are gravitating towards him. This is that psychology that
(35:55):
we see that personality such as Charles Manson, David Koresh,
Jim Jones. These types of individuals have this warped sense
of reality and they want to have followers at an
essence look up to them, kind of put them up
on an altar in essence. And it's now getting into
(36:20):
and we've seen it with some of these groups where
the leader says we must all do this, and everybody
ends up dead. Suicide. You know, somebody needs to follow
a comment. I forget the name of that group, and
now everybody's dead because they're believers in this one leader
These leaders are often very charming. You know, they're able
(36:42):
to convince people that are looking for something in their life.
You know that these leaders can possibly provide. These followers
are often very gullible. So this is what it's sounding like,
And now I'm really going into Yes, it seems like
Benny probably decided that, for whatever reason, he was at
(37:06):
a point in his life in which he had to
have his family killed. He had to remember his dead
child that was in the coffin and the photos around him,
and he had a gullible follower, somebody he trusted that
was willing to come in and minimally at least kill
Benny through decapitation and take the murder weapons with him. Now,
(37:29):
right now, I can't say, is Benny the one that
killed the entire family, or do you have something like
helter Skelter with Manson where you have a group of
these followers that came into this home, killed the family
and left, making it look like it was a homicide
with some stranger that came in without a connection, that
Benny was actually the one orchestrating it all along.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
I had not thought about the follower aspect of it.
I had thought that this was his idea. I just
was so bothered by the hands in the prayer position.
There would have been no misinterpreting that for any police officer.
He was Catholic, by the way, devout Catholic. So I
don't know how that fits in with what he's thinking.
(38:12):
But he was starting to dip his toe into the
film business. He had plans to make a motion picture
depicting the history of mankind. I mean talk about delusions
of grandeur here. This is definitely off the rails, and
the pictures of the kid around really bugged me. It
didn't feel like any other explanation except the one that
(38:32):
you're talking about, except I didn't know about I didn't
think about the follower, and I think you must be
right about that. That makes sense.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
I'm fairly confident in that Benny didn't cut his head off, Yeah, yeah,
without leaving evidence of the mechanism to cut it, being
able to cut his head off, because after his head's off,
he can't clean up after himself, you know. So somebody
came in minimally and cut Benny's head off, and possibly
did more. So this you know, my suspect Pool is
(39:01):
now within some of maybe his closest associates within this cult.
Who could he trust to do this and who has
the capability? It takes a special person to cut somebody
else's head off. And when I say special, this is
(39:22):
I mean this is not what just anybody can do,
you know. So who within this group of followers would
be trusted and also could commit this crime, whether it's
just killing Benny or whether it's killing the entire family.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Gosh, well, let me. I'm not throwing you a curveball
that is as curvy as the curveball as I can
throw you. For this case, there is a man who
pops up. Three years later. This goes on unsolved, and
three years later there's a guy who pops up named
Robert Harris in nineteen thirty two. He was notorious as
being sort of violent and a little wacky. He is
(40:04):
a religious fanatic also, but he is a follower of Islam.
He's a black man, and I don't see evidence that
they knew each other, but he confesses he said, you know,
I did this, And he had been convicted for killing
a man and claimed that his victim was a sacrifice.
(40:25):
So investigators say, this guy has confessed he's been violent,
this is what we you know, this might be a potential.
So while they're waiting to compare the prince, he starts
talking about he's plotting to kill other people. He wants
to kill the mayor of Detroit. And it seems clear
to them that Robert Harris has some real mental health struggles.
(40:49):
Even though he had been violent. He clearly was violent
at one point. His prints don't match with the prince
found at the evangelist home. So before you start talking
about a follower, I kind of dismissed this, but you know,
another religious fanatic. I don't know, what do you think.
There's no nothing really tying him to this case except
(41:11):
his confession, and that's it.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Well, it all depends on the details he provided in
his confession. Does he provide information that was never made
public that matches up with the crime scene. I mean,
in many ways, we see this all the time with
these who done It cases. You do have your crackpots
that come out and they want to be associated with
that case, you know, whether you know admitting to you know,
(41:35):
they're they're they're saying, yes, I'm responsible for this homicide,
and it's just part of their warped perception. Of the
world that they want to have that notoriety right now,
that's what this Robert Harris sounds more like, you know,
somebody who's falsely confessing to this crime than somebody who
actually committed it, even though he's got this maybe a
(41:57):
religious fanaticism, but it's a completely different philosophy. You'd have
to show a you know, based on the crime scene
and the victimology of Benny. This is where did Benny
reach out to this Robert Harris or did a follower,
you know, reach out because the follower's going, I know
somebody who's capable of committing this level of violence that
(42:20):
is needed in this case. Why wasn't the family just poisoned?
Why didn't Benny just drink poison? You know, there's purposeful
decisions behind how these crimes are committed unless it's truly
a psychotic aspect. And this is where, now the type
of violence used in this crime is significant to Benny
(42:42):
and or the offender. And now with this this cult
like thing and everything you've told me, it's like, yeah,
this is something that Benny has told somebody he needs
to have done to him and his family. And right
now I'm just not buying Robert Harris. I think it
goes back to somebody who is very close to Benny
within this cult.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
I can't even believe you're saying this, Paul. It's just like, WI,
this weirdest thing that this guy asked someone to do this,
not just to him but to his family. It just
seems so off the wall. But all it takes is
for you to know that he has such fervent beliefs.
(43:23):
And you know, the animal sacrifice, of course, was very
alarming to me. And this just self absorption, everything, narcissism,
everything that goes into it. I wish I knew what happened, Like,
what was the thing that made him say this? Is
it July third? Was it a celestial thing? This doesn't
(43:44):
sound spur of the moment. Have you dealt with these
kinds of cases very much? Not the fanaticism, but I mean,
you know, people people wanting to die.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Yes, you know, I talked about the the m and
Bodfish case, which there's some overlap in terms of this
philosophy of needing to die a certain way and moving
on to the next life. You know, kind of alternate
religious philosophies being involved. I have a case In fact,
I've been talking to my own therapist about that really
(44:15):
bugged me and a little bit of a trigger warning.
