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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. ♪♪

Okay, this is Paul Hull's part two of one of the most complicated, convoluted cases that we've had to deal with. The case of the murders of two prominent citizens in South Paris, Maine, in 1937, Dr. James Littlefield and his wife, Lydia. And just to summarize for anybody who has dropped in on this episode and hasn't heard part one,

We are talking about the murders of these two people who were found in Dr. Littlefield's car. And there's a young man, a 17-year-old named Paul Dwyer, who is asleep in the front seat. And it is all a big mystery to the police until we find out that Paul says he was one of Dr. Littlefield's patients. And Dr. Littlefield came to his house in 1937 for a house call because Paul thought he had a sexually transmitted infection.

Dr. Littlefield, upon this examination, made a disparaging remark about Barbara Carroll, who is Paul's 17-year-old girlfriend. Paul freaked out, killed Dr. Littlefield by what Paul says is strangling him with his hands and

beating him and Dr. Littlefield still wouldn't die. So Paul takes a belt, tightens it, and that's how he kills him. Then he drives Lydia Littlefield all over New England for several days, giving her some cockamamie story about her husband being involved in a fatal traffic accident. And he's kind of on the run until they sort out what happens.

And when she finally catches on that Paul Dwyer has been lying to her, he strangles her. And that's how we end up in the car at this time period. Where you and I left off was that there was an anti-mortem injury to the scrotum. So anti-mortem is different than post-mortem. And I just want to kind of be clear. Can we talk a little bit about that? Right. So, well, anti-mortem is before death and then post-mortem is after death.

And then there is a period of time in which you can't determine when the injury occurred. And so pathologists will just describe this as perimortem. It could be around the time of death. So there aren't the characteristics present that would be definitive as to, well, was it while the person's still alive or after they're dead?

Now, when we start seeing the term antemortem, what that tells me is that that pathologist is seeing that that injury is still bleeding at the time that it's inflicted. The wound margins have blood that is now being pushed through. The circulation is still occurring.

There's also a reaction. The tissues are reacting to the injury, just like when we get, you know, as we're still alive and you get a scratch, you'll see it inflame. You know, you have the tissue reacting. Now, part of the confusing aspect and the reason why we have this perimortem term is

is tissues will react even if the person's dead. But the tissue itself hasn't died, but it's in the process of dying. It's lost circulation. It's losing the nutrients from the blood, the oxygen from the blood, but it is still going to react.

When there is no circulation and injury occurs, let's say in a dismemberment where the person has been dead for a period of time, this is where a pathologist can look at these wound margins and say, yes, this is definitively post-mortem.

Now, in Dr. Littlefield's case with the scrotal injury, if they're describing it as antemortem, that would suggest that the pathologist is noting that there was some bleeding that was occurring. This does not mean that Dr. Littlefield is necessarily conscious at the time that this injury is being inflicted. It just means that there is still circulation occurring. His tissue is still reacting.

I'm very interested in terms of, okay, what other details do we have about this? Because now for an offender to purposefully do genital mutilation, that is significant behaviorally.

One of the things that I think is interesting is Paul is saying, you know, his original motive for killing Dr. Littlefield was pulling Dr. Littlefield over because he's got this sexually transmitted infection. And now you have Dr. Littlefield's genitalia being mutilated. So there's a sexual aspect in what's going on in this case, at least on the surface with Paul.

what you've told me right now, which is surprising, at least from the details that you provided at the beginning. I mean, this case has turned a little bit more interesting to me from a behavioral standpoint. Well, get ready because there's another piece of information that I found that I did not know over this past week. This is why two-parters are good.

Because things come up and I can look at them and say, oh, wait, I did have a question about this. So the pathologist in this report, the attorney general report, said something that I had not seen in the original research.

Okay, so I'm going to read this to you because I think it's important. Now, remember, Paul said the way things went was, you know, Dr. Littlefield said something mean about Barbara Carroll. Paul, you know, gets upset. He tries to strangle him with his hands. He beats him. None of this kills Dr. Littlefield until...

