Trick or True Crime?

This week we have two cases for you that involve Halloween. But one is a trick (fake) and one is a true crime. Can you figure out which one is which?

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Episode Transcript

(00:42):
Welcome to crime Pedia Podcast. Iam your host this week. My name
is Cherry, and with me,as always is the man in the Cape.
It is Morgan. Hello. Hello, Hello, Hi Cherry. Happy
Halloween, Happy Halloween. This ismy favorite day of the year, next
Christmas, but Halloween is my favorite. I love it. I know Halloween

(01:06):
becoming a bigger thing. It's Halloweenbecoming a bigger thing over there. Yeah,
I think so. I mean mostof my friends, most of my
friends have got like pumpkins out.Quite a lot of my friends have dressed
up like last last night. Alot of people went out last night to
do Halloween stuff. So I thinkit's getting a bit bigger here and not
as big as it is in America. But I love it. I love
that. I love it all.It's brilliant fun. Oh no, I

(01:32):
can't hear you. No, itis a lot of fun. I've always
enjoyed Halloween, and I think I'mgoing a little I'm going to go on
a little little extra this year withHalloween and decorations. So so we'll see,
we'll see how how how the kidslike my decorations when it's time for
trig or treat. I love it. If you have got Instagram. I

(01:55):
put a picture of of my dog. I halloweened up my dog this week.
He was not impressed. He wasrumby with me afterwards. He just
you just like give me the deathstare and was like, I don't think
So we're not doing this ever again. Well, this week we have a
bit of a treat for you becausewe decided we wanted to do something Halloween
ish. So we've decided we're goingto do something which Morgan is very cleverly

(02:16):
named trick or true crime. Andone of us has got a real case
for you, which would be thetrue crime case, and the other one
has got a an AI generated case, a fake case, and that one
is our trick case. So we'regoing to get you to guess which one
is a real case and which oneis the trick case. And we're going
to give you the answer next weekso that you can you can have a

(02:38):
play around with this. And wethought it might be a bit of fun,
just just for Halloween. Yes,it should be a lot of fun.
And I'm very interested to see whatwe've come up with this week and
hopefully our listeners enjoy this. Well, it's very we're normally very serious and
this is of course they are seriouscases, but we are normally very seriou

(03:00):
and we thought we would just giveyou a real case, which is a
serious one, and then something that'sa bit of fun. See if you
can tell the difference between the two. Are you going to start or shall
I start? What do you wantto do? I'll start, So let's
get this trick or true crime startedwith a true case. So I'm going
to give you this true case winkwink, or maybe it's not. We'll

(03:27):
see what you think. All right, So this is a case that actually
occurred back actually when we were wewere young teenagers. I think we're probably
what fourteen or fifteen. So thiswas the Halloween night of nineteen ninety four
in Willow Creek, which is alike a neighborhood that is nestled within the

(03:49):
heart of Portage, Indiana, whichis like, okay, it's like in
the north or northwest corner, Indiana, not too far from Chicago, I
believe, so so northeast northeast corner, kind of close to like Lake Michigan
in between Chicago in the state ofMichigan roughly. Ok So, Portage that

(04:11):
year was obviously alive with festive energy. Families bustled with activity. They would
be adjusting costume for pairing candy bulls, and setting up last minute decorations.
Car pumpkins flashed their eerie grins fromevery porch, and makeshift great graveyards sprouted
in the front yards. Now atthe Mitchell home, seven year old Tommy

(04:32):
was obviously very excited to go outtrick or treating for this Halloween. He
had chosen dress as the Green PowerRanger and he was absolutely thrilled to be
his favorite Mighty morphim Power Ranger.And he had actually been rehearsing his karate
kicks and jumped for days much ofthe union of his parents, but obviously

(04:54):
it annoyed his older sisters. Hehad an older sister named Jenny who just
found his antics to be a littletoo much. You know, So when
you're she was she was twelve yearsold, so she was five years older
than Tommy. Yeah, I mean, anytime your your little brother is like,
you know, in your face andkarate, you're gonna be irritated.

(05:15):
Oh yeah, no, not atall, not at all. This was
actually the first year that that thatTommy and Jenny's parents were letting them go
out alone. So Jenny was likein charge of Tommy to make sure that
like you know, to take himaround to go trick or treating, to
make sure he was okay, thathe wasn't doing anything dumb and he wasn't
trying to do karate kicks out inthe military, you know, the typical

(05:38):
thing that seven year olds would do. Now, that year, Jenny wanted
to be a little bit more sophisticated, and she went with a more mature
look she wants. She just wentas a witch, which you know,
she didn't want to go as likethe typical like kids type costumes. I
don't know, like nineteen ninety four, that might have been the last year

(06:00):
that I went trigger treating, Ithink, and I'm trying to remember.
I mean, when we were little, little a lot of the costumes were
were like plastic, so you wouldhave like a plastic jumper or like one
one piece suit, like and youhave the plastic mask. But I don't
know, like I can't remember whatI went as that year. It's probably
something like really dumb because obviously ifI was like thirteen or fourteen, I

(06:24):
probably wanted to be like cool.I didn't want to wear like some dorky
costume. So fourteen, I probablywent out as like a sexy witch or
something, or a devil or something, PVC devil or something at forty mm
hmm, yeah, so she h. So Jenny decided like, I'm just
gonna go as this sophisticated which typecharacter. Obviously, she went out with
the hopes of trying to impress herfriends and was hoping that her costume might

(06:47):
you know, get her some extracandy here in there. Their parents were
Helen and Mike Mitchell, and theyremember watching their children excidedly prepare for Halloween
that year. Helen was school teacher, and she has called that she like
at the time, she was justreminiscing about past Halloweens, not only like

(07:10):
her children's past Halloweens, but Halloweensthat she could recall as a child.
Now. Mike the dad, Hewas a local journalist, and that evening
he was actually taking candid photos oftheir kids for their family album. So
he was very, very fond oftaking pictures. He always had a camera
with him at the cyber events forthese these holidays, so he was just

(07:36):
trying to get as many photos ashe could. Now. As the sun
began to set transform the sky intoshades of purple and gold, Tommy and
Jenny, along with their two oftheir friends, Sarah and Brian Stewart,
set out bags in hand, readyto fill them to the brim with treats.
Now the first few houses when itsexpected, with Tommy enthusiastic power ranger

(07:58):
moves, earning a few extra candieshere and there. But as the night
wore on, the group was drawnto a particular house they hadn't visited before.
Words spread within the neighborhood of thisextravagant Halloween display that was at the
home owned by Henry Larkins. Thiswas actually like a few blocks over from

(08:20):
their intended path that evening, withelaborate decorations, spooky music, and even
a mini haunted house or haunted maze. It was really the highlight of the
Willow Creek Creek neighborhood that year.So everyone wanted to go to this house
and check it out. Jenny wastrying to balance her protective instincts with a

(08:46):
I guess you would call it likethe typical preteen desire to fit in with
her friends. Yeah, so sheallowed the group to change their planned route.
Now, as they approached the Larkin'shouse, they were memorized by the
Labord display. Jenny got caught upchatting with Sarah about school gossip, and
they really quickly lost track of Tommy. Oh no, So they actually went

(09:13):
through the maze and when they gotout, Tommy's absent absence became evident.
So at that point they knew somethingsomething wrong. Tommy wasn't with them,
he didn't come out of the maze. They didn't know where it was obviously,
Oh big time trouble. Yeah,so panic quickly set in within the

(09:33):
group and they started to immediately searchthe area. Yeah, Unfortunately they didn't
they didn't ask for it for anyassistance, So they didn't ask the Larkins
if they had seen Tommy. Theyjust kind of went out on their own,
like we're gonna be able to findthem. So they they retraced their
path and where they were hopefully likethinking like, okay, maybe he he

(09:54):
saw some of their houses that hewanted to stop to get some candy at,
maybe he saw some friends. Theynow, if the adults don't know
that he's got missing, they're notgoing to get in trouble so they're going
to try and find him first beforethey actually admit to an adult that they
can't find him, because you know, absolutely trouble when you can't you know,
you can't find your little brother exactly. No, so they backtracked.

(10:15):
Unfortunately, they weren't able to Theydidn't find him anywhere, even though you
know, they had hope that maybehe just wandered off, that he might
just be close by. They checkedpretty much every nearby house, they retraced
their steps, and obviously this causedJenny to have this great sense of dread.
Yeah. Yeah. Now, byby the time Jenny reached her home,

(10:39):
she was breathless and teary eyed,and her parents immediately understood how serious
the situation was. Within hours,a massive search operation was underway in the
area. The local police obviously werealerted, and by midnight a perch search
party had formed. In a communitylike this, news spreads very very fast.

(11:05):
Yeah so, yeah, so alot of people within the neighborhood were
out searching for Tommy. Actually,some some some families from neighboring neighboring towns
and cities actually came and helped outwith the search, you know, hoping
that they would be able to findany sort of any sort of sign of
him. Yeah, the police wouldcome through pretty much every inch of Willow

(11:28):
Creek and its surrounding areas. Onceit's actually hit the news, the local
news, the side of Tommy andin his power Ranger costume, it was
actually one of the photos that hisdad had taken earlier in the evening,
would start to be prominently featured inboth in local news reports, and obviously

(11:50):
anyone that saw this would just devastatedthat that, you know, Tommy was
now missing. I think we talkedabout this a lot so Port, which
is a small town, and theyare absolutely not accustomed to things like this,
you know, So they were theythey did what they could. They
put their officers out, They hadpretty much all the units out twenty four

(12:13):
to seven trying to try and tosearch for him. But it really wasn't
enough for them. This was thiswas a much bigger deal than their tiny
police force could could handle. Sothey did reach out to neighboring preestincts for
help, which they obviously, youknow, sent out whatever they could.
Detective Richard Lane, he was aseason officer from the nearby city of Valparaiso

(12:37):
was appointed to lead the investigations.Now, as the search investigator folded,
many people in the area began tosuspect that Henry Larkin, who was the
owner of the Haunted House, theHaunted May's House, was involved in Tommy's
disappearance. Okay, obviously, wellyeah they did, so he was he
was the last I mean, thiswas the last place that they were heading

(12:58):
towards, yeah, before or tommydisappearance. So yeah, obviously people were
I'm like, okay, so whatif you know, what if Tommy got
you know, if this guy wasinvolved in Tommy's tom disappearance. Maybe Tommy
was there and something happened and andI don't know, but he but a
lot of people in the every inthe area thought he could have been involved.

(13:18):
Part of this was because he wasconsidered somewhat of a recluse, and
he was known to have a strainedrelationship with his family and had a history
of odd behavior. Okay, sohe he was a type of guy that
would go it was weird because likethey consider him a recluse, but at

(13:41):
the same time, he is puttingup these elaborate displays, right, So
I don't know if they'll really gohand in hand with each other. No.
Now, with odd behavior, Iknow that people stated that he was
a type of guy that that wouldI think he enjoyed like scaring, scaring
kid especially like on Halloween. Sothat was so his way of spreading holiday

(14:05):
cheer, especially for Halloween. Itis to be kind of put on this
this creepy type of character for theneighborhood. And I think that kind of
like they started to like become,not become who he was, but that's
who what people began to see himas. Right. Yeah, he's just
recklose, kind of odd guy thatit's a bit bit weird right now.

(14:33):
He was investigated by the police,but after a thorough investigation, he was
cleared of any wrongdoing. So let'sget that straight. So, so he
did have anything involved with it,There was no no evidence to even suggest
that Tommy actually made it to thehouse. We do know what he was
doing at the time. He wasn'the wasn't alone obviously, so he he

(14:56):
had so he had a wife andyet he had kids. Kids weren't there,
but the wife actually did was ableto give him an alibi that they
were together handing out candy, andso there's no way that he would have
been able to grab Tommy, youknow, have him disappear and then not
you know, so there's no waythat that he did it. Okay,
well unless they did it together andunless she was involved too. That happens

(15:20):
look at my own I mean itcould yeah, yeah, But here's the
thing. So like Jenny and SarahBryan went to the maze, right,
they got candy from them, Sohow are they how are they handing out
candy and then but yet Tommy ismissing? I mean, are they going
to snatch Tommy and like, Idon't know, throw in a basement?
And then he'd were worried that hewould be hurt somewhere, you know,

(15:43):
because his sister's not really paying attentionto him. So you'd be worried that
maybe he's hurt himself and he's Iwould be thinking maybe, you know,
maybe he's hurt himself. Maybe someone'staking him in because he's hurt, and
now he doesn't know where he is, and what about that? Right?
Yeah, I mean, but here'sthe thing. If he did get if
he did get hurt, like listen, I mean, one of the big

(16:07):
worries about Halloween, especially like inneighborhoods. Is is kids getting hit by
cars? Right, especially when itgets dark? Yea, So it is
it possible that he got hit bya car and then you know, someone's
trying to give him aid. Yeah, I mean that's possible. You would,
but you would think that some wouldwould have heard or seen something if
that was the case, right,Yeah, I don't know. I don't
think you can like in these typeof neighborhoods with the number, with the

(16:30):
amount of people out that you couldyou know, hit a kid hit with
a car and like not be seenor no one would Yeah, yeah,
exactly. I mean, is itis it possible that he got hurt at
you know, trying to get somecandy out of house? Like I don't
know, what's he doing? ACREDI kick and you know sealers I don't
know, and someone like took himinside. Yeah, but like what's the
chances that that's going to happen withat someone's house who has really bad intentions?

(16:53):
Yeah, that's true. So Idon't know. Now, there was
a little bit of glimmer hope whena man by the name of Dale Kirkland,
Uh, he was a gas stationattendant report seeing a boy fitting Tommy's
description. Now, he recalled theboy appearing dazed and being led into the
into the gas station by a manthat he did not recognize. The only

(17:17):
problem is that at the time,there was no surveillance footage available to confirm
his claims and that there was andthere was also no other witnesses that could
uh that could concur that this happened. So there was no other witnesses to
the siding, and so this letthis lead actually ended up going cold.
So I mean, is it possiblethat that that this did happen. Yeah,

(17:40):
I think so, but without withoutany real evidence, it's it's kind
of I mean, I don't knowhow much you can actually do with with
it. But also I hope theylooked into him thoroughly, because that would
be a good cover story, ohyeah, and being led away by some
other guy, when actually it wasthe gas station attendant that did it,
right, And to be honest,I don't know, like there's not a
whole lot of information about about thisguy or or you know, what he

(18:04):
was doing, so I can't eventell you if he actually was working that
night. But yeah, I mean, to me, I would definitely like
look into this, look into himjust to see, like check his background.
So he actually tried to confirm hisstatement, right, was he actually
working that night? So I meanhe's definitely if for me, he would
definitely be a person of interest.Oh yeah. There were some other people

(18:27):
of interest that were looked into,and one was a he actually I wasn't
able to find his name, butso I'm gonna just say he's an named
suspect. Yeah, this one isreally interested interesting to me. So this
was a man who had recently beenreleased from prison. Okay, he had
a history of child related crimes andwas actually seen in the Vicinity that evening.

(18:52):
Okay, yeah, he became aprime suspect, especially after this this
witness statement from Dale Kirkland at abouta boy fitting Tommy's description being led in
by a familiar man. So hesupposedly fit the description that Dale Kirkland gave

(19:18):
police. Okay. The problem withthis one is he actually had a solid
alibi, which police have stated thatthis confirmed that he was not involved in
the disappearance. But I don't know, like, how can you. I
mean, he obviously he's a reallystrong suspect, right, he recently leads

(19:44):
from prison history of child related crimes. He matches description given by Dale Kirkland.
Yeah, so I don't know whatthe alibi is. There's not a
whole lot about the alibi at thetime. Then, yes, so there
were witnesses that stated that they believethat he was in the area at the

(20:04):
time. Yes, it's not lookinggood for him. So no, but
it's weird that he's been he wascleared, He seemingly was cleared by police
based off of an alibi. Butthe thing is, I think even if
but you're gonna have the problem iswhen something like that happens. If there's
like a guy that's been released fromprison and his charges were rape, they're

(20:25):
gonna look at him straight away.So like with this one, there's a
kid that's gone missing and this personwho's been in prison has just been released,
has got kid related crimes, Everyone'sgoing to think it's him straight away
anyway. You're not gonna be ableto get away from that. So it's
not looking good for him because everyone'sgoing to think it's him anyway, right
exactly exactly to me, I mean, I can't blame him. That would

(20:45):
be my first first person I suspect, especially if I knew he was in
the area. Right, Yeah,that's right. Now, there was another
person who who was a suspect,and there was Gary Simons. Now he
was a local teenager with a tawuristreputation for pranks and other minor thefts.
Ok Now, some neighbors reported seeinghim, uh lurking near the Larkin's house

(21:11):
that evening. However, there's noconcrete evidence linking him to Tommy's disappearance,
and and he actually was. Hewas brought in for questioning by police,
but he ended up being released withoutany charges. Oh dear, So is
it possible that this teenager, youknow, was trying to do a harmless

(21:36):
prank or something and ended up hurtingTommy? Maybe I don't know, Yeah,
maybe something went wrong. I don'tknow. I don't know. Obviously,
months turned into years, and thepain of not knowing what happened to
Tommy waited very heavily on the Mitchells, every lead, every tip, every
part. And his sister awful becauseif ever you've been in charge of like

(22:00):
looking after your brother or sister,your younger brother or sister, and they
fall and they hurt themselves, eventhough it's not. Seriously, you feel
so bad. So for your brotherto go missing, like when you're supposed
to be looking after him, howdo you ever get over that? That's
hard. Well, here's the thing. So I don't want to say if
there's a good thing came out ofthis, because I don't you that would

(22:25):
be wrong with me to say.But I can tell you that when after
this happened, Jenny actually has saidthat after it happened, it made it
made it her life mission to seekjustice. Right, so she ended up
actually earning her degree in criminal justice. Good. Since then, she has
she has actually worked with various agencies. She actually does does speaking towards so

(22:48):
she actually shares Tommy's story. Yeah, and it's like she's even today,
she's like making it, making itso that Tommy's life and tommy story remains
alive within the public consciousness. Soshe she hasn't forgotten it, and she
has taken what happened and she's turnedit into a positive. So she's she's

(23:11):
still dedicated to to finding out whathappened to her brother and to the actually
getting justice for his for his disappearance. The family did did move out of
the porridge area. Just I don'tblame him. It's just too hard,
especially when it comes around Halloween time. Like, yeah, I mean even

(23:32):
if you're you know, handing outcandy, and could you imagine, like
how big were the power Rangers,like, you know, in the mid
nineties. Imagine, I'm sure thereare a ton of power Rangers every year
coming up to your door, youknow, saying to retreat. And it's
just it's gonna be a reminder.Yeah. So they ended up moving out
of the Porridge area. They theyrelocated to out to the country and they

(23:56):
have lived there ever since. Sowow, Yeah, it's a sad story.
We don't know, we don't knowwhat happened to Tommy. Hopefully one
day we can get in, wecan get answers, and the family can
have a little bit of peace ofmind, a little bit of justice.

(24:18):
Well, thank you, thank youfor that one. That was really interesting.
Actually, I hope I hope hissister. I hope his sister reaches
out and gets some good work donewith that. I'm sure she does.
But it must be horrible to relivethe story over and over and over again
all the time. It must be. It must be horrific for her I
don't know, Yeah, how canI don't know. I don't know,
Like, I don't know how families, but people do it. There are

(24:38):
you know, there are cases wherefamilies do that, isn't there There's a
few cases where families have gone onto you know, open up like the
Susie Lamplou Trust. They've gone onto open up the whole trust in the
name of the name of their daughterand their sister. And we met Sudie
Lamplu's brother at Crime Con and funnilyenough, I actually just did a training
I just had did a training exercisewith the San Susi Lamp Blue Trust.

(25:00):
And so her death has gone onto spur some fantastic training sessions and stuff.
And of course that doesn't that doesn'treplace the fact that they're waiting,
you know, waiting for news ontheir sister and their and their daughter and
stuff. But there are good thingsbeing done in her name, which it
must be a little bit of comfortfor them, right, Yeah, I

(25:22):
don't know. There has to bea horrible time of year for them,
and like, I don't know howyou could, and you just everything is
right now, everything is Halloween,and i'd go away. I think I
think i'd go away, I haveto. Yeah, I don't think I
could stay at home because you imagineif somebody comes in and you know,
things go around in circles. Ifa kid comes up to you and they're
in a Power Rangers outfit. Now, even you'd it'd still be something which

(25:45):
is that would just you would beab to feel the pain. That would
be awful, be really sad.Yeah, yeah, okay, right,
well I'll give you my case then. So it was November the first,
nineteen sixty three, and Ada Ridleywas on our way to see a cousin,
Catherine, who lived at Goldspink Lanein Sandyford in Newcastle in the North
of England. Now, Catherine LillianArmstrong was seventy years old. She was

(26:07):
a retired school mistress. She hadworked at Denton Road Primary School but had
been retired since nineteen fifty seven.She'd never been married and she lived alone
in this It's quite a big houseactually, it's called Doncaster House. It's
still there, but I don't knowif anybody lives in it, but I
could find it on the map,so it's still actually there. She'd lived
there all of her life, thewhole of her life in the same house,

(26:30):
and she was known to her friendsand to her family as Lilian,
so she went by her middle name. She was a really independent woman.
She was a devout Methodist and shewas an active part of the local church
and the choir. She had beenpart of this choir for more than thirty
five years. She didn't have abig circle of friends. She kind of

(26:51):
kept herself to herself and the actually, if you could call them friends,
they mainly consisted of the people thatshe would see at choirctices every week.
Now, Aida would regularly visit hercousin. That morning, she went to
the house knocked on the door severaltimes, but there was no answer.
She noticed that the curtains were shutand the property seemed to be in darkness,

(27:12):
which was really weird because this wasat half ten in the morning and
Lilian was usually the sort of personwho was up and about early, getting
on with things and getting on withher day. So Ada kept knocking.
She became more concerned and so eventuallycalled the local police to come and do
like a welfare check and come andhave a look at their property. So

(27:32):
when police arrived, with the consentof Ada, they forced entry into Lilian's
property. Now, a police sergeant, the one that actually gained the access,
went through into the property and sadlyfound a very gruesome sight. Lilian's
body was at the bottom of thestairs in the passageway. She had been

(27:53):
stabbed around her face and her headtwenty eight times, and she had a
nylon stock in around her neck.Now for post mortem found that she had
defense wounds to her hands, suggestingthat she had put up a fight against
her attacker. Now, the scenewas horrific. The scene was very heavily

(28:14):
bloodstained, and the blood was trapedall around the house. Obviously, back
then they knew about blood groups,but nobody knew about DNA, so obviously
DNA analysis was unavailable. And onsuch a hugely like heavily soaked scene,
you can't test every single little bitof blood data. It is too big

(28:37):
of a job. You can testone, but there it's spread around the
whole house, so there's no waythey're going to be able to test every
single little bit of blood that's there. Now, looking at the scene,
there was no force entry into thehouse. There were no signs of sexual
assault on Lilian's body, no signsof the house being ransacked. There was
no murder weapon and no suspect thatimmediately sprang to mind. So again,

(29:03):
like you said earlier, the localpolice didn't deal with stuff like this magnitude,
right, So okay, you saidthat, you said the house didn't
didn't appear that it had been ransacked. No, was there signs of like
a serious struggle or anything. Yeah, No, everything was in place.
There wasn't anything. Nothing was upended. There was no like you know,
no nights down that been knocked over. Nothing. I mean, she was

(29:26):
on the floor at the bottom ofthe stairs. As you sort of come
into the hallway. There's the stairslike on the left as you look,
and she was on the floor atthe bottom of the stairs and there's nothing
really around her to be knocked over, but there was nothing. She obviously
had struggled because at the time theycouldn't tell because there was so much blood.
But when she went and had apost mortem, they found defensive wounds
on her hands, so she obviouslyhad put up a fight against the person.

(29:47):
But it makes you wonder did sheknow the person because there'd been no
forced entry, so had she letthat person in or had she opened the
door to somebody or was the doorjust unlocked and she's you know, because
we're talking back in the sixties,had she left the door unlocked on somebody
had come in through. It's possible. Now the local police, like I

(30:11):
said, hadn't been involved in acase like this before. It was very
upset and obviously to the officer thatmanaged to get in, and very upset
into Ada who was waiting outside becauseobviously now as soon as he got in
there and saw that, all hellbroke loose. And you know what it's
like when you go to a crimescene and the police enter first, obviously
they make you wait outside, whichhe did, made her way outside,
and he went into check through thingsfirst. Obviously he's then faced with a

(30:34):
pretty horrific sight and then goes outand obviously alerts his alerts his other other
detective colleagues. Now detective basically whatthey do. The detective that went the
sorry of the policeman that went in, he obviously comes out speaks to his
colleague. But the detectives at thelocal station hadn't dealt like I said,

(30:57):
they hadn't dealt with a case likethis. So what happened was they went
to Scotland Yard, and they hada guy called Detective Superintendent Eric Reid who
was nicknamed Jock, and he wasthe Scotland Yard murder squad. He traveled
up to Tyneside that evening and theyinitially focused on trying to piece together the
last sixteen hours of Lilian's life.There were some witnesses that had seen her.

(31:21):
She was last seen her life bytwo children who saw her looking out
of her window around six point thirtythat evening. Now we're talking this is
Halloweens, this is thirty first ofOctober. Her cousin Ada said that she
had been due to attend the choirmeeting at seven thirty that evening, but
when detectives went and spoke to thechurch choir, they found that she actually
didn't turn up. So we knowthat these kids saw that they last saw

(31:45):
her at six thirty, and byten thirty the next morning, AIDA's knocking
on her door and can't get holdof her. So we know that that's
the sort of there's that window therebetween six thirty and evening, if you
can believe the kids and their timelinebetween then and in the morning, the
murder weapon was nowhere to be found, so officers started searching drains, pipes,

(32:06):
litter bins. They believed it tobe a long bladed knife, and
they thought that perhaps the intruder wouldhave run and would have discarded this weapon.
The other thing was that they wereworried that, because this is Halloween
evening, the perpetrator would have beencovered in blood. The scene was so
bloody that unless they got changed atthe scene and walked out, they would

(32:29):
have been covered in blood. Buthad it been because it was Halloween,
people probably wouldn't have even noticed thatsomeone was covered in blood. They'd never
think it was real blood. Ohhe even back then, how popular was
it would have been then? Imean I think probably, I reckon,
probably more kids did Halloween stuff thanthey do now back then in small community.

(32:53):
But I mean my thought would bethat just would have been a grown
adult, right, that's my mightI agree? Yeah, no, I
agree, Yeah, I agree.In nineteen sixty three, how many grown
dolls are walking around blood soak onHalloween? Well, yeah, maybe not
very many. But would you reallytake much notice. It's not like they're

(33:15):
going to be glaringly obvious walking towardsyou like a zombie. It's going to
be somebody who's like mixing in anda monkst just walking around. So could
it be that they just didn't eventhey didn't even think about it because it
was Halloween, didn't pay any attentionif you, I mean's Halloween now.
So if you were walking, ifyou're walking along with your child Halloween,
and some bloke is across the roadcovered in blood, you wouldn't necessarily stare

(33:37):
straight at him because everybody's out andeverybody's dressed up, and it's not really
out of the ordinary to see somebodydressed up. It wouldn't. But I
guess it would depend on the amountof blood on this person. Yeah,
So if it's like so it's likea little bit of blood, like oh,
look, he has a little likea bloody shirt. But if he's
like drenched in blood, like bloodall over, blood on his hands,

(33:59):
on his face, that would whilewhile it might blend in, it would
still stand out to you, right, I mean it would. But then
we're even now, but then we'retalking about like it's this time of year,
so it is dark outside now,so we're talking about this time of
year. Would you really notice ifhe's in dark clothing? Would you notice
that he's covered in blood. Possiblynot, Yeah, because my first thought

(34:22):
now is if I saw an adultwalking around like like blood all over his
hands and body, shirt and clothes. Even if I didn't think that,
okay, oh this guy. IfI don't think in my in my head,
oh this guy just killed someone,my first thought would be, how
is guy going to get all thisoff of his body? He's going to
be like stained, So that wouldstick in my head. Yeah, you

(34:43):
know, but like I'm thinking,if the person's wearing dark clothing, you
wouldn't necessarily see the blood unless itwas on his hands or face, So
that would be the only way thatAnd I mean back then, what if
you put a pair of gloves onover over his hand, then you'd be
thinking, okay, so what's goingto be showing just his face. Yeah,
here's the other thing too. Wedon't know what time the murder actually

(35:05):
occurred. It could have happened later, after all the festivities had winded down,
maybe the no one on the street, so yeah, could have been
early getting out of the house,you know, walking away. It'd be
easier to get away without being seen. So ada the cousin. She said
she'd previously begged Lillian to leave thisbig house because all of it, obviously

(35:28):
her family of parents and everybody haddied around her. She was left in
this big house. So she beggedher and said, look, move closer
to us, get a little flatin town, and don't don't stay there.
But Aida was like fiercely independent andwas like, no, I'm absolutely
fine. I don't mind living alone. Aida was reported to have said that
Lilian's house was big and dark,and that she worried about teenagers playing pranks

(35:50):
on her and thought that maybe theyhad broken in disturbed her, and this
had had resulted in like an accidentaldeath. That I thought was a really
weird thing to say, because shewas stabbed twenty eight times around her face,
and then she had nylon stockings tiedaround their net. I don't think
that was a whoops, we accidentallybroke in and hit her and she fell.
You know, that's a pretty vicious, frenzied attack. Oh no,

(36:15):
absolutely, that wasn't That's not accidental. So that's completely overkilled to me.
There's no way there it's an accidentthat somebody's stabbed around the face twenty eight
times. And also I don't thinkas a kid. I mean, the
police had agreed to look into anyteenagers that she thought maybe responsible. They
also started looking into files of menwho had recently been released from prison because

(36:37):
they were starting to think that thismay have been more than one assailant due
to like the crazy nature of thecase. I don't think I don't think
that teenagers are going to be responsiblefor such a frenzied, horrific attack.
I could understand if they like brokein to scare her as a dead,

(37:00):
because in our in our town whenwe were small, there used to be
a house that was always really likethere was an old man and his daughter
that lived there, and they wereboth really really old, and they had
like broken windows, and it wasdirty looking from the outside, and it
was like a dare that they goin and knock on the door and ask
for the time and stuff like that. So I can understand her thinking that
maybe on Halloween the kids were like, God, you go in, a

(37:22):
knock on the door, You goa knock on the door. But surely
I don't think teenagers are going tobe like, you know, horrifically stabbing
someone around the head and the face. Yeah, no, you're not gonna
it's not going to turn into it'snot going to go from hey, I
dear to go knock on the doorto hey I do to go knock on
the door in the game side andlike choke her out with a nylon stocking

(37:44):
and stab her in the face andthe neck and kill her. Yeah,
that's completely different. I just Idon't understand. I don't understand why.
I don't understand why they would automaticallythink it's teenagers. I don't. I
don't understand where that's come from.The police thing that it's more than one
person. They thought that maybe itwas a prank that had gone wrong,

(38:07):
But I can't I can't see thatline of inquiry either now there was actually
a murder or go on. No, I was gonna say that I find
the stocking to be interesting to mebecause I've seen in the year. Yeah,
and my first one like, where'sthe stocking coming from? Are they
taking this off her body? Arethey getting us out of a stocking drawer?

(38:28):
Or isy? I agree that's comeIs this a stocking that came with
them? And if it's a stockingthat came with them, is this a
was this going to be a robberyand then churned out to be yes,
a murder because remember when people usedto burgle places back in the days,
they used to put stockings over theirfaces, right, Yeah, that made

(38:51):
me think the same. Yeah.Yeah, if you get to the point
where the robbery is now a murder, you don't need to have the stock
in your face because your your intentionsnow is to kill her because you know,
yeah, they can identify you,they know who you are. Whatever
am I Yeah, yeah, soyou don't need a stock anymore. You
take it off and now you're usingit as to kill someone. So that's

(39:13):
my thought is it might have beena robbery which went wrong. There was
nothing in the police reports that Iread to say that the stocking like that
she had one stocking on, onestocking off. They just said that there
was a nylon stocking that was tiedaround her neck. It was left around
her neck. So I don't knowwhat, like you say, whether that's
been brought with them by somebody oris that one? I mean, because

(39:35):
realistically they're not going to go upstairsand grab a stocking out of her bedroom,
come back down and then strangle her, you know, so I unless
she's got it hanging up dry insomewhere. And let's remember this probably happened
at night, late at night.She's not gonna be wearing a nylon stocking.
No, no, Now, therehad been a murder of a seventy

(39:57):
one year old lady called Amy Barrett, and this was the year before.
She had been bludgeoned to death inher home, also in Newcastle, but
any connections to this murder were soonruled out by detectives, meaning that there
seemed to be no motive whatsoever forLilian's killing. By the fourth of November,
which is three days after, policehad taken over two hundred statements from

(40:17):
local people, but still nothing wasglaringly vulous as to a motive of what
happened. By January nineteen sixty four, over sixteen hundred people had been questioned.
There had been a team of detectivesworking eighteen hours a day trying to
solve her murder, but eventually theyhad to admit that they had no idea
who had murdered Lillian. There wereno leads, there was no idea of

(40:42):
motive. Now The Chronicle, whichis a local newspaper in Newcastle, asked
for Northumbria Police to look into Lilian'smurder nowadays to see that if we could
use technology now to solve Lilian's case, you know basically what could happen now.
The guy that they spoke to asa former DCI called Nigel Wilkinson,

(41:06):
and he said that if forensic technologyhad been correctly preserved, there was a
chance that we could use the technologythat we have now to solve Lilian's murder.
He said, this sort of forensicevidence could mean new lines of inquiry.
The greatest chance of solving this caseis going to be forensics. However,

(41:27):
it's just going to be a caseof whether the evidence is available for
them to conduct the tests on now. He agreed and said it was a
frenzied attack, there was a lotof blood, and she defended herself,
so that it's highly likely that therewas DNA from her attacker at the crime
scene. But because because when youhave a frenzied attack with a knife,
the blood that's coming out of theperson that you're stab in makes the knife

(41:50):
handle very slippery, and in alot of cases, the person that's doing
the constant stab in actually cuts themselves. And we find that in a lot
of stabbing cases that there is thereis a Fender blood at the scene.
However, there's a lot of bloodat this scene, and like we said,
you can't test every single bit,but forensically examine a Examining the stockings

(42:13):
that were around her neck would bea good place to start, because yes,
were they her stockings in the likewe said in the first case,
but the person would have had tohave tied the stockings around her neck.
And now I understand that obviously theywere very bloody, but if that person
had also been stabbed at the timeof stabbing her, it's very very likely
that there would be a Fender DNAon those stockings. But it's just whether

(42:37):
or not Northumbria Police actually kept those. So it is still an unsolved case
to this day. And I'm I'mpretty sure that because of the new cases
that come up, this one isjust going to get pushed back and push
back and push back, and it'slikely to stay a cold case unless there
is evidence away somewhere in a boxthat they've kept. But not knowing what

(43:01):
DNA was going to, you know, not knowing what technologies would come in,
I doubt very much whether they evenkept anything from the scene. Yeah,
this is one of those sad casesbecause like the more the time goes
past, the more or the lessnumber of like direct relatives are around to
keep the case alive and to keeppressing the police. So eventually it is

(43:22):
going to fall to the back burnerbecause there's no one there to say,
hey, you need to keep looking, you need we need answers. Yeah,
and obviously she didn't have any children, so there's nobody like, you
know, direct descendants from her fightingfor this. And so I immediately made
me think, oh, bet,this is going to be another one of
those cases where the evidence wasn't kept, you know, like so many that

(43:46):
we found for something there was aflood or there was a fire and the
evidence hasn't been preserved. I reada really really good article this week by
Louise Shorter. She is very activeat crime Com and she heads up a
like an Innocence Project kind of business. And I read a really good article

(44:06):
that she wrote online about the policehaving and should having to have more stringent
rules about preserving evidence. Now thatwe have the foresight to know how DNA
is, how the DNA collection haschanged in the last thirty years, we
know that come the next thirty years, what's going to happen. How much

(44:27):
more advanced are we going to be? And so we should now be mindful
of cases that we can't immediately solve, to keep as much evidence as we
can, and to make sure thatthat evidence is properly documented, because if
you've ever seen this is probably gonnabore you to death. But this is
something I find fascinating. If you'veever seen the chain of command with evidence
in a murder, particularly, it'sreally interesting. There's usually one person that

(44:52):
is assigned the job of handling allevidence on the case, and that person
signed stuff in, sign stuff out. You have to say when that was
collected, where it was collected,how it was collected, by who it
was collected. Anybody that wants tosee that evidence has to sign in say
when they've seen it, what they'reseeing it for any conduct are any tests

(45:13):
being conducted, Who is conducting thetest, why they're conducting the test,
how they're conducting the test, whenand where. It's massive. The line
of paperwork is huge on this,which is why somebody is just set to
this as a job on that case. So if that's the case and we
know that now there should be noexcuse for future cold cases to not have

(45:37):
stringent rules as to keep in evidencethat we might not necessarily be able to
test on now, because what's goingto happen in the next thirty years.
How far advanced are we going tobe? Right? It's very true.
I mean, if you had spokento these detectives at the time and said
to them, you know, inthe future, we would be able to
take a sample of blood, atiny sample of blood, and we were

(46:00):
able to be able to tell youwhether that was male, whether that was
female, how all the person was, who the person, they'd be thinking,
Wow, that's like magic. Butnow it's commonplace for us, you
know, juries rely on DNA now, So let's hope let's hope it somewhere.
Yeah, let's hope that somewhere inNorthumbria police somebody finds a box,

(46:23):
you know, Mark Lillian and isable to and is able to get all
that tested. And I just Ifeel so sad that she's she's got no
one fighting for her anymore. Youknow, it's just like this is a
story, it happened on Halloween.I feel sad that she's got no one
who's fighting to find out who didit to her, because what if that

(46:45):
person went on to do more?What if that person went on to you
know, her other people? No? Absolutely, so yeah, so that
was this week's case from me.So which one is the trick and which
one is the true? We willlet you know in next week's show.
So don't go googling if you wantto, Yeah, don't cheat. Patiently

(47:07):
wait and find out. No cheating. I resisted. I didn't google yours
this week, and you didn't googlemine either, so we know I did
not. Nope, yep, sowe know you just have to wait patiently.
One week. That's all. That'sall, just one week. Well,

(47:29):
Cherry, how about we finish offthis week's episode with a dumb criminal
a Halloween dumb criminal. Ah,a criminal use a dummy. So this
happened last year in New Kensington,Pennsylvania. Okay, so this was just
after Halloween. It was an earlyNovember. I believe it was November third.

(47:51):
A man or family woke up atabout five thirty am where they found
tire tracks on their front at thefront lawn of their home. Okay,
so they found that a some sortof vehicle had crashed through their fence,
drove through the yard, oh no, and ended up ended up crashing through

(48:15):
another fence. So they crashed throughreally two sides of the fence and took
off right. So they called thepolice. The police came out to investigate
to find out what happened. Policestated that they found vehicle parts scattered throughout
the yard and along the route thatit took, and that the fence was
destroid and cracks were found in thesidewalk. Now, stereo numbers on the

(48:35):
vehicle parts were found which identified itas a BMW. Now, in addition
to these car parts that they foundin the yard, there was also a
roughly a zero point three mile longtrail of fluid which led from the home
down the street to a vehicle thatwas found nearby, which was a white

(48:58):
two thousand and eight BMW five sportsutility which was registered to a man named
Dylan James Lowther who was a twentyone year old at the time. Now,
in addition to the trail of fluidsthat led directly to the car,
police actually found a orange Halloween decorationon the hood of it busted which had

(49:23):
been on display at the home thathad been crashed into. So obviously the
police now have the vehicle. Theyknow who Oh embarrassing now. According to
the police, the crash costs morethan caused more than six and fifty dollars

(49:45):
in damage. It actually caused damageto three properties. So you wouldn't be
shocked to know that. Dylan JamesLowther ended up being arrested in charge with
felony accounts of criminal mischief and wasissued traffic citations for reckless driving, having
an expired inspection sticker, and causingan accident resulting and property damage. So

(50:09):
he was he was Eventually charges werefile back in March, he would relief
from comfort custody on a twenty fivethousand dollars unsecured bond, and he was
He was ordered to uh to appearbefore a judge. So chances are,
Dylan, you're probably really drunk,which we have been driving. You're an

(50:31):
idiot. Ruined someone's garden. Yep, ruined someone's garden. You destroyed their
fence, and you you, eventhough you were unwittingly a thief if you
stole their Halloween decoration and he leftsa during car. So Dylan, you
are a dumb criminal. You areindeed, thank you very much for that.

(50:54):
So hopefully that's lightened the mood alittle bit. We need to say
huge when to send huge condolences todatelines Keith Morrison, who sadly lost his
step son Matthew Perry this week.Obviously, as we all know him as
Chandler bing from friends, there's horriblenews for us all to wake up to
over the weekend. So huge condolenceis to Keith and his wife and their

(51:17):
family. So we're very sorry tohear that. So our true crime family
losing their family is horrible and wewill send our love and best wishes to
them. So we will be backnext week with another episode for you.
Will also give you the answer tothis week's episode who was the trick and
who was the true crime? Sofor now, keep an eye out on
our socials. Let us know whoyou think. I'll put a poll up

(51:38):
so that we can guess and seeand then we can read that out in
next week's episode and see who getit right. So I'll keep that.
I'll put the pole up this weekand when we release this episode. So
for now, stay safe this Halloweenguys, Happy Halloween, be nice,
and we'll see you next week.Oh yeah, bye o Mount