I mean, this can be a difficult case for some
to hear. But I had a fifteen year old girl
whose father came in, gave her a hug, and then
blew her head off with a three point fifty seven
magnum and then stepped out into the hallway and committed suicide.
And he left a video of why he did it.
(44:37):
And he did it because Jesus was calling him home
and he could not leave his daughter in this evil world,
so he killed her and then took his own life.
So you could see where a warped religious philosophy can
cause somebody like that to kill his family, a family member.
(44:58):
That's where when I start listening to something as you've
described Benny and his victimology and this cult laying out
his dead child's death photos and the coffin around him.
This is where it's like, yes, it is very in
line with this mentality that I need to kill my
(45:18):
family and be together. They look at it as this
is a good thing, and it's a hard thing to
accept for you know, those of us that are looking
at the world in a more normal sense. But it happens,
and it's unfortunate that it does happen.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Well, the conventional wisdom has always been about this case
that you know, maybe this was one of his quote
unquote cults, even though it doesn't seem like he had
a cult. One of his clients, one of his members,
one of his followers, who was mad, So not what
you were saying about, you know, doing his bidding, but
who was angry about maybe Benny's a fraud, or maybe
(45:58):
Benny told him the wrong thing, or the person himself
has some mental health struggles, or really I think it's
settled down to a random act of violence. You know,
somebody found an unlocked door and came in and did this.
Some maniac. But it doesn't explain No, so many of
the weird things that come with it, and the prayer
hands and the photos on the floor. If it is
(46:20):
not Benny asking somebody to do this, then someone knows
a lot about Benny and is trying to send some
kind of a weird message. I don't know any of
the reason why this would be on the floor.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
I do not buy these others. It's not a random act.
It's not a vindictive type of crime, like you know,
we talked early on as being a possibility. I mean,
I do think the photos laid out of his dead
child in the coffin around Benny, that's hugely telling. You know,
who has access to those photos? Benny? You know that
(46:53):
this eliminates in my mind, the random person. They would
have no idea what those photos are or how significant
they are, even of vindication of person coming in. Why
would they do that? This is something that was significant
to Benny. He had access to those photos. He died
in a way in which basically his hands are folded
in a prayer like posture. It's like he accepted that
(47:16):
he was about to be killed. And this is where
I truly, truly believe this was an assisted suicide. It
was a family massacre, and it was being driven by
Benny's own personal religious philosophies. And he had a confidant
that was willing to do that.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
And boy, could you not pick a better one, most
likely than someone who's one of your followers who is
never going to say anything, right, I mean, talk about
somebody who's devout to him, I would assume.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
No, absolutely, you know, And that's just part of you
find the right person and they're willing to commit to
this type of crime, whether they did all of it,
all the homicides, or they just killed Benny after Benny
killed his family. You know, right now, have no idea,
but that person, for their own self protection, self preservation
(48:04):
as well as maybe even their ongoing religious fanatical philosophies,
isn't going to come forward and say, well, yeah, Benny
had me do this, or Benny was the one to orchestrate.
They're going to take that secret to their grave.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
Well, this is an unsolved mystery, and I have had
listeners lining up to say, why don't you please talk
about the Saint Auban massacre. So this is an upsetting
story because you and I both have kids, and I
hate talking about children who have been murdered by it
sounds like in this case the parent or you know,
at the behest of the parent. But you know, I
(48:42):
think that this is a story that has just been
talked about for almost one hundred years now, and I
feel like when I read it, I thought, I bet
Paul with the occult aspect of this, I bet this
is going to really alarm him. And I was really
glad to hear that I was not unalarmed for no
good reason, and there were so many theories thrown out there.
(49:05):
This has not the one you and I have been
talking about, is not the one that has ever taken
hold in any way. I've actually never read it that
this was his, you know, decision, and that is what
I immediately thought too. I thought this is weird. So
I hope we have a story next week that is
as compelling with that many theories, a little more forensics,
(49:26):
you know, but theories are great too.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
Yeah, you know, in this particular case, oftentimes somebody's involvement
in alternate religions or what could be classified as a cult,
you know, people think, oh, that's got to be the reason.
And I will tell you, in ninety nine percent of
the time, it's not the reason for the crime that
was committed. But I truly believe, based on the circumstances,
(49:49):
the evidence, the crime, seeing the victimology, that Benny's own
personal religious philosophies is the reason why that family ended
up dead. And it's sad, but I'm looking forward to
a maybe what you want to call a change of
pace for the next case that you give me.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
Probably not, but we'll see good work today, Paul Hols,
get yourself an extra. Whatever it is that you're drinking,
that's brown in that small.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
Glass, it's a bourbon. That's what I will tell all right, Kate,
thank you again.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
I'll see you next week.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
Sounds good.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
This has been an exactly right production for our.
Speaker 2 (50:30):
Sources and show notes go to exactly rightmedia dot com
slash Buried Bones sources.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
Our senior producer is Alexis Emosi.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark and Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
very Bones Pod.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
Kate's recent book All That Is Wicked, a Gilded Age
story of murder and the race to decote the criminal mind,
is available now, and
Speaker 1 (51:06):
Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's Cold
Cases is also available now
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
last twenty five years writing about true crime.
Speaker 2 (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 1 (00:16):
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
compelling true crimes.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is Buried Bones. Hi, Kate, Hey, Paul, you ready
(01:03):
for part two of our story.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I have been waiting all week for this one.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
It's a complicated story with lots of theories, more theories
than forensics. I love both, but I like when we
dig into theories too and try to figure out sequencing.
I know we don't always have the most information, but
I think it's a great talk.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
We always have well, but it's all part of just
the process of solving crimes. Is you have to develop theories,
and you constantly are tweaking a theory or completely throwing
them out. As evidence comes in, forensics comes in, new
theories arise at better fit, you know. So that's just
part of the process.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
What's hard about these old cases is, you know, I
will tell you that police went ahead and release them.
They didn't have enough evidence. There's not enough information, and
we just have to sort of trust the police for
nineteen twenty nine to know what they're doing. And I
realize that when we have a case that is more
ambiguous and we aren't one hundred percent sure what ends
(02:05):
up happening here, that certainly the police might not know
what they're doing and let us suspect go that we
would have never let go, and probably a guilty person.
