House Calls PT 1
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while uncovering the mystery of her sister's murder. There are twists, turns, and catchy tunes, all leading you deeper into the thrilling storyline. This is your chance to test your detective skills. And if you play well enough, you could make it to the detective club. There, you'll chat with other players and compete with or against them. June needs your help, but watch out.

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Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. That's June's Journey. Download the game for free on iOS and Android.

I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the last 25 years writing about true crime. And I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solved them. Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes. And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.

Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st century lens. Some are solved and some are cold, very cold. This is Buried Bones. ♪♪

Hey, Paul. Hey, Kate. How are you doing? I'm doing well. How are you? I am doing well. You know, I know we were talking offline that some of the listeners were wanting to get an update on my fish tank. Is that right? They do. I did not know that people were so fish crazy. Who knew? I just thought it was you and that was it. But I probably, you know, a couple of times a week get a little message. I want

Paul to tell me about his fish tank. Okay, this might be a spinoff. Oh, geez. No, it wouldn't be buried fish. I'm not sure what it would be, but... There's been some burying of fish, unfortunately. No. The problem that I'm having is I've got a serial killer clownfish. Oh, man.

You know, everybody thinks Nemo, you know, when they think of clownfish, right, from the movie. It's such a sweet type of fish. But clownfish can be a little dicey. And this one has decided to try to rule the tank, has killed some fish in the tank. And I have a reef lobster. And the clownfish constantly harasses the reef lobster.

And then I have this diamond goby. This is a fascinating type of creature that goes around on the sand and literally eats the sand. And you watch it just juggle the sand in its mouth, and the sand comes out of its gills. And that's how it gets some of its food. It's like a bottom dweller. But it also picks sand up and builds mounds of sand for its own house, like over rocks. Well, it ended up burying my lobster. Oh.

And then my lobster, I see its claws sticking out of the sand, you know, trying to escape. And then, of course, the clownfish is coming after it. I mean, it's like a Marvel comic thing where I've got the, you know, the sand monster going after the lobster. The lobster is trying to survive. And then now the serial killer clownfish is taking its opportunity to go after it. Do you lose sleep over all of this? I mean, do you really get upset?

Seriously, I mean, you're spending a lot of time figuring out what creatures work well in this environment and work out together. It can't be easy when one of them dies. You spend so much time with them. No, I mean, it's sad because, you know, they are like little pets. You know, there's no question about it. Most certainly not as attached to each creature, whether it be a fish or an invert, like I would be with Korra as an example.

But there is a certain level of responsibility to provide these creatures a good life. And so if there is something that happens and it was something within my control, of course, I feel bad. And that has happened. I've lost one fish, a pearl jawfish, which I absolutely love. This was an amazing fish. And then, you know, I've got a lid on my tank, but there's a tiny gap there.

And the fish overnight jumped out and I found the fish on the floor. It was just like, dang it. I should have done more to prevent that from happening. But yeah, there is an attachment for sure. Well, I'm glad to have this update because we do have an awful lot of questions about the tank. And I had no idea that so much went on with it.

But I imagine, you know, we talk about mental health with law enforcement here sometimes. As silly as it sounds, it must be one of the things that is a good release for you, a relaxation for you. And everybody has to have a hobby like that. This sounds like this is something that's kind of a zen for you.

Oh, very much. I will have, I have a chair. It's sort of like what would be called a drum throne for a drum set type of chair. But I use it for when I play guitar sometimes. But I'll sit that in front of the tank and I'll have my bourbon and I will just sit there, sip the bourbon and watch the fish. Oh.

Even sometimes when I'm doing work in the afternoon and I'm on a Zoom, people may see me just kind of look off to my right. Okay. And I'm just watching the fish and kind of getting relaxed. And, you know, when you start traumatizing me with your stories, then every now and then I'll look at my tank as well. Good to know. When you see me, you kind of just look off to the right. Okay.

Well, you are going to need a double bourbon and some extra fish time for this story. It is a two-parter because it is a really, really big case. And just when we think it is over and the trauma is over, it is definitely not. And there's just a lot to untangle. And it's a great time period in the 1930s. So let's go ahead and set the scene.

So this is in the Northeast, and it takes place early, early in the morning, October 16th in 1937. So this is before World War II, after World War I. Everyone in this story is sort of middle to upper class, but it is a mystery that is still talked about, particularly in Maine, where the Maine players are from. And I've heard about this story for years, so I'll be interested in your take. Okay. Okay.

We are in New Jersey, but not for very long. Police in North Arlington, New Jersey, early in the morning, October 16th, 1937, they spot a Buick that has main plates and it's sitting in a vacant, desolate parking lot. And the officers who are patrolling just say, OK, we need to check this out. I don't think it was particularly unusual to have a car from Maine in New Jersey, but

that early in the morning, and it looks like there's no one else around. They wanted to check it out. So they go and they look at the car, and here's what everything gets weird immediately. There's usually a lot of buildup that I have for these stories, but everything gets really weird right now. So they approach the car, these officers, and the first thing they see is this young man who's sleeping in the driver's seat. He's taking a nap. And

They knock on the door. He is totally startled. He is 17 years old, very young, and he's a main resident named Paul Dwyer. And Paul identifies himself. He is, you know, very kind of tired, but immediately as soon as he sees the police, he gets nervous.

