The Dayton Strangler
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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 tragedies

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Hi, Kate. Hey, Paul. How are you? I am doing good. How are you doing today? I'm doing well. I had an interview with a forensic chemist who specializes in arsons, and I found it really fascinating. And at the end of it, I thought – I often think of this with my experts – I thought, my dad would really like this woman. And he said, well, I don't know.

And then I started thinking, my dad would really like Paul Holes. And I think you guys, I mean, that's a huge compliment because my dad was picky. I mean, he was, you know, he encountered a lot of people. And I think he would have really liked talking with you, particularly about cold cases. You know, we talk about how involved he was with the actual innocence clinic that he started before he died. Yeah.

in 2005. And I think he really would have liked you. You both had a real fascination with cases that needed to be closed but hadn't been. And maybe you could be the person to come in and do it. And I am so scared of those investigations. I like a nice, tidy ending. And you are

happy to look into these cases that, you know, like the Golden State Killer, that are just, they seem unsolvable. So that's why we're different. I think my dad would have just thought you were great and would have loved to sit down and have a beer or some sort of whiskey something with you.

Yeah, you know, with The Unsolved, it's all about developing theories. And that's where the discussion with your dad would be fascinating. Because now it's like, you don't know what the ending is. And it's a matter of, okay, these are the facts. These are the suspicions. You know, these are the leads. This is the forensic evidence, you know, and how do we go from here? And for me,

I'm probably a little bit on the weird side. It's all about the hunt. And even after, like with the Golden State Killer, you know, once D'Angelo was caught, the hunt was over. And so I'm not like continuing to be engaged to learn everything I can about D'Angelo. And then we've seen this past summer, Long Island Serial Killer gets solved. And it's sort of like, okay, you know, I'm not doing a deep dive into

on the suspect in that case right now. For me, it is the hunt. It is solving the case. It's getting the families the answers. It's getting justice for the victims. And then I just kind of move on. And you know what's funny? And this is something we should talk about at a different time also is,

I am someone who, when I watch a lot of Agatha Christie and I read a lot of Agatha Christie, but I always find out who did it before I'm finished with the book or the movie. Always. I always look. You know why? I know. Because I like to know the little pieces.

And I like to see them come together. And even when I know at the very end, I love rewatching them over and over again so that I could see every little piece that's put together. I guess it's not the hunt for me. It's like seeing the jigsaw and the brilliance of how these things come together. And in real life cases, I think it's interesting to see the way society reacted, the way the witnesses acted. You know, can I kind of predict what happens before I get to the end of the research document?

Yeah. You know, so are you the type of person that when you buy a new novel, you read the last chapter first? I do. I Google it. I know. I don't like surprises. And I like spooky and scary, but I don't like surprises and mysteries. I like to see them unravel and how they're put together. I don't know. It's just it's weird. So that's why we work well together, I think.

You know, when you think about it, it's sort of like with buried bones. You are going after these historic cases. Oftentimes, there is an answer. And, you know, for me, I'm going after old cases where there is no answer. So I'm kind of forward-looking, and you are backwards-looking. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, with this case that we're going to be talking about now, it's set in Ohio in the year 1900, right?

This is a case where the police really believe it's a serial killer working and it's a string of unsolved murders. And for me, I think this is the first time that really you can draw on the Golden State Killer case on how do you make the connections based on circumstances, witnesses,

How, with very little information, forensically, how are we able to look and say, boy, this does make sense that one person committed all of these crimes or, oh, I don't know if this makes sense. We've done this with the Nashville case. We've done this a couple of other times. But this really feels like they really could be related. But we'll have to see what you think. Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to hearing about it. OK, well, let's set the scene.

So this is set in, as I said, 1900 Dayton, Ohio. When we talk about these areas, we want to talk about the time period and we want to talk about, you know, what are we it's like when a police officer would want to know when you start an investigation, you want to know where you are. What's the suspect pool like? Who are the people around? What's the demographic?

So I want to give you that information. This is a really fast-growing city. There's a trolley system that people use. There's lots of factories that are popping up, lots of work, men and women coming in and out all the time.

But the city is growing so quickly that there are not enough streetlights to light the streets to keep people safe. And there is a smaller police force than a city this size should have. So already, this is a great situation for criminals because we're going to assume a little bit of a higher crime for a city that's not quite used to it because they're exploding with so many people coming in. Well, what kind of industry? Is this like a steel town? Is this a car town? Yeah.

So in the early 1900s, there are at least 10 separate factories that are turning out dozens of models of cars. I know that's not the only industry, but it gives you a little bit of an idea of, you know, the kind of workers who would have been coming in. And I would imagine that these workers are probably residents of Dayton. You know, it's not like...

at least from my perception, that these car factories would be bringing in large, kind of transient workers for seasonal work. This would be year-round work, and residents are basically the ones that staff these factories.

So that's important to me, you know, is what kind of transient population do we have when I start assessing potential suspect pools? Now, it doesn't mean there isn't a transient population in Dayton during this period of time, but it sounds like this is really, you know, the residents there are long-term occupants of this area. That's the impression I have, too. But we're going to really home in on one particular area because

These crimes span a decade, but they all are similar MOs, and they all take place within a few blocks of a particular trolley stop.

