October 23, 2024 • 50 mins
In this week’s episode, the first part of a two-parter, Paul and Kate take us to 1961 Lincoln, Massachusetts where an incident in the middle-of-the-day leaves a kitchen covered in blood and a stay-at-home mother missing.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
last twenty five years writing about true crime.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
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 (00:17):
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 (00:27):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is buried Bones.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Hey, Kate, how's it going.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
It's going well, Paul. How about you?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I'm doing very well. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Listen. I have listener mail that pertains directly to you,
and I've never done this before, but I thought this
was such an interesting comment. I wanted to get your
reaction before you say anything. It's from a man, so
it's not from a woman, which surprised me too. I
think you get a lot of female attention, is the
impression I get.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Uh, you know what. I don't look at online comments
or anything like that, so I'm a little bit scared
about what I'm about to hear.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Well, Paul, I think listeners have heard this before. You
don't watch yourself. You don't listen. I listened to all
of our episodes on Our Behalf because you don't like
to even listen to your own voice. You have such
a great voice. I've never understood that.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
No, you know, I just don't understand that. And nobody
ever commented on my voice before I got into the
podcast world. Yeah, ohso in the day to day world
during my career, I was just Paul and the way
I talk.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, okay, let me read this because I think it's sweet. Hi, Kate,
I'm a seventy one year old fan of Buried Bones.
I'm also a binge reader of detective novels since listening
to you and Paul so often. Every time a male
detective or a Marshall speaks in one of these novels,
I hear him speaking in Paul's voice. I just thought
(02:22):
that was so sweet, and I emailed him back and
I said, I do the same thing now. Every time
I either write dialogue from a police officer or I
hear something, you know, like I hear it in my head.
In the book it's your voice, which is a good thing.
Thank goodness, you have a good voice, Paul. But I
thought that was a very sweet comment.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, that tells me there's too much Paul out there.
We need to get some other voices out of the
law enforcement field.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
No, no, no, no. But I think it's nice that
what you say resonates with people so much. I think
that you kind of represent the good officer, the good investigators,
the good forensics people out there. So it was really nice.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Now that's I mean, that is very nice, and you know,
I hope that the people who do listen, you know,
recognize that I try to come off with a level
of authenticity and to reflect. You know, I worked with
just amazing individuals over the course of my career, and
now that I've got a platform, I do want to
either directly give them some kudos and their opportunities like
(03:26):
I've had the opportunities, or even indirectly just so the
general people understand, you know, the hard work that the
professionals that are tasked with working with some of these
horrific crimes are. You know, what they do and the
good that they accomplish.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Well, I think you represent them very well. I think
your depth of knowledge shows so much on this show
and all of the shows that you're on also, but
particularly our show. I learned something every time. So I
think the bottom line is you have a nice voice.
That's what everyone's trying to tell you.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Paul holes well, o, Kate, I appreciate the kind words.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Well, listen, I have got a treat for you. Not
only do we have a case in this century.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
All right, so there you go, it's got something modern.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
It is it is, and it's in nineteen sixty one,
and it is in Massachusetts, and there are lots of
photos of blood, bloody photos. So I think this is
a big it's like Christmas Day for you.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
That's something I always would love to have in all
of our episode, just so I can kind of weigh
in and you know, maybe form some opinions.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
If only I had DNA that I could hand you,
that we could run. I think there is nothing more
perfect for you to talk about today.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Now this sounds awesome. I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Okay, let's set the scene. It is October twenty fourth,
which is actually pretty close to where we are right now.
We're mid October, so October twenty fourth, and we're in Lincoln, Massachusetts,
nineteen sixty one. Lincoln is a suburb of Boston. And
this all centers around a woman named Joan Rish and
(05:05):
she is thirty years old. She's a homemaker, and she's
got two kids, and she's been married for five years
to a man named Martin. He is in New York
on a business trip. This is one big mystery, like
more of a mystery I feel like than we've ever tackled,
and a lot of conflicting information. So this is the
(05:28):
beginning of a two parter for us, and I think
it's important to establish that there's going to be a
ton to unpack. All the attention is going to be
centered on Joan here pretty soon. And let's just talk
about the homemaker aspect of this. Because when you're thinking
about somebody who is a potential victim of a crime,
and she may or may not be, then we think
(05:50):
of the person who's at home, male or female, whoever,
who's at home. They're still exposed to a lot of people, right,
I mean, they're out there getting groceries. I know, they're kids' parents.
You know. When I think of somebody who's out in
the business world, and I think, oh my gosh, of
course there are a target for various reasons, but the
person who stays at home could also be a target
(06:11):
because they still have to encounter quite a lot of people, right.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah, you know, and you think about somebody who is
a homemaker, and especially in nineteen sixty one, it's predominantly females,
you know. And then now we've seen, of course a
cultural shift where more men are staying at home, and
then post pandemic, now we can see a lot of
people who are working from home in the online space.
But I think what stands out about this era and
(06:37):
this homemaker category victimology, if you will, is that they
will have fairly set life patterns, especially you know, if
you're talking about Joan, who's got two kids. To say,
the age of the.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Kids four and two, So a four year old girl
and a two year old son, and they just had
them pretty quickly after they got married apparently.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, so we don't know if if these kids are
going into like preschool or daycare, probably not at those ages.
But Joan's still going to have a life pattern that
is going to be centered around, you know, taking care
of the kids, taking care of the meals, you know,
as you mentioned going out grocery shopping. Does she have
a somebody who can watch the kids during the day
(07:21):
or is everything on her?
Speaker 1 (07:23):
It sounds like everything's on her. There's a neighbor who
comes into play here pretty soon where it sounds like
they kind of watch each other's kids. I don't know
if it's anything formal, but she has a couple of
unexpected things happening. I don't know. You can tell me
what you think about the pattern of the day that
this starts to happen, and then you can let me
know what you think. But you're just basically saying that
(07:44):
that people who stay at home oftentimes create a pattern.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Create a pattern in which you know, of course, I'll
have to see how this case develops, but you know,
the pattern in which somebody who is able to you know,
remotely observe Jones pattern. Let's say a neighbor can start
to predict when Joan would be vulnerable, or somebody who
has focused in on Joan has a potential victim, a
stranger from outside the neighborhood, but is able to post up,
(08:08):
whether it be in a vehicle, whether it be in
the you know, the recesses of the backyard like a
Joseph DiAngelo and start to see Joan's life pattern and
try to determine, you know, when to attack. And I'm
assuming Joan is a victim in this this case.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
I mean, this case is so mysterious. I'm going to
go with yes, but I'm not one hundred percent sure. Okay,
I know, I told you this is one of the
wackier ones. So let's just go with yes. Yes, you
must be a victim. Yes.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
And the other thing about the homemaker victimology during this
era is that somebody is going to be able to
predict that a female is home and a male is
in the office. And so there again, you don't have
the male threat to an offender who wants to go
into the house potentially.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Okay, well, so the social norms of the time play
into this too. Okay, that's interesting. So let's talk about
Jones's day. So, as I said before, this is a
week before Halloween, and she's got these two little kids.
She has a four year old daughter named Lilian, and
she has a two year old son named David. And
(09:19):
remember her husband's name is Martin. He's in New York
verified on a business trip. So Joan goes to the
dentist where she and the four year old Lillian both
have appointments at nine point thirty that morning, and the son,
the two year old David, is dropped off at Jon's
neighbor's house, who is a woman named Barbara Barker, and
(09:41):
Barbara will become important in a little while. So the
two year old is with the neighbor and Joan takes
Lillian to the dentist. After they get to the appointments,
everything's fine. After they go to the appointments, Joan and
Lilian go shopping and they run a few errands, so
kind of unpredictable. At this point, she picks up David
(10:01):
across the street and the family goes back to the
house around eleven am. This is the most, i will say, Paul,
the most boring setup for a potential murder that we
have ever had. I mean, you just don't get any
more boring than this. It is just a day where
they're just kind of living life, and that's the scariest,
you know, thing of something that happens that's unexpected. She
(10:23):
picks up David at the neighbors the family goes back
to the house. Around eleven, Joan makes the kids some lunch,
and around noon, David needs a n app so she
puts David down. He naps usually from noon until two PM,
which is great. I don't think my kids are right
out that long. So at a one twenty the neighbor,
(10:45):
Barbara Barker, her son Douglas comes across the street and
wants to play with Lillian in Jan's yard. And the
kids often did this, so he comes across the street.
I assume they're about the same age, and I think
Barbara's watching them across the street. We don't know what
Jan's doing at this time the mom between one and
two on this day, we don't know. But at one
(11:08):
fifty five, David is still napping and she leaves him
in his crib and she takes Lillian and Douglas the
little boy by the hand, and goes back over to
the swing set, to the neighbor's swing set. She says
she doesn't tell Barbara that the kids are now back
in Barbara's own yard, and I don't know why. She
(11:30):
tells her daughter and Douglas, I'll be right back for
you guys. I'm just going to go back into the
house and that is the last time anyone saw Joan alive.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Okay. So Joan takes Barbara's kid and Lillian over to
Barbara's house at the swing set, leaves him in the yard,
and then tells those kids she's going to go back
to check on David.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Right, yes, she says, well, she said, I'm going to
go back. I'll be right back, just going to go
check in. And then that was it. And I'll tell
you the setup of the discovery of what we find, Okay,
that indicates this was likely a murder. But that is
the only setup we have. I have a lot of
early life of Joan that could give us some hints,
(12:16):
or I have the scenes, so you tell me which
one you want to hear first. But that is all
we know about what she did beforehand. Husband's clueless, and
the neighbors said, well, I never saw her bring Douglas
back over with Lilian. But the kids said, yeah, that's
what she did, and it wouldn't have been unusual at all.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah, I want to start with the scene. Okay, do
you know me?