So the police get nervous and they say, step out of the car. And he's fidgeting. And they start looking around the car, under the car and throughout the car. And they pop the trunk. I think you know where I'm heading here. Somebody's in the trunk. They pop the trunk. There's a body in it. And it's a man. And I have photos very quickly. The photos that I have for this story are not going to illuminate very much. But I tried to show you as much as I can just so that you can picture this.

So I'll show you the photo of the victim in a second. They want to know who this person is. There's this body in the back of the trunk. And the first thing that Paul does, while one of them's sort of turning the body over and trying to inspect the body, Paul says,

Paul goes and hands the vehicle registration to the other officer and the driver's license of the person who is in the trunk. So this is not Paul's car. The 17-year-old is, again, freaking out because when they look at the driver's license and they look at the registration for the car, it's for a doctor, right?

64-year-old doctor. And before they even look at the injuries, really, you know, they find out that this is a doctor from Maine. His name is James Littlefield. We identify him. They start to look at the body. Paul is pacing all over the place. And one of the officers is keeping an eye on him. Paul says, I have no idea what is happening here. I did not kill this person. And the

Officers, I don't know if they're particularly experienced, but they don't know really how to handle this person. I mean, just from the onset, before I tell you what happens to the person in the trunk, a little bit more about this story, this would be alarming to anybody in 2023. Yeah.

And let alone two police officers in 1937, somebody sleeping in the car, there's a body in the trunk, and the kid is very, very nervous. As an officer on the scene, what is the first thing they need to do? Calm him down and get a story from him? Get as many details as possible while someone else is looking at the condition of the body? At this point, in essence,

you know, you have a suspicious circ with this kid that is sleeping in the front seat, you know, and this right now, they're just trying to see what's going on. You know, is this car parked illegally? Why is this car out here? You know, maybe the kid got tired. But now once they, you know, find this body, now things amp up. And yes, there is going to be some questioning that patrol is doing, but they are also now recognizing they have evidence

a crime scene. And so it is to keep the 17-year-old boy away from that vehicle. And at this point, they don't know what's going on, but they have this dead body that has some injuries. So possibly there's a homicide aspect to it.

And they run into a little bit of a difficult situation because is Paul a suspect in the case? Are they detaining him? Is there a perception of custody? In this day and age, of course, once you have somebody that perceives that they're in custody, they have the Miranda rights. But I believe in the 1930s, that's probably not the case.

pre-Miranda, you know, so they're not necessarily thinking along those lines. But they do need to isolate. They need to roll out investigators. They need to roll out coroner's CSI and get that going. Patrol ends up basically keeping things static and preventing things from changing as soon as they recognize, oh, we have a potential homicide here. But they also have to ensure that

that Paul is being handled in a way to keep things legal for him to be properly questioned. Most certainly, patrol may ask some very rudimentary questions. Who is this guy? What happened to him? How did you get here? But they don't want to get to a point to where now they shut Paul down. And in this day and age, Paul goes, I want my attorney. And he's 17, you know, so there is, you

He's not an adult yet, you know, so there is that factor that they have to consider. So they need to get the investigators going who have the training on how to properly handle this case from this point on forward. Right. And we don't really get the non-patrol officers on the scene. It's not until he goes back to the police station where he really is properly questioned. You're right. Right now, what they're trying to do is just contain him. Right.

When they start looking at the body, these still patrol officers, they start to look at the body and they turn it over. And I'm going to show you a photo of the body in a second of Dr. Littlefield. The first thing they notice is there's a belt around his neck and he has a lot of injuries like blunt force trauma type injuries around his head. And he's been shoved into this trunk.

So a belt around the neck. You know, I would like to talk a little bit about that. There's some medical stuff coming up. Do you want to see the photo of the body and the trunk first? I don't know how much clarity it's going to give you, but it's always helpful, I guess. Yeah. Let me see what's going on and then we can chat about it.

Sleeping in a car, if he's the one who strangled this man, leaving the belt around the neck, is this somebody who is so confident he's not going to get caught and he's willing to take a nap? Or is this somebody who is delusional and he's 17? I mean, this is probably not a criminal mastermind. I'm already confused. Well, I mean, there's obviously there's so many variables you can't, I most certainly could only be guessing as to who

you know, is Paul the one that's responsible for this homicide? And then if he is and knows that Dr. Littlefield's body is in the trunk, you know, he's taking great risk. I always assess offender risk because you're offenders that have their wits about them, not your psychotic offenders, but those that, you

you know, are committing crimes and they're aware they're committing crimes and they may not be the most intelligent individuals, but they generally are going to try to minimize risk to themselves because they don't want to get caught.

And, you know, for Paul to knowingly park at a location and fall asleep in the vehicle with a body in the trunk, he elevates his risk. And so why is he doing that? This is where the interview of Paul becomes very critical in terms of what's going on. He doesn't own the car. This car is registered to Dr. Littlefield. Is it possible Paul just stole this car not knowing there was a body in the trunk?

You know, so he's committing a crime and it's just unfortunate that, well, he's got a homicide victim in the trunk. So there's things that have to be sorted out. But now I'm looking at the photo. It's not very clear. I know it's hard and it's...