And the trolley stop is at McCabe Park. And at this time, the reputation of this park was that it had a lot of unsavory characters there and a big seedy reputation. So when these murders happen from 1900 till 1909, 1910, this section of the street where the trolley had stopped was

is considered a dangerous place for girls, and it was known as the death lane. So now you know why this is unsolved, because already we're talking about a place where people are disappearing, women are disappearing, and young girls, this whole area where there are already unsavory characters around. So it's not going to be as easy as trying to take one suspect that we know and kind of pin him on all of these different murders. It's a little bit more like, does this sound like this fits, knowing what you know about criminal profiling?

But already we're at a disadvantage with this stinking park right here. Right. You know, and this is not uncommon. You know, where we see many series happen is oftentimes in high crime or higher risk environments.

And that does open up a potential suspect pool. It also does make it difficult because you may have regulars that are in this particular area, regulars that are committing crime, and all of them, all of them,

are potential, you know, when you evaluate them from afar, they potentially have red flags where you go, oh, I need to dig into that person a little bit more. But when you have a whole bunch of people you need to dig into, your efforts get diluted. And, you know, I remember investigating, you know, one jurisdiction, Golden State Killer, and every rock I turned over, I found just cockroaches of suspects.

just fleeing all over the place. And it gets to where it's like, well, how do I sort this out? You know, especially if there is no DNA or fingerprint evidence that could help identify one particular individual. And this is a big mystery, boy. There's very little forensic evidence for us to work with, but it's very interesting. So let's start with the first case, which in a lot of ways is the most sad for me.

This is mid-October of the year 1900. There's a family called the Lance family, and they are having a birthday party for a member of the family. They invite a lot of people over, and the party starts at 8 p.m., and it's dark already. So while the adults are having fun and drinking and having a good time, there's a little girl named Ada, who is the Lance's 11-year-old daughter. She decides to sneak out into the backyard.

So party starts at 8:00. The adults don't notice that she's gone from the house until two hours later. Lots of frantic searching, as you probably could guess.

And finally, they make their way back to an outhouse at the back of their property. And they have a pretty big property surrounded by a fence, but there's an open latch. Anybody could access this. They go to the outhouse and they find her body had been stuffed down the hole of the outhouse. They

They didn't know she was gone until 10, so two hours, but they didn't find her until an hour and a half after that. So there's 8 p.m. when the party started and everyone knew she was there until 1130 that night when she's discovered. So, yeah, the adults are occupied. Yep. You know, this is akin to the kids, you know, current day where they slip out into the backyard where there's a pool. Right.

you know, and they're not seen for hours. Here, you know, the questions that I have is, okay, so you have a lot of adults inside the house. Ada slips out into the backyard. It's a fenced-in backyard. You indicate it's a larger property. Do we know what this property backs up to? Is it forested? Are there railroad tracks? Is there anything that would indicate why somebody might be just lurking out there

and Ada was a victim of opportunity, or is there somebody who is drawn to the location because of the party and happens to see Ada go into the backyard and is able to slip out themselves from the party

and victimize Ada. My understanding is that it's a residence neighborhood, but again, it's pretty close to that park. So there are all kinds of people sort of sneaking around who probably would have noticed a little girl in the backyard kind of on her own. And I don't know why she went out there, but where the outhouse was, there's an author who I'll talk about later who is a relative of one of our future victims. And he wrote a book about this.

And he described it as if you stood on the back porch with a lantern in the middle of the night and you had a bright lantern, you still wouldn't be able to see the outhouse. So it's really far back. And multiple entries, I think, for a way to get into the yard. So it would not have been hard for somebody to slip in. And this is why eventually the police clear everybody at the party. Because the neighborhood wasn't seedy, but the park was drawing seedy people. And it was just a block or two from the park.

Okay. Yeah. And the way I'm kind of assessing this case and initially going in, if I'm responding out, is I've got three bins of suspects. I've got people who are attending the party who would have seen Ada and possibly seen Ada isolate herself. Mm-hmm.

Then you have the neighbors. You know, the party, the noise from the party could have drawn their attention, they're paying attention. And again, somebody that decides to lurk or is able to see Ada, isolate herself. Then you have the higher risk suspect pool, the people that are in the park.

And the fact that there's this outhouse out there, is this something that would draw, I'm assuming these are people in the park and some of them may be taking advantage of the outhouse just to use the bathroom and they happen to be going to that yard on a periodic basis and then happen to stumble across Ada being out there.

Or, you know, of course, they also could be hearing the commotion of the party and going, oh, what's going on? Let's go check it out. And then there's Ada out there in the backyard. Yeah. Crime of opportunity, I guess. Let's talk about her injuries and what caused her death. Her body...

is terribly mutilated, according to the police. She has bruises and cuts all over her face. She has a two-inch gash on her left side of her face that seems to have been caused by a cane or a club. Her clothes were torn to shreds, and she had been sexually assaulted. Sexual assaults have happened in, I think, all of these cases.

It's ultimately determined that she was strangled, and then she was shoved headfirst into a 15-inch hole inside the outhouse. So that probably caused some of the injuries on her face, too. But ultimately, the important part is that she was strangled, she was sexually assaulted, and it just sounds like brutalized violence.