Speaker 1 (12:36):
I know you, Okay, so let's get to it. We
have some pretty serious blood and I'll tell you don't
bring up your photo yet. I sent you some photos,
but you're gonna need to look at him. There's quite
a few photos of what we presume is Joan's blood.
Here's when things go wrong. At one fifty five, Joan
dropped off her daughter Lilian and the neighbor's kid, Douglas,
(12:59):
presumably because she was going to put him in the yard,
the neighbor's yard, and come back across the street check
on David, who I guess, like clockwork, woke up at
two and then nobody sees her again. So time goes
by and Barbara Barker is alarmed because it's three forty
five now, so you know, almost two hours after she
(13:19):
had dropped off these two kids in her yard, and
she's kind of going, where's my friend? And Lilian would
like to go home. So she finally walks Lillian back
to the house, and as I said, you know, this
is a two hour time difference. Once she gets inside,
Lilian can't find her mom. She's running all over the house. Instead,
(13:41):
she finds a bloody scene in the kitchen, and a
common quote is that, you know, the kitchen looks like
it was covered in red paint. There is an author
who really covered this extensively in a book called A
Kitchen Painted in Blood. His name is Stephen Ahern and
it's an excellent resource. This is what I know Maren
(14:02):
really looked at for this episode. They said, it is
just covered in red paint. And you'll see what I
mean when I show you some of these photos. So
a question I had initially, Barbara I think just left
her at the door. The neighbor just let, you know,
let her inside and then shut the door. And Barbara
didn't go inside, and I don't know why she would
have anyway, she just said, go find your mom. I'll
(14:23):
see you guys later. She shuts the door. She goes
back over. So Barbara does not see this scene. It
is this four year old wandering around the house alone
until she gets to the kitchen and sees this play scene.
Lillian goes upstairs at first to look for the mom,
and David is crying in his crib. We don't know
if he has been in his crib since he first
(14:45):
went down for a nap, or if at some point
Joan at two o'clock when he woke up, got him
and then put him back. We don't know what happened,
but he's very wet, he has an overfilled diaper. He
obviously hasn't been tended to for a while. So Lillian
doesn't know. As a four old, of course, doesn't know
what to do. She waits with David for a few minutes.
She's completely freaked out, and eventually she runs across the
(15:07):
street and finds Barbara and says, I need to find
my mom. Do you have anything to say before I
tell you kind of the actions that happen after that.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Well, you know, what a horrific thing for Lilian to
have to be exposed to. I'm sure that that is
something that stayed with Lilian for her entire life. You know.
Part of the assessment of the scene without knowing anything
about it outside of you know, what sounds like an
extensive amount of bloodshed within the kitchen is there's a
four year old girl that is wandering through this house.
(15:37):
So there has to be an accounting for her actions
inside that house. Did she go into the kitchen, did
she step into any of the blood? Did she touch
any of the blood? And then as she's moving through
the house, is there a possibility that Lilian has sort
of contaminated this scene, and this is something that is unavoidable,
you know, obviously, But as a crime scene investigator, as
(16:00):
an investigator, as a blood pattern person, I have to
take into account those types of actions that could have
caused some issues within the scene after the offender has left.
So the offender commits a crime and then leaves the
crime scene, now you have the crime scene in a
static space that would be accurate to what the offender
(16:22):
did during the commission of the crime. But then we
have people who discover the body, we have first responders
coming in. There's changes to the crime scene. And that's
something that I'm now immediately keying in on because Lilian
has a four year old girl is not necessarily just
going to stop because she sees blood in the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
And I had actually wondered is it worth at that
age talking to Lilian and finding out exactly what she
might have done? So, Sweetie, do you think did you
move this? Did you move you know, because there's some
things that are out of place that are really alarming
for investigators, Or do you think at that age she's
not even going to be aware of half of what
she did. If she's panicking running around trying to find
(17:03):
her mother.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, this is where relying on your child interview experts.
You know, in this day and age, we recognize that
we need to approach kids this age in a different
way than how investigators approached kids as witnesses back in
the nineteen sixties. But yes, you know she at that age,
I can imagine that she would be able to provide
(17:24):
at least some accurate information as to her behaviors. Maybe
not everything, but the interview needs to be done in
a proper way.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Well, when you hear some of the details of this scene,
you can tell me whether you think this could be
a Lillian interference thing, or a contamination from first responders
thing or what. Okay, there's an interesting little timeline here.
So the last time anyone saw Joan was one fifty
five PM. Then Lillian arrives at the house at three
(17:55):
forty five panics goes to get Barbara. I would have
to imagine in less than ten So Barbara takes from
four point fifteen until four thirty ish, as late as
four thirty to get another neighbor, a woman named Mary
Jane Butler, to search with her in this house. So
they don't call the police immediately. They decide these two
(18:17):
women to go to the house, but they wait an
awful long time. I mean it's about forty five minutes.
I'm sure they're petrified. If Lillian is describing this red
paint seen in the kitchen, I'm sure they didn't really
know what to do. I still don't ever really quite
understand when people just don't call the police. But maybe
in the sixties they were afraid it was something else
(18:38):
and they were going to embarrass Joan. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Well. Part of it, of course, is that you know,
ninety nine point nine percent of the people have never
experienced a violent crime. You know, when first exposed to
something that you've never seen before, you've never walked into before,
there is going to be this processing what am I
looking at here and not necessarily understanding. I have a
case where a wife found her son and husband bound
(19:06):
and shot to death, and of course there were pools
of blood around each of the victim's head. She tells investigators,
I thought they had built grape fruit juice or grape juice,
and they were kneeling down to clean it up. You know,
that just really emphasized she as being what I would
call a naive person from you know, exposure to violent crime,
(19:28):
did not know what she was looking at. I imagine
when Lilian is he got this four year old Lilian,
this little girl coming over and describing red stains or blood.
I'm not even sure she would have recognized it as blood.
But something is off inside the kitchen, Barbara maybe going
what is going on with her is there's somebody scary
inside the house? And is this why Barbara is now
(19:50):
seeking out a companion sort of a safety net to
go into the house together to kind of see what
Lilian is telling them. And then now you have the
two adult are now recognizing, oh, something really bad is
going on, versus relying upon what the four year old
girl said. So the amount of time it takes before
(20:10):
they notify law enforcement, I think is reasonably explainable based
on my experiences in terms of you know, victims or
neighbors or something discovering a crime. But it's something at
least to note, you know, because now you have a
temporal component that I have to take into consideration. You know,
there's one point fifty five, you know, you've got you know,
(20:33):
Barbera leaving and then now you're you're as far out
as what four point thirty, so you've got two and
a half hours, you know, So this this impacts you know,
how much time you know, the offender may have been
inside the house, how much time the offender has had
to leave the house. Right now, you haven't even told
me whether or not Jones' body is found inside the house,
(20:55):
you know. So the temporal component will be something that
comes into play as I get a better understanding of
the dynamics of what happened during this crime.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
And now we're adding two more people to the mix
to contaminate this scene. Because we have Barbara and Mary
Jane going to the house. They do not find Joan either.
There is the bloody kitchen, and at four thirty three,
Barbara calls the police and I will tell you, Paul
right now. I mean, you know, I like to drag
(21:26):
you around sometimes. I like to lead you around and
say this person, were they murdered, were they not murdered?
She's gone. No one has ever found her. What we're
left with is a huge amount of blood and some
really weird scenes, some really weird mysteries. But she has
vanished forever.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Okay, so this is a no body homicide, yep.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
If it's a homicide, because there's a big if there
with some of these people.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Well, and that's where, you know, when I get to
take a look at the blood patterns, you know, maybe
I'll be able to discern whether or not I would
characterize this as a homicide. And usually when we're dealing
with nobody homicides, we've found a location, a death scene
in which the amount of blood and the types of
blood patterns are present, we're fairly confident that the person
(22:16):
did not survive. This is where Okay, how did the
offender get the body in this case Joan away from
this location? And then where did where did the offender
place Joan? But right now, nobody homicide. Lots of blood
in the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yes, well my interpretation of lots of blood. They are
saying half a pint of blood. I don't know if
that's a lot of blood. It looks like a lot
of blood in me, But everybody's definition is different. Do
you consider that if they're estimating correctly half a pint
of blood?
Speaker 2 (22:43):
I you know, I have to see Sometimes you get
these you know, somebody will take a look at a
blood pool and you know, say, oh, yeah, this is
this is so much of this blood. But when you
have smears and spatter and there's just no way to
put a volume on it. You know, the volume is
typically when you have a blood pool. And if you
(23:03):
have a blood pool, that indicates that you had an
individual with a bleeding injury at that location for a
period of time. So it all depends on how large
that blood pool is as to whether or not that
appears at that person had a fatal injury and they
bled out at the location, or you know they didn't
have a fatal injury.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Well, let's get one motive out of the way, and
then I know you're anxious to get to the photos.
Jones purse is there in the kitchen, car keys are there,
Money's there. I know that doesn't always mean that robbery
wasn't a motive, but there is that those would have
been easy things for somebody to grab. So it says
that the aside from a small table that seems to
(23:42):
have been thrown from its usual place it's usually under
the kitchen telephone, but it was in the hallway kind
of on its side, there isn't a suggestion of a
struggle except from the blood in the kitchen. Everything in
the house looks like it's in order, and it looks
like someone started to clean up the blood but then
(24:03):
abruptly stopped. Oh okay, yep, and everything else. So I'm
trying to figure out when to just show you the
photos and stop talking. But there's some interpretation for the
police to offer you that would go along with the photos.