A little dramatic. You have three men sort of pointing and staring at this body in the trunk. And I know it's not particularly clear, but we could see it's a person. So what I am looking at, this is a photo from the rear of the vehicle. The trunk is open and I can see Dr. Littlefield's body. There appears to be a spare tire underneath his body, but a

platform between the spare tire and where Dr. Littlefield is laying. Dr. Littlefield is laying on what appears to be a platform, like a shelf above the spare tire. And outside of that, it appears that his head is to the left, though it's very obscure. I can see what may be his

left arm if he's laying face down, but there's something odd going on with his legs. Yeah, it looks like he was crammed in there, maybe. It doesn't look big. It's not a big trunk. It's not a very big trunk. It's bigger than, you know, your typical car trunk. But outside of that, I'm not getting much information to be able to sort out anything about, you know, the condition of Dr. Littlefield's bodies or his injuries.

Okay, let's go back and I will talk more about the case. So what they start doing is once they get his body out, the officers start inspecting what was underneath his body. And of course, we talked about the spare tire. It looked like there might have been a flare in there too, just like an extra flare. It's hard to tell though. They also found a broken hammer that's handle had been split off from the

its head underneath him. And this, I will tell you, lines up with what the coroner will later say will line up with the injuries that Dr. Littlefield had on his body, bruises and abrasions on his face and his body. So now we have a dead doctor in his own trunk,

And the belt around his neck and the other potential murder weapon, which is a broken hammer underneath his body and a nervous 17-year-old who says he doesn't know anything. And it just seems like a confusing mess, seriously.

Still, you would leave the hammer underneath this person's body after killing him? Yeah. Well, this is not an atypical set of circumstances with a homicide. On the surface, it appears that Dr. Littlefield is in the rear of this trunk because his body's going to be disposed of somewhere. That's the reason he's being transported.

And so now you have what appears to be a weapon, as you've described it, and very likely could be the murder weapon, though, you know, this is where the autopsy becomes important. Was the cause of death bludgeoning? Was the cause of death the strangulation from the belt being used as a ligature or a combination of both?

But the hammer is a weapon that appears to have been used against him. And so the offender, you know, is going, well, I'm on a disposal mission. Well, I'm going to dispose of the other evidence. And so they put everything into one spot. And then as they drive around, typically they will dump different items.

parts of the crime or items from the crime in different locations. But sometimes they'll dump it in one location. So we just don't know what if Paul is the offender in this case and he's on this disposal run, don't know what his mindset is in terms of how he's going to dispose of Littlefield's body or this hammer or the belt or the clothing, etc. And that makes sense. Your story definitely makes sense if this is in theory done at Paul's place of residence, right? Because he wants to get that stuff out of his house if it happens at his house.

So now that you're saying that, that does make sense to me. I was thinking you just would leave the hammerhead underneath this guy. Well, and part of it is in what I've seen and I've actually had cases where, you know, the victims are killed or put in their own vehicle and then their vehicle is driven to remote location and everything is just left there.

Like if Paul has no association with Littlefield or that vehicle, he doesn't have to worry about separating Littlefield's body from the vehicle. He just needs to get everything where it's not going to be found from his perspective ever, but at least a significant amount of time to where now some of the evidence that could be used is gone. And this next thing falls under that category, I think, because they find a pair of bloody men's pants that we presume are Paul's underneath the driver's seat.

But Paul's wearing, sounds like a clean pair of pants. They continue. They get the body out. They are alarmed, as is Paul. They cuff Paul. He's standing there and not saying anything except denying, knowing anything about what happened. I was just asleep in this car. I don't know what happened.

So the patrolmen begin to search the rest of the car. It just keeps coming and coming with this story. There is a big pile of clothing covering the floor in the car's backseat area, right behind where Paul had been napping. He was in the front seat. And

And one of the officers, Norman Turner, starts feeling around in the clothing, trying to figure out what it is. And he said, putting my hand down under the coats, I felt what appeared to be hair. I grabbed the hair and lifted the head, and it was a woman's head. Yeah, another body in the car. So they realized this is a woman's body, and she's in the back seat covered up with all of these clothes and stuff.

And this person, the victim, turns out to be Lydia Littlefield, who is Dr. Littlefield's wife. This has now become very complicated because...

Because Paul continues to freak out and continues to deny knowing anything about this. But now we have what turns out to be an affluent couple from South Paris, Maine, a doctor and his wife, who seemingly have no enemies in the world, are now dead in this car with this young man. Is this car, I couldn't tell from the photo, is this a four-door car where you could access...

Mrs. Littlefield's body through a door? I'm going to show you right now because I do have a photo of her body. Okay, so there's the back where you see Mr. Littlefield, Dr. Littlefield. Yes. Here is a photo of the side. So it does look like, yes, it's a four-door because it looks like the, what do you call it? Is it the rim? Yeah.

I'm so car ignorant. It's unreal. Well, this, you know, what I'm looking at, the photo that you're showing is a view into the side door, into the rear seat of this vehicle. And I can see Mrs. Littlefield's legs, her lower legs, kind of she's on the floorboard with the rear seat to the right. And it's her right. So she appears at least her legs, her hips forward.

appear to be face down. I can't see her upper body. The vehicle itself, in terms of the door, it appears to be what is commonly referred to as a suicide door. So it opens the opposite way, right? So it opens from the front to the rear, the hinges towards the rear. So this is where what I'm trying to assess, you mentioned that she had been

buried under a pile of clothes, hidden. And of course, I'm assuming, I don't see it in this photo, but there would be windows in that door. So somebody walking by, if she hadn't been covered up with clothes, she would be visible. So there's a functional aspect to the clothes being on top of her.