Paul gets his belt, puts it around his neck, tightens it, strangles him, and that's it. Richard Ford of the Harvard School of Legal Medicine studied the case. Okay, Dr. Ford. So this is what he says he found. He has expressed the opinion that Mrs. Littlefield was alive when the belt was placed around her neck based on the evidence of distention and power. And that tallies with what Paul says. He says, she was trying to run, I grabbed her, I strangled her.

In my opinion, Dr. Littlefield died of manual strangulation hours before the belt was applied to his neck. Okay. That doesn't match what Paul said. Paul said he was coming to, he freaked out, he put the belt around his neck, and that did the trick.

but hours before? Do you think in, this was written in 1952, would they have known that in 1952? Would they have been able to say that definitively? No, I don't think they could say that definitively today. Okay. I'm trying to think of what Dr. Ford would be looking at in terms of giving some sort of temporal information about when this belt had been applied to Dr. Littlefield's neck.

There may be aspects that he's looking at. If the belt had been used at the time of death,

you know, of course you're going to see hemorrhaging. You know, this is something where tissues, neck structures are being compressed, especially if a ligature is being applied with a lot of force. The neck structures are being crushed. With manual strangulation, you know, you have a broader surface. You know, the thumbs go in, hyoid bone, which is kind of tucked up underneath the jaw. The hyoid bone could be something that is broken.

broken during manual strangulation, but can often be intact during ligature strangulation, since the ligature doesn't get up underneath the jaw structure internally. He said because of the conditions of Dr. Littlefield's neck, as described by the autopsy surgeon, they are in no way ascribable to the application of a ligature, which is, I think, what you're saying, right? It's just not the right markings and the right injuries. Dr.

Well, yeah, Dr. Littlefield's neck, the tissues aren't reacting. They're not hemorrhaging in the manner that would be expected if it had just been done by a ligature. So he's seeing evidence of the manual strangulation, and then it appears that this ligature had just been applied at some point

after the manual strangulation. I just don't think, I can't think of anything where a pathologist can say it had to be minimally hours later. Okay. So that doesn't prove or disprove Paul's claim of when this actually happened.

In my mind, no. Unless, you know, a medical professional were to convince me that, yes, these are the, you know, this is the diagnostic features that they could use in order to determine that belt was put on hours later. Right now, I'm very skeptical about that opinion. One other little clue is they found a lighter, just a standard lighter in the yard, but no initials on it. I was hoping for a little Agatha Christie moment, but no initials on it.

Just another little piece of evidence. You know, they are not taking away a lot except just lots of blood from Paul Dwyer's house. So let's get into the changes that I alluded to during the last episode.

There's a journalist named Karen Lemke who described Dwyer's testimony as having a Houdini quality because he just kept changing things. Paul said that he was telling investigators, you know, initially I didn't kill Dr. Littlefield. Then he said, OK, I killed him because he made a rude comment about my girlfriend.

Now he's saying that robbery is a motive. And again, it comes down to, to me, what do we believe and do we need to believe what he says at all if we're really looking at the evidence? And right now the evidence says it's just the two of them at this house. The footprints with Littlefield, you know, there's blood on Littlefield's feet. There's fingerprints only belonging really to these two men involved in this case.

Do we need to really know the truth from Paul Dwyer at this point? Well, you always need to know the truth. Well, but motive, do we care about the motive that much? Well, motive, people get too hung up on, well, what was the motive? You know, motive is nice if you have it, you know, investigatively or for prosecution purposes.

But oftentimes, you don't know the real motive why somebody commits a crime. And you don't need to know. There's nothing about having to prosecute a case in which you have to prove motive. You have to prove they committed the crime. So at this point, Paul's offering his motive, why he killed Dr. Littlefield. I don't

I just still am questioning the lack of injuries to Paul. Yep.

Considering you have this physical fight with an adult man. So that's where I go back to. I think that there's the chance that there's multiple offenders here. Paul's giving a lot of detail where I'm like, well, I'm thinking he's involved in this at this point in time, but he's covering up for somebody. And why is he covering up for that person?

Well, the press is very, very interested in motive. And as we've talked about, it's nice to have, but the press really wants it. And they think that the stuff the prosecutor is putting out there is flimsy. It's a robbery. It's this rude comment. The press doesn't believe it.