Part of the evaluation of her injuries, I mean, she's an 11-year-old girl. She's not able to put up much resistance to an adult male. But if she did resist, do some of these injuries indicate that they're defensive in nature and then the offender is just physically overpowering her in order to get her under control?

The tearing of the clothes off, that is interesting, you know, because I've had both, you know, sexually related homicides in which the offender pulls clothes off as well as cuts clothes off. But there are occasions where the offender purposely tears clothes off. And this is what the offender likes to do. This is part of their fantasy. So it all just kind of depends on, you know, the pattern that I would be seeing if there were really good crime scene photos. But

I key in on that tearing. You know, that in many ways is almost like this frenzied act because most certainly right now, absent more information, I'm assuming I've got an adult male that is attacking Ada and there's no reason to have to tear her clothes off. He could completely overpower her and pull her clothes off. And some of these clothes are not easy to tear. Yeah. So that, you know, is part of why take the extra effort.

Well, keep all of that in mind, as I know you will, as we move forward through these cases. But let's wrap up Ada's. They arrest five men in connection with the crime. These are guys who have just been around. They knew that they were sort of sleazy. They were in the vicinity. There were witnesses who said they were kind of around, as were a lot of people in this neighborhood. But there was a man named Harrison Blessing. He was 18 years old. And they got a tip from somebody who lived in his home, a tenant, who

who said that Blessing had confessed to killing Ada to at least two people. But we don't know if that's true. And this is from, you know, the source that we had to use was a couple of newspaper articles. And when you follow up with these newspaper articles, nothing ever came of this arrest. He was arrested in

And then he was released. Nobody was ever charged with her murder. So if that was true, it wasn't enough to hold any water. And Harrison Blessing just sort of drops off because there wasn't enough evidence against him. And Ada's case goes cold in 1900. And with Blessing and these, you know, he's confessing to others in these unsolved cases. This is a frequent occurrence. And

The interesting thing is that you will have guys out there who are just trying to impress others. It's the street cred. And we typically see it within the methamphetamine groups, the cranksters out there where somebody, some horrific crime occurs in the area, and then they're like, well, I'm not going to do it.

I did it because they just want that street credibility. And then it just kind of, you know, the rumor mill just goes wild. And then pretty soon somebody's calling in that tip and it happens over and over again. So right now,

I can't put much weight on Blessing's confession, especially considering that they weren't able to move forward back in the day on that. And the police in Dayton over the next 10 years feel very strongly that the cases we're about to discuss are all connected. And Harrison Blessing never comes up again. So I'm assuming they've kept him and they're kind of checking in on him. But

This is what's unusual to me, and it won't be unusual to you, I think, based on the Golden State Killer. Nothing happens again for six years. Things happen. Obviously, people are murdered, people are sexually assaulted. But not this motive or MO, not this sort of circumstance, doesn't happen until 1906. Is that surprising? I'm assuming not. No.

No. You know, I think the average layperson assumes that a serial predator is just on this regular clock and goes out and kills or rapes, sexually assaults.

you know, on this very periodic basis. And some offenders do do that, you know, and it's not necessarily, you know, every other day, you know, it's not that type of pattern, but there's a certain frequency in which they're going out. But then you also see offenders who strike out in clusters. So you'll see, you know, one case and then a pause, and then maybe three cases very close together and then another pause.

And there are offenders that when they go out and commit crimes, it's because they've got certain stressors that are occurring in their personal life that somehow, some way causes them to want to go out and commit to this type of crime. There's also just sheer opportunity. Things come up in these offenders' personal life.

you know, that prevent them from going out and committing a crime. And when all of a sudden those things that were preventing them subside, then they go out and they may commit a cluster of crimes because they've been waiting. They've been jumping at the bit in order to go and commit the crimes. They've been fantasizing about it. So it really varies. So in this case, we have Ada's case,

and then a six-year gap, and then you're going to start telling me about what I'm assuming is a similar type case. Yeah. So after Ada's case goes cold, there is a 20-year-old woman named Donna Gilman. So now let's just talk about the ages.

So we have Ada, who's 11. We have Donna, and this is a very similar circumstance. We have Donna, who's 20. Does that surprise you if this is the same person? No, not at all. And this, again, is something that occurs frequently within a series where some offenders are a little bit more particular about the age, gender, looks of a victim. Other offenders aren't.

And when you start talking about, let's say we have a 20-year-old female, an adult female, and an 11-year-old girl, either prepubescent or pubescent, this is where we get into this phenomenon, what we call crossover offense, where now an offender is willing to victimize individuals that have different

Look, gender characteristics. And this is much more common than what you would think. Oftentimes, it's victim of opportunity, like Ada was a victim of opportunity. This particular offender may not prefer to have a child as a victim, but...

but will victimize a child if the opportunity presents itself. Or it's the opposite, whereas this offender prefers, is a preferential or situational child molester, if you will, or child killer. And then in this recent case with a 20-year-old, now she's the victim of opportunity.

So it happens all the time. I think you're right about this because I know all the information and you don't. And I think the oldest victim is, they said, early 20s. Okay. And there are younger victims in this.