Now, the question that I have is, is Paul aware of her body in the vehicle that's literally right behind the seat that he's driving the vehicle in and sleeping in? So many questions. Is Paul the one that put these bodies in the vehicle? Or, you know, he's 17. You know, now I'm starting to assess.

is Paul at age 17 capable of killing these two adults, you know, taking control, you know, as an offender? Yeah, I have to think, okay, how does this occur? You have a 64-year-old man. Now,

So he's an older man, but he's without knowing much about his victimology at this point. I don't know how physically capable Dr. Littlefield was, but I'm going to assume that he's probably average in terms for a 64-year-old man. He's not necessarily going to be the easiest victim to overpower Dr.

And you also have this woman, you know, so now can this teenage boy be able to handle both victims? Were they killed at the same time or was one killed and another one was killed? So that's part of what I would be assessing as to whether or not Paul is physically capable or is Paul a patsy?

He literally was given the car keys by the offender and told, drive this states away and we will have somebody pick you up, not knowing that he's driving a vehicle with two bodies in it. You have just landed on the crux of this case. Oh. And now you know why this is a two-parter. Experience the glamour and danger of the Roaring Twenties from the palm of your hand and

In June's Journey, you have the chance to solve a captivating murder mystery and reveal deep-seated family secrets. Use your keen eye and detective skills to guide June Parker through this thrilling hidden object mystery game. June's Journey is a mobile game that follows June Parker, a New York socialite living in London. Play as June Parker and investigate beautifully detailed scenes of the 1920s

while uncovering the mystery of her sister's murder. There are twists, turns, and catchy tunes, all leading you deeper into the thrilling storyline. This is your chance to test your detective skills. And if you play well enough, you could make it to the detective club.

There, you'll chat with other players and compete with or against them. June needs your help, but watch out. You never know which character might be a villain. Shocking family secrets will be revealed, but will you crack this case? Find out as you escape this world and dive into June's world of mystery, murder, and romance. Can you crack the case? Download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android.

Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. That's June's Journey. Download the game for free on iOS and Android.

So I do want to talk about Paul's capabilities. I have photos of Lydia and James Littlefield and, of course, of Paul also. But she has a belt around her neck also. OK, but I'll tell you about the injury in a second. Let me just show you them just so that you can see. I will tell you he had defensive wounds also. So he fought back, Dr. Littlefield.

So this is the two of them, average kind of middle-aged couple around the same age. It's hard to tell from these photos, but it's good to know. Right. And, you know, at least from like Dr. Littlefield, typically the males are going to be the more, they're more of the physical threat to the offender. Right. So now, you know, with Dr. Littlefield, was he military? Did he have any, you know, was he a Golden Gloves boxer? You know, is something in his past different?

in which now if an offender is coming in in order to take physical control over this male, you know, is he having to bring a gun with him in order to control the use of a hammer? Is there injuries to the back of his head that might indicate he was blitzed from behind? And then ultimately the use of the belt possibly to strangle. But

I think right now, in terms of assessing this case, one of the significant aspects of the victimology is the affluence of the Littlefields because we know money is often a motive for these types of crimes.

And that reminds me, I'll go ahead and show you, even though I know it doesn't make that much of a difference, I will show you the house where they live. This is the house. So nice big house in Maine. He was a well-known doctor. He had been in Maine and had many patients, and he was well off. So you have to take my word for it that they had seemingly, that we know of so far, seemingly no enemies, and we're going to find out how they are connected to Paul in just a little bit.

So well-off couple, right. I think the big deal is what would the motive be even at this point from what we know? So let's talk about her injury. I said that she was also strangled and, of course, a different belt is around her neck still.

The coroner said the tongue was swollen and blood came from her mouth. That is consistent, I'm assuming, with strangulation? Yeah. During strangulation, you could have edema that builds up in the lungs. And of course, you know, as she sits there, that can end up exuding out of the mouth, out of the nose. The swollen tongue, you see that a lot, like in hangings, where all of a sudden somebody who's hung themselves, their tongue protrudes, the neck is compressed.

And, you know, the tongue, you know, goes down into the neck structure. And so when the neck gets compressed, the tongue itself ends up having to kind of get pressed out, you know, somewhere. And so sometimes it does protrude out of the mouth. Okay. So now we have two people who have been strangled, and one of those two people has defensive wounds and looks like he's been in a fight. And I'll have more details from the coroner's report in a little bit. They take Paul down finally after they start processing the scene.

And he is still saying, I have no idea what happened. I'm just 17. I found myself in this car, blah, blah. He's in denial.

Finally, the investigators, more experienced non-patrolmen investigators, get a hold of him. And later on the same day, Paul confesses to what I will say is one of the more confusing stories. So what I want to do is once you hear this confession, let's just talk about if it makes sense to you. And then proceed from there. We're not even...

a third of the way through this at all. So here's one of his stories that are contradictory. So what Paul says is, "Okay, I'm going to come clean. This is what happened." He says that his girlfriend and he, who are both 17, Barbara Carroll is his girlfriend, are both patients of Dr. Littlefield's. And he's a general practitioner, so he would treat for basically everything. So that is the connection.