The prosecutor finally is, I think, throwing spaghetti against the wall and saying, listen, Dr. Littlefield had access to all kinds of drugs. Maybe Paul Dwyer is involved in the illegal drug trade, and that's why he killed him, to have access to these drugs, even though it doesn't seem like there's any evidence that these drugs were stolen. It was the money, $250 and a watch, and that was it.

But the mystery behind this case, it's driving the press pretty crazy. And none of that is helping the trial. So when we go to trial, all of this happened mid-October of 1937. And he goes to trial in December. And he is found guilty of both murders. Wow. Sentenced to life in prison. Now, I mean, if I'm a juror, I'm thinking, well, he confessed. He signed a confession.

When he went to trial, it was ultimately, I wanted to rob him. And that was really what it came down to. So it seemed like maybe Paul had just given up. But he didn't get the death penalty, but he did get life in prison. So what do you think about all that? Well, you know, based on, you know, the details he's providing in his confession, and at least there appears to be overlap with the evidence in the case, you know, I can

easily see where there would be a conviction. No question about it. I just know coming from my perspective and evaluating the case, if I were investigating this case early on, there's that red flag, as I mentioned, the lack of injuries to Paul. And I was like, okay, there's something else going on here. And I would feel obligated to have to fill in that gap.

Okay, here's the gap. Here we go. Paul is in prison for a month.

and either doesn't like prison or has been given plenty of, I'm sure he doesn't like prison, but has been given plenty of time to think. And he says, I need to change my story. And he implicates someone who is witness character adjacent in this story. So we have Barbara Carroll, and I was sort of teasing that Barbara Carroll, the 17-year-old girlfriend of

Paul was involved somehow. Paul says, I did not kill either one of these people. The killer is a man named Francis. He's a deputy sheriff, and he is my girlfriend's father. And that changes everything because people believe him. I can, you know, I could speculate. First, it's, is Paul telling the truth? Right. The fact that Paul is now bringing in a

another man as being involved. I'm completely on board with that based on what's happening inside that house and the lack of injuries to Paul. But now it's okay. We have to dig into this, you know, and if it is the girlfriend's father who happens to be a cop. Yep.

Now it's why would this deputy sheriff kill Dr. Littlefield and his wife? What is the motive for that? What is the opportunity for that, for that deputy sheriff? This is the hard part is there's already a conviction in this case. So how motivated is anybody to

going to be to pursue this avenue. Here's just a convicted offender saying, I didn't do it. Well, why didn't he bring that up before he's being prosecuted?

And now you're in a situation where you're accusing a deputy sheriff, Francis Carroll, of doing this. And what you and I have talked about is your trepidation about Paul because of the lack of injuries, that it seems like Dr. Littlefield did his best to fight back and there should be something. And of course, now it's four months later. It's too late. If Francis Carroll had any injuries, they're gone. Why he didn't say this earlier is...

So let me tell you what Paul says happened. Actually, let's do a little background on Francis Carroll real quick. He was a deputy sheriff in Oxford County, and he was not well-liked by anybody. His colleagues said that he was crooked and he was corrupt and he was not very nice.

And he had a bad marriage. And now this 17-year-old kid who everybody kind of thought, this is weird. No one felt very comfortable with this conviction, is trying to pin it on this deputy who has the knowledge and apparently the meanness and anger to be able to pull something like this off. But to the motive, which we say it would be great to have isn't always necessary, but it's a doozy.

Paul says this is what happened. He said that Dr. Littlefield did come to Paul's house. He did not come because Paul said I might have an STI. He came because Paul said my girlfriend Barbara, who's 17, might be pregnant. Barbara's not there for this conversation. Her dad is. And things take a pretty bad turn because Dr. Littlefield says, essentially, Paul, it sounds like you've got this girl in trouble.

And Paul says, "Not me. Barbara in letters told me that her father, who is standing right here, was raping her." Oh. And that's why she's pregnant. And now the injury on the scrotum might also make sense in that scenario, too. And everything else plays out the way Paul says, except Lydia. That's a different story.

You know, in terms of Francis's response, you know, here he's got now a doctor who he has to be concerned about learning that he has been molesting his daughter and actually impregnated her. Right. I could see where he would eliminate Dr. Littlefield just to protect himself. Why doesn't he take out Paul? Because Paul has knowledge of that. You know, so that would be, you know, part of the question.