But we do the best we can based on the
information we have, and sometimes we get some really great
investigators and medical examiners, and sometimes we don't.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
It's a crapshoot, no for sure, you know, And that's
sometimes we just have to trust the information that we have.
But there's been times I know, you've told me some
things and I go, hold on, I don't trust that.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I agree, And we always want photos, so I wish
that we had some more photos in this situation. But
let me go ahead and summarize our story. Nineteen twenty nine, Detroit, Michigan,
a couple of months before the great stock market crash
that happens in October, and we are with the evangeliste
family who been The evangelistis from Italy. He is seemingly
(02:58):
a great family man. The whole family ends up murdered
one night and is discovered the next morning by one
of his colleagues. His head has been decapitated. He's sitting
slumped over at his desk in his chair. His hands
are what they describe as in the prayer position. And
then his wife is dead upstairs with his eighteen month
old son hacked to death. Is I think probably one
(03:20):
of the ways I would describe it. And then three
little girls next door are also dead, and the police
are stymied. They're trying to figure out what happened. This
is a well known case, so you know, getting in
and trying to figure out who the suspects are is
difficult for them and could be difficult for us. We
have very limited forensics. We've got some fingerprints that they're
trying to match to different people. And then I've been
(03:42):
teasing this all along. We have a victim with a
very very different kind of secondary life that's going to
be coming up, and I think we'll throw some intrigue
in here, so I know your interest is peaked at
this point.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
No for sure. And from what I remember is you
were talking about two men in a search of a
barn and some weapons being found. So I'm kind of
curious to see what they found.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
So the police have dismissed Vincent Elias, who was the
man who I told you discovered the bodies. They thought
maybe his thumbprint would match, but they couldn't say conclusively.
There wasn't enough evidence. You and I've already talked about
a contaminated crime scene. I don't know what it would
have been like in nineteen twenty nine. My memory from
(04:28):
American sherlock of crime scenes in the twenties where basically
neighbors showed up and started bringing food when the corner
was still there. Yeah, like examining the body, yep.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
And that's just at any time, especially with older cases.
The older the case, the sort of it's like a
funnel that expands in terms of all the various possible
alterations to the crime scene that have to be taken
into consideration, and now when you're starting to talk about
nineteen twenty nine, it's wide.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Open for sure. They start looking at Bennie's business colleagues,
and they find out that there are two men, as
I had mentioned in the last episode, who were probably
the last people to see him alive, aside from whoever
killed him, if we go down that route. So one
of the men is named Angela Depoli. He's thirty four,
(05:19):
and he is questioned because he and his friend, who's
a forty two year old named Umberto Peccio, had stopped
by Bennie's house on the night of the murders, when
we presume they were murdered that night into the early morning.
They said, this is a very innocent meeting. One of
the men had recently purchased some property from Bennie and
he was just making a payment. But being Italian, I
(05:42):
think the police were suspicious, and being you know, people
who were in his circle, police were suspicious. So they
find Angelo, the first guy, and they go into his possessions.
They go into his barn and they find a short axe,
a long curved banana knife, both with reddish stains, and
(06:06):
a recently washed pair of shoes in the possession. They
did not conclusively say whether this was blood or rust,
but they did say that this is only about a
half a mile from Benny's house. You know, this is
a barn, so presumably he has animals. And again they
can't even say that this is blood. But Angela was
briefly arrested and released. They don't have enough on him.
(06:28):
So what do you think about that? I mean, they're
really they're trying to they're doing the right thing, right,
They're going after people who had last seen Benny, who
we think maybe have been the main target. But at
the same time, you know, they're coming up empty because
they just don't have enough evidence for anybody.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well on the surface, these two men being there in
the evening, you know, now you have potentially what you'd
call opportunity, especially if they're still there after the family
has you know, Santina and the girls and the eighteen
month old have gone upstairs and these two men are
alone with Benny doing this transaction. You know, one of
(07:06):
the things that I'd want to know is if they're
there to make the payment. Did the investigators find that
payment in Benny's office somewhere in the house, What mode
of payment. Was it was a cash was a check.
That's a significant item that I'm interested in. The weapons
that are found in the bar and I think are interesting.
(07:27):
I like under this scenario, I like the idea of
two offenders inside this house, one with an axe and
one with this banana knife. This banana knife I'm envisioning
is like a machete. That's kind of what I'm thinking.
And this is where that would, in my mind, be
a weapon that could inflict the decapitation to Benny as
(07:48):
he's sitting in this chair versus the axe. And it
sounds like the acts may be more consistent with the
types of injuries that are present on Santina and the children.
On the surface. Right now, I'm intrigued by Angelo and Umberto,
but I have a feeling that you're going to be
telling me that they were somehow eliminated.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Angela was eventually cleared. They talked to Umberto about this case,
but he was never arrested. Angela was briefly brought in
and arrested, but only based on these what could have
been rusty weapons that were found in his barn, and
they couldn't conclusively say that there was blood, which is
(08:29):
a little confusing to me because there would have been
blood tests available now with rust. I mean, I don't know.
I remember in the David Lambson case you and I
talked about on My Favorite Murder, there was some confusion
about a blood test that might have come up with
rust or blood and it was inconclusive. Does that make
sense to you?