Well, and part of this, and this is where I, you know, I got this, you know, I have a mentor on the behavioral side, the Sharon Hagan, who is a California DOJ profiler, and she's long retired now, but brilliant in terms of assessing criminal behavior. And she flat out told me, Paul, oftentimes the offender makes up his mind to attack a victim, right?

when he sees that victim from afar. And so now has a certain mental image of who that victim is, but when gets closer, finds out, oh, that is not a 20-year-old woman, that's an 11-year-old girl, but has already made up that mindset that he's going to pursue the attack. And so like in Ada's case,

You know, it may be from afar. Let's say somebody's on the other side of the fence and sees from afar, you know, a girl. I don't know how she's dressed, if she's got a dress on or whatever. But in his mind is like this is a 16 year old girl or this is a 20 year old girl and then goes and proceeds to attack and finds out, no, we are dealing with a child here, but he doesn't care at that point.

I'll show you a picture of Ada. It's not a good picture, but maybe it'll give you some more information before we go on and talk about Donna. So the one in the middle. So...

I mean, just typical curly haired girl, but we don't know how tall she is. I'm assuming it's a party in 1900. She's got to be wearing a dress. So maybe he did mistake her if she's taller. Maybe he did mistake her for somebody who was a little. She is the youngest victim. I'll tell you that. But we have another victim near the end who is not much older than this.

So I really buy into your theory here. It's dark. He can't see anything. Sure. Who knows? Who knows? Well, let's get back into Donna. So she is 20 years old and she is coming home from work.

And she was last seen on the trolley line that she took every single day, Monday through Friday. But the trolley that stops near this park that we've been talking about and near Ada's house doesn't take her all the way to her house. She has a long walk when she gets off the stop along this poorly lit pathway to get to her house, but she never makes it there. Her family's panicking, but she gets close, it sounds like.

because her brother the next morning finds her body about 200 feet away from the family house in a weedy lot right across the street. So now we've got two murders, a girl and then a woman, but in the dark, we don't know how different age-wise they might have looked.

And they both have been assaulted, it sounds like, and dumped very close to where they live. So this is right. It sounds like she was almost on her doorstep and she got snatched. What do you think? Do you have any information in terms of what was done to her, her injuries, any other behaviors by the offender? Yes. Okay. Let me just give you all of the physical stuff. The coroner said that her neck shows signs of strangulation. She has cuts and bruises on her face.

Clothing torn to shreds. Underwear is missing. And of course, there are signs that she was sexually assaulted. And there were some odd things here to me. They gave a time of death based on rigor mortis, and they said that she was described as damp. Damp on clothing, not muddy. So the reason I bring this up is because there's...

There was a big rain the night before, and her clothing wasn't muddy. She was a little damp. So the police are beginning to think that this happened somewhere else, because if it had happened right here in this weedy area, she would have been muddy. And

When she entered rigor, her arm is sticking straight up in the air. So they estimated her time of death at around 630 the night before, precisely when she was supposed to be home. Her arm is sticking straight up in the air. Yes. She's described as being damp and her arm was rigid, sticking straight up.

When limbs enter into rigor, and it's a slow process, it starts with the smaller muscles and then goes to the bigger muscles, it's not like they move as these muscles stiffen up. So her arm being in a position that does not sound like it would naturally be laying if she were dead and entering rigor would suggest to me that she entered rigor and then was moved. And I would need to evaluate so much more. Part of...

evaluating, you know, did the victim lay after being deceased at a location for a period of time and then was moved, either flipped over or moved to a different location? You know, part of rigor can provide information on that. Also, what is what we call liver mortis, lividity, where blood, you know, after the heart stops pumping, the blood, you know, goes towards gravity.

And then after it sits, if I'm laying on my back and I die, all my blood is going to go to my back. And, you know, then my back will look purple.

If it sets, if I'm in that position, laying on my back for a long enough period of time and then somebody flips me over, the lividity won't change. And so that's how I would be able to tell, oh, this person was moved after they had laid in a location for a period of time. So Donna's arm being sticking straight up

sounds like, yeah, she was killed and laid in a certain position. Body was in a certain position for a period of time, rigor formed, and then she was moved. It doesn't mean a distance. It could just be flipped over and then found probably relatively quickly after that. But I'm

There's so much more I'd have to evaluate, but that's what I'm thinking right now. What about the muddy clothing part that they were talking about? The fact that her clothing wasn't really muddy, and if there had been some big sexual assault and murder, that her clothes would have been filthy because the area surrounding her was filthy from the rain. That could be a very legitimate observation. I'm assuming...

that where her body is laying, you've got exposed soil. And so if she's being assaulted in that location, then I would agree. I would expect there to be a lot of soil transfer, mud transfer onto her clothes.

Now, is it possible that she was assaulted 10 feet away on grass and then drug to a more hidden location where now you have more exposed soil that the original investigators are keying in on? Or she could have been assaulted on pavement or something like that, and then her body is pulled back to hide it a little bit later.

So the sexual assault, the strangulation, and the ripped clothing, are those three things enough, despite the fact that these victims are nine years apart and six years in a time span apart? Is that enough so far to say could be related? Oh, for sure. Okay. You know, especially with the torn clothing and

you know, there are aspects to the tearing. Some offenders will have a desire to take the clothing off in a certain way. And so part of the evaluation would be taking a look at Ada's clothing and how they were torn off versus Donna's clothing and how they were torn off. And if there is overlap with something unusual, then that would further tie these two cases together.