And then, of course, Lydia, you know, going after the doctor's wife, who's not present for this conversation. But it's a starting point in terms of, okay, we got to figure this out. You know, let's start talking to some people and seeing where this goes.

The way Paul frames it is, you know, Paul discloses this to Dr. Littlefield while the men are there, and Dr. Littlefield reacts with disgust, of course, and confronts Francis Carroll about this. This is where everything comes in, the beating and the strangulation and all of that. And then what Paul says is that the deputy sheriff decided he needed to eliminate the wife because...

because the wife would be alarmed also about all of this. And so Paul says Francis then dragged Littlefield out, just like Paul said he himself did, put him in the trunk, drove over, and actually strangled Lydia at the house. There was no cross-New England trip.

He just wanted to eliminate her as someone who would sort of blow the whistle. And then Paul said that Francis threatened him. He's 17. He's scared. It's his potential future father-in-law. He's in love with this girlfriend who's 17. And he said, I think he was going to kill me too. But Paul promised to dispose of the bodies in exchange for his life.

And that was that. That is what Paul said happened. And of course, Francis Carroll denies all of this. Sure. But did they verify if Barbara was pregnant? She was not pregnant, it doesn't seem. But she did sign an affidavit saying he was raping me. And he is immediately charged by his boss. Everybody believes it.

He denies it, but not convincingly. And then we can talk about his alibi in a minute. But that part of it, the part where you're thinking, is Paul making him into this monster as a way to justify the antemornum scrotum injury and all of this stuff? That part appears to be true.

Yeah, there's aspects of this that I like in terms of the totality of the case circumstances. There's enough meat there in which it needs to be pursued. And do you have somebody...

who has been convicted of two murders, but really is an accessory. I mean, Paul is not innocent. You know, now the threat on his life by Francis, of course, is something that is a mitigating factor that a prosecutor would have to factor in in terms of what kind of charge.

But, you know, at the same time, the circumstances are as Paul has been convicted. And so once that conviction happens, it takes an act of God, essentially, in order to get things to go the other way. You know, so now there has to be such overwhelming evidence against Francis as being the real killer for the courts to be able to change things around, right?

and now undo the conviction on Paul, as well as now pursue Frances for the murders. Well, you can imagine this news makes headlines, stuns everyone, devastates Barbara Carroll, who says, "My father is a terrible person. My father sexually assaulted me. My father I don't think was a killer," for whatever that's worth.

Of course, she and, you know, Paul Dwyer had broken up at that point. This sets off a political firestorm because when I say Francis Carroll was not liked, I mean, that is like bolded three times. He was not liked at

And so this seemed like a good opportunity to go ahead and railroad this guy, which I don't know if it's so much of a railroading. The sheriff arrested him, as I mentioned, on what they called incest charges. Then the sheriff launched his own investigation into what happened when Dr. Littlefield and Lydia disappeared. Where was Francis Carroll in all this? So they start looking at his movements. Here's the alibi. Francis went to a card game.

around the suspected time of Dr. Littlefield's murder at a friend's house. A bunch of people were there. But at some point, his friends say he got a call about a traffic incident and that he left. He was gone for a couple of hours. And he said, yeah, I made an arrest. He entered an arrest in pencil into his log, but then the record was erased by

by the time this investigation into him happens. He has no real alibi during this one or two hour, three hour period, however long he claimed he was gone. The investigator said he absolutely would have been able to do this in time. So he doesn't really have a good alibi. I really keyed in on that he said, you know, he got a call about a traffic accident. And remember the scenario that Paul presented to Lydia,

was that Dr. Littlefield had been involved in a traffic accident. You know, so this is starting to add up to where now you have this more mature, sophisticated Deputy Sheriff Francis. And I could see where when now Paul is being questioned, the scenario about this Dr. Littlefield killing two people in a traffic accident is something that was fed to him by this deputy sheriff.

So, Francis, it almost sounds like to me with just that little bit of detail, I'm going, oh, now that's interesting. Now it's consistent. I'm starting to see some linkage, if you will, between what Francis is saying and what Paul had initially said well before he ever came forward about Francis' involvement.