Speaker 2 (08:49):
No, it could. I think in nineteen twenty nine it's
possible that there were some of these what we call
catalytic blood tests presumptive tests. Basically, it's a color test,
and so whether it be back then, maybe I could
see it being like benzodine. Today, there's orthotolitine, there's Luca
Malachi Green, there's phenothalene, and all of them have their
(09:11):
their pros and cons and their sensitivities and their cross
reactivity with other substances. But it's usually the first type
of test. If I'm noticing a stain that I think
might be blood, I'll choose one of these tests, and
in essence, blood reacts with the chemical after an oxidizing
(09:31):
agent is put in there, and you get this, like
with benzodine or orthotology, A very apparent or obvious is
a better term. Obvious color change, and it tells you
this could be blood. Rust generally isn't going to react
with these tests, though I wouldn't put it outside the
realm of possibility. But then there are other types of
(09:52):
substances that can so that's why they're considered presumptive. But
they're a good first step. So if the visual appearance
on the axe and the banana knife is more like
a stain, rust, particularly under a microscope, is very obvious,
you know. Let's especially in a fresh case. You know,
you can't have rust form as a result of the
(10:15):
aqueous aspect of the blood on an iron type of object,
but it should be pretty apparent that you're dealing with
a fresh blood stain versus rust on these items. And
then if it reacts with they presumpt a blood test,
then it's like okay, Well, back then they probably couldn't
sort out is a human versus animal, and they most
(10:35):
certainly weren't doing abo testing, you know, to be able
to at least narrow the population. But at least you
know now it's like, oh yeah, blood on these these
items that are consistent with being the types of weapons
used at the homicide seed. Explain it.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
So you know, Angelo is released. I'm assuming you're right
that he was questioned and arrests and then released within
days of all of this happening, because that's immediately where
they went. They wanted to know who found the bodies,
and they looked at Vincent and released him, and then
they wanted to know who saw them last, and so
they eliminated these two guys. I think it would have
(11:14):
been pretty obvious that this was blood or not blood,
because it would have been recent. But and then of
course they were alarmed by the recently pair of you know,
washed pair of shoes, which I thought, if he has
a bar, and of course he's washing shoes all the time.
I mean, the proximity of these two guys the night
of the murders couldn't be ignored. So definitely put them.
Just know, the police in nineteen twenty nine cleared them.
(11:36):
That doesn't mean we have to clear them.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Sure, and they very well could be what we run
into all the time. These red herrings were, oh, this
is interesting. Things are kind of adding up, but it
turns out not to be the case.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
We have now three levels of odd stories. I'll go
weird and then weirder than off the wall for me. Okay.
So there is a theory by a writer named Jess
Willard who wrote about this, and Jess says that there
were a number of notes that police discovered in the
evangelist home that indicate that the family might have been
(12:09):
threatened by a local criminal group called the Black Hand. So,
before you remember what we just talked about a couple
of episodes ago, this is not don't confuse this with
the Black.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Glove, okay, because I just had deja vu.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Was like, what it's the glove hand, Glove Hand. So
black Glove was different, and that's that was the woman
who was weighted down with the massive rock in the cistern.
This is a group called the Black Hand. They were
known for targeting and praying on Italian Americans who had
earned a lot of wealth since they had come to
the United States. During the investigation, they find the most
(12:47):
recent letter from the Black Hand and includes this line,
this is your last chance, but it's dated six months
before the murders. I think the big issue that Jess
points out, because I think you're gonna say, Tome doesn't
really matter to people who are focused in on a vendetta.
She says, By nineteen twenty nine, the Black Hand was
basically defunct, she says, having evolved into a traditional moblike
(13:11):
structure of typical organized crime. The enterprise was no longer
getting itself mixed up with extorting money from Italian immigrants.
Of course that doesn't mean anything, but there is this
six month old letter that seems very threatening, and it's
definitely from the Black Hand, which is an anonymous society.
(13:32):
So what do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
I think that's very interesting. You know, the six month
timeframe doesn't concern me at all, even with this Black
Hand right, not Glove Hand, right, even with this Black
Hand group being somewhat defunct and possibly being absorbed into
more of the traditional mafia. And we know this era,
(13:56):
you know, the Italian mafia was prevalent, I don't know
specifically Detroit, but the Chicago for sure. You know, we're
talking about days of al Capone, you know, and during
this era in some ways, and this is where we
get into, why is the entire family wiped out and
(14:16):
with no nothing apparently taken or anything else. This could
be a message, you know, this outfit could potentially be
conducting similar operations against other families. And this is a
way to, in essence, underscore that this outfit is serious
about their threats. We will come and kill you, and
we'll take out your entire family. So that theory right now,
(14:39):
I think is interesting. You know, so I want to
hear what other theories you've got.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah, now, I thought it was interesting that Jess says
there's a Jess Willard says a number of notes. I
don't have information on what the disagreement was. I mean,
it's obviously some kind of an extortion scheme benefits right
into the demographic and right you could have a wayward
black Hand person who wants to keep up with this.
We don't really know, But I do have a question.
(15:05):
I don't remember if I asked you this. Do you
think that the person who did this had to have
any kind of a knowledge of the house, which is sprawling.
If you look at that photo, it's a big house.
It just seems risky to me to be a member
of the Black Hand, who I'm presuming has maybe they've
never visited. I can't imagine they would ever visit the
home of somebody who they were extorting. Would it be
(15:27):
difficult in a large house to do what you're saying
you want to do if you're unfamiliar with the house at.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Night, I don't think so, okay, you know, not knowing
the complexity of the layout of this house. But my
when I've been in homes like this from the you know,
kind of the same vintage. You know, the staircase that
leads upstairs is usually a significant staircase in the center
of the home. You know, you have an offender who
goes in, you know, sees a light on in Benny's
(15:56):
office and goes straight there there's somebody there before going upstairs.
Once Benny is taken care of, the offender is confident
there's nobody else on the first floor, then he can
take his time to go upstairs potentially. But there's also
I mean, some of these offenders will go into the
(16:18):
house ahead of time to get a feel for the layout.
They burglarize the house. They're not taking anything, they're literally
just breaking in seeing the layout, and then now they
make their strategy so when they do go in and attack,
they can do it efficiently. So I'm not overly concerned.
Even though this is a large house that suggests that
(16:41):
the offenders had to have prior knowledge of the layout.
Of the house in order to commit this crime.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Is this the use of an axe or a banana
knife or whatever this weapon was, which was obviously probably
pretty large and sharp and heavy or something. You said
there was going to be a lot of blood. Is
this not risky to be an outsider coming in killing
these people, getting blood all over the place and all
(17:09):
over yourself, leaving fingerprints behind, leaving shoe prints behind, walking
out a side door or back door out of the
kitchen into the night, potentially covered in blood. That seems
risky to me? Why not do some? I don't know?
Is it not risky?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Well, it all comes down to what the offender's knowledge is.
Most killers don't understand what they're getting into in terms
of like the amount of bloodshed that can happen or
may not happen. This is often a huge misperception of
the general public. And I'm going to bring up the
(17:46):
OJ Simpson case where you see the photos where Nicole
and Ron Goldman were killed, and you see all this blood.