He, Paul, and Barbara were both patients of this man. And he would have, in this part of Maine, treated all different ages, all different kinds of people. So Paul says that three days before the patrolmen discover him sleeping in this car,

He had asked Dr. Littlefield to make a house call at his house, at the Dwyer house. So Paul is there. He calls and says, you know, where he lives with his mother, he calls and says, I need you to come visit. So Dr. Littlefield did do house calls. He comes to the house and Paul says he wants to know, please tell me if I have a sexually transmitted infection. Paul says that Dr. Littlefield says, OK, let me take a look.

And he takes a look at Paul, and Paul says that Dr. Littlefield, during this examination, does not give him a yes or no of whether or not he has an STI. What he does say is something disparaging about his 17-year-old girlfriend, Barbara Carroll, who wasn't there at the time. So,

So I would have to say it would, I mean, I can imagine it was something like, well, you shouldn't be sleeping with somebody like this. And this is what you get. And you either have it or you don't. But either way, this is what you get. And Paul says he snapped and just freaked out. So

Just from the beginning of this, does this seem logical? I mean, I know he's 17, but does this seem like a motive? Well, it most certainly can in terms of, you know, when we talk about in the heat of the moment type of crime.

But it doesn't explain Dr. Littlefield's wife being killed. Right. You know, was she right there? You know, would they have visited Paul, you know, on a house call together? And then, of course, in evaluating, it's more, you know, right now, all you've told me is what Paul's saying, why he killed Dr. Littlefield. He doesn't mention why he killed Mrs. Littlefield.

But the proper interview would be, okay, well, when you snapped, what did you do? And then let's get that information and how do those details line up with the evidence, with the injuries to Dr. Littlefield and Mrs. Littlefield, et cetera. And so that's where you have to keep Paul talking about

You don't just say, oh, he confessed. You've got to get the details to either corroborate or refute the statements. Let's talk about the injuries and see if it lines up what he says happened with the murder versus, you know, what the injuries that we know of so far. So Paul says, this is what happened. He said something mean about my girlfriend. These are quotes. I hit the doctor with my fist.

They're in the bathroom with this examination. He fell against the bathtub. He hit his head. His head hit the bathtub. It did not quite knock him out. He got up and started to fight, and I strangled him with both hands. I held him for quite a long time, about five minutes. He did not fight back. I went upstairs and packed some things of mine. I decided to take him, the doctor, with me, the body.

So this lines up somewhat with what the coroner will say.

these types of injuries. So it sounds like he really attacked him. Yeah, you know, at least again on the surface, you know, there is some consistency with the details he's providing with what you have told me they found on Dr. Littlefield. But this is where, okay, what does the formal autopsy say? How much of these details are truly in line with what happened to Dr. Littlefield and the sequence that happened to Dr. Littlefield?

Minimally, I would say Paul is aware of some of the details of Littlefield's injuries as well as the belt. So this is interesting.

But was he present when they pulled Littlefield's body out at the scene, could see the belt on Littlefield's body, could see the injuries, or did investigators, because this is a mistake that sometimes happens, is investigators feed details to the person they are interviewing. And now a person constructs

a scenario to account for the details that they've been fed. And this is what I would call an improper way to do an interview. You want the interviewee to provide you the details. Don't confront somebody and say, "Hey, how come there's a belt around Dr. Littlefield's neck?"

You let the person you're talking to bring that out. But you also have to be aware, what did that person observe out there at the scene? Because he's just being held by patrol. Did they isolate him away from Dr. Littlefield's body or is he standing right there while they pulled the body out?

I'm guessing at first there were only two patrolmen when they're making all of these discoveries. And I'm guessing that Paul was hovering around right there. I doubt that they had the foresight to move. I don't think they were expecting to find that. I think they thought some kid maybe, you know, lifted a car and that was that.

Let me tell you what the examiners say, what they concluded happened. And then tell me if this lines up with what Paul was saying this fight was like with Dr. Littlefield. Okay. So they confirmed that Lydia was strangled. There's no real controversy around Lydia. But Dr. Littlefield's a little bit more complicated. They said that he seemed to have been involved in a real fight for his life before.

This is according to a report in the Lewiston Daily Sun. His body bore five large bruises on the skull. None of these resulted in skull fractures. However, one wound in the center of his head produced a lot of blood. This specific injury is believed to have been the result of a

of a hit dealt by a blunt instrument before his death. The report also notes that there were blood clots all over the left temple and right eye, and the arms and the body bore bruises. And there is blood pattern to talk about once you're done talking about this. So does that all make sense?

Well, in terms of correlating it with Paul's statement, there is some consistency there. You know, if he's initially striking Dr. Littlefield with his fists, you know, that most certainly can cause, you know, the bruising, you know, these, this hemorrhaging that's, you know, around the skull that they're saying, but it's not causing the fractures.

You know, of course, oftentimes when there's fisticuffs going on, the combatants will have lacerations to their face. You know, you have the split lip, you have the split eyebrow, you have the nose that's being punched, you know, the teeth possibly being broken. So that's part of what I would be interested in knowing, you know, is do we have an ongoing struggle in which Littlefield and Paul are fighting against?