Now, the flip side is, does Paul have a motive, aside from wanting to get out of prison, to specifically point to Francis Carroll? Yes. He hated him. He hated his girlfriend's father. Francis had tried to break up Barbara and Paul's relationship. This is a thing that is brought up. So there's that. And it doesn't sound like anybody really liked Francis. He didn't have any allies at this point. Right.

Now, witnesses, this is interesting. There are multiple people who say that they saw Francis's late model Chevrolet near Paul Dwyer's home on the night that Dr. Littlefield was killed.

but there are other people who say he wasn't anywhere near there. The car was somewhere else. I know that guy's car. And multiple witnesses are accused of fabricating these statements. It sounds unreliable to me in a late model Chevrolet. Probably you could throw a rock and hit one of those in 1937. Yeah, you know, that's tough in terms of, you know, really how much weight to put on those types of statements. I guess I question in terms of, you know, Paul calling Dr. Littlefield over to his house,

if he hated Francis so much, why is Francis there? That seems odd to me. Experience the glamour and danger of the roaring twenties from the palm of your hand in

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. The journalist I had mentioned before, Karen Lemke, reported one of the things that Francis' defense team said was,

when he finally did go to trial, and he did go to trial for this, for the murders. Francis' defense team said that Paul's claims about the nature of this meeting is completely absurd because Paul said that Dr. Littlefield stopped by to talk about Barbara's potential pregnancy. The defense team said that would be highly unusual because Barbara wasn't even there. She would have been the one to schedule the visit.

But making a house call to examine somebody with a potential STI would not have been weird. And Dr. Littlefield's appointment book showed that he had a meeting with Paul, not with Barbara. So I don't know. It's all confusing in that way. I'm not sure when people say highly unusual, highly unusual things happen all the time. So I don't know. It could have been a ruse. Yeah, it is very odd. I could see Paul...

requesting Dr. Littlefield to come over if he did have maybe some sort of symptom of an STI.

Or maybe he wants to talk to Dr. Littlefield saying, well, Barbara's pregnant, you know, and then what are our options? Because, you know, obviously this is a big deal. It's just how does Francis get pulled into all the way over to Paul's house for this particular meeting? That right there is the big mystery that it's just not sitting right with me. So what does that mean, not sitting right with you, though? Does that mean...

now you're leaning toward Paul lying about all of this and trying to get out of prison? Well, there's that always as a possibility, especially considering Paul and Frances' relationship. But for me, it's more of the details of that relationship

are suspect. There's something else going on. I don't know what that is, but there's something else. When you initially brought up Barbara pregnant and her father killing Dr. Littlefield, my thought was, is, well, Dr. Littlefield must have been molesting Barbara and is the father of her unborn baby. And that's why Francis killed Dr. Littlefield. That's where I initially went. So is that

more in line and more consistent than what Paul is saying happened. I mean, I think that the pregnancy is very, very fuzzy. I think, I don't know if Paul thinks that it's his baby or Frances Carroll's baby, but

And who makes the call? Maybe he's trying to set up Francis Carroll. Maybe he is pretending he has an STI. He's asking the doctor to come over. He tells the doctor. The doctor confronts him. And maybe he's hoping this finally will expose all of this and things go horribly wrong. I don't know. I do like...

This scenario that Francis is the killer, the orchestrator, and that Paul Dwyer, you know, is what I think I mentioned in the first episode on this, you know, sort of the patsy. You know, he basically, you know, just to save his own life is negotiating a deal saying, I'll dispose of the bodies, you know, and you let me live.

That adds up, I think, with the evidence the best. It seems just so odd that these three men, these three males, are in this house at the same time. I just don't understand the reason for that. But maybe it's just like what Paul's saying. I needed to talk to the doctor about Barbara being pregnant, and the father of her unborn child is her dad. Yeah.

And what I thought was interesting...

but I guess this shouldn't surprise me for 1937, was that Paul's proof of the rape between Francis, that Francis had raped his daughter, was that Barbara had written Paul letters talking about this. And I just thought, I don't know why I thought that was strange, but also maybe this is not something that they would have ever felt comfortable talking about in this time period. And it also helps him because he's got the letters. And then, of course, she has...

confirmed this with the Attorney General's office, even though Francis denies it.