What people don't recognize is that most that blood happened
after the offender left, and offenders don't understand when they
go in, you know, they may not understand would he
(18:08):
decapitate somebody that, yeah, you potentially are going to have
arterial spurts occurring, where next thing they know, they've got
this gush of blood that has landed on them, versus
somebody going in and stabbing somebody who's fully clothed. And
if there's just a few stab wounds, it's not a
very bloody scene at all. So you know, this is
just where it may be. You know, they choose these
(18:32):
weapons first. These these are weapons that aren't making a
lot of noise from a gunshot type of perspective. They
are weapons that, if this was the intent, are very
intimidating weapons. And this is where you can see where
there could be a level of control before the violence starts.
But this is also during this era, as we've had
with the other cases. This seems to be a more
(18:55):
common thing back in the nineteen twenties than in the
twenty and twenties.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
But if I'm picturing the mafia, the mob doing this,
or these are people who are apparently evolving into that
sort of criminal it just seems so messy. And you
have to carry around a weapon. I mean, they didn't
find the weapons, so you have to carry around a
weapon and it just seems I don't know, it seems
(19:20):
more haphazard than I would think a group that is
moving towards being an organized crime would be. But I
know you can also say, well, you've got these you've
gotten them nuts in every group, I mean, there are
people who don't know what they're doing in every organized crime,
you know group.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Well, And part of it is there's probably less risk
back in nineteen twenty nine with them walking away with
the murder weapons than potentially today. They don't have you know,
cops and patrol cars on a beat, you know, roving
around back then, at least not with the same type
of volume that we see today. And you know, part
of the use of these weapons may, if it is,
(19:57):
let's say, to send a message to other families that
they're extorting. The use of this weapon is going to
be a very strong message. You know, if you don't
do what we say, you're going to end up like
this family and it's going to be a horrible time
for you.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Well, well put a pin in that theory. So we've
got several pens happening. We've got the two guys with
the axe and the banana knife, and then we've got
the Black Hand, not to be confused with the Black
Glove Society extorters. Now we've got a very similar crime
that happened two weeks before Benny's family and he were murdered.
(20:36):
Now the police are wondering if this happened. This is
ten miles outside of Detroit. I don't have a lot
of information. I mean, the researchers did digging. I did digging.
This did not turn into a massive story. There was
a family called the Chapinski family. It was a mother
and her three children, and the newspapers say they were
mutilated with the same they say the savage ferocity, which
(21:00):
characterizes the Saint Alban slangs. So axe murders woman and
her three children two weeks earlier, but not in Detroit.
They have bloody prints from that scene. To the police
compare the Chapinski scene with the Saint Alban murder scene,
and they don't match at all, and they can't find
(21:21):
that killer either.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
They compare the bloody prints.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
At both crime scenes from.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
The two cases. Yep, that doesn't mean much to me
because you can't say that the bloody fingerprints from either
case are from the same parts of the offender's hands.
You know, as an example, you know, you could have
a bloody you know, left pinky at one scene and
you can have a bloody thumb print at the other scene. Now,
(21:49):
of course they don't match, you know, unless they the
Layton examiner, the fingerprint examiner is able to see enough
of the hand, you know, like let's say three fingerprints
or two fingerprints side by side at one scene and
form okay, this is an index in the middle, and
then they see something similar at the other scene, and
(22:10):
then now they have confidence I'm comparing the same fingers
and if they don't match them, you could potentially eliminate.
But typically you don't have that, and so now I'm like, okay,
So if they're just going off of they can't make
a comparison between the bloody fingerprints at these scenes, you know,
absent that there's a sufficient detail to know they're comparing
(22:32):
apples to apples in terms of the parts of the hands. Yeah,
I don't put any weight on that whatsoever. You know,
it is interesting that a mother and kids are hatcheted
or acts to death a couple months or a couple
of weeks before the Saint Aubin's.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Case, two weeks ten miles away.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah, in the distance. I mean, that's that's nothing, you know,
So now it's something that has to be paid attention to.
And then is there overlap in the victimology you know?
Or are you now dealing with something that maybe I
talked about early on. Are you dealing with a psychotic
offender and this is what that psychotic offender needs to do,
(23:11):
you know, in order to answer whatever mental state that
offender is in.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
So if we look at black Hand, it doesn't seem
like a mother and three children, where the mother might
be a widow, we don't know much about her. You know,
this is not somebody they would be extorting money from.
So if they're trying to connect to those two cases
through the black Hand group, I don't think that works.
I will tell you there's a little bit more of
a definitive thing down here. So here's an interesting theory.
(23:40):
Tell me what you think about this. Benny has a
very good old friend he hasn't talked to for a
long time, but an old friend named Aurelius Angelino. This
is something that the police start to focus in on.
In the nineteen tens, Aurelius was convicted of murdering who's
two children with an axe. He was convicted and sent
(24:00):
to prison. So six years before Benny's murder and his
family's murders are really as Angelina escaped and they never
found him again. So what they're saying is, you know,
of course they are looking back at Bennie's history and saying,
maybe this guy came back, maybe they had a beef,
and it's the same method. But good lord, I mean,
how many I've talked about, so many axe murders spanning
(24:24):
hundreds of years. I don't know if a guy killing
his children with an axe is going to translate to
going to his friends. But this was another three they explored.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yeah, that one's wide open. Yeah, as I've mentioned, you know,
it's all in the offender's mind and their perceptions. So
Aurelius and Benny may never have had a beef. Orrelius
gets convicted of acting his two kids to death, and
now he's in prison, and he ultimately learns of Benny's
success and becomes jealous. And now because he's he's a
(24:57):
warped mentality, he decides, well, I'm gonna take my anger
of having lost you know, my half, my life of
being convicted on these cases out on Benny and his
family for whatever reason. You know, it's it's speculative, you
know it is. It looks like it's roughly twenty years
prior that All really has committed this crime against his kids.