So do you want to look at the photos and
then I can kind of add stuff in as we
go along, or what do you think?
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, I think you know. The first thing I need
to know is, you know, Barbara and the neighbor call
the police. Are they calling from inside Jones house or
do they go back across the street? Is Barbara's phone
something that they interact with.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
The phone receiver in its court had been pulled off
the wall and then intentionally placed on the rim of
a small trash can which is full and had been
set in the middle of the floor. So normally the
trash can is under the sink. There are a couple
of things that are off, so it looks like the
phone receiver in the court had been pulled off the wall.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
So no, I immediate leak kind of keyed in on
when you said that the small table had been kind
of strewn aside, and it normally was underneath where the
phone was on the wall. And so, you know, my
immediate thought was, well, this almost sounds like Joan recognized
a threat inside the house, went to the phone, and
(25:18):
that threat caught up to her at that moment. And
so now you have that initial interaction between Joan and
the offender. Now the offender, I don't know if during
a struggle with you know, you could easily see Joan
holding onto the phone and during that struggle it gets
pulled out of the wall. But you also may have
an offender who's purposefully removing the phone to prevent the
operator from being called. Nineteen sixty one is in the
(25:40):
days before nine to one one, so typically you'd be
dialing zero in order to get the operator in order
to get a hold of law enforcement. You're generally not
calling law enforcement directly during this era. So what I
have to see, you know, is you know what else
is going on and is this potentially contamination as a
result of Barbara or the neighbor. I'd out Lily would
(26:00):
be interacting with the phone much. But this is where're
interviewing you know, what all did you do when you're
inside the house.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
So I think that your theory must be right, because
in the whole way, near the overturned table, there's an
apron that has been flung onto the floor, and there
is a local telephone directory which is open to the
section containing numbers for emergency services. So does that sound
like she heard something? She's opening your right No. Nine
(26:29):
to one one, She's opening up the telephone book desperately
trying to find who to call, and is attacked in
the middle of it.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Well, that's odd because, of course, you know, if you
are seeing a threat and that threat sees you, I
would expect this to be a very very quick encounter
where Joan would not have had the time to go
to the telephone book. So you know, I'm starting to
again this is all just speculation, But I'm wondering, Okay,
does Joan hear something in the house and now now
(27:00):
needs to take the phone directory out to call emergency
services or is there somebody in there after Joan is bleeding,
who's now second guessing what has happened and is now
going I need to get medical attention to this woman
and then changes course for one reason or another. So
I don't know how to interpret it right now.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Okay, well let's just get into it. Let's look at
the photos. So pull up that document that I sent you.
So the first photo you see is Joan, the second
one is the house, so those will be helpful.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
So now I am looking at the first crime scene photo,
which is somewhat of an overview of a photo show
in the kitchen floor with what appears to be white
or light colored kitchen cabinetry, as well as possibly on
the right hand side a stove. It looks like the sink.
I can't see the countertop, so I'm having to just
(27:51):
look at the cabinetry and see what the kitchen layout is.
But to the left of the photograph appears to be
likely where the sink is. To the right appears to
be where the stove is. And then I see the
tiled kitchen floor, which is predominantly white square tiles with
some it's not a random but a few of these
(28:12):
roughly twelve inch by twelve inch tiles. I'm going to
call them sort of like your vinyl tile, you know,
just sort of that kind of era. They're not slate,
it's not, you know, anything fancy, but you have the
darker tiles. On the left hand side on the floor
is a trash can that is very full. And then
I see up against the kitchen cabinet tree a paper
(28:35):
towel roll that it looks like it's actually rolled, so
a fair amount of the paper towels are are away
from the roll, but it looks more like the paper
towel roll roll to this location, and as it unspun,
some of this length of paper towels are just laying there,
which that is on top of Is that the phone
(28:56):
book in the back well, I'm now seeing the zoomed
image and calling that a children's book.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
And the author actually says it's drawing paper. I thought
it was paper towels too. They say it's drawing paper
and then write a children's book, okay. And these are
items that normally sit underneath the small table that's now
been tossed in the hallway, so they were flung off
obviously when the furniture was moved.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Right you know, So right now I think there is
sequencing information with that paper towel roll on top of
this children's book or drawing paper. And then towards the
front of the photo on the floor, I see what
appears to be some you know, in my experience, these
are relatively minor blood pools with some blood flows out
(29:45):
of them. You know, the skitchen floor, even though it's
very smooth and to us very flat, all of these
floors have some unevenness and so the blood will eat
when it pools. You'll start to see some of these
flows follow the lower parts of the floor, so that's
fairly typical. Then I do see some smears. In addition,
there appears to be a paper towel that's on top
(30:06):
of a blood smear, and I can scroll down. You're
gonna let me scroll down? Am I going to get
my handslapped? No? You're good, Okay. I have another view
which is showing basically I can see the stove, which
was in the right part of the photo, so like
if I were to turn to my right about ninety degrees,
(30:27):
this is a photo showing this other corner of the
kitchen which shows a door, and it's just a single door.
It's not like it's a big double door. Don't know
if it's a bathroom or you know, something else, but
it's right there in that corner. There appears to be
maybe a hallway right next to the stove itself that
(30:48):
leads back to another space in the house of some sort.
And I think the table that you are describing that
used to be under the phone is seeing tipped over
in this you know hallway still somewhat in the kitchen, yep.
And then there's a child's it's like a high chair,
right high chair, thank you, you know, that's just to
(31:08):
the right of the photo, in front of what appears
to be a furnace along the wall. The previously described
blood smears and blood pools with the paper towel on
top in the center of the kitchen floor is in
the lower part of this photo. And then back towards
the rear of this photo, near where that tipped over
(31:28):
table is, appears to be some more possible blood pooling
as well as a significant contact transfer of blood approximately
three feet high up on this rear wall. That is
a corner wall. So I see two short walls coming
to a corner and a blood smear on the left
(31:51):
hand side or a contact transfer. I'm pretty sure it's
a contact transfer, and I see a blow up of
it and the lower photo, so that is a contact
transfer as well as what appears to be a minor
blood pool with some smearing in it, actually on the
floor and then up onto the base board in the
corner of this. So right now, you know, typically I
(32:14):
like to know what the victim's injuries are to interpret
blood patterns. That's usually a critical thing at this point.
Since I don't have that, all I can say is
there appears to be you know, a significant bleeding injury,
and this bleeding injury possibly with Joe, assuming this is
Joan's blood, and I think that's a reasonable assumption. You
(32:35):
know that that Joan has been moved around after she
started bleeding, whether she is voluntarily moving around, she's in
combat with this offender, which is likely with some of
the blood smearing, or she has been incapacitated and being
moved around. There are some what appeared to be blood
droplets on that corner wall. They're larger and there's not
(32:57):
a lot of them, so probably can't interpret those, but
that would tend to indicate, you know, that there's possibly
those are a result of blow to a pooled blood source.
I'm not seeing enough to be able to decide if
it's you know, consistent with cast off. Like let's say
you have a bloody knife or a bloody hammer or something.
(33:20):
Right now, with the types of bleeding at this scene,
I would at least say, you know, there was significant
violence done to Joan, and I would lean towards this
is likely homicide. However, I do not believe that there
is sufficient blood to say she definitely bled out at
this location. In my experience, this is not a lot
(33:42):
of blood relatively speaking. I mean, it's a significant you know,
significant injuries, no question about it. But in terms of
being an extensively bloody scene, now, you know, this is
very typical for a homicide scene inside a house in
which you have somebody that's being beat or somebody you
know that's being stabbed. It's just it is routine.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Well, we have a print, couple of prints actually, and
so stay with that photograph document that I gave you.
So it seems like investigators think most of the actions
started with this telephone. There are prints all over the place.
They all seem to belong to the family members, people
who they know who are immediate family members. But there
(34:24):
are three prints that do not match anybody in the family.
There's a partial palm print and a fingerprint which are
found on the wall where the telephone is mounted, and
there is a thumb print on the phone receiver speaker,
which I think is the thing that isn't in trash can,
and you can see a pretty clear photograph of that.
Over the course of the investigation, the FBI got involved.
(34:48):
They compare these prints to ten thousand other prints and
they have never found a match. So what do you
think about that? And you now have a photo you
can look at this print, these prints that show up
in the scene.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
My first thought is are these prints in Jones's blood?
Because then now I have temporal indication that these prints
were deposited after the bloodshed occurred, and it becomes much
more significant. I will tell you you can go into
any house and you know, back then this was almost
exclusively latent. Print processing was done with black powder. And
black powder's good. You know, it's not as sensitive as
(35:23):
like if you fume the inside of a vehicle or
a room or something with super glue and then do
die staining and some of the more advanced chemistries that
we can do. But it's still going to recover a
fair amount of prints, Layton prints, and any house has
prints that you can never identify. You have so many
people flowing into and out of a house. And if
(35:44):
it's if these prints are deposited in a location where
they're never cleaned, they're never wiped, they can persist for
a long long time. So with that being said, now
I want to take a look at picture of the
You have a picture of a.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Print and read pull aloud the description because it answers
some of your questions of these prints. And the first
one is impressions in blood not powdered.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Okay, now you're you're testing my vision here.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Oh no, get your contacts.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Let's see here. Okay, So I am. I am looking
at page eight of this document. So I am looking
at some images of the Layton prints. It appears that
there's four Layton prints that are in this on this page.
So the upper left print is impression in blood not
(36:41):
powdered as originally on telephone ridges, white furrows and background black,
enlarged finger not known. Okay, So what they're telling me
is that this is a bloody print. I can take
a look at this print and I can see the
core of the print. So it's sort of like your whirl,
your loop, et cetera. That's so it's going to be
(37:02):
somewhat capturing the center of the top part of the
finger as well as I can see ridge details extending
out from this core, I can't see the delta, where
sometimes most of the time there's a delta near the core.