But I would expect if Littlefield has these types of injuries, bruises all over his body, and he's fighting back,

well, then Paul likely should have some injuries to show that this was the struggle. So was there any observation on Paul? Did it look like he had been punched? Did he have bruises? Did he have scratches? You know, this is two essentially adult males that are fighting. And if they are in a prolonged struggle, I would expect to see at least some injury to Paul. Well, I'll go ahead and disclose this right now, that the murder scene does happen

in Paul's house because they find all the blood. And I'm jumping to this, I wanted to keep this for later, but I'm jumping to this to hopefully give you a little bit of clarity on what is on Paul. There don't appear to be any scratches or any defensive wounds or anything on Paul. There's no obvious sign that he's been in a fight. His knuckles aren't scratched up, nothing is happening.

They go to Paul's house, and I'll just tell you this, like I said, I'm jumping ahead here. They find fingerprints. Of course, his fingerprints are everywhere. There's blood all over the floor, and there is blood on the soles of Dr. Littlefield's shoes, as well as bloodstains that they say are in a downward direction on his pants.

And what they think happened is this suggests to investigators in 1937 that Littlefield, Dr. Littlefield, had been up and moving after he had been hit. So you're nodding your head. You agree. I agree. Paul is saying this. This is what happened. And it sounds like that makes sense to you, too, that he was hit. He was still alive. He was fighting back. And that's why the blood ended up where it was.

Well, and this is where, you know, with Dr. Littlefield, with this significant bleeding injury to the center of his head, part of evaluating that is, okay, what are the blood flows out of that wound show? You know, if those blood flows are flowing, let's say, down his face and dripping on the front of him, he's upright, right?

You know, he may be sitting, he may be standing. Are there drip patterns inside Paul's house to indicate, you know, from Dr. Littlefield, he's upright and you could start to see movements by following the drip patterns. Are there smears? You know, this would also be consistent with, you know, a struggle. One of the things that is popping into my mind is, well, Paul being 17 years old, he doesn't own this house. He doesn't live by himself, I'm assuming. It's his mom's house.

It's his mom's house. And she wasn't there. Where's his dad at? Dad's not in the picture, just his mom. Just he and his mom, and she's gone and doesn't know anything about any of this. All right, so essentially, you know, Paul has this residence to himself for a period of time. Yep. And then who does Paul know? Who comes over to the house?

because that becomes significant. If Paul is lacking these injuries and we've got evidence of an ongoing struggle with another adult male, I would start to question Paul about, well, who else was there? Who else was struggling with Dr. Littlefield? How much weight do you put in the fact that they don't find fingerprints other than Paul and his mom and probably Barbara, who has been in his house many times,

and Dr. Littlefield. If we have mysterious co-conspirator man and his fingerprints aren't anywhere, I know he could wear gloves, but does that say anything? No. This is where absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Walking into a house, think about, let's say you go to a get-together at somebody else's house. How many surfaces are you truly touching while you're in there? And how are you touching those surfaces?

If you have somebody that comes through the front door, the door's opened up for them, they come in, they sit down on the sofa, they talk in this environment. Let's say in the Littlefield case, now there's an altercation. And an altercation is there's going to be a lot of movement. Fingerprints that are smeared are no good.

And typically, most of the time when people touch surfaces, even though they're leaving fingerprint residue, it's not a fingerprint that is static enough in order to be able to be used to affect an identification, to be able to have the details in it. It's actually relatively rare for somebody to touch a surface in a manner that's

to leave a good enough print that can be used for comparison. So this is where it's really lucky when we find the offender's fingerprint inside a crime scene. More often than not, we don't get the offender's fingerprints. And in part, it's because, well, they didn't touch any of the surfaces that are amenable for fingerprints, like a nice, smooth, non-porous surface.

A lot of surfaces like wood surfaces are too textured for fingerprints. Fabric doesn't record fingerprints. There's so many variables. And then it's also, well, how thoroughly did they process the crime scene? You've got a whole house. I've processed whole houses. It can take days.

So, you know, did they fingerprint the right surfaces? And in the 1930s, they're using just black powder, you know. So it's not the most sensitive technology to recover latents at a crime scene. And it almost doesn't matter at this point in the investigation because Paul's saying it was just Dr. Littlefield and me there, nobody else. He wasn't blaming anybody else at this point. So the police say, OK, what happened next?

You say you killed him. He said something mean about your girlfriend, and you beat him and then strangled him with your hands, and then that didn't work, and you used a belt, and you strangled him, and that was it. Paul says, okay, this is what happened. He said, I moved Dr. Littlefield's lifeless body down a set of stairs out of his house and

and into the darkness of the night, and finally dragging him into the trunk of Littlefield's own car. So out of Paul's house, through the darkness, by himself.

putting him, shoving him into the car. I'm presuming before rigor happens, of course. Here's where the media, when they find out about this story, call bullshit because Paul is petite, and I'm going to show you a photo of him. He is described as short and of slight build, and Dr. Littlefield is not a Hulk, but he's bigger, much bigger than Paul is, it sounds like.

So does this old man strength apply to more slight men also where they can just do incredible things? Because they're saying there's no way this – the media doesn't think this has happened. Okay. Let me see a picture of Paul. All right. Hang on. Okay.

There he is. He does look very, like, I don't know if it's boy band-esque, but he looks very young to me. Well, Paul, yeah, you know, I'm seeing Paul. He's got a jacket on, but I can tell he's not very broad-shouldered. But, you know, he looks like he's reasonably fit. And I...

I kind of think about myself, you know, at this age. I'm the same size I am today and quite proud that I weigh the same as I did in high school. All right. I am roughly 5'10", maybe a little shorter than 5'10", but I like to say I'm 5'10". Okay. And I'm 165 pounds. And, you know, in high school, I'm the same way. I'm just, you know, kind of just a, you know, average-sized kid.

teenage boy. But from, let's say, a weightlifting perspective, I could push more weight in high school, almost twice as much than what I can do now in terms of just my physical capabilities. I was so much more physically capable during those late teenage years. And so you can't underestimate the strength of the average teenage boy to be able to move Dr. Littlefield's body or even pick it up.

I can go back to the academy where we had to do the dummy drag, 165-pound dummy. And not only did we have men in there, but we had relatively petite women that were going through the police academy. And they were able to drag this body, an average-sized, average-weighing, male-sized body in this dummy form in order to do that.

So I'm not questioning whether Paul is physically capable of moving Dr. Littlefield's body, unless Dr. Littlefield is 250, 300 pounds. Right. You know, if he's 150 to 200 pounds, I would think Paul would be able to manipulate that body. What I'm going to be going to is Littlefield has this significant bleeding injury. And even though he's dead at the time his body is being moved out of Paul's house and being put in the trunk,

these wounds still seep blood. Is there a blood trail, whether it be dripped trail? Is there smears? You know, is there something that is consistent with what Paul is saying in terms of moving the body? Because unless he puts a plastic bag around Dr. Littlefield's head and cinches it off with the belt, so it's basically closed, I would expect that there would be some evidence of this movement of Dr. Littlefield's body at the crime scene. What he is saying makes sense, right?

If we are saying that a young man, a very slight build, can do this, especially with adrenaline and fear and everything else happening. So I don't think that the killing and the dragging and the putting in the trunk is going to be what's in question. It's going to be who was involved with it and whether or not it was Paul or Paul and someone else or someone else specifically. Right.

There's still huge gaps, though, in this case. You know, first, the lack of injuries to Paul during what appears to be an ongoing struggle. And second, so far, he hasn't accounted for why Mrs. Littlefield is dead and inside the car. Well, here we go. This is a convoluted story. Paul never really successfully explains why he did any of this.

I will say, I think, from the beginning that he is framing this as a, I was out of my mind and I didn't know what to do, so this is what I did. As a 17-year-old scared kid who apparently just killed someone, it's 9.45 now and Dr. Littlefield is in the trunk of his own car dead with the belt around his neck. Paul says he had no clue what to do next, so he drove to Dr. Littlefield's house because

because he had a fear that somehow, you know, Mrs. Littlefield was going to know that her husband would go missing. They would find out that the last person that he spoke with was this patient, Paul Dwyer, and people would put it together. So his solution was to go track down Lydia. So he says, he knocks on the door. He spoke with her the whole time her husband's, you

He says, listen, Dr. Littlefield accidentally killed two people in a traffic accident and he took off to Boston. Of course, Lydia is upset. And Dr. Littlefield entrusted his own car to Paul with the direction that Paul pick up Lydia and drive her to Boston to rendezvous with her husband. She was out of her mind and very confused, according to Paul.

And Dr. Littlefield had taken a train to Boston and said, go get my wife, deliver her safely to me in my own car. So Paul says, as stupid as this story sounds, Lydia Littlefield bought it. He says, get some money, grab some of your clothing, which we know is in the back of the car, and meet me at the car. And she does. Does this not sound like the most inane thing you have ever heard during a confession? Or brilliant? Which one is it, Paul?

Is he a brilliant 17-year-old? Well, that's where, you know, as you were describing this scenario, you know, there is a level of sophistication to that scenario, which, you know, in the heat of the moment for a 17-year-old boy, you know, to kind of come up with.

You know, there's, again, stepping into the mind of Paul, the offender in this case. He's just killed somebody. That's what he's saying. His brain is short-circuiting. He's never done this before.

You know, he is not your hardcore serial killer, mafia hit man type of person who's going to be calm under pressure. That's the sense that I've got, you know, just based on patrols interactions with him, how nervous he was pacing back and forth and everything else. I just don't see him.

being a cool customer and after killing Dr. Littlefield, now constructing this scenario to convince a much more mature adult in Lydia, in Mrs. Littlefield, to convince her to do something. You know, I'm skeptical that this is Paul's scenario that he's constructed himself.

But he, under this scenario, you're indicating that he lures Lydia out to Dr. Littlefield's car. And then he must strangle her out there with this belt, correct? Well, what he says, because that's the story...

Takes a real left turn. He says that once she's in the car with him on October 13th, he has no idea why he did this and what to do with her at this point. I don't think he wants to kill her. But he says they start driving and they go to Boston. He drives her to Boston. It's about 1 a.m. at this point. So it was a couple hour drive, I guess. Paul says they don't stay in Boston long.

He pretends to call Dr. Littlefield and gets updated, quote unquote, updated instructions on where to meet him with his wife. But just to stop you there, he pretends to call. So he must stop at some sort of phone, right? Yep. Pay phone. And he says, I'm calling. He pretends to call.

Again, this is all, Paul, either a real story that is incredible or Paul's really, really interesting imagination on how to explain why this dead woman's in her own husband's car covered with clothes. Yeah.

I don't think this is a prediction, but I will tell you, if Paul makes the following claim, then I know, OK, you know, he's lying. If he says that, well, Mrs. Littlefield came on to him and they had sex, then now now I know he's lying because that is what typically ends up, you know, some of these false statements, these lies, you know, they end up having this little bit of fantasy that they want to insert into this these statements. Right.

Well, he does not say that. So now his credibility is, at least as far as Paul Holes is concerned, is up in the air. We'll see. He does not say that. He goes on a road trip with Lydia Littlefield, he says. They go from Boston to Concord, New Hampshire, then back to Boston, then to Portsmouth, then to Gloucester, Massachusetts after that. And they're just sort of circling around New England, he says, for two days. Yeah.

And Lydia is becoming increasingly suspicious of Paul. No shit. I mean, of course she is. She eventually, according to Paul, tries to get out of the car and run because she's saying this guy is not doing what he says he was going to do. And where's my husband? And there's no cell phones. And what am I supposed to do?

and Paul snatches her and strangles her with a belt. Okay. And puts her in the back of the car. And this car just happens to have all these clothes in it. Well, remember, he told her pack up some stuff. Okay. So it's, again, a confusing thing because there are some things that are consistent. You know, Paul is providing some details that seem to overlap with something that the offender would know. Driving around two days with a dead body in the trunk, even though it is October in the Northeast,

east. So I'm assuming it's pretty cool, but, you know, bodies do start to smell. Three days. Is that it? You think three days would it start to smell? Let's say it's in the 40s, 50s, because they're in Maine. So it's a little bit further north than I'm used to. Yeah. I would say you would start to pick up a hint of an odor, you know, pretty quickly for sure.

Paul says that after he strangled Lydia, he was pretty traumatized, but he had the foresight to say, I need to cover this up.

He puts her body in the backseat floorboards and covers it up with the clothing that she had packed up for the trip. So the consistency we were talking about. He admitted to taking the $250 out of Mrs. Littlefield's purse that he had asked her to grab. Remember, he said, get some money and you're going to need to be prepared to go for a while until this case gets cleared up.

And it was interesting that he picked that lie. We didn't talk about that. He said Dr. Littlefield killed two people in a traffic accident. So it wouldn't have been out of the realm of possibility. I think being a serial killer would have been out of the realm of possibility for Lydia. But if someone said your spouse to me got into a car accident and killed two people, I'm not sure if I would say, oh, you've got there's no way that would have happened. Yeah, that could happen.

anybody. So he picked the right lie if this story is true. Yes, in some ways. But why would Dr. Littlefield feel that he has to be on the run if this was truly an accident?

That's a little sketchy, you know, thinking about Littlefield's perspective of that lie about killing two people in an accident. Right. But it is, again, I think like what you said, Paul came up with a scenario that seemed convincing enough. Yeah, to a panicked wife. Yeah. Yeah, she's panicking. She doesn't know what's going on. This has never happened to her husband before. She just knows that he's been gone. Yeah.

So we now have Paul taking $250 out of Mrs. Littlefield's purse. He took Dr. Littlefield's watch off his wrist and then...

And then he drives, and that's how we end up at stage one, which is North Arlington police discovering him asleep in the car in a vacant parking lot in New Jersey. The case is something that becomes very, very complicated because there is one detail I want to talk about, and I'm probably not going to have enough information for you on this, but

The coroner noted that Dr. Littlefield had an antemortem injury to his scrotum. So I don't want to get too graphic about that, but it sounds like it was something that was intentionally inflicted as a message. So you notice now how I'm looking off to the right at my fish tank? Oh, no. Don't look at your fish tank. I don't want to talk about scrotums either, Paul. Okay.

No, but this is now where it's like, okay, this becomes a very significant detail from my perspective. Okay. I want to see what that injury is. Does it look like it's intentionally inflicted? Are we talking about was there an attempt to excise the male genitalia? Depending on what I would see from evaluating this injury to Littlefield scrotum, that would inform me more than anything else about the offender's motive. Okay.

So this has become a very complicated case. Paul Dwyer is under arrest, and it seems clear he's headed to trial because there's no other suspects here. And he has stayed quiet until now, where he says, hold on a second, I need to make some changes to my confession. And he makes two major changes. One, he's

Interesting.

Okay. So part two comes next week. You're going to leave me hanging. I know. I know. That's my job, sir. I still leave you hanging. You leave me hanging. We've got a scrotal injury and now I'm stuck and I have to wait. If I never hear that word again, it will be too soon. But I know we'll talk about it. Okay. I'll talk to you next week. All right. Sounds good. Thank you.

This has been an Exactly Right production. For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com slash buriedbones sources. Our senior producer is Alexis Amorosi. Research by Maren McClashen and Kate Winkler-Dawson. Our mixing engineer is Liana Squilacci. Our theme song is by Tom Breifogle. Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac. Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer.

You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at BuriedBonesPod. Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded Age Story of Murder and the Race to Decode the Criminal Mind, is available now. And Paul's best-selling memoir, Unmasked, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, is also available now.