BLACK BART: The Gentleman Bandit Who Terrorized Wells Fargo While Writing Poetry

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome Weirdos. I'm Dara Marler and this is Weird Darkness.
Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre,
unsolved and unexplained coming up in this episode. In nineteen

(00:31):
fifty seven, eleven year old twins Jacqueline and Joanna were
killed in a car accident, but the next year some
people say they were reincarnated. For over a century, reports
of abuse and murder came pouring out of the Topeka
Insane Asylum. The tortures that took place within are nothing

(00:52):
short of grotesque, and it makes one wonder how anyone
could have possibly thought the so called treatments would do
in any other than cause the patience terrible suffering and
horrific nightmares. A newlywed woman goes sight saying in a
new town while her husband attends a conference nearby. Completely

(01:13):
normal behavior for a newly married couple, But nothing that
happens after these events makes any sense at all. We'll
look at the confusing case of Judy Smith. But first,
Black Bart. Just the name conjures up an image of
a rugged man willing to mow you down in a

(01:34):
hail of bullets if you looked at him wrong, especially
during one of his infamous stagecoach robberies. But legends can
be wrong, and the real Black Bart might not have
been so black in the heart as we've been led
to believe. We begin with that story now, bulted doors,

(01:54):
lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with
me into the weird darkness. Charles E. Bowles, aka Black Bart,

(02:22):
He was one of the most notorious stagecoach robbers to
operate in northern California and southern Oregon. Also known as
Charles Bolton and t Z. Spaulding, Black Bart was considered
a gentleman bandit with a reputation for style and sophistication.
Bowles was born in Norfolk, England, to John and Maria Bowles.

(02:43):
In eighteen twenty nine, when he was just two years old,
he and his family immigrated to Jefferson County, New York,
where his father purchased a farm four miles north of
Plessis Village. Charlie received a common school education as a child,
and when he grew up, he and a cousin named
David set out for the gold fields of California. In

(03:04):
eighteen forty nine, after spending the winter in Missouri, they
continued their trek to California, arriving in eighteen fifty and
started mining at the North Fork of the American River
near Sacramento. After much hard work and no luck, the
pair returned home in eighteen fifty two, but their stay

(03:24):
was brief, and they, along with Charlie's older brother Robert,
soon returned to the California goldfields. Unfortunately, both David and
Robert took ill soon after their arrival and died. Charles
stayed on for two more years before returning east again.
During the time he was gone, he changed the spelling

(03:45):
of his last name from Bowles Bowles to Boles. In
eighteen fifty four, he married Mary Elizabeth Johnson, and the
couple would eventually have four children and on a farm
in Illinois. Several years later, when the Civil War erupted,
Charles volunteered to join the Union Army in August eighteen

(04:09):
sixty two. He became a sergeant the following year and
was seriously wounded in the Battle of Vicksburg in May
eighteen sixty four. After his recovery, he returned to his
unit and fought in the Battle of Atlanta. He received
brevet commissions as both second lieutenant and first lieutenant, and
on June seventh, eighteen sixty five, he was discharged with

(04:33):
his regiment in Washington, d c. After the war, Charlie
returned home to Decatur, Illinois, and started farming again, but
it would not last for long. He soon made his
way to Montana, once again, hoping to make his fortune
in mining. While there, he located a small mine that
he worked with a friend from Missouri. Somewhere along the line,

(04:56):
several men connected with Wells Fargo tried to buy them out,
as they wanted the land upon which the mine was located. However,
Charles and his friend refused to sell, and before long
his potential buyers cut off their water supply, which forced
them to abandon the mine. At this time, he wrote
several letters home, telling of his anger and frustration and

(05:19):
saying that he was going to take steps to correct
his grievances. The last letter Mary Boles received from Charlie
was from silver Beau, Montana, dated August twenty fifth, eighteen
seventy one. Though Charles had been in the habit of
writing home often, the letters suddenly stopped. Months turned into years,

(05:40):
and when Mary heard a rumor that a party of
travelers had been killed by Indians. She believed her husband
to be dead. In the meantime, a new Charles appeared
on the scene, an elegantly dressed man in his mid
fifties that went by the name of Charles Bolton. He
was described as being five feet eight inches tall, with

(06:01):
clear blue gray eyes and a brushy mustache. Nearly four
years after he had written his last letter to his wife,
this dapper, middle aged man robbed his first stagecoach on
July twenty sixth, eighteen seventy five, along the Copperpolis and
Milton Road in Calaveras County, California. A small man wearing

(06:23):
a long linen duster with a flour sack with holes
that had been cut for eyes over his head and derby,
jumped out from behind a large boulder and waved a
shotgun at the driver. Speaking in a deep and resonant tone,
the thief politely ordered the stage driver, a man named
John Shine, later a U. S. Marshall and a California
State Senator, to throw down the strong box. When it

(06:47):
appeared that the stage driver was hesitating, the robber said,
if he dares to shoot give him the solid volley boys.
Looking around quickly, Shy noticed several rifle barrels pointed at
him from the nearby bushes and quickly threw down the
strong box. In the meantime, a woman offered to surrender
her purse, but the bandit declined, saying that he only

(07:09):
wanted the Wells Fargo shipment. As the driver and the
passengers looked on, the outlaw hacked open the box and
removed several bags of gold coins and a few express
packages before fleeing the scene. Afterward, John Shine went to
recover the empty strong box, and upon examining the area,
he discovered that the men with rifles were actually carefully

(07:33):
rigged sticks. The man soon to be known as Black
Bart had committed his first robbery, netting him one hundred
sixty dollars. His next robbery occurred on December twenty eighth,
eighteen seventy five, when he stopped the stage from North
San Juan to Marysville, California. Like the first robbery, other

(07:53):
men were said to have been hiding in the bushes. However,
it was later found that the rifles used in the
heist were nothing more than Styck's wedged in the brush.
On June second, eighteen seventy six, he robbed another, taking
the Wells fargo box and mail five miles north of Cottonwood, California.
His fourth robbery, on August third, eighteen seventy seven, was

(08:16):
the first time that he identified himself as black Bart
and as a poet. Stopping the stage between Point Arena
and Duncan's Mills, California, wearing the same dress he had
in the past, he once again broke over the strong
box and made off with three hundred dollars. This time, however,

(08:36):
he left behind a note I've labored long and hard
for bread, for honor, and for riches, But on my
corns too long you've tread. You've fine haired sons of bitches.
It was signed black Bart the p eight. On his
fourth robbery, which occurred almost a year later on July

(08:59):
twenty fifth, eighteen seventy eight, he also left the note here,
I lay me down to sleep, to await the comingmorrow,
perhaps success, perhaps defeat, and everlasting sorrow. I've labored long
and hard for bread, for honor, and for riches, But
on my corns too long you've tread, You've fine haired

(09:21):
sons of bitches, Let come, what will I'll try it on.
My condition can't be worse, and if there's money in
that box, tis money in my purse. It was signed
black Bart the p eight. Though there would be no
more poems, his signature bank robberies would continue through November

(09:44):
eighteen eighty three, as he made at least twenty eight
stage robberies over the lifetime of his outlaw career. Apparently
Charles had found a successful way to take his revenge
against Wells Fargo. On November third, eighteen eighty three, he
returned burned to the area of his first stage robbery
near Copperopolis, California. The stage was being driven by Reason

(10:07):
McConnell and had only one passenger, a man named Jimmy Rollary.
As the coach slowed to climb the ridge, Jimmy jumped off,
hoping to do a little hunting. Just before the stage
came to the crest of the hill, black Bart appeared
out of the brush and ordered McConnell to throw down
the strong box. This time, however, the box was bolted

(10:29):
to the floor of the stage coach. After ordering McConnell
to unhitch the team and take them over the crest
of the hill. Black Bart went to work on the
strong box with an axe. After retrieving a heavy sack
of gold and a bundle of mail, Jimmy appeared out
of the bushes, at which time Charles began to flee.
McConnell then fired two shots at him and missed, but

(10:51):
when Jimmy fired off a shot, a bullet hit Bart
in the hand, forcing him to drop the mail, but
he did get away with the sack of gold. Though
Bart had made his getaway, he dropped a handkerchief during
his flight that had a distinctive laundry mark. This would
be the end for Charles. Bulls detectives used the handkerchief

(11:12):
to track him down to a laundry house in San Francisco,
and eventually to black Bart himself. Wells Fargo only pressed
charges on the final robbery, and Charles was convicted and
sentenced to six years in San Quentin prison. He was
released after four years for good behavior in January eighteen
eighty eight. When he was released, reporters swarmed around him

(11:36):
and asked if he was going to rob any more
stage coaches. No gentlemen, he replied, smiling, I'm through with crime.
He then lived in the Nevada House in San Francisco
before disappearing to the Visalia House Hotel in Visalia, California,
in February eighteen eighty eight. Dogged by Wells Fargo, he

(11:57):
was tracked there but had already left last scene on
February twenty eighth, eighteen eighty eight. Blackbart's stage robbery career
lasted just over eight years. During this time, he was
described as always being polite, never used foul language, didn't
steal from the passengers, and though we always brandished a shotgun,

(12:20):
he never used it. In the meantime, Mary Boles listed
herself in the city Directory as the widow of Charles E.
Bowles in eighteen ninety two. What happened to Blackbart remains unknown.
A New York newspaper allegedly printed an obituary for a
Charles E. Bowles, a Civil War veteran, in nineteen seventeen.

(12:44):
Was this black Bart? If so, he would have been
eighty eight years old. Others believe he may have returned
to some of the old mining camps. One legend says
that he returned to his career of robbing stage coaches
until Wells Fargo offered him a p of two hundred
dollars a month if he would leave their vehicles alone.

(13:05):
This has been denied by well Spargo, but still the
legend persists when weird darkness returns. In nineteen fifty seven,
eleven year old twins Jacqueline and Joanna were killed in

(13:28):
a car accident, but the next year some people say
they were reincarnated. But first for over a century, reports
of abuse and murder came pouring out of the Topeka
Insane Asylum. The tortures that took place within are nothing
short of grotesque, and it makes one wonder how anyone

(13:48):
could have possibly thought the so called treatments would do
anything other than cause the patient's terrible suffering and horrific nightmares.
That story is up next. The Topeka State Hospital, often

(14:25):
referred to as the Topeka Insane Asylum, opened its doors
in eighteen seventy two to the medically and criminally insane.
For over one hundred years, reports of abuse and murder
came out of the hospital, and it eventually closed its
doors in nineteen ninety seven due to the abuse and overcrowding.

(14:45):
During its operation. The State hospital was infamous for its
forced sterilization program, the use of hydrotherapy and castration to
treat imbeciles. Numerous reports detailed patient neglect, rape, and beatings.
The most unbelievable thing was that no one was able
to do anything about the atrocities within the hospital because

(15:07):
the workers and doctors were protected by the Kansas State government.
Nothing remains of the original hospital, and while many people
felt that the building was haunted, it was torn down
and removed in twenty ten. The crew even went as
far as to remove the concrete slabs so that the
spot where the hospital once stood would be completely devoid

(15:29):
of any sign that there was once a building there.
Newspapers from the late eighteen hundreds were filled with reports
on the abuses happening inside the insane asylum a to
Peak a state hospital. In one particular case, a witness
came forward with information about an inmate named DoD. The
witness claimed that he had seen an attendant kick DoD

(15:51):
on numerous occasions. DoD was often knocked to the ground
and the attendant would jump up and down on the
inmate's chest. Times Dodd would be strangled. On his final beating,
DoD was knocked down and the witness stated that DoD
was dragged into Room eighteen. The door was shut, and
the witness heard noises that sounded like a struggle. Finally,

(16:15):
he heard a groan from within the room, and DoD
was eventually carried out dead from whatever had happened inside
the room. The county attorney tried to take action against
the attendant, but the governor of Kansas refused to launch
an investigation into the death and the matter was dropped.
In eighteen ninety six, reports came out that old soldiers

(16:38):
were being killed off in Kansas state asylums. It should
have been a scandal, but instead of being investigated, the
whole thing was covered up. According to one newspaper report,
gust Mauer, an inmate at the Tepeka State Hospital, quote
was sent home with two black eyes, a broken nose,
and a broken neck, his body being accompanied by a

(16:59):
certificate from the superintendent that he had died of apoplexy.
Yet no effort was ever made to right the wrong,
and the superintendent is still in office. In the spring
of nineteen eleven, charges were filed against the Topeka State
Hospital that were supposed to lead to an investigation. The
charges were made by former and current employees about the

(17:20):
condition and treatment of the patients trapped inside the hospital.
A local newspaper printed part of a letter that was
presented to the board quote, I wish to make the
statement that John Green, a patient in Ward E two,
lay ill in bed for eight days and died, and
during this period he was given no food or medicine.
His condition was reported every morning and nothing was done.

(17:43):
The body of Green was taken to the dissecting room,
his brain taken out and used in a demonstration by
doctor T. C. Biddle before a class in the chapel
the next day, without the consent of Green's relatives. Biddle
wanted the brain to demonstrate the condition of a congested brain.
Attendance Roberts and Johnson could not be convinced, as they
well knew the patient came to his death by starvation.

(18:07):
One witness to the abuse happening at the state hospital
wrote about a patient named mister Smith, a former banker.
While the statement didn't give the reason why Smith was
pleased in the hospital, his treatment was completely uncalled for.
Smith was often seen wearing handcuffs. His attendant also saw
fit to lead Smith around the property with a rope

(18:28):
tied around his neck. Sometimes the attendants would get drunk
and beat Smith mercilessly. Another time, the attendant tied Smith
to a tree and left him there for hours. On
one occasion, it was witnessed that the attendant threw the
end of the rope over a door and pulled Smith's
head up to the top of the door, cruelly strangling

(18:50):
him as some sort of punishment. People who were sent
to the Topeaka State Hospital were often never seen again
by the outside world. It was easy to forget about
relatives and unwanted spouses whilce they were on the inside. However,
visitations to those who were loved were severely restricted. Out

(19:11):
of the twenty nine wards in the hospital, visitors were
only allowed in four of them. Parents were not allowed
to visit their children inside the hospital. Friends of inmates
were also not permitted inside and had zero visitation rights.
Doctor Biddle, the hospital's supervisor, claimed that visits would interfere

(19:32):
with the patient's treatment. In nineteen eleven, it was announced
that a claim adjuster was looking into the financial condition
of all the inmates of state hospitals and of relatives
bound by law to maintain them. The Topeka hospital wanted
more money than was being given by the state. In fact,
the hospital had already begun taking families to court and

(19:54):
had won a case the previous year in which the
Supreme Court ruled they could recover for the care of
an innate from the time of his admission until the
time of his death. The hospital wanted something similar to
the Lunacy Act of Ontario, Canada, wherein the asylum would
be permitted to take over the patient's estate and pull
from it all the funds required to care for the inmate.

(20:18):
To say that no one was trying to fight the
abuses occurring in the hospital would be a lie. Many
lawyers attempted to take on cases or initiate investigations into
the claims of abuse, but they were always stonewalled. Mister Hanson,
a lawyer, tried to secure the release of several patients
in the Topeka hospital. He was unsuccessful, and his patients

(20:41):
were returned to captivity without receiving an examination or a hearing.
To add insult to injury, the Attorney General filed suit
against Hanson for harassing the state officials in charge of
the Topeka State Hospital and to prevent him from disturbing
the patients at the hospital. In nineteen sixteen, there was

(21:01):
a report that insanity was on the increase in the
state of Kansas. The state totaled forty three hundred and
eleven cases of insanity, with fifteen hundred sixty five of
the afflicted being stored in the Tapeka State Hospital. It
was big business to declare someone insane, especially when the
state could take over the property owned by the patient.

(21:24):
For example, there was a big property case in nineteen eighteen.
A Pottawotomy Native American woman was declared mentally sick and
was being held at the Topeka State Hospital. She also
happened to own a sizable estate in Oklahoma. The woman's
guardian was in charge of the estate, but Kansas wanted
it for the woman's quote unquote care. Efforts were made

(21:49):
through the courts and the newspapers to vilify the woman's guardian,
claiming that the guardian was looting the property, when instead
the state of Kansas should be allowed to take over
and profit from the un estate. Fast forward a few
decades and we find that there were still many problems
at the hospital. A fifty five year old woman was

(22:10):
placed in the Topeka State Hospital in nineteen thirty two.
It was claimed that she suffered from delusions and believed
that her husband was trying to kill her. In turn,
she made an attempt on his life. After a year
in the hospital, the doctor said she was getting better,
but still suffered from delusions. After four years, the doctor

(22:32):
claimed that she had a tendency to hurt other people
and could not be paroled. At nine years, she was
labeled incurably insane. That might have been the end for
this woman known as Missus X, but a new doctor
took an interest in her. After being in the hospital
for seventeen years, she was still spry encouraged. The new

(22:55):
doctor began to spend a half hour with her each
week and found that with this little bit of attention,
she began to settle down. After five months of this treatment,
Missus X, now seventy two, was paroled and began work
as a practical nurse and companion housekeeper. While the good
doctor was not prepared to admit that all patients would

(23:17):
react positively to a bit of weekly acknowledgment, he did
state that doctors should slow down on the brain surgeries
and shock treatments given to often neglected patients. John Crabb
was a Danish immigrant to the United States and barely
spoke any English. He worked as a dishwasher in Topeka
and was known to have a bit of a hot temper.

(23:40):
One night in nineteen thirty one, a coworker began hitting
on one of the waitresses, who just so happened to
be mister Crabb's girlfriend. Crab made verbal threats and was
taken to jail for his behavior. While in jail, the
man sulked and refused to eat. An expert was brought
in and labeled Crab insane. Crab was taken to the

(24:02):
Tepeeka State Hospital, where he was imprisoned as an incurable
for almost twenty years. During his time on the inside,
Crab tried his hardest to convince the staff that he
was sane, but one of the reasons they thought he
was insane was that he tried so hard to prove
that he was sane. This ticked Crab off even more,

(24:25):
and he refused to cooperate with the staff and refused
to do any work. Mister Crab might have died in
the hospital if it had not been for a group
of Danish insurance men who learned of his case, they
went to the authorities and Crab was tested again. This
time he was labeled sane, but it still took another

(24:47):
ten months before the hospital finally released him in nineteen
fifty In May nineteen fifty seven, in the small town

(25:12):
of Hexham in England, eleven year old Joanna Pollock and
her younger sister, six year old Jacqueline, were on their
way to church with their friend Anthony, when they were
struck by an erratic driver. Almost instantly, the two young
sisters were killed. Anthony, just nine years old, died while
traveling to the hospital. It was later discovered that the driver,

(25:35):
a local woman who was under the influence of a
number of drugs, had intentionally hit the three children after
being forcibly separated from her own kids. The case later
made headlines throughout Britain, with a woman eventually being taken
to a psychiatric hospital. Following the death of Joanna and Jacqueline,
the girl's parents, John and Florence Pollock were of course devastated,

(26:00):
but when Florence later fell pregnant, John became convinced that
the two girls would be reborn into the family as twins.
The couple who were devout Catholics, often argued over the
premise of reincarnation, with Florence strongly rejecting John's beliefs. It

(26:20):
was later reported that the couple's entire marriage was even
threatened as a result, with Florence almost filing for divorce.
There was also no history of twins in either parents family,
and Florence's doctor had predicted a single birth, meaning the
likelihood of twins was low. Against all odds, however, Florence

(26:42):
gave birth to twin girls on October fourth, nineteen fifty eight.
The twins were named Gillian and Jennifer. While the twins
were identical, the pair had different birthmarks, which is considered
highly unusual. Jennifer had a small birthmark on her left hip,

(27:02):
which mimicked a birthmark that Jaqueline had. She also had
a birthmark on her forehead which was similar to a
small scar that Jaqueline had in the same spot. When
the twins were three months old, the family relocated to
Whitley Bay, which is east of Hexham. As the girls
got older, however, it became clear that Gillian and Jennifer

(27:25):
seemed to remember Hexham in detail, despite not growing up
in the small town. When the family returned to Hexham
when the girls were four, the twins pointed out and
named landmarks they had never seen, such as the school
Joanna and Jacqueline had attended, the Hexham Abbey, and to
playground their deceased sisters loved. The pair even seemed to

(27:48):
know the way to the playground without ever having been there. Likewise,
the twins were also able to identify their late sister's
toys by name. Although Flowlawrence had stored the late girls
toys out of sight, the twins started to ask for
certain toys back. In fact, it was almost as if
the twins remembered the toys as their own. They were

(28:12):
able to name their toys by their names previously given
to them, and they even divided the toys up exactly
as their sisters had. They also referred to the fact
that the toys came from Santa Claus, which was true.
Florence and John also noticed that the twins had very
similar personalities when compared to their older sisters. While Joanna

(28:35):
was very protective of her younger sister Jacqueline, Jillian seemed
more mature than her twin sister. Jillian, who was born
ten minutes before. Jennifer also often looked after her twin,
much like Joanna looked after Jacqueline. The parents also noted
that the twins even enjoyed the same games and foods

(28:56):
as their siblings. For the first few years the twins,
Florence continued to reject John's suggestions that the pair had
been reincarnated. After finding the twins talking about the car accident. However,
she changed her mind. On one occasion, Florence overheard the
girls playing the game where they recreated their sister's accident.

(29:20):
Jillian was cradling Jennifer's head, telling her, the blood's coming
out of your eyes. That's where the car hit you.
On another occasion, Gillian pointed to Jennifer's birthmark on her
forehead and told her that's the mark Jennifer got when
she fell on a bucket. Interestingly, the twin girls also
appeared to have a fear of cars. In their younger years,

(29:43):
the twins experienced recurring nightmares about being hit by a car.
Jillian and Jennifer also regularly became frightened and anxious while
near cars. When a car started its engine in an alleyway,
John recalled the girls grabbing onto each other in terror,
shouting the car is coming to get us. Shortly after

(30:04):
the twins turned five, the memories of their past lives
slowly began to fade away as they went on to
live normal lives. While the twins lost their memories of
the accident entirely, Jillian later recalled experiencing visions of herself
playing in a sand pit at a home in Wickham.

(30:24):
While Jillian had never been to Wickham, she was able
to perfectly describe the house and garden that matched the
home that Joanna had once lived in with her parents
at four years old. While the case of the poly
Twins has long been cited as proof of reincarnation, many
people have argued that the twins' memories may have been

(30:46):
influenced by their four older brothers. While John and Florence
claimed they didn't speak to the twins about their deceased
sisters until they were older, it has been noted that
the twins may have learnt about their story from their brothers.

(31:08):
Up next, on Weird Darkness, a newlywed goes sightseeing in
a new town while her husband attends a conference nearby.
Completely normal behavior for a newly married couple, but nothing
that happens after these events makes any sense at all.
We'll look at the confusing case of Judy Smith up next.

(31:55):
Judy Bradford Smith was a fifty year old home health
nurse hailing from Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. She'd
been divorced twice. Her first marriage ended quickly when her
husband fled to Sweden to avoid the Vietnam War draft.
Her second marriage didn't last long either, and it ended
after having two children, a son Craig and a daughter Amy.

(32:19):
While caring for an elderly patient who had just had surgery,
Judy met the patient's son, a man named Jeffrey Smith.
The two hit it off quickly, and both with divorces
in their past, didn't want to rush into anything, so
after ten years of dating, they were finally married in
September of nineteen ninety six. Just five months after their marriage,

(32:42):
the couple was to make a trip to Philadelphia. Jeffrey
was an attorney and he was due to be a
speaker at the Northeast Pharmaceutical Conference at the DoubleTree Hotel
in Philadelphia. After the conference was over, the couple was
then to travel to New Jersey. Later in the week
to visit with some friends. Judy Smith loved to travel,
and this would be her first time in the city,

(33:04):
and she had planned to visit some of the historical
sites as well as do some shopping. The couple arrived
at Logan Airport in Boston on April ninth, nineteen ninety seven,
to board their one thirty pm flight to Philadelphia. Judy
was upset to realize that she had forgotten her driver's
license at home and knew she wouldn't be allowed to

(33:24):
board the plane. She apologized to her husband for the
mistake and told him she would return home to retrieve
it and take another flight, and she would arrive later
that night. Jeffrey had to speak at the conference later
that day, so he would have to board the original flight.
By Jeffrey's account, Judy did arrive at the hotel that

(33:45):
evening after taking the seven thirty pm flight, and even
brought him flowers as an apology. The couple spent the
evening in their room and had room service delivered. The
next day was to be a full day for both
of them. The morning of April tenth, nineteen ninety seven,
would start out rather typical. Jeffrey Smith had gotten up

(34:05):
before his wife and went downstairs for breakfast at the
Double Tree. When he came back to their hotel room
to recommend the breakfast to his wife, Judy was in
the shower. After briefly chatting with her, he left to
go downstairs as the conference would begin soon. Judy was
to meet him back at the hotel around five pm
that night to get ready for a cocktail party that

(34:26):
would begin at six pm. At the hotel, he would
tell his wife goodbye, but he had no idea it
would be the last time he would ever speak to her.
Jeffrey spent the day at the conference. Exactly what Judy
did that day is uncertain. Jeffrey arrived back to the
hotel room around five pm that night, expecting to find

(34:48):
his wife Judy hadn't arrived. Jeffrey would go to the
cocktail party and continue to go up to the couple's
hotel room, thinking his wife would arrive at any time later.
At the time got the more worried Jeffrey became. At first,
he thought Judy may have been confused at the time
they were supposed to meet up. Jeffrey was beginning to

(35:10):
panic at what could have happened to his wife. He
knew that Judy had planned to take a tour bus
around the town that day. He hired a cab to
slowly take him on the route the tour bus would
have taken, all the while seeing if he could catch
a glimpse of his wife. He also went to the
police station that night to report her missing. According to Jeffrey,
they were dismissive and told him it was too soon

(35:32):
to report the disappearance. They told him if he came
back later the next day, he would probably be allowed
to file the report. Jeffrey Smith did take a look
around the hotel room to see if there were any clues.
He did notice the only outfit that appeared to be
missing was the one that Judy had worn the day before. However,
Judy's own children said it was likely that their mother

(35:53):
would have worn the same outfit. Twice, Judy appears to
have been spotted around Philadelphia. Sometimes the sightings of her
were of a woman acting disoriented. This, however, is confusing
because there was a homeless woman in the pen Landing
area of the city who resembled Judy very closely. In fact,

(36:13):
a few days later, when Judy's son, Craig, caught a
glimpse of the woman from across the street. He actually
thought it was his mother, So it's difficult to know
how many of the Sidings were actually Judy. Jeffrey did
everything he could think of to find his wife. He
contacted her children to see if they had heard from her.
They had not. He called his daughter and asked her

(36:35):
to go to the couple's house and see if there
was perhaps a message from Judy on their answering machine.
There was not, According to reports, The Philadelphia Mayor Ed
Rindell and Pennsylvania House Representative John Prizell were both in
attendance at the conference. When they heard Jeffrey Smith's wife,
it disappeared they got the wheels in motion. According to

(36:56):
Jeffrey Smith, the police were very cooperative now and took
a report shortly after she went missing. Judy's two children
would travel to Philadelphia, and there was an extensive search
for their mother. They would travel to homeless shelters, the
Morgue hospitals, anywhere they could think of. They even rented

(37:17):
bicycles so they could quickly travel the city and chase
down leads. Judy had a trademark red backpack that she
carried everywhere with her in lieu of a purse. Some
of the possible sightings of Judy did mention the red backpack.
There was a homeless man named David who was convinced
that he had seen Judy Smith and said that she

(37:37):
had even slept on a park bench next to him.
He knew of the homeless woman Judy kept getting mistaken for,
and he insisted it was not her. The family of
Judy Smith even went back to interview David again on
April fifteenth, and he told them that they just missed her.
The family frantically searched for her in the area, but
came up empty. This sighting was credible to Jeffrey Smith,

(38:01):
as he said it was the last person to id
Judy by viewing an actual photo of her. It did
appear that Judy did take a trip on the tour
bus the day that she was to travel on it.
A hotel employee at the Double Tree said Judy asked
them where she could catch the bus. A bus driver
said he picked her up at Front and South Streets
and led her off near the hotel around three pm.

(38:24):
She was also reportedly seen leaving the Greyhound bus terminal,
but the family seems to think she was probably just
there to use their restroom. It seems that the first
sightings of Judy possibly acting disoriented started the day after
she went missing. By then, Judy had inexplicably made her
way to New Jersey. The sighting of Judy that seemed

(38:45):
to be credible occurred at the Macy's in the Deptford
Mall in Deptford, New Jersey, across the Delaware River. Deptford
was only about twenty two miles from Philadelphia, and the
New Jersey Transit bus route does make hourly trips from
near where her hotel was to the town. It wasn't
hard to see how Judy made her way there. The
bigger question is why the reports of her at the

(39:09):
mall seemed to report. Judy was a little off, but
some of the things she was heard to say were true.
She said she was looking for clothes for her daughter,
but that her daughter rarely liked any clothes she picked
out for her. Judy's daughter, Amy said this was definitely true.
It was also reported that Judy tried to get a
young girl to leave with her. The thought is that

(39:31):
Judy was confused and thought the girl was her daughter.
The people who believed they saw Judy in New Jersey
also reported the confused woman was carrying a red backpack.
The sightings eventually dried up of Judy around the Philadelphia area.
After a few weeks in town searching for their loved one.
Judy's husband and children did finally return home. Jeffrey was

(39:55):
still working on finding his wife. He hired a PI
and had hundreds of posters made and distributed around the area.
His wife's disappearance had definitely taken a toll. He scaled
back a large amount of his law practice. The reason
why was that a good portion of it was criminal
defense work, and in his words, and now that I
feel like I'm a victim, I couldn't in good conscience

(40:17):
continue to represent criminal defendants. Jeffrey Smith also had a
problem with how law enforcement was handling his wife's case.
He said he was irate and he was told that
right after his wife was reported missing, her name and
description had been entered into the NCIC, a National Crime
Information Center database, weeks after he found out she wasn't

(40:40):
listed initially. Therefore, any people discovered in April and entered
into the database would not be a match. It was
also reported that Jeffrey Smith refused to take a polygraph.
He evidantly denies that. He said that he would take
one on the conditions that the FBI administer it, and
when he passed it, the Philadelphia PDE would formally request
the FBI to assist in his wife's case. The police

(41:03):
claimed Jeffrey, being an attorney, would know the FBI would
not get involved in the case, so his conditions were
the same as a refusal in their opinion. The police
also seemed to never completely clear Jeffrey as a suspect,
even though the time his wife went missing, he was
at the conference with dozens of people to verify it.

(41:24):
They also were curious if Judy ever actually made it
to Philadelphia. A few people said they saw her, but
police said these people didn't personally know Judy. No one
on the later flight necessarily remembered seeing Judy, but it
appeared that all the tickets purchased for that flight were used,
so it does appear that Judy did arrive in Philadelphia

(41:47):
that night. Then, five months later, on September seventh, nineteen
ninety seven, a father and son were out deer hunting
on a hillside of North Carolina's Mount Piska National Forest.
They were shocked to find human remains near Stony Fork
Picnic Area, just a little over thirty miles from Asheville,
North Carolina. Some of the bones had been scattered by animals.

(42:10):
What remained in the burial site was wrapped in a
blue blanket and partially buried. The police were soon notified.
As the police were there to inventory the scene, it
was reported that there were belongings nearby that appeared to
be partially buried as well, but nothing to let them
know the identity of the person. The story was reported

(42:31):
in the media as police were anxious to find out
who their victim was. Doctor Parker Davis at the Angel
Medical Center in Franklin, North Carolina, had seen the story
about the unidentified person and remembered seeing a flyer about
Judy Smith's disappearance. He faxed the article to the Philadelphia PD.
They then requested Judy Smith's dental records from Jeffrey Smith.

(42:54):
The coroner didn't take long to have an answer the
identity of the body was Judy Smith. There were so
many questions at the scene to the remains. Judy had
no id on her and her red backpack was not there,
but her wedding ring was still on her finger. There
were expensive blet sunglasses at the scene that the family

(43:17):
said did not belong to her. She was wearing clothing
appropriate for hiking and hiking boots, but her family didn't
recognize anything she was wearing. Judy was thought to have
taken two hundred dollars with her the day she went missing,
and a hundred and sixty seven dollars of it was
found at the scene. There was a blue and black
backpack found with winter clothing inside. They also said there

(43:40):
appeared to be slash marks on her bra and her ribs,
so they believed their victim was stabbed and classified it
as a homicide. Judy Smith had been murdered. The police
started an investigation, and it was reported there were sightings
of Judy Smith a round Ashville in the days after
she'd went missing from Philadelphia. Two of the sidings strangely

(44:02):
said Judy was driving a gray sedan filled with boxes
and bags. One siding was near the campground where her
remains were found. The woman asked if she could spend
the night there in her car, when she was told
she could not, she left the area. The other siding
of her in the car was at a deli near
the same area, and Judy bought thirty dollars worth of

(44:23):
sandwiches and a toy truck. The third siding seems to
be the most credible one. It was at a souvenir
shop near Asheville. The worker, Joanne Stucker, said Judy seemed pleasant,
even saying her name was Judy. She went on to
say she was from Boston and had a husband who
was an attorney, and he was attending a conference in Philadelphia,

(44:44):
and she had just decided to go to the Ashville area.
The family was completely baffled as to how and why
Judy traveled six hundred miles to Ashville. Most of the
money she took with her was found with her remains,
and none of her credit cards or her phone card
had been used. No activity on her bank account as well.

(45:07):
Her family couldn't think of any interest Judy had prior
in wanting to visit that area. The only time they
could remember her being in the area was when she
visited her husband at a weight loss clinic in North
Carolina several years earlier. The family said she also might
have driven a patient to that area years ago to

(45:28):
see their family members, but the family's recollection on that
is pretty vague. As for suspects in Judy's murder, there
really aren't many. One name that has been mentioned is
serial killer Gary Michael Hilton. He did murder an elderly
couple ten years after Judy Smith's murder. The couple was
hiking in the Mount Piska National Forest, and the female victims,

(45:50):
Irene Bryant's body was found only about a mile from
where Judy's remains were. It was reported that around this
time Hilton was living in his white Chevy astro van
when he encountered the couple. Although Hilton was known to
be in that area in years after Judy's death and
was a murderer, there'd not been any actual evidence to

(46:11):
link him to her murder. The discovery of Judy's remains
seems to have all but exonerated her husband as well.
Judy was found deep in the forest on a hillside,
and Jeffrey Smith was morbidly obese, so he would not
have been physically able to either hike there or bring
her remains there. In fact, police seemed to think Judy

(46:33):
was killed on or near where she was found, because
even someone in excellent physical shape would have had trouble
carrying her body that far in that terrain. In this case,
no theory that I could give you makes perfect sense.
The case is made up of nothing but wise. First off,
I'll give you the things I don't think happened. I

(46:55):
don't think Judy was there to meet anyone, as has
been speculated. It would have been easier for her to
just stay in Boston and take a trip to meet
someone while her husband was away. I don't think Judy
had amnesia, as she told people some accurate information about herself. Initially,
I would have said I don't think the sightings of
Judy in the car full of boxes and bags near

(47:17):
Ashville was her, because it just seems so crazy as
to how she would get a vehicle. But I did
notice something that gave me pause. Judy was thought to
have left the hotel room the day she went missing
with two hundred dollars. When she was found, one hundred
sixty seven dollars was with her. The person at the
local deli mentioned that Judy bought thirty dollars worth of

(47:39):
sandwiches plus a toy truck If it was Judy who
made those purchases, her total would probably have been around
thirty three dollars, which would have left her with one
hundred sixty seven dollars. Just something to think about. I
will say I do think Judy went on her adventure willingly.
She seemed disoriented at times, perhaps, but never fearful. She

(48:02):
appeared to be doing exactly what she wanted to do.
She was never reported to be seen with anyone. I
do think there was some sort of mental issue or
confusion at play, though it was unlike Judy, such a
caring and devoted wife and mother to be gone indefinitely
and not try to get in touch with her family.
Perhaps the confusion led Judy to go on a trip

(48:23):
and lost track of time and was murdered before she
could travel back to Philadelphia to reunite with her husband.
Was forgetting her driver's license just an honest mistake, or
was it perhaps a symptom of confusion or forgetfulness that
she had been having lately. I also wonder if Judy
had been mugged and or suffered a blow to her

(48:44):
head during the trip. This may explain her apparent confusion,
as well as why her signature read backpack, and id
wasn't with her remains. As far as her murder promoter
family said, Judy did enjoy hiking. There was also an
animal hair found on her clothing, and police speculated perhaps
Judy visited nearby horse farm, as she did have a

(49:06):
love for horses. I think she was enjoying the scenery
and willingly went on a hike and perhaps encountered someone
on the trail who killed her. This person appeared to
have a blanket as well as equipment in order to
attempt to bury her remains. If they didn't bring all
those things way up there on the trail after the fact,
perhaps they were camping nearby and already had those things

(49:29):
in their possession. There are so many questions in this case.
Why didn't she meet Jeffrey that night at the hotel,
Why did she go to North Carolina? Why didn't she
tell her husband she was going, How did she get
the money to purchase different clothes and perhaps a car?
If that story is credible, Sadly, so many years later,

(49:52):
it's very unlikely we're going to get any answers in
this incredibly strange tragedy. Judy's family was never afforded the
closure so often talked about. They were able to have
their mother's remains returned, but the person who took Judy
Smith's life has never and probably will never be punished
for the crime. Unfortunately, Jeffrey Smith passed away in two

(50:15):
thousand and five, still haunted at what happened during the
last few days of his wife's life. In closing, I
want to share a quote that Judy's son, Craig, said
his mother would tell him and his sister. That's haunting
now given what had happened. If you're late or lost,
it's not a big deal. Just make sure you call,
because not knowing is the worst part. Judy's children never

(50:40):
dreamed they would be living that every day. I hope
the family can get some form of answers someday and
finally know if Judy was traveling or troubled. Thanks for listening.

(51:04):
If you're listening to the show via podcast or YouTube,
be sure to subscribe if you haven't already done so.
And if you're already a weirdo, please take a moment
today and share weird Darkness with somebody you know who
loves paranormal or strange stories. True crime monsters or mysteries
like you do. All stories in Weird Darkness aren't purported

(51:24):
to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find
source links or links to the authors in the show notes.
Black Bart the Poet Outlaw was written by Kathy Weiser
for Legends of America. Horrors of the Topeka Insane Asylum
is by Elizabeth Yetter for List Verse. The Confusing Case
of Judy Smith is by Crystal Dawn for Lost and

(51:45):
Found Blogs, and the perplexing Pollux Problem is by Jessica
Staveley for Mamma Mia. Weird Darkness is a production of
Marler House Productions. And now that we're coming out of
the dark, I'll leave you with a lie in a
light Ephesians three, verse twelve. In Him and through faith
in Him, we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

(52:10):
And a final thought by Kristin Butler, make the most
of today, don't allow the troubles of yesterday to steal
the gift of right now. I'm Daryn Marler. Thanks for
joining me in the Weird Darkness.

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