However, right now, I would say, you know, sexual assault and strangulation, you know, that's common when you are dealing with these types of victims. If the offender tore the clothing off in a particular way in both instances, then that would increase my confidence that these two cases are related, even though we have such a dramatic age difference between the two victims. Okay. Yeah.

Well, let's talk about two circumstances that the police look into that seem a little off the wall. Well, maybe not. One is there's a tip that comes in about a guy named David Curtis who's been nicknamed Baby Dave, and he is an eccentric newspaper vendor.

And there's just a tip that says somebody said, look at him for Donna's murder. And he quickly confesses. So he said that he followed Donna on her commute home, which she did, you know, every day. It was very regular. And he sprang upon her and fastened his fingers in her throat, ultimately strangling her to death.

But he later recants and says that he was coerced, which we know what that means, by investigators. And then he's released and never charged and never connected to anything. Yeah, and that's not specific enough information that would cause me to say, yes, this guy knows things that only the killer would know. And I would imagine...

If there is any press that the cause of death was very possibly published in the newspaper during this time frame. Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that the police key in on is there's a neighbor named Robert Keyes who said he heard sounds of a struggle coming from inside Donna's home, inside the Gilman home on the night that Donna died.

And this leads the police to arrest her mother, her older sister, and her brother, who is the one who found her across the way, you know, in the weeded lot. In connection with the crime, one thing that the coroner found when they checked under Donna's nails...

was a piece of a nail cuticle that he presumed was from the attacker. It wasn't one of Donna's cuticles. The coroner says that this piece of cuticle belongs to a white male. Is that possible to know that in 1900, to know the race of somebody based on their cuticle?

Okay. You have a quizzical look on your face. So there's a nail cuticle. So I guess when I think about what the cuticle is, I'm looking at like at the base of the fingernail. I think it's like the soft. When I think of cuticle, I think of like from manicures, it's the little soft bit. So it's flesh, I think. But I don't know how they would, just from a visual appearance, be able to identify that as cuticle material versus...

You know, let's say balled up skin from Donna scratching the offender. Yeah, that's confusing me. I I'm skeptical that it's actual cuticle material. I would say possibly more likely, which we typically see in these types of close encounters between the offender and the victim is cuticle.

being balled up underneath the fingernail. And I don't think I would put any weight, based on my experience in looking at this type of evidence, to be able to determine race based on what would be present underneath the fingernail.

the fingernails of the victim. Okay. So the rumor was that Donna's house was hostile, even abusive. And at the time of her death, the mom, even though people were saying she was abusive, was experiencing really bad health, including a heart condition. And so the police began saying to each other, and then the press began saying, could this really happen? Did this woman really do this?

because she's not in physical shape to do it. But the bigger deal was the police, nobody could figure out why this would have happened to begin with. And they eventually drop all the charges. This is a common theme in this episode, drop all the charges against the Gilman family. And the mom actually dies shortly after that. So it feels like they're grasping at straws with this particular case. This is typical, even today, of

in that most law enforcement is unfamiliar with how to recognize that they potentially have a sexually motivated offender and possibly somebody who's fantasy motivated and serial. You know, law enforcement is very good at working crimes in which the victim and the offender know each other, as in gangbang homicides or domestic violence disputes.

But when you have the weird happen, you know, most law enforcement has never worked a serial predator case, and they don't know how to recognize it. And so in this instance where you have an adult woman who's been, you know, her body has been disposed of, her clothes have been torn off, she's been sexually assaulted and strangled, my initial assessment is I'm dealing with a fantasy-motivated offender.

This is not a family member. This does not have the hallmarks of something that is domestic in terms of the types of violence that's being inflicted.

So when the original investigating agency is arresting the family, that informs me about their experience in working these types of sexually motivated crimes, which basically they don't have any. Yeah. And it's, of course, at the detriment to the family members who are obviously upset about Donna being killed. And now the police are grasping at straws.

So this goes cold, but the police have to turn their attention to another case. So this is about a year later. So we've gone from 1900 with Ada to 1906 with Donna. And now we're in August of 1907. And these are three people who become victims all at the same time. So this is a 20-something couple, early 20s.

Anna Markowitz and Abe Cohen, and they are going into a park called Lakeside Park, which is very close to McCabe Park. And Anna's little sister Bertha came with them. It is very dark outside. As the three of them are wandering around this park, a stranger approaches from behind, and Abe swings around and the man hits him on the back with a blunt object, which is believed to have been like a baton.

And we remember that the police thought that Ada had been attacked by maybe a cane, could have been a baton. That's what they thought one of the marks on her face was. So Abe was hit on the back with a baton. As he confronts the man, he is then shot two times in the stomach. So now there's a gun involved. So let me finish this bit of the story and you can tell me what you think. So now that he has shot Abe, he turns to Anna and Bertha.

And Bertha runs, the little sister. She escapes and runs towards a local home and gets help. Soon, a group of officers comes to the park. Abe is dying on the ground. And in the nearby bushes, they find Anna. She has been beaten. She's been sexually assaulted. And she's been strangled. She's been beaten.