So, yeah, it's really hard. And I will tell you this, Paul, this was a first because Francis Carroll was convicted of killing Dr. Littlefield, but he was never put on trial for Lydia's death. Paul Dwyer was in prison for both of their deaths, and Francis was in prison only for James Littlefield's death. The reporter I was talking about, Karen Lemke, says it's the only criminal case in Maine where two people served concurrent sentences in

based upon verdicts from two separate trials. So people couldn't decide which one of these guys did it. So they put them both in jail for life. Neither of them served life. They both got out. And yes, they were at the same prison. They were both at the main state prison. I have no idea if they interacted. I can't imagine that people would let that happen. But so convicting two of them

in totally separate, with separate motives, separate evidence. I mean, it just seems like wild. And I know that this is still a case that's debated today about who did it and who is the most logical person. Do you believe a 17-year-old could have done this with this cockamamie story that he's talking about and then switching it so many times and then finally pointing it at the man who he can't stand?

Because it sounds like he is raping his own daughter. And Barbara Carroll is not really a big player in this. She's not talking very much about all of this, which I think is understandable. I'm wondering, did they ever, you know, with, you know, Francis has to be showing up for work as a deputy sheriff after these homicides. Did they talk to...

to coworkers? Did he show up? Did he have a black eye? Did he, you know, have scratches, you know, any type of injury? Is there any information like that? Nothing that people noted as being unusual. And for a deputy sheriff, he said he had made an arrest the night before. So even if he did have something on it, he could say, "Listen, I was in a scuffle," but nobody remembered anything unusual.

I think they would have mentioned a black eye. I will say this. This goes into the conspiracy against Trump.

Francis Carroll part of the story. So he filed an appeal, an immediate appeal, in August of 1938 after he was convicted. And the legal team claimed that the prosecutors were dead set on convicting him, and they suppressed important pieces of evidence during the trial. The two sets of fingerprints where basically Francis Carroll says, I wasn't there, and my fingerprints aren't anywhere. We've already kind of dispelled that. Yeah, I know. You kind of...

grimacing like that doesn't matter. So we're going to throw that one out. So then this is a weird one. There is a ballistics expert named Leon Shepard.

And he comes forward and he says that the special prosecutor had tried to shoehorn in questionable evidence into the record. So the evidence in question was a grip mark on Carol's gun, which the prosecutor had tried desperately to match the marks on Dr. Littlefield's head.

So instead of Paul's hammer, it was the grip on this gun. And the ballistics expert said the prosecutor came to him, looked him in the eye and said, quote, make the damned thing fit. So this is not valuable evidence. This is more like people were really gunning for Francis Carroll in 1937, 1938. That's where now when you start talking about Mark

from an impact of a weapon on the skin, you know, depends on what details are present. You know, sometimes you can have highly detailed marks left behind in which you can physically match to an object. But if the prosecutor is having to tell this expert, make it fit, that tells me it's probably some vague mark that is not obvious. Yeah. How often does

Do killers who are paired together, how often do we find that? I mean, as someone who's a profiler also, that just seems unusual. Is it as unusual as we think it is that two people could work together and stay quiet and all of that?

quite frankly, is common. You think about gangs. You have multiple people who are involved in shootings all the time. In this type of case, this is where you have at least presuming Francis and Paul were both involved, that you have a dominant

leader type, and then you have the follower, the leader being Francis, the follower being Paul. And that happens, and it does happen all the time. And so it's not uncommon for multiple individuals to be arrested, charged, and convicted for their roles in these types of cases.

We're dealing with the 1930s because, you know, now today we've talked about, you know, Francis's alibi or lack of alibi and motive and everything else. But if there is the possibility of that close physical interaction with Dr. Littlefield and Lydia Littlefield, you know, this is where if Francis is completely denying anything, right?

If we go after the blood evidence, the DNA evidence, and find it on his clothing, inside his vehicle, something that we could, you know, show, hold on, you know, we have a link to the violence that happened that night. Today, we could do something to help prove his involvement. But back in the 1930s, they didn't have that. And why is Paul not saying this sooner? He can't be...

Can't be more afraid of Francis Carroll than of going to prison for the rest of his life? All this media? I mean, I don't know. That's another thing I'm questioning. I believe it's possibly, you know, he's a naive 17-year-old. Prior to the conviction and prior to being incarcerated, he's in fear of Francis. Yeah. You know, Francis is law enforcement. You know, could Francis reach out and get him at any point, you know? But once he's in prison and he's seeing this is for the rest of my life,

There's no way that Francis can come after me in here. Now it's safe for me to divulge what truly happened. I think there is a possibility of that kind of shift in mindset. You know, I'm frustrated that he didn't bring that up earlier, you know, because he probably would have had less serious consequences for his role. If he's not killing Dr. Littlefield, if he's not the one that killed Lydia...

and Francis is, then his role is as an accessory. And he would have faced lesser charges or possibly could have pled to provide testimony against Francis and never even be charged with a crime. Yeah. Hold on. I'm going to show you a photo just so you can put faces to names. There is a Francis on the right and Barbara Carroll on the left. Okay. And

Part of the controversy around this case that we didn't get into, because I just don't think it's applicable, is the claims from the media that Barbara Carroll was really courting the media. She got a lot of marriage proposals during this whole trial. She was under a lot of scrutiny. And then, you know, we see Francis Carroll, who's denying all of this, but he's an older man. All of these characters are incredibly confusing. Barbara clearly is a victim.

but the media were not as sympathetic as they should have been considering the seriousness of the accusations against her father that people were confirming. Was he convicted of the sexual assault of his daughter? No. So let me tell you the end of the story. Because they were concentrating on convicting him for murder, they did not pursue anything, sexual assault charges or the ones that they called incest charges that I told you before,

So what ends up happening is that Francis Carroll spent a decade in prison and

until 1949 when the governor of Maine exonerated him and said, there's not enough evidence for Francis Carroll to be in prison. And by that time, the statute of limitations for rape had long passed. So he's never indicted for sexually assaulting Barbara and never tried for Lydia's murder. And he died just, you know, a few years, seven years after his release at the age of 60. So he never has to face anything about sexually assaulting his daughter. RISA GOLUBOFFA

Okay. I think during that era, you know, really, you know, we've seen improvements in terms of how the justice system goes after this type of scenario, you know, where you have children who are being abused, whether it be by strangers or by, you know, parents. Much more serious charges are levied and much more serious time, much longer times are being served.

But back in the 1930s, I could see where the mindset is, well, she'll get over it. You know, that's kind of, you know, I think the mindset from that era. I really like the scenario of Francis and Paul being involved together in this double homicide. Mm-hmm.

But it does seem like with the evidence that they had, circumstantial, physical, against Francis, it's flimsy. So I really don't have an issue. I probably have a bigger issue with the conviction, to be frank, even though I'm kind of leaning towards, yeah, it sounds like that's likely. It's just that they didn't establish the case to the point to where it's beyond a reasonable doubt. And so for the governor to come in and exonerate

I don't have an issue with that. You know, and this is just where Francis, in some ways, his name was probably wrongly cleared, in my opinion. But at the same time, it was never proven that he was truly responsible. From a legal standpoint, you're right. He should have been exonerated. From a moral standpoint, I am definitely leaning toward Francis being involved. It's hard because Paul's harebrained story about everything is

What if it was a ruse? What if this kid is smart and he figured out how to play the bumbling, dumb kid who makes up all of these wild stories thinking that people are going to feel sorry for him? And what if he really did figure out

how to take the attention off of him because there's that doubt. He's convicted. It would be hard not to convict him. He's convicted. There's that doubt. And then he turns it in on the guy he hates the most. I just wonder if there's any possibility because, gosh, there's so much detail in these stupid stories of his.

And that's where the detail, as we were talking, it's constantly weighing the details that he provides against the actual factual objective evidence that they find at autopsy and find at the crime scene. And there's no question in my mind, OK, he's got direct knowledge. Oftentimes when there's false confessions, the details in the false confessions in no way, shape or form match up.

with the objective factual evidence of the case. You know, and unfortunately, you have individuals who do these false confessions get convicted because you don't have investigators or prosecutors who have the wherewithal in order to sort out the details. You know, is this real or not? There's that on one hand in terms of, yeah, Paul is culpable for, you know, a role in this double homicide. I still just go back to

the lack of injuries where it's like, as I was saying, even before you brought up Francis, there's somebody else involved. I think some of these cockamamie scenarios that were concocted

likely were fed to Paul or they were brainstormed between Francis and Paul in order to try to get their story straight, you know, as they were getting in the process of trying to hide. I mean, there's no question. He's on a mission to hide the bodies. They're trying to cover up this crime. Yep.

Did Paul serve the rest of his life for this, or was he released? So he was convicted in December of 37. He was released 22 years later. He was released in 1959. He was 40.

and he got out on parole. So according to the Associated Press, Paul Dwyer got married, then he got divorced, and then he eventually stayed in Maine. He settled in Portland, Maine, and there's not a lot of information after that about this. But there are people who cannot sort this out. Even today, people talk about it. They cannot sort out who is guilty and who isn't, and to have both of them convicted for the same crime, but in completely different circumstances, is

What a mess of a story. There's so much happening in it. And as always, you know, I think more details are better, but I think we have enough of a sense of who our main suspects are and who's capable of doing it. And I'm just not buying Paul Dwyer being able to do this. I don't know.

I don't know. I lean against him being responsible for either homicide. If they still have physical evidence in this case, which is doubtful, but one of the key pieces of evidence is going to be the belt around Lydia's neck. Yeah. And if they still have that, there's a chance that the killer's DNA is on that belt.

It could be sorted out today. The belt around Littlefield's neck was not the murder weapon in that case. So this is where now I go to the belt around Lydia because that definitively was used to strangle her and whose DNA is on that belt.

And then maybe we could sort that out, you know, because Paul being paroled at age 40, if he was just an accessory and literally was disposing the bodies and then lying about it.

I don't have a problem with him being paroled. But if he's the one that strangled Lydia, then in my opinion, he needs to serve the rest of his life in prison. And he didn't, you know, and they just didn't have the tools in order to sort that out back then. There you go. Another messy case with no clear ending. You're welcome, Paul Holes. I know those are your favorite and the ones we cannot solve definitively.

You know, I think just to end this on a note, that's another air of mystery. You remember this whole thing between you and I started with Bessie Ferguson on Wicked Words. Well, we talked about Bessie Ferguson, right? So I'll remind you all, Bessie Ferguson was a woman in 1925 who was murdered and dismembered and her body parts were strewn everywhere.

And my forensic scientist from American Sherlock determined where her body parts were based on a grain of sand that was found in her ear, which was the only thing that he was given was her ear. And I remember we talked about all of the suspects, Paul, you and I talked about, you know, like there's a dentist and there's a doctor and she was extorting money from men for babies that never existed. I mean, it was a whole complicated thing.

And then there was a sheriff. Actually, he was a deputy sheriff. And I said that my guy Heinrich, Oscar Heinrich, said, that guy's an idiot. He's not smart enough. A sheriff is not smart enough. I promise you he cannot pull this off. Dismembering a body and, you know, putting it all over this part of California. And I remember you said, but the sheriff knows people who are smart enough to do it.

And so when this deputy sheriff thing came up, I kept thinking, oh, boy, yeah, that's an interesting thing. You know, the knowledge, the institutional knowledge, we should never, ever discard that because there's a lot of knowledge there that that Francis Carroll could have.

And the reality is, is Paul's big mistake is he fell asleep with two bodies in the car. If he hadn't fallen asleep and had carried out his mission, it's possible Dr. Littlefield and Lydia would have just disappeared. Yeah. And Paul and Francis would never have served time. So that's what happens when you trust a teenage boy to do something bad. Sorry, teenage boys listening to this show. Yeah.

Okay, well, I'll have another compelling, complicated, probably even messier case next week. So get ready. Oh, boy. Okay, I will get my fish tank cleaned up and I will look forward to watching them as you traumatize me even more. Get that lobster in a safe spot, please.

This has been an Exactly Right production. For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com slash buriedbonessources. Our senior producer is Alexis Amorosi. Research by Maren McClashan, Allie Elkin, and Kate Winkler-Dawson.

Our mixing engineer is Ben Talladay. 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.