(25:20):
But he's showing a propensity to commit a similar type
of violence and has a relationship or had a relationship
with Benny. So he's at least somebody that can't be
dismissed outright. God, there's a lot of things going on
in Benny's life.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Oh buddy, you don't even know. Get ready, I hope
you have your whiskey or whatever you're drinking.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
I'm starting. You can see I've got a pretty good
poor going here.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
So all right, you were drinking water in the last episode.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
So yeah, well I knew this episode was going to
get me, so I decided to Oh, oh gosh, we're
going to go full leated on this one.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Yeah, this is going to be interesting. So we're going
to rewind to when investigators find the body. They go
down into this sprawling house has a basement. They go
into the basement, and I know you're thinking, I'm gonna
say that Benny killed a bunch of people and stored
the bodies down there, and it's like the family's seeking revenge.
(26:14):
That would be interesting. But now the walls of this
basement are covered with a bulky green cloth, and there's
a large card placed in the window and the card
says great Celestial Planet Exhibition. Okay, the police go, what
the hell? The Detroit Free Press does a great job
describing this scene. It is the weirdest altar ever uncovered
(26:40):
in Detroit. He did this, Benny did this. Eight or
ten wax figures, each hideously and grotesque to the extreme.
They're suspended on an altar in a circle by wires
from the ceiling, and among them was a huge eye
electrically lighted from the inside. Benny Evangeliste is very interested
(27:04):
in the occult, and he is in fact identified by
a lot of people in the neighborhood as an all
divine prophet religious leader.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Okay, so would he have gatherings down in the basement?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Oh yeah, animal sacrifice. Do you need to take a drink?
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yes? I do.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
I mean so, I'll show you a photo while you're
doing that. Mighty another one. The only photo I have
of this bizarro scene is the creepiest mobile I've ever seen.
This is not what you would put on over your
kid's crib, hanging paper dolls. That is what Benny had
called to people his sanctuary. So I want to show
(27:46):
you this that police were petrified when they saw it
because they thought it was the weirdest thing ever. So
hang on. So now things get weird when anytime you
introduce the occult, I think you can pretty much say,
now we really have to pay attention to this. Let
me show you you see why I save this.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Theory for the last Yeah, So I'm looking at a
photo which has a caption the ghoulish set of dolls
suspended from the ceiling and Evangelie's basement were said to
be the rulers of his religious world. Benny's into some
weird shit here.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Oh yeah, I mean I have a lot more details just.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Off off the top of my head. You know, this
is where it becomes very important to understand Benny's religious philosophy,
the commitment and dedication of his followers. So when I
initially heard about, you know, the totality of the scene
and how Benny was found, and one of the theories
(28:44):
I put out there is is it possible that Benny
had somebody who would come in, And if Benny's the
one that killed his family, would he have somebody that
could come in kill him and then stage it to
take it look like somebody from the outside must have
come in and killed everybody, right now, Do you have
(29:06):
somebody within this cult that Benny is a leader of
that is willing to do something that Benny directs him
to do, you know? And is Benny of the mindset
that death to his family is going to free their
souls and they go on to a better life or
this and that, you know? So I'm kind of curious
to hear more about this thing that Benny's involved with.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Hold on, I'll show you now, I guess is a
good time. Well, you've no idea how much I've been
jumping around on my document. I've been moving around more
than I ever had. So I have been withholding something
from you about what was found around Benny's body because
it's too weird, and I needed you to hear all
of the other stuff first before you jumped right into
(29:51):
this theory, because this is certainly the most fascinating theory
to me. So I had teased this before Benny he
and his wife had had a child who had died.
Police found three photos of a child. This is the
kid who died who they had and presumably I would
think died of natural causes. A child in a coffin
(30:14):
on the floor of the office. So three photos of
a child in a coffin, his kid on the floor
of the office near his corpse. They ultimately identified these
as death portraits, you know, which were very common, particularly
in the eighteen hundreds, but definitely early nineteen hundreds, of
the son that they had several years ago. So they're
(30:35):
kind of surrounding him. And that's why I kept asking
you about suicide. It just is such a weird scene.
And of course I can tell you there's a lot
more about his religion. He wrote a book.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Yeah, at least based on the description of Benny in
his decapitated head. He didn't do that to himself. But
could it be an assisted suicide? Absolutely, the picture of
his dead child in a coffin placed around him, you know,
it's possible he put those there, or it's possible whoever
(31:08):
assisted him with his own suicide, if you will, basically
did this as part of Benny's wishes, you know, So
Benny is for whatever reason. Again, it's all coming down
into you know, what Benny's personal philosophy is is that
he needs to have his entire family, his wife, all
(31:29):
the kids in the house that are alive dead. He
also needs to be whole with this process, his dead
child to be present in this photo montage, if you will.
And then he also has to die. And it's interesting
that it's through the use of you know, this decapitation,
(31:51):
you know, and is this part of the philosophy that
this is how everybody needs to die in terms of
being hacked to death or to let's say, move on
to the next world or the next life or whatever
he believed in you know, I have a case in
which I believe this is exactly what the victim wanted.
(32:12):
This is the you know, I have an audible out
there called the Riddle of Them and Bodfish. And to
move on from this blue demon conscience that she had
that was making her life miserable. She recognized that she
had to die an unexpected and violent death and she
needed to be bludgeoned in the head where this demon resided,
(32:36):
because she writes in her diary, I need to move
on to my next life because she believed in reincarnation
with her religious beliefs. Is this what's going on with
Benny in terms of I need to kill my entire
family and we have a better life that will also
bring back our dead child to be part of the
(32:58):
family again. You know, I'm now kind of speculating, but
I can say from experience, this is a very real mentality,
and with Benny's bizarro cult stuff going on, I think
it becomes very realistic.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Well, here we go. The family. Doctor's a guy named
alf E Thomas said he is insane. He thinks Benny
is insane. And the friends around the neighborhood, even though
they thought that Benny was nice, say this guy was
a confirmed religious fanatic. And I say that because these
are our witnesses who have no dog in the fight.
(33:38):
They're sort of just observing. They're not involved. They're not
his clients. And I'll explain what I mean by clients
in a second. But you've got a doctor, and you've
got neighbors who say, this guy seems way off the
rails and his wife is just along for the ride,
is what it sounds like. Now let me tell you
about what he does. So he is someone who people
(34:00):
can pay money to and he will do certain services
for He provides client services like hexes herbs. He has
carried out the ritualistic sacrifices of animals, and he claims
to have cured people of curses. He calls himself an
all divine prophet of a religion that he invented. Of course,
(34:21):
he claims that he receives visions directly from God. He
has even written a bible explaining his theory, the one
I told you that's on the internet called the Oldest
History of the World. There were multiple volumes that he
self published in nineteen twenty nine. Marin has a note
for you, our researcher. She said that in the nineteen
twenty nine he was referred to as a cult leader,
(34:43):
but neither of us can find evidence that he actually
had this like following. But that was the vibe he
was giving. He was charging people money. He would get
ten dollars for private readings, during which he called upon
the powers of his own cult to heal various ills
or spiritual ills, physical ills of which patients were afflicted.
(35:06):
That's two hundred dollars a pop. So he had a
legitimate business. And then he had this business, but what
alarmed me was all divine profit of a religion he invented,
and receiving visions from God also sort of perked up
my ears a little bit. What do you think about.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
All of that?
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Oh, I have a term for this nutjob religious fanatic
for real.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
You think about this. You know, it's one thing to
be fanatical about a religion, but think about the personality
that can be discerned from the descriptors of how you know,
he seems to have this cult like following these people
who are gravitating towards him. This is that psychology that
(35:55):
we see that personality such as Charles Manson, David Koresh,
Jim Jones. These types of individuals have this warped sense
of reality and they want to have followers at an
essence look up to them, kind of put them up
on an altar in essence. And it's now getting into
(36:20):
and we've seen it with some of these groups where
the leader says we must all do this, and everybody
ends up dead. Suicide. You know, somebody needs to follow
a comment. I forget the name of that group, and
now everybody's dead because they're believers in this one leader
These leaders are often very charming. You know, they're able
(36:42):
to convince people that are looking for something in their life.
You know that these leaders can possibly provide. These followers
are often very gullible. So this is what it's sounding like,
And now I'm really going into Yes, it seems like
Benny probably decided that, for whatever reason, he was at
(37:06):
a point in his life in which he had to
have his family killed. He had to remember his dead
child that was in the coffin and the photos around him,
and he had a gullible follower, somebody he trusted that
was willing to come in and minimally at least kill
Benny through decapitation and take the murder weapons with him. Now,
(37:29):
right now, I can't say, is Benny the one that
killed the entire family, or do you have something like
helter Skelter with Manson where you have a group of
these followers that came into this home, killed the family
and left, making it look like it was a homicide
with some stranger that came in without a connection, that
Benny was actually the one orchestrating it all along.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
I had not thought about the follower aspect of it.
I had thought that this was his idea. I just
was so bothered by the hands in the prayer position.
There would have been no misinterpreting that for any police officer.
He was Catholic, by the way, devout Catholic. So I
don't know how that fits in with what he's thinking.
(38:12):
But he was starting to dip his toe into the
film business. He had plans to make a motion picture
depicting the history of mankind. I mean talk about delusions
of grandeur here. This is definitely off the rails, and
the pictures of the kid around really bugged me. It
didn't feel like any other explanation except the one that
(38:32):
you're talking about, except I didn't know about I didn't
think about the follower, and I think you must be
right about that. That makes sense.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
I'm fairly confident in that Benny didn't cut his head off, Yeah, yeah,
without leaving evidence of the mechanism to cut it, being
able to cut his head off, because after his head's off,
he can't clean up after himself, you know. So somebody
came in minimally and cut Benny's head off, and possibly
did more. So this you know, my suspect Pool is
(39:01):
now within some of maybe his closest associates within this cult.
Who could he trust to do this and who has
the capability? It takes a special person to cut somebody
else's head off. And when I say special, this is
(39:22):
I mean this is not what just anybody can do,
you know. So who within this group of followers would
be trusted and also could commit this crime, whether it's
just killing Benny or whether it's killing the entire family.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Gosh, well, let me. I'm not throwing you a curveball
that is as curvy as the curveball as I can
throw you. For this case, there is a man who
pops up. Three years later. This goes on unsolved, and
three years later there's a guy who pops up named
Robert Harris in nineteen thirty two. He was notorious as
being sort of violent and a little wacky. He is
(40:04):
a religious fanatic also, but he is a follower of Islam.
He's a black man, and I don't see evidence that
they knew each other, but he confesses he said, you know,
I did this, And he had been convicted for killing
a man and claimed that his victim was a sacrifice.
(40:25):
So investigators say, this guy has confessed he's been violent,
this is what we you know, this might be a potential.
So while they're waiting to compare the prince, he starts
talking about he's plotting to kill other people. He wants
to kill the mayor of Detroit. And it seems clear
to them that Robert Harris has some real mental health struggles.
(40:49):
Even though he had been violent. He clearly was violent
at one point. His prints don't match with the prince
found at the evangelist home. So before you start talking
about a follower, I kind of dismissed this, but you know,
another religious fanatic. I don't know, what do you think.
There's no nothing really tying him to this case except
(41:11):
his confession, and that's it.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Well, it all depends on the details he provided in
his confession. Does he provide information that was never made
public that matches up with the crime scene. I mean,
in many ways, we see this all the time with
these who done It cases. You do have your crackpots
that come out and they want to be associated with
that case, you know, whether you know admitting to you know,
(41:35):
they're they're they're saying, yes, I'm responsible for this homicide,
and it's just part of their warped perception. Of the
world that they want to have that notoriety right now,
that's what this Robert Harris sounds more like, you know,
somebody who's falsely confessing to this crime than somebody who
actually committed it, even though he's got this maybe a
(41:57):
religious fanaticism, but it's a completely different philosophy. You'd have
to show a you know, based on the crime scene
and the victimology of Benny. This is where did Benny
reach out to this Robert Harris or did a follower,
you know, reach out because the follower's going, I know
somebody who's capable of committing this level of violence that
(42:20):
is needed in this case. Why wasn't the family just poisoned?
Why didn't Benny just drink poison? You know, there's purposeful
decisions behind how these crimes are committed unless it's truly
a psychotic aspect. And this is where, now the type
of violence used in this crime is significant to Benny
(42:42):
and or the offender. And now with this this cult
like thing and everything you've told me, it's like, yeah,
this is something that Benny has told somebody he needs
to have done to him and his family. And right
now I'm just not buying Robert Harris. I think it
goes back to somebody who is very close to Benny
within this cult.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
I can't even believe you're saying this, Paul. It's just like, WI,
this weirdest thing that this guy asked someone to do this,
not just to him but to his family. It just
seems so off the wall. But all it takes is
for you to know that he has such fervent beliefs.
(43:23):
And you know, the animal sacrifice, of course, was very
alarming to me. And this just self absorption, everything, narcissism,
everything that goes into it. I wish I knew what happened, Like,
what was the thing that made him say this? Is
it July third? Was it a celestial thing? This doesn't
(43:44):
sound spur of the moment. Have you dealt with these
kinds of cases very much? Not the fanaticism, but I mean,
you know, people people wanting to die.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Yes, you know, I talked about the the m and
Bodfish case, which there's some overlap in terms of this
philosophy of needing to die a certain way and moving
on to the next life. You know, kind of alternate
religious philosophies being involved. I have a case In fact,
I've been talking to my own therapist about that really
(44:15):
bugged me and a little bit of a trigger warning.
I mean, this can be a difficult case for some
to hear. But I had a fifteen year old girl
whose father came in, gave her a hug, and then
blew her head off with a three point fifty seven
magnum and then stepped out into the hallway and committed suicide.
And he left a video of why he did it.
(44:37):
And he did it because Jesus was calling him home
and he could not leave his daughter in this evil world,
so he killed her and then took his own life.
So you could see where a warped religious philosophy can
cause somebody like that to kill his family, a family member.
(44:58):
That's where when I start listening to something as you've
described Benny and his victimology and this cult laying out
his dead child's death photos and the coffin around him.
This is where it's like, yes, it is very in
line with this mentality that I need to kill my
(45:18):
family and be together. They look at it as this
is a good thing, and it's a hard thing to
accept for you know, those of us that are looking
at the world in a more normal sense. But it happens,
and it's unfortunate that it does happen.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Well, the conventional wisdom has always been about this case
that you know, maybe this was one of his quote
unquote cults, even though it doesn't seem like he had
a cult. One of his clients, one of his members,
one of his followers, who was mad, So not what
you were saying about, you know, doing his bidding, but
who was angry about maybe Benny's a fraud, or maybe
(45:58):
Benny told him the wrong thing, or the person himself
has some mental health struggles, or really I think it's
settled down to a random act of violence. You know,
somebody found an unlocked door and came in and did this.
Some maniac. But it doesn't explain No, so many of
the weird things that come with it, and the prayer
hands and the photos on the floor. If it is
(46:20):
not Benny asking somebody to do this, then someone knows
a lot about Benny and is trying to send some
kind of a weird message. I don't know any of
the reason why this would be on the floor.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
I do not buy these others. It's not a random act.
It's not a vindictive type of crime, like you know,
we talked early on as being a possibility. I mean,
I do think the photos laid out of his dead
child in the coffin around Benny, that's hugely telling. You know,
who has access to those photos? Benny? You know that
(46:53):
this eliminates in my mind, the random person. They would
have no idea what those photos are or how significant
they are, even of vindication of person coming in. Why
would they do that? This is something that was significant
to Benny. He had access to those photos. He died
in a way in which basically his hands are folded
in a prayer like posture. It's like he accepted that
(47:16):
he was about to be killed. And this is where
I truly, truly believe this was an assisted suicide. It
was a family massacre, and it was being driven by
Benny's own personal religious philosophies. And he had a confidant
that was willing to do that.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
And boy, could you not pick a better one, most
likely than someone who's one of your followers who is
never going to say anything, right, I mean, talk about
somebody who's devout to him, I would assume.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
No, absolutely, you know, And that's just part of you
find the right person and they're willing to commit to
this type of crime, whether they did all of it,
all the homicides, or they just killed Benny after Benny
killed his family. You know, right now, have no idea,
but that person, for their own self protection, self preservation
(48:04):
as well as maybe even their ongoing religious fanatical philosophies,
isn't going to come forward and say, well, yeah, Benny
had me do this, or Benny was the one to orchestrate.
They're going to take that secret to their grave.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
Well, this is an unsolved mystery, and I have had
listeners lining up to say, why don't you please talk
about the Saint Auban massacre. So this is an upsetting
story because you and I both have kids, and I
hate talking about children who have been murdered by it
sounds like in this case the parent or you know,
at the behest of the parent. But you know, I
(48:42):
think that this is a story that has just been
talked about for almost one hundred years now, and I
feel like when I read it, I thought, I bet
Paul with the occult aspect of this, I bet this
is going to really alarm him. And I was really
glad to hear that I was not unalarmed for no
good reason, and there were so many theories thrown out there.
(49:05):
This has not the one you and I have been
talking about, is not the one that has ever taken
hold in any way. I've actually never read it that
this was his, you know, decision, and that is what
I immediately thought too. I thought this is weird. So
I hope we have a story next week that is
as compelling with that many theories, a little more forensics,
(49:26):
you know, but theories are great too.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
Yeah, you know, in this particular case, oftentimes somebody's involvement
in alternate religions or what could be classified as a cult,
you know, people think, oh, that's got to be the reason.
And I will tell you, in ninety nine percent of
the time, it's not the reason for the crime that
was committed. But I truly believe, based on the circumstances,
(49:49):
the evidence, the crime, seeing the victimology, that Benny's own
personal religious philosophies is the reason why that family ended
up dead. And it's sad, but I'm looking forward to
a maybe what you want to call a change of
pace for the next case that you give me.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
Probably not, but we'll see good work today, Paul Hols,
get yourself an extra. Whatever it is that you're drinking,
that's brown in that small.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
Glass, it's a bourbon. That's what I will tell all right, Kate,
thank you again.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
I'll see you next week.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
Sounds good.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
This has been an exactly right production for our.
Speaker 2 (50:30):
Sources and show notes go to exactly rightmedia dot com
slash Buried Bones sources.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
Our senior producer is Alexis Emosi.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark and Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
very Bones Pod.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
Kate's recent book All That Is Wicked, a Gilded Age
story of murder and the race to decote the criminal mind,
is available now, and
Speaker 1 (51:06):
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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