So it's kind of telling me that it's capturing the
center and the upper part of this finger. But when
(37:23):
they say finger not known, that means they don't have
surrounding prints to say, oh, this is the index finger
or this is the ring finger. And so when you
start having to search a database of finger prints, you
can't just focus in on one one finger. You now
have to look at all the fingers, which today, with
(37:44):
computerized systems, that's not that big of a deal, but
back in nineteen sixty one, that just makes it that
much more complicated to try to sort through significant that
they're saying it's in blood, you know, and of course
you have to eliminate Lilian and they probably can just
be off the size of the finger print. But the
other adults in the house, first responders, you know, and
(38:05):
even Joan herself, and.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
They said they did all that and nobody matches this
particular print.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Yeah, it does, you know, this is not the greatest copy.
But I would say with the amount of ridge detail
that is captured in this print and how complete it is,
because I am able to pick out what are called points,
the various places of the ridge pattern that are used
by fingerprint examiners to do the comparison, and so I
(38:31):
can see bifurcations, I can see ending ridges, see a
fair amount even with this poor copy that I would say, yeah,
this does look like if they find the right person,
it could be identifiable. So the upper right photograph is
the same print, but what they've done is a reversal
of the photo. So now, in essence, it's like looking
at a negative and sometimes your eyes can see things
(38:52):
better that way. Does it help you well in this
In this copy there's less detail being exposed. Yeah, I
mean I can still see make out the core. You know,
it's just a loop as well as you know some
of the ridge detail. But it's it's a poor copy
for whatever reason. So right now, you know, the original
(39:13):
image is better to my eye than the reversal. Okay,
now moving on to the photo app left, which is
described as prints on wall developed with black powder. Maybe
right hand, but search should not be so limited. The
description prints on wall and it's developed with black powder.
(39:34):
You know, the location has become significant. Is this a
location within the house. I'm assuming it's probably within the
kitchen in which you have an offender that's been there.
Is this a location that the offender likely would have
touched during the commission of this type of crime. I
have none of that information. They've black powdered the wall,
and they've got these two side by side prints that
(39:55):
were developed, and they look like two sequential things on
a hand, but without more information, I can't determine which
fingers of which hand these prints would be.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Right And the only thing they can say is that
this is a partial palm print and a fingerprint on
the wall where the telephone is mounted.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Well, this photo on the left is two fingerprints, and
then the bottom photo is the partial palm and so
that's this what they call photo below and they write
palm impression on wall with position relative to prints and
photo on left possibly indicating right hand, but not certain
black powdered ridges. So that's where with the palm, you know,
(40:35):
you could you know the theener region, you know, you
can kind of figure out like this big thing on
the thumb, you know, the ridges. A competent fingerprint examiner
would have no issues identifying this as a as a
partial palm, and it's a pretty good palm print to
be frighted, but partial palm from the right hand. I
think their question is is that since it's underneath where
(40:57):
the two fingers are on this wall, are those two
fingers part of this partial palm could be? You know,
it also could be just randomly placed by two different touches,
by possibly two different individuals. So that's part of the
complexity in terms of trying to assess the specifics of
are these two different prints, the fingerprints and the palm,
(41:19):
are they related or not? However, to be frank, you
have to go after this, this palm print and the
other two prints. But I'm most excited about the one
on the finger in blood that tells me that was
left after bleeding occurred, So it gives a smaller pool
of individuals that it could have come from the palm print,
(41:39):
and the other two fingers could be from the maintenance
man that was working on the furnace in that kitchen
three years ago. So I actually had this in Golden State,
Killer where I had a phone that the when he
was known as Easter a rapist had touched and resubmitted
Layton Prince or was a Layton print found on the
bottom of this phone and we identified it and it
(42:00):
turned out to be like this Hispanic mail that was
a phone serviceman from several years prior that had been
inside the victim's house. Yeah, so that kind of thing
does happen. You have to spend the resources to go
after this this type of evidence, but it may not
lead anywhere. It could be a red herring.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
There's no way now, Like what would they need now
to run it against these prints against the national database?
Would we be able to do that? I think Maren said,
there's a note that said that the author from twenty
twenty who wrote this said he didn't think that that
had happened. We're not sure whether anybody's ever done that
since this crime happened in sixty one.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Well, with the FBI's you know, current iteration, and I'm
a little bit dated in terms of where they're at
with the technology, but the FBI's IEPHIS system, you could
easily input that bloody print in that palm print because
they do allow for partial poems and that's a really
good palm and search the database of millions of prints
(43:02):
in the FBI system. I would say, yeah, it's possible
you could have a hit and solve this case if
those prints come back to you know, somebody that you go,
you investigate and go, yeah, this person killed Joan took
her away.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Well, let's talk about where if this is Jones blood
and we assume this is where she must have been,
we've established that the kitchen phone seems like kind of
the start of the action, or at least a lot
of action. They said that there is under the mounted
phone that was mounted there is a six inch stain
which is square shaped, directly below the phone hook, which
(43:41):
is two feet off the floor. The stain is two
feet off the floor at about fourteen inches from the
corner of the wall. And then they said, there's a
heavy stain pulled on the floor in the kitchen corner
below and diagonally to the right of the telephone. Let's
just assume this was you know, she's beaten with something.
(44:01):
I mean, maybe that's not what happened, but is that
sort of your best guess, knife versus beating? Is there
any way to even think about.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
That no, you know, right now, with the photos I have,
I can't discern whether or not she received any incisive
injuries or any cast off of a knife versus receiving
blows from a fist. This what they describe as that
square stain two inches or not two inches two feet
above the floor, fourteen inches from the corner. That's the
(44:31):
one that I describe that does look like a contact transfer. Now,
oftentimes that type of contact transfer is like somebody has
a bleeding head injury and now the hair mass and
head you know, hit the wall at that location. The
photo isn't clear enough without me being able to zoom
in or having a batter photo, we could often see
(44:53):
the what we call hair wipe, you know, where you
actually see this, you know, the bloody strands of hair
or even hair being caught in the blood. Where I
could form a better opinion than I think it's it's
her head and she had a bleeding head injury. When
her head hit that part, it could be you know,
a blood stain off of her arm or you know,
leg pants, you know, whatever garment she had on. And
(45:16):
then sometimes you might be able to see some fabric
impressions to give you an idea of where how that
blood transferred, but I would right now my best guess
is is she's likely been forced down into this corner
and because you have you know, a blood pool with
a smearing in it on right on the floor, right
(45:38):
in the corner that's up onto that base board, so
she's I think she's laying in this corner with the
head in the corner. There is blood spatter that is
above that location. The photos don't give me enough information
as to the angularity of those blood drops. They look
like they're circular, but I would want to have better
(45:58):
photos to form an opinion as to where they're not.
Those blood drops could have been a result of let's say,
a blow while she's down on the ground, and the
blood spatter is kind of emanating up. It's very sparse,
so I don't want to overinterpret, but I think that
kind of the general thing I can say is it
appears that there is some violence, likely a blow or something,
(46:22):
and Joan is being forced down onto the floor in
the corner of this kitchen, and she's bleeding at this location.
Now you do have the larger blood area in the
center of the kitchen. I don't think I can sequence
that as to what came first. But my sense is
because I'm trying to see if there's drag marks leading
(46:44):
out of that corner, and there might be the likely
scenario based on how I'm assessing this is, you know,
Joan is bleeding in the corner of that kitchen, near
the you know, where the telephone was, and then she
either moves herself or she's moved by an offender out
into the center of the kitchen where you have her
probably more stationary, and now some bleeding occurring there, and
(47:06):
there's some significant smears, you know, and it's just could
be like hands going through some of the blood pools,
you know. And then of course you have the paper
towel that's on top of it. And you know, is
that paper towel resulted an offender trying to clean up
afterwards or just cleaning him or herself up.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
Yeah, And remember the author said that it was drawing paper,
not paper towels. But you could try to use drawing pap.
I mean, you would use anything you possibly could the
clean up, right.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Okay, So maybe I misunderstood, So that roll is not
paper towels, that's actually the drawing paper.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
It says it's drawing paper, the one that's like laying
kind of on top of the children's book.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
Yeah, and that would suggest because it's that's weird. I
can sequence it, and it is like, there's what appears
to be a torn, torn off piece of that paper
on top of where you have the larger blood pool
and the blood smearing in the center. That's likely, you know,
somebody trying to use this paper, you know, using it
to clean Yeah. I just I made the wrong assumption
(48:06):
that because it does look like my first glance like
a paper towel roll.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
It does. No, It's okay, So we are in a
chaotic scene, and there are two pieces of information that
you need to know that you are not going to
be able to comment on until the next episode.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
I'm on a roll here, how's that ting?
Speaker 1 (48:26):
I know? Well, this is how we're going to see
what a professional you are if you can pick this
up seamlessly next week. Okay, here's the two pieces of information. One,
there's blood upstairs in Joan and Martin's bedroom. Two, there
is a trail of blood going to Jon's car, which
has not gone anywhere. So now we've got blood in
different directions. Also, Okay, and now I think you see
(48:51):
why this has been a mystery, and the next episode
will be a little more forensics, but a lot of
what happened to this woman and all all of the possibilities.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Okay, well, here with beta breath, Kate, I'll see you
next week. All right, sounds good? Take care.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
This has been an exactly right production for.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
Our sources and show notes go to Exactlyrightmedia dot com
slash Buried Bones Sources.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Our senior producer is Alexis Emrosi.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgaroff, Georgia hard Stark, and Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Buried Bones Pod.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
Age story of murder and the race to decode the
criminal mind, is available now
Speaker 1 (49:51):
And 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 (00:10):
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 (00:17):
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 (00:27):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is buried Bones.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Hey, Kate, how's it going.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
It's going well, Paul. How about you?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I'm doing very well. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Listen. I have listener mail that pertains directly to you,
and I've never done this before, but I thought this
was such an interesting comment. I wanted to get your
reaction before you say anything. It's from a man, so
it's not from a woman, which surprised me too. I
think you get a lot of female attention, is the
impression I get.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Uh, you know what. I don't look at online comments
or anything like that, so I'm a little bit scared
about what I'm about to hear.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Well, Paul, I think listeners have heard this before. You
don't watch yourself. You don't listen. I listened to all
of our episodes on Our Behalf because you don't like
to even listen to your own voice. You have such
a great voice. I've never understood that.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
No, you know, I just don't understand that. And nobody
ever commented on my voice before I got into the
podcast world. Yeah, ohso in the day to day world
during my career, I was just Paul and the way
I talk.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, okay, let me read this because I think it's sweet. Hi, Kate,
I'm a seventy one year old fan of Buried Bones.
I'm also a binge reader of detective novels since listening
to you and Paul so often. Every time a male
detective or a Marshall speaks in one of these novels,
I hear him speaking in Paul's voice. I just thought
(02:22):
that was so sweet, and I emailed him back and
I said, I do the same thing now. Every time
I either write dialogue from a police officer or I
hear something, you know, like I hear it in my head.
In the book it's your voice, which is a good thing.
Thank goodness, you have a good voice, Paul. But I
thought that was a very sweet comment.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, that tells me there's too much Paul out there.
We need to get some other voices out of the
law enforcement field.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
No, no, no, no. But I think it's nice that
what you say resonates with people so much. I think
that you kind of represent the good officer, the good investigators,
the good forensics people out there. So it was really nice.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Now that's I mean, that is very nice, and you know,
I hope that the people who do listen, you know,
recognize that I try to come off with a level
of authenticity and to reflect. You know, I worked with
just amazing individuals over the course of my career, and
now that I've got a platform, I do want to
either directly give them some kudos and their opportunities like
(03:26):
I've had the opportunities, or even indirectly just so the
general people understand, you know, the hard work that the
professionals that are tasked with working with some of these
horrific crimes are. You know, what they do and the
good that they accomplish.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Well, I think you represent them very well. I think
your depth of knowledge shows so much on this show
and all of the shows that you're on also, but
particularly our show. I learned something every time. So I
think the bottom line is you have a nice voice.
That's what everyone's trying to tell you.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Paul holes well, o, Kate, I appreciate the kind words.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Well, listen, I have got a treat for you. Not
only do we have a case in this century.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
All right, so there you go, it's got something modern.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
It is it is, and it's in nineteen sixty one,
and it is in Massachusetts, and there are lots of
photos of blood, bloody photos. So I think this is
a big it's like Christmas Day for you.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
That's something I always would love to have in all
of our episode, just so I can kind of weigh
in and you know, maybe form some opinions.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
If only I had DNA that I could hand you,
that we could run. I think there is nothing more
perfect for you to talk about today.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Now this sounds awesome. I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Okay, let's set the scene. It is October twenty fourth,
which is actually pretty close to where we are right now.
We're mid October, so October twenty fourth, and we're in Lincoln, Massachusetts,
nineteen sixty one. Lincoln is a suburb of Boston. And
this all centers around a woman named Joan Rish and
(05:05):
she is thirty years old. She's a homemaker, and she's
got two kids, and she's been married for five years
to a man named Martin. He is in New York
on a business trip. This is one big mystery, like
more of a mystery I feel like than we've ever tackled,
and a lot of conflicting information. So this is the
(05:28):
beginning of a two parter for us, and I think
it's important to establish that there's going to be a
ton to unpack. All the attention is going to be
centered on Joan here pretty soon. And let's just talk
about the homemaker aspect of this. Because when you're thinking
about somebody who is a potential victim of a crime,
and she may or may not be, then we think
(05:50):
of the person who's at home, male or female, whoever,
who's at home. They're still exposed to a lot of people, right,
I mean, they're out there getting groceries. I know, they're kids' parents.
You know. When I think of somebody who's out in
the business world, and I think, oh my gosh, of
course there are a target for various reasons, but the
person who stays at home could also be a target
(06:11):
because they still have to encounter quite a lot of people, right.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah, you know, and you think about somebody who is
a homemaker, and especially in nineteen sixty one, it's predominantly females,
you know. And then now we've seen, of course a
cultural shift where more men are staying at home, and
then post pandemic, now we can see a lot of
people who are working from home in the online space.
But I think what stands out about this era and
(06:37):
this homemaker category victimology, if you will, is that they
will have fairly set life patterns, especially you know, if
you're talking about Joan, who's got two kids. To say,
the age of the.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Kids four and two, So a four year old girl
and a two year old son, and they just had
them pretty quickly after they got married apparently.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, so we don't know if if these kids are
going into like preschool or daycare, probably not at those ages.
But Joan's still going to have a life pattern that
is going to be centered around, you know, taking care
of the kids, taking care of the meals, you know,
as you mentioned going out grocery shopping. Does she have
a somebody who can watch the kids during the day
(07:21):
or is everything on her?
Speaker 1 (07:23):
It sounds like everything's on her. There's a neighbor who
comes into play here pretty soon where it sounds like
they kind of watch each other's kids. I don't know
if it's anything formal, but she has a couple of
unexpected things happening. I don't know. You can tell me
what you think about the pattern of the day that
this starts to happen, and then you can let me
know what you think. But you're just basically saying that
(07:44):
that people who stay at home oftentimes create a pattern.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Create a pattern in which you know, of course, I'll
have to see how this case develops, but you know,
the pattern in which somebody who is able to you know,
remotely observe Jones pattern. Let's say a neighbor can start
to predict when Joan would be vulnerable, or somebody who
has focused in on Joan has a potential victim, a
stranger from outside the neighborhood, but is able to post up,
(08:08):
whether it be in a vehicle, whether it be in
the you know, the recesses of the backyard like a
Joseph DiAngelo and start to see Joan's life pattern and
try to determine, you know, when to attack. And I'm
assuming Joan is a victim in this this case.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
I mean, this case is so mysterious. I'm going to
go with yes, but I'm not one hundred percent sure. Okay,
I know, I told you this is one of the
wackier ones. So let's just go with yes. Yes, you
must be a victim. Yes.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
And the other thing about the homemaker victimology during this
era is that somebody is going to be able to
predict that a female is home and a male is
in the office. And so there again, you don't have
the male threat to an offender who wants to go
into the house potentially.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Okay, well, so the social norms of the time play
into this too. Okay, that's interesting. So let's talk about
Jones's day. So, as I said before, this is a
week before Halloween, and she's got these two little kids.
She has a four year old daughter named Lilian, and
she has a two year old son named David. And
(09:19):
remember her husband's name is Martin. He's in New York
verified on a business trip. So Joan goes to the
dentist where she and the four year old Lillian both
have appointments at nine point thirty that morning, and the son,
the two year old David, is dropped off at Jon's
neighbor's house, who is a woman named Barbara Barker, and
(09:41):
Barbara will become important in a little while. So the
two year old is with the neighbor and Joan takes
Lillian to the dentist. After they get to the appointments,
everything's fine. After they go to the appointments, Joan and
Lilian go shopping and they run a few errands, so
kind of unpredictable. At this point, she picks up David
(10:01):
across the street and the family goes back to the
house around eleven am. This is the most, i will say, Paul,
the most boring setup for a potential murder that we
have ever had. I mean, you just don't get any
more boring than this. It is just a day where
they're just kind of living life, and that's the scariest,
you know, thing of something that happens that's unexpected. She
(10:23):
picks up David at the neighbors the family goes back
to the house. Around eleven, Joan makes the kids some lunch,
and around noon, David needs a n app so she
puts David down. He naps usually from noon until two PM,
which is great. I don't think my kids are right
out that long. So at a one twenty the neighbor,
(10:45):
Barbara Barker, her son Douglas comes across the street and
wants to play with Lillian in Jan's yard. And the
kids often did this, so he comes across the street.
I assume they're about the same age, and I think
Barbara's watching them across the street. We don't know what
Jan's doing at this time the mom between one and
two on this day, we don't know. But at one
(11:08):
fifty five, David is still napping and she leaves him
in his crib and she takes Lillian and Douglas the
little boy by the hand, and goes back over to
the swing set, to the neighbor's swing set. She says
she doesn't tell Barbara that the kids are now back
in Barbara's own yard, and I don't know why. She
(11:30):
tells her daughter and Douglas, I'll be right back for
you guys. I'm just going to go back into the
house and that is the last time anyone saw Joan alive.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Okay. So Joan takes Barbara's kid and Lillian over to
Barbara's house at the swing set, leaves him in the yard,
and then tells those kids she's going to go back
to check on David.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Right, yes, she says, well, she said, I'm going to
go back. I'll be right back, just going to go
check in. And then that was it. And I'll tell
you the setup of the discovery of what we find, Okay,
that indicates this was likely a murder. But that is
the only setup we have. I have a lot of
early life of Joan that could give us some hints,
(12:16):
or I have the scenes, so you tell me which
one you want to hear first. But that is all
we know about what she did beforehand. Husband's clueless, and
the neighbors said, well, I never saw her bring Douglas
back over with Lilian. But the kids said, yeah, that's
what she did, and it wouldn't have been unusual at all.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah, I want to start with the scene. Okay, do
you know me?
Speaker 1 (12:36):
I know you, Okay, so let's get to it. We
have some pretty serious blood and I'll tell you don't
bring up your photo yet. I sent you some photos,
but you're gonna need to look at him. There's quite
a few photos of what we presume is Joan's blood.
Here's when things go wrong. At one fifty five, Joan
dropped off her daughter Lilian and the neighbor's kid, Douglas,
(12:59):
presumably because she was going to put him in the yard,
the neighbor's yard, and come back across the street check
on David, who I guess, like clockwork, woke up at
two and then nobody sees her again. So time goes
by and Barbara Barker is alarmed because it's three forty
five now, so you know, almost two hours after she
(13:19):
had dropped off these two kids in her yard, and
she's kind of going, where's my friend? And Lilian would
like to go home. So she finally walks Lillian back
to the house, and as I said, you know, this
is a two hour time difference. Once she gets inside,
Lilian can't find her mom. She's running all over the house. Instead,
(13:41):
she finds a bloody scene in the kitchen, and a
common quote is that, you know, the kitchen looks like
it was covered in red paint. There is an author
who really covered this extensively in a book called A
Kitchen Painted in Blood. His name is Stephen Ahern and
it's an excellent resource. This is what I know Maren
(14:02):
really looked at for this episode. They said, it is
just covered in red paint. And you'll see what I
mean when I show you some of these photos. So
a question I had initially, Barbara I think just left
her at the door. The neighbor just let, you know,
let her inside and then shut the door. And Barbara
didn't go inside, and I don't know why she would
have anyway, she just said, go find your mom. I'll
(14:23):
see you guys later. She shuts the door. She goes
back over. So Barbara does not see this scene. It
is this four year old wandering around the house alone
until she gets to the kitchen and sees this play scene.
Lillian goes upstairs at first to look for the mom,
and David is crying in his crib. We don't know
if he has been in his crib since he first
(14:45):
went down for a nap, or if at some point
Joan at two o'clock when he woke up, got him
and then put him back. We don't know what happened,
but he's very wet, he has an overfilled diaper. He
obviously hasn't been tended to for a while. So Lillian
doesn't know. As a four old, of course, doesn't know
what to do. She waits with David for a few minutes.
She's completely freaked out, and eventually she runs across the
(15:07):
street and finds Barbara and says, I need to find
my mom. Do you have anything to say before I
tell you kind of the actions that happen after that.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Well, you know, what a horrific thing for Lilian to
have to be exposed to. I'm sure that that is
something that stayed with Lilian for her entire life. You know.
Part of the assessment of the scene without knowing anything
about it outside of you know, what sounds like an
extensive amount of bloodshed within the kitchen is there's a
four year old girl that is wandering through this house.
(15:37):
So there has to be an accounting for her actions
inside that house. Did she go into the kitchen, did
she step into any of the blood? Did she touch
any of the blood? And then as she's moving through
the house, is there a possibility that Lilian has sort
of contaminated this scene, and this is something that is unavoidable,
you know, obviously, But as a crime scene investigator, as
(16:00):
an investigator, as a blood pattern person, I have to
take into account those types of actions that could have
caused some issues within the scene after the offender has left.
So the offender commits a crime and then leaves the
crime scene, now you have the crime scene in a
static space that would be accurate to what the offender
(16:22):
did during the commission of the crime. But then we
have people who discover the body, we have first responders
coming in. There's changes to the crime scene. And that's
something that I'm now immediately keying in on because Lilian
has a four year old girl is not necessarily just
going to stop because she sees blood in the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
And I had actually wondered is it worth at that
age talking to Lilian and finding out exactly what she
might have done? So, Sweetie, do you think did you
move this? Did you move you know, because there's some
things that are out of place that are really alarming
for investigators, Or do you think at that age she's
not even going to be aware of half of what
she did. If she's panicking running around trying to find
(17:03):
her mother.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, this is where relying on your child interview experts.
You know, in this day and age, we recognize that
we need to approach kids this age in a different
way than how investigators approached kids as witnesses back in
the nineteen sixties. But yes, you know she at that age,
I can imagine that she would be able to provide
(17:24):
at least some accurate information as to her behaviors. Maybe
not everything, but the interview needs to be done in
a proper way.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Well, when you hear some of the details of this scene,
you can tell me whether you think this could be
a Lillian interference thing, or a contamination from first responders
thing or what. Okay, there's an interesting little timeline here.
So the last time anyone saw Joan was one fifty
five PM. Then Lillian arrives at the house at three
(17:55):
forty five panics goes to get Barbara. I would have
to imagine in less than ten So Barbara takes from
four point fifteen until four thirty ish, as late as
four thirty to get another neighbor, a woman named Mary
Jane Butler, to search with her in this house. So
they don't call the police immediately. They decide these two
(18:17):
women to go to the house, but they wait an
awful long time. I mean it's about forty five minutes.
I'm sure they're petrified. If Lillian is describing this red
paint seen in the kitchen, I'm sure they didn't really
know what to do. I still don't ever really quite
understand when people just don't call the police. But maybe
in the sixties they were afraid it was something else
(18:38):
and they were going to embarrass Joan. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Well. Part of it, of course, is that you know,
ninety nine point nine percent of the people have never
experienced a violent crime. You know, when first exposed to
something that you've never seen before, you've never walked into before,
there is going to be this processing what am I
looking at here and not necessarily understanding. I have a
case where a wife found her son and husband bound
(19:06):
and shot to death, and of course there were pools
of blood around each of the victim's head. She tells investigators,
I thought they had built grape fruit juice or grape juice,
and they were kneeling down to clean it up. You know,
that just really emphasized she as being what I would
call a naive person from you know, exposure to violent crime,
(19:28):
did not know what she was looking at. I imagine
when Lilian is he got this four year old Lilian,
this little girl coming over and describing red stains or blood.
I'm not even sure she would have recognized it as blood.
But something is off inside the kitchen, Barbara maybe going
what is going on with her is there's somebody scary
inside the house? And is this why Barbara is now
(19:50):
seeking out a companion sort of a safety net to
go into the house together to kind of see what
Lilian is telling them. And then now you have the
two adult are now recognizing, oh, something really bad is
going on, versus relying upon what the four year old
girl said. So the amount of time it takes before
(20:10):
they notify law enforcement, I think is reasonably explainable based
on my experiences in terms of you know, victims or
neighbors or something discovering a crime. But it's something at
least to note, you know, because now you have a
temporal component that I have to take into consideration. You know,
there's one point fifty five, you know, you've got you know,
(20:33):
Barbera leaving and then now you're you're as far out
as what four point thirty, so you've got two and
a half hours, you know, So this this impacts you know,
how much time you know, the offender may have been
inside the house, how much time the offender has had
to leave the house. Right now, you haven't even told
me whether or not Jones' body is found inside the house,
(20:55):
you know. So the temporal component will be something that
comes into play as I get a better understanding of
the dynamics of what happened during this crime.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
And now we're adding two more people to the mix
to contaminate this scene. Because we have Barbara and Mary
Jane going to the house. They do not find Joan either.
There is the bloody kitchen, and at four thirty three,
Barbara calls the police and I will tell you, Paul
right now. I mean, you know, I like to drag
(21:26):
you around sometimes. I like to lead you around and
say this person, were they murdered, were they not murdered?
She's gone. No one has ever found her. What we're
left with is a huge amount of blood and some
really weird scenes, some really weird mysteries. But she has
vanished forever.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Okay, so this is a no body homicide, yep.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
If it's a homicide, because there's a big if there
with some of these people.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Well, and that's where, you know, when I get to
take a look at the blood patterns, you know, maybe
I'll be able to discern whether or not I would
characterize this as a homicide. And usually when we're dealing
with nobody homicides, we've found a location, a death scene
in which the amount of blood and the types of
blood patterns are present, we're fairly confident that the person
(22:16):
did not survive. This is where Okay, how did the
offender get the body in this case Joan away from
this location? And then where did where did the offender
place Joan? But right now, nobody homicide. Lots of blood
in the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yes, well my interpretation of lots of blood. They are
saying half a pint of blood. I don't know if
that's a lot of blood. It looks like a lot
of blood in me, But everybody's definition is different. Do
you consider that if they're estimating correctly half a pint
of blood?
Speaker 2 (22:43):
I you know, I have to see Sometimes you get
these you know, somebody will take a look at a
blood pool and you know, say, oh, yeah, this is
this is so much of this blood. But when you
have smears and spatter and there's just no way to
put a volume on it. You know, the volume is
typically when you have a blood pool. And if you
(23:03):
have a blood pool, that indicates that you had an
individual with a bleeding injury at that location for a
period of time. So it all depends on how large
that blood pool is as to whether or not that
appears at that person had a fatal injury and they
bled out at the location, or you know they didn't
have a fatal injury.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Well, let's get one motive out of the way, and
then I know you're anxious to get to the photos.
Jones purse is there in the kitchen, car keys are there,
Money's there. I know that doesn't always mean that robbery
wasn't a motive, but there is that those would have
been easy things for somebody to grab. So it says
that the aside from a small table that seems to
(23:42):
have been thrown from its usual place it's usually under
the kitchen telephone, but it was in the hallway kind
of on its side, there isn't a suggestion of a
struggle except from the blood in the kitchen. Everything in
the house looks like it's in order, and it looks
like someone started to clean up the blood but then
(24:03):
abruptly stopped. Oh okay, yep, and everything else. So I'm
trying to figure out when to just show you the
photos and stop talking. But there's some interpretation for the
police to offer you that would go along with the photos.
So do you want to look at the photos and
then I can kind of add stuff in as we
go along, or what do you think?
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, I think you know. The first thing I need
to know is, you know, Barbara and the neighbor call
the police. Are they calling from inside Jones house or
do they go back across the street? Is Barbara's phone
something that they interact with.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
The phone receiver in its court had been pulled off
the wall and then intentionally placed on the rim of
a small trash can which is full and had been
set in the middle of the floor. So normally the
trash can is under the sink. There are a couple
of things that are off, so it looks like the
phone receiver in the court had been pulled off the wall.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
So no, I immediate leak kind of keyed in on
when you said that the small table had been kind
of strewn aside, and it normally was underneath where the
phone was on the wall. And so, you know, my
immediate thought was, well, this almost sounds like Joan recognized
a threat inside the house, went to the phone, and
(25:18):
that threat caught up to her at that moment. And
so now you have that initial interaction between Joan and
the offender. Now the offender, I don't know if during
a struggle with you know, you could easily see Joan
holding onto the phone and during that struggle it gets
pulled out of the wall. But you also may have
an offender who's purposefully removing the phone to prevent the
operator from being called. Nineteen sixty one is in the
(25:40):
days before nine to one one, so typically you'd be
dialing zero in order to get the operator in order
to get a hold of law enforcement. You're generally not
calling law enforcement directly during this era. So what I
have to see, you know, is you know what else
is going on and is this potentially contamination as a
result of Barbara or the neighbor. I'd out Lily would
(26:00):
be interacting with the phone much. But this is where're
interviewing you know, what all did you do when you're
inside the house.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
So I think that your theory must be right, because
in the whole way, near the overturned table, there's an
apron that has been flung onto the floor, and there
is a local telephone directory which is open to the
section containing numbers for emergency services. So does that sound
like she heard something? She's opening your right No. Nine
(26:29):
to one one, She's opening up the telephone book desperately
trying to find who to call, and is attacked in
the middle of it.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Well, that's odd because, of course, you know, if you
are seeing a threat and that threat sees you, I
would expect this to be a very very quick encounter
where Joan would not have had the time to go
to the telephone book. So you know, I'm starting to
again this is all just speculation, But I'm wondering, Okay,
does Joan hear something in the house and now now
(27:00):
needs to take the phone directory out to call emergency
services or is there somebody in there after Joan is bleeding,
who's now second guessing what has happened and is now
going I need to get medical attention to this woman
and then changes course for one reason or another. So
I don't know how to interpret it right now.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Okay, well let's just get into it. Let's look at
the photos. So pull up that document that I sent you.
So the first photo you see is Joan, the second
one is the house, so those will be helpful.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
So now I am looking at the first crime scene photo,
which is somewhat of an overview of a photo show
in the kitchen floor with what appears to be white
or light colored kitchen cabinetry, as well as possibly on
the right hand side a stove. It looks like the sink.
I can't see the countertop, so I'm having to just
(27:51):
look at the cabinetry and see what the kitchen layout is.
But to the left of the photograph appears to be
likely where the sink is. To the right appears to
be where the stove is. And then I see the
tiled kitchen floor, which is predominantly white square tiles with
some it's not a random but a few of these
(28:12):
roughly twelve inch by twelve inch tiles. I'm going to
call them sort of like your vinyl tile, you know,
just sort of that kind of era. They're not slate,
it's not, you know, anything fancy, but you have the
darker tiles. On the left hand side on the floor
is a trash can that is very full. And then
I see up against the kitchen cabinet tree a paper
(28:35):
towel roll that it looks like it's actually rolled, so
a fair amount of the paper towels are are away
from the roll, but it looks more like the paper
towel roll roll to this location, and as it unspun,
some of this length of paper towels are just laying there,
which that is on top of Is that the phone
(28:56):
book in the back well, I'm now seeing the zoomed
image and calling that a children's book.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
And the author actually says it's drawing paper. I thought
it was paper towels too. They say it's drawing paper
and then write a children's book, okay. And these are
items that normally sit underneath the small table that's now
been tossed in the hallway, so they were flung off
obviously when the furniture was moved.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Right you know, So right now I think there is
sequencing information with that paper towel roll on top of
this children's book or drawing paper. And then towards the
front of the photo on the floor, I see what
appears to be some you know, in my experience, these
are relatively minor blood pools with some blood flows out
(29:45):
of them. You know, the skitchen floor, even though it's
very smooth and to us very flat, all of these
floors have some unevenness and so the blood will eat
when it pools. You'll start to see some of these
flows follow the lower parts of the floor, so that's
fairly typical. Then I do see some smears. In addition,
there appears to be a paper towel that's on top
(30:06):
of a blood smear, and I can scroll down. You're
gonna let me scroll down? Am I going to get
my handslapped? No? You're good, Okay. I have another view
which is showing basically I can see the stove, which
was in the right part of the photo, so like
if I were to turn to my right about ninety degrees,
(30:27):
this is a photo showing this other corner of the
kitchen which shows a door, and it's just a single door.
It's not like it's a big double door. Don't know
if it's a bathroom or you know, something else, but
it's right there in that corner. There appears to be
maybe a hallway right next to the stove itself that
(30:48):
leads back to another space in the house of some sort.
And I think the table that you are describing that
used to be under the phone is seeing tipped over
in this you know hallway still somewhat in the kitchen, yep.
And then there's a child's it's like a high chair,
right high chair, thank you, you know, that's just to
(31:08):
the right of the photo, in front of what appears
to be a furnace along the wall. The previously described
blood smears and blood pools with the paper towel on
top in the center of the kitchen floor is in
the lower part of this photo. And then back towards
the rear of this photo, near where that tipped over
(31:28):
table is, appears to be some more possible blood pooling
as well as a significant contact transfer of blood approximately
three feet high up on this rear wall. That is
a corner wall. So I see two short walls coming
to a corner and a blood smear on the left
(31:51):
hand side or a contact transfer. I'm pretty sure it's
a contact transfer, and I see a blow up of
it and the lower photo, so that is a contact
transfer as well as what appears to be a minor
blood pool with some smearing in it, actually on the
floor and then up onto the base board in the
corner of this. So right now, you know, typically I
(32:14):
like to know what the victim's injuries are to interpret
blood patterns. That's usually a critical thing at this point.
Since I don't have that, all I can say is
there appears to be you know, a significant bleeding injury,
and this bleeding injury possibly with Joe, assuming this is
Joan's blood, and I think that's a reasonable assumption. You
(32:35):
know that that Joan has been moved around after she
started bleeding, whether she is voluntarily moving around, she's in
combat with this offender, which is likely with some of
the blood smearing, or she has been incapacitated and being
moved around. There are some what appeared to be blood
droplets on that corner wall. They're larger and there's not
(32:57):
a lot of them, so probably can't interpret those, but
that would tend to indicate, you know, that there's possibly
those are a result of blow to a pooled blood source.
I'm not seeing enough to be able to decide if
it's you know, consistent with cast off. Like let's say
you have a bloody knife or a bloody hammer or something.
(33:20):
Right now, with the types of bleeding at this scene,
I would at least say, you know, there was significant
violence done to Joan, and I would lean towards this
is likely homicide. However, I do not believe that there
is sufficient blood to say she definitely bled out at
this location. In my experience, this is not a lot
(33:42):
of blood relatively speaking. I mean, it's a significant you know,
significant injuries, no question about it. But in terms of
being an extensively bloody scene, now, you know, this is
very typical for a homicide scene inside a house in
which you have somebody that's being beat or somebody you
know that's being stabbed. It's just it is routine.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Well, we have a print, couple of prints actually, and
so stay with that photograph document that I gave you.
So it seems like investigators think most of the actions
started with this telephone. There are prints all over the place.
They all seem to belong to the family members, people
who they know who are immediate family members. But there
(34:24):
are three prints that do not match anybody in the family.
There's a partial palm print and a fingerprint which are
found on the wall where the telephone is mounted, and
there is a thumb print on the phone receiver speaker,
which I think is the thing that isn't in trash can,
and you can see a pretty clear photograph of that.
Over the course of the investigation, the FBI got involved.
(34:48):
They compare these prints to ten thousand other prints and
they have never found a match. So what do you
think about that? And you now have a photo you
can look at this print, these prints that show up
in the scene.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
My first thought is are these prints in Jones's blood?
Because then now I have temporal indication that these prints
were deposited after the bloodshed occurred, and it becomes much
more significant. I will tell you you can go into
any house and you know, back then this was almost
exclusively latent. Print processing was done with black powder. And
black powder's good. You know, it's not as sensitive as
(35:23):
like if you fume the inside of a vehicle or
a room or something with super glue and then do
die staining and some of the more advanced chemistries that
we can do. But it's still going to recover a
fair amount of prints, Layton prints, and any house has
prints that you can never identify. You have so many
people flowing into and out of a house. And if
(35:44):
it's if these prints are deposited in a location where
they're never cleaned, they're never wiped, they can persist for
a long long time. So with that being said, now
I want to take a look at picture of the
You have a picture of a.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Print and read pull aloud the description because it answers
some of your questions of these prints. And the first
one is impressions in blood not powdered.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Okay, now you're you're testing my vision here.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Oh no, get your contacts.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Let's see here. Okay, So I am. I am looking
at page eight of this document. So I am looking
at some images of the Layton prints. It appears that
there's four Layton prints that are in this on this page.
So the upper left print is impression in blood not
(36:41):
powdered as originally on telephone ridges, white furrows and background black,
enlarged finger not known. Okay, So what they're telling me
is that this is a bloody print. I can take
a look at this print and I can see the
core of the print. So it's sort of like your whirl,
your loop, et cetera. That's so it's going to be
(37:02):
somewhat capturing the center of the top part of the
finger as well as I can see ridge details extending
out from this core, I can't see the delta, where
sometimes most of the time there's a delta near the core.
So it's kind of telling me that it's capturing the
center and the upper part of this finger. But when
(37:23):
they say finger not known, that means they don't have
surrounding prints to say, oh, this is the index finger
or this is the ring finger. And so when you
start having to search a database of finger prints, you
can't just focus in on one one finger. You now
have to look at all the fingers, which today, with
(37:44):
computerized systems, that's not that big of a deal, but
back in nineteen sixty one, that just makes it that
much more complicated to try to sort through significant that
they're saying it's in blood, you know, and of course
you have to eliminate Lilian and they probably can just
be off the size of the finger print. But the
other adults in the house, first responders, you know, and
(38:05):
even Joan herself, and.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
They said they did all that and nobody matches this
particular print.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Yeah, it does, you know, this is not the greatest copy.
But I would say with the amount of ridge detail
that is captured in this print and how complete it is,
because I am able to pick out what are called points,
the various places of the ridge pattern that are used
by fingerprint examiners to do the comparison, and so I
(38:31):
can see bifurcations, I can see ending ridges, see a
fair amount even with this poor copy that I would say, yeah,
this does look like if they find the right person,
it could be identifiable. So the upper right photograph is
the same print, but what they've done is a reversal
of the photo. So now, in essence, it's like looking
at a negative and sometimes your eyes can see things
(38:52):
better that way. Does it help you well in this
In this copy there's less detail being exposed. Yeah, I
mean I can still see make out the core. You know,
it's just a loop as well as you know some
of the ridge detail. But it's it's a poor copy
for whatever reason. So right now, you know, the original
(39:13):
image is better to my eye than the reversal. Okay,
now moving on to the photo app left, which is
described as prints on wall developed with black powder. Maybe
right hand, but search should not be so limited. The
description prints on wall and it's developed with black powder.
(39:34):
You know, the location has become significant. Is this a
location within the house. I'm assuming it's probably within the
kitchen in which you have an offender that's been there.
Is this a location that the offender likely would have
touched during the commission of this type of crime. I
have none of that information. They've black powdered the wall,
and they've got these two side by side prints that
(39:55):
were developed, and they look like two sequential things on
a hand, but without more information, I can't determine which
fingers of which hand these prints would be.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Right And the only thing they can say is that
this is a partial palm print and a fingerprint on
the wall where the telephone is mounted.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Well, this photo on the left is two fingerprints, and
then the bottom photo is the partial palm and so
that's this what they call photo below and they write
palm impression on wall with position relative to prints and
photo on left possibly indicating right hand, but not certain
black powdered ridges. So that's where with the palm, you know,
(40:35):
you could you know the theener region, you know, you
can kind of figure out like this big thing on
the thumb, you know, the ridges. A competent fingerprint examiner
would have no issues identifying this as a as a
partial palm, and it's a pretty good palm print to
be frighted, but partial palm from the right hand. I
think their question is is that since it's underneath where
(40:57):
the two fingers are on this wall, are those two
fingers part of this partial palm could be? You know,
it also could be just randomly placed by two different touches,
by possibly two different individuals. So that's part of the
complexity in terms of trying to assess the specifics of
are these two different prints, the fingerprints and the palm,
(41:19):
are they related or not? However, to be frank, you
have to go after this, this palm print and the
other two prints. But I'm most excited about the one
on the finger in blood that tells me that was
left after bleeding occurred, So it gives a smaller pool
of individuals that it could have come from the palm print,
(41:39):
and the other two fingers could be from the maintenance
man that was working on the furnace in that kitchen
three years ago. So I actually had this in Golden State,
Killer where I had a phone that the when he
was known as Easter a rapist had touched and resubmitted
Layton Prince or was a Layton print found on the
bottom of this phone and we identified it and it
(42:00):
turned out to be like this Hispanic mail that was
a phone serviceman from several years prior that had been
inside the victim's house. Yeah, so that kind of thing
does happen. You have to spend the resources to go
after this this type of evidence, but it may not
lead anywhere. It could be a red herring.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
There's no way now, Like what would they need now
to run it against these prints against the national database?
Would we be able to do that? I think Maren said,
there's a note that said that the author from twenty
twenty who wrote this said he didn't think that that
had happened. We're not sure whether anybody's ever done that
since this crime happened in sixty one.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Well, with the FBI's you know, current iteration, and I'm
a little bit dated in terms of where they're at
with the technology, but the FBI's IEPHIS system, you could
easily input that bloody print in that palm print because
they do allow for partial poems and that's a really
good palm and search the database of millions of prints
(43:02):
in the FBI system. I would say, yeah, it's possible
you could have a hit and solve this case if
those prints come back to you know, somebody that you go,
you investigate and go, yeah, this person killed Joan took
her away.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Well, let's talk about where if this is Jones blood
and we assume this is where she must have been,
we've established that the kitchen phone seems like kind of
the start of the action, or at least a lot
of action. They said that there is under the mounted
phone that was mounted there is a six inch stain
which is square shaped, directly below the phone hook, which
(43:41):
is two feet off the floor. The stain is two
feet off the floor at about fourteen inches from the
corner of the wall. And then they said, there's a
heavy stain pulled on the floor in the kitchen corner
below and diagonally to the right of the telephone. Let's
just assume this was you know, she's beaten with something.
(44:01):
I mean, maybe that's not what happened, but is that
sort of your best guess, knife versus beating? Is there
any way to even think about.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
That no, you know, right now, with the photos I have,
I can't discern whether or not she received any incisive
injuries or any cast off of a knife versus receiving
blows from a fist. This what they describe as that
square stain two inches or not two inches two feet
above the floor, fourteen inches from the corner. That's the
(44:31):
one that I describe that does look like a contact transfer. Now,
oftentimes that type of contact transfer is like somebody has
a bleeding head injury and now the hair mass and
head you know, hit the wall at that location. The
photo isn't clear enough without me being able to zoom
in or having a batter photo, we could often see
(44:53):
the what we call hair wipe, you know, where you
actually see this, you know, the bloody strands of hair
or even hair being caught in the blood. Where I
could form a better opinion than I think it's it's
her head and she had a bleeding head injury. When
her head hit that part, it could be you know,
a blood stain off of her arm or you know,
leg pants, you know, whatever garment she had on. And
(45:16):
then sometimes you might be able to see some fabric
impressions to give you an idea of where how that
blood transferred, but I would right now my best guess
is is she's likely been forced down into this corner
and because you have you know, a blood pool with
a smearing in it on right on the floor, right
(45:38):
in the corner that's up onto that base board, so
she's I think she's laying in this corner with the
head in the corner. There is blood spatter that is
above that location. The photos don't give me enough information
as to the angularity of those blood drops. They look
like they're circular, but I would want to have better
(45:58):
photos to form an opinion as to where they're not.
Those blood drops could have been a result of let's say,
a blow while she's down on the ground, and the
blood spatter is kind of emanating up. It's very sparse,
so I don't want to overinterpret, but I think that
kind of the general thing I can say is it
appears that there is some violence, likely a blow or something,
(46:22):
and Joan is being forced down onto the floor in
the corner of this kitchen, and she's bleeding at this location.
Now you do have the larger blood area in the
center of the kitchen. I don't think I can sequence
that as to what came first. But my sense is
because I'm trying to see if there's drag marks leading
(46:44):
out of that corner, and there might be the likely
scenario based on how I'm assessing this is, you know,
Joan is bleeding in the corner of that kitchen, near
the you know, where the telephone was, and then she
either moves herself or she's moved by an offender out
into the center of the kitchen where you have her
probably more stationary, and now some bleeding occurring there, and
(47:06):
there's some significant smears, you know, and it's just could
be like hands going through some of the blood pools,
you know. And then of course you have the paper
towel that's on top of it. And you know, is
that paper towel resulted an offender trying to clean up
afterwards or just cleaning him or herself up.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
Yeah, And remember the author said that it was drawing paper,
not paper towels. But you could try to use drawing pap.
I mean, you would use anything you possibly could the
clean up, right.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Okay, So maybe I misunderstood, So that roll is not
paper towels, that's actually the drawing paper.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
It says it's drawing paper, the one that's like laying
kind of on top of the children's book.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
Yeah, and that would suggest because it's that's weird. I
can sequence it, and it is like, there's what appears
to be a torn, torn off piece of that paper
on top of where you have the larger blood pool
and the blood smearing in the center. That's likely, you know,
somebody trying to use this paper, you know, using it
to clean Yeah. I just I made the wrong assumption
(48:06):
that because it does look like my first glance like
a paper towel roll.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
It does. No, It's okay, So we are in a
chaotic scene, and there are two pieces of information that
you need to know that you are not going to
be able to comment on until the next episode.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
I'm on a roll here, how's that ting?
Speaker 1 (48:26):
I know? Well, this is how we're going to see
what a professional you are if you can pick this
up seamlessly next week. Okay, here's the two pieces of information. One,
there's blood upstairs in Joan and Martin's bedroom. Two, there
is a trail of blood going to Jon's car, which
has not gone anywhere. So now we've got blood in
different directions. Also, Okay, and now I think you see
(48:51):
why this has been a mystery, and the next episode
will be a little more forensics, but a lot of
what happened to this woman and all all of the possibilities.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Okay, well, here with beta breath, Kate, I'll see you
next week. All right, sounds good? Take care.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
This has been an exactly right production for.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
Our sources and show notes go to Exactlyrightmedia dot com
slash Buried Bones Sources.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Our senior producer is Alexis Emrosi.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgaroff, Georgia hard Stark, and Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Buried Bones Pod.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
Age story of murder and the race to decode the
criminal mind, is available now
Speaker 1 (49:51):
And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's
Cold Cases is also available now.
Hosts And Creators
Kate Winkler Dawson
Paul Holes
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