She's got scratches on her face, bruises, as well as lots of injuries from hits. And her clothing, it doesn't say torn, but has been pulled up violently above her waist. So now what? Three people at the same time? Yeah, well, the offender has assessed the risk to him. And he sees, in essence, a family. And he goes after the biggest threat, the male.

It's important that he not only has a bludgeoning weapon with him, but he also has a gun with him. He uses the gun to neutralize the male and loses control of the youngest girl, but then focuses his attention on the adult female. And, you know,

This is where he's assessed his risk and has decided, based on the weapons he's equipped with, based on the location, that he would be able to take control of these three people. And so this is very telling to me that this offender is very self-confident. And the fact that the offender has both a bludgeoning weapon as well as a firearm, he is...

out there looking to attack somebody, and he's waiting for the right opportunity. Well, let me show you where this happened, because I actually do have a photo of the crime scene. It's a newspaper photo, but we'll take what we can get on this show. It says the cross marks the spot. Oh, I see the cross. Yeah. So picture this at night. I mean, there is

brush everywhere, trees everywhere. There is no visibility, at least from the vantage point of this photo. There is such dense vegetation. It happens to be occurring at a curve in the pathway. And I'm seeing somewhat of a bridge, like a little footbridge. Yeah, a little creek there. Mm-hmm.

from two different vantage points. You know, of course, the victim's walking down this path. If the offender is hiding in the brush, you know, his visibility at night is zero. They would have no clue as they walked past that there was somebody in this brush and he could pop out right behind them and try to hit Abe in the head with the blunt force instrument. But also, it's taking a look from the offender's perspective is what is his visibility

vision. How far can he see? How many different people can he see walking on this path? Chances are he's back there and he's just waiting for somebody to come or he's followed them and then has somehow been able to just hide until he finds the right location, which just appears to be a very good location in order to proceed with the attack.

I would liken this guy, we have a type of offender, the typical example, a woman walking or running, you know, on a trail, and then somebody pops out of the bushes, grabs and pulls back into the bushes, right? This is to me is like a trapdoor spider. So I'd call this like the trapdoor offender. He's taking advantage of the environment and just waiting for the prey to get close enough in order to be able to grab and then pull back

into the dense forest or the dense brush to prevent being seen. So he can do what he wants, particularly with the adult female in this particular attack. Does this now seem to tally with what happened with Ada and what happened with Donna? What happens with Anna and Abe happens very close to Donna. But are these different enough for you to say, oh, gosh, this doesn't sound like the same guy?

No. I think when I start assessing these types of cases, obviously there's a difference in terms of the number of victims in this last case and the fact that there's a man present. But take a look at where the offender is focusing his attention. It's on the adult female. Hmm.

He is isolating the adult female away. He is inflicting the same types of injuries. He's killing that adult female in the same way as Ada and Donna. The clothes are at least, you know, moved out of the way in order to accomplish a sexual assault. So his primary motive for this attack was directed at the adult woman. And there is enough overlap with the previous two cases that

that at least there has to be consideration that this is the same offender, particularly when you start talking about the geography of where these attacks are occurring. Experience the glamour and danger of the Roaring Twenties from the palm of your hand in

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Abe dies two days later from gunshots, and he is no help in identifying whoever did this. Bertha is, somewhat. She gives a very vague description, understandably so. She's completely traumatized. Her older sister has been murdered, and she says she didn't get a good look at his face, but she describes him as being between 25 and 30, tall, well-groomed, wearing dark clothing.

She does not give a race. Would that be unusual in the dark, pitch dark trauma, trauma, trauma happening? No, not at all. And, you know, I've had cases where witnesses have described the race and they're wrong, right?

We just have to take into account that Bertha, she's giving a general description. I wouldn't put much weight on the age, but you do have the height information, which if she's able to relate the height of, let's say, the offender relative to Abe, that would be significant. If she's able to basically say,

He was taller than Abe. You know, that gives me as an investigator at least some confidence in that characteristic. Okay. Before long, the police arrest somebody. And he is a black man who is described as developmentally disabled. His name is Leighton Hines. And there are two reasons why he was arrested, tried, and convicted for this double murder.

Nothing about weapons, nothing about motive, nothing about alibi, really. It is that he was spotted not far from the murder scene and that he had confessed.

to killing Abe and Anna. When he gets to court, he says, I did not mean it. I got, quote unquote, coerced by the police. I didn't do it. He's still convicted. But then later, he's exonerated and released because these murders don't stop. And the police are so convinced that this is a serial killer. Yeah. So in essence, he got lucky that the offender continued to a

Because otherwise, he likely would have spent the rest of his life in prison or have received the death penalty. Who knows? Yeah. So the next thing happens, the next event happens in late January 1909. So here's the math. I hate math, but I did it. Nine years after Ada's murder, the first murder, and about a year and some change from the last murder, which were Abe and Anna's murders. Now we go back down in age. So this is a 15-year-old.

And her name is Mary Froschner. And again, all within the same few blocks of these parks and this trolley line and, you know, this road, she was headed to the bank where she was sent to deposit from her family $9.00.

So she leaves her home at 6.15 p.m. on this late January night. And when she isn't home several hours later, her stepfather and a few other acquaintances start looking for her. And that night, they find her body on a nearby estate, a piece of land, which isn't far from where the previous victims had been discovered. Same thing. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death. Clothes pulled apart, pushed up, everything.

You know, this is where, you know, in terms of the circumstances, you have a victim who is isolated, you know, and that's an important aspect that I always take a look at, you know, is what kind of risk the offender has taken. And when victims are isolated, you know, that lowers the offender's risk and the offender is more willing to attack when there's low risk to himself. Mm-hmm.

Similar type of victim, even though, you know, you talk about a girl that's 15 years old, you know, this offender so far, you know, from 11 up until the early 20s, he seems to be, you know, focusing in on that segment. Similar, you know, you've got the sexual assault victim.

In any sexual assault, you typically see clothes awry. You know, that's something, unless there's something unusual, that that's not necessarily a characteristic that can be relied upon. But are they indicating in all these cases, they're saying indication of sexual assault? Are we just talking rape? Are we seeing other types of sex acts occurring on these victims? Yeah.

Well, out of propriety, I'm not sure how graphic they would be in the newspapers or any of the trial stuff. They're just saying indications of sexual assault. That could mean the removal of the panties. And what I had read on one of the second victim on Donna, severe bruising on her thighs was their indication. But I'm not sure they, you know, went as far as doing the autopsy to search for semen or whatever they would be looking for in 1900. Right.

Let me give you a couple more details, which I don't know if will be helpful. I'm sorry. So based on the prints left on Mary's neck, and we haven't heard this yet, based on prints left on Mary's neck, the latest victim, the 15-year-old, the attacker had enormous and powerfully large hands and

and was likely very tall. And they're basing that on the handprints on her neck and also on two sets of footprints found at the scene. There was a small print, which they think is Mary, of course, and then the offender. They said they were inconsistently laid out because they think that Mary had been dragged to the location where she was ultimately assaulted and killed. Now, the motive does not seem to be robbery because they found the $9 near her body and he didn't take it.

Okay. And $9 back in this timeframe is a fairly significant amount of money. Well, you're right. This is worth $326 today. So that is a significant amount of money. For him to not take that, wow. That is a little bit contradictory with the idea that you are dealing with

let's say, this somewhat transient population that's living in that park. Because I would imagine that those individuals are a little cash poor and the opportunity to grab $9

you know, from now this victim that you've killed, it would be way too tempting. They would want that. So now I'm a little bit curious as to why that $9 wasn't taken if we think the offender is coming out of this park and is somewhat destitute. So if it's like $327 today, I don't

Now, maybe this offender is somebody that doesn't need the money and he's just happening to prowl for victims in this particular neighborhood for some reason. And minimally, he has familiarity with this neighborhood. Well, is this when we talk about geographic profiling? Well, we most certainly can. Now, it's really tough. Right now, I've just got this very vague, all these attacks are occurring.

you know, near this trolley area, as well as this park where you have a transient population living, you know, that's significant from a geographic profile. However, the specific locations of the attacks are also as important as

And offenders, there's differing theories on how offenders operate. Some offenders will purposefully attack away from their home base or some other anchor point in their life.

other offenders will attack near their anchor points because that's where they are spending their time and they have familiarity. So it really just depends on the layout. I would have to, you know, and this is what I did with, I've done this in many cases, but notably Golden State Killer, where I have so many data points. You know, on Google Earth, I put push pins on every single attack location and started paying attention to the patterns, you know, the primary arterial roads,

the distance between attacks, et cetera, in order to assess what I could discern about the offender. And without going into great detail at all, I'll just say part of the geographic assessment I did was, well, this guy's Sacramento-based. And it's one of the things I was very right about when I was trying to predict who the offender was and where he was at. Once we caught D'Angelo, well, he was still living in Sacramento and was very Sacramento-based,

from his middle school age all the way up through adulthood, with a few exceptions in between. Well, all of this seems to speed up, and he is very comfortable with this area, so this will be interesting for you to hear. Once this information about this 15-year-old Mary Froschner gets out, people are horrified, and the murder of this young girl really freaks people out.

a number of people come forward who are witnesses. So here is everything that has happened. There is a witness whose name is Sam Morris. He said that the night that Mary died, around 9.20 p.m. Now, she went missing at 6.15 p.m. Around 9.20 p.m., he saw a man sitting on a fence, and he was looking at a dark spot in the fields, which is about where Mary was found.

He was sitting on the fence. When Sam tried to find out what the man was up to, he didn't get very close because the guy had a gun and threatened him. And Sam walked off. Now, again, nobody is giving a good description. No one's even saying race. I mean, I don't know why I'm surprised by this, but...

It just doesn't seem like anybody has a good beat on who this person could be. There are several other instances. Do you want me to tell you about those or do you want to comment on that? Well, I guess the question I have is he's sitting on the fence. I mean, how tall is this fence? Is this just a short fence that he's just kind of sitting and hanging on? Or is he like on top of a six-foot fence, like he's getting over a barrier and then taking advantage of being up high to spot a potential victim off in the distance? Yeah.

I don't know. It just says sitting on a fence and glancing at a dark spot in the fields. That's all that Sam could see. Okay. We have to think this is her killer and he has a gun. If he has a gun, why not shoot her? I mean, I don't know. I don't even want to get into shooting versus strangling. No, that's actually a very important point is, I mean, offenders will carry a firearm for self-preservation in case they are confronted either by other men or by the police. But

their intent is not to use the gun on the victim. Some offenders, the primary motive is sexual assault and how they kill the victim doesn't matter to them because all they're doing is eliminating the witness.

For other offenders, your fantasy-motivated serial killers, how they kill the victim is just as important as what they do to the victim sexually or with other behaviors. So this particular offender, strangulation is his preference. The gun is just a backup for self-preservation in case something goes sideways. Like Abe. Like Abe, for sure. Abe made things go sideways, and that's why he was shot twice in the stomach.

Okay. So I've said that Sam Morris saw this creepy guy sitting on a fence, staring at something, and he was threatened with a gun. There is a woman who reports that just before that, 20 minutes before, around nine o'clock, she got off of a trolley near her home. Again, all of this from all the way back from 1900 within blocks of each other. She

She got off of the trolley near her home. She said a guy appeared out of nowhere and began chasing her, and he gave up when she made it into her house. Of course, she couldn't describe him. I mean, nobody has a description of this guy. So that's 20 minutes before Sam Morris saw him sitting on a fence. Yeah, so if it's the same guy. And I've worked cases where you have these types of incidences that are not related,

But let's make the assumption it's the same guy. He's obviously just waiting for a victim in the right place. And so if he sees this last woman, what was her name? Her name was Mrs. John Sheff.

If Mrs. Sheff just happened to be the first potential victim he ran across, she gets away. He's still out there. It's not like, I mean, you would think about this is there's got to be this mindset of, well, is she alerting law enforcement? Now, back during this time frame, it's not like she's

She's probably getting on a landline and calling in. Yeah. Right. So, you know, this probably reduces the offender's concern about, oh, I just chase this woman. The cops are going to be swarming the area and I need to get out of here. So he probably realizes he still has the ability to hang out in his hunting ground and wait for another victim that isolates herself.

And that's where now you get the 15-year-old girl that if he's up on that fence and spots her, he's now going, okay, there's another victim. And this man approaches him and he just waves a gun at him and has no concern because nobody's calling law enforcement during this era.

Well, then something else happens. Two days after Mary was killed and Mrs. Schiff was attacked, there's a woman who's living close to the crime scene who's identified anonymously, Mrs. Powers in the papers.

She said she was assaulted by a stranger. So this is two days later. She said, I was standing outside my house. A man came out of nowhere, grabs her, begins to strangle her, leaving bruises on her throat. She must have been in an isolated place because he then starts to forcibly remove her clothes, starts ripping off her clothes. But before he sexually assaulted her, the husband appears and chased him off. So she was forced.

full-on attacked. He doesn't sexually assault her only because the husband shows up right outside her house. Two days later, right near the crime scene of the last one. It's like a frenzy. This is his hunting ground. Well, and he's snowballing. Sounds like Bundy. Remember when Bundy escaped? I think it was the first time when he escaped. I can't remember which one. It was just like this spree that he went on. It feels like a frenetic thing happening with this guy. And

And this is a cluster. And whether or not it continues for any length of time or it's just in a discrete period of time, you haven't given me those details yet. But let's evaluate the East Area Rapist series, the Golden State Killer. But he had the Northern California phase of sexual assaults. There were times when he would attack people.

you know, once a week, twice a week, and then there would be gaps and no attacks. And then there are times when he attacked several times a day. And then we have longer gaps of several months during this series. And it turns out, I've learned subsequently that like one of the biggest gaps, a family member had come up from Southern California and he was hanging out with that family member and he couldn't go out and prowl and attack. So it's just, you know, life circumstances happen that prevent the offenders from attacking. Yep.

Now, if we have this cluster out here in Dayton, it's telling me the offender is able to get out to commit these attacks during this time frame. But possibly there is something going on in his personal life that is causing him to want to go out and attack.

We have one murder left that we can say police feel like belong in this string of a serial killer. So Mary is murdered in late January. This happens in early February, same year. So you have to think within weeks. There's an 18-year-old named Elizabeth Fullhart. She had just moved to Dayton and she vanished forever.

Okay. So, you know, a cistern, do we have to talk about that? I think we've talked about cisterns before I've written about them. Yeah.

It's not a well, but it's a place where you would keep water in the 1800s, early 1900s. It's waterproof. It's lined with something. So it's not like you're dumping water into a well. So her body was found in a cistern, which would not feel too different than shoving someone's body in an outhouse, which is what happened with Ada in 1900s.

Right. It's another place to hide the body. So, you know, most certainly there's enough overlap. Victimology, you know, geographic aspects, body disposal sounds like it could be the same offender to me. So here's the problem. The situation feels different to investigators. The issue is that she's been waterlogged for a couple of weeks and

So they can't find obvious signs of strangulation like fractured bones because obviously she's so decomposed that they think is the only way they would really be able to determine if she were definitively strangled. What do you think about that? So they can't tell if she's actually been strangled.

So there are harder structures that probably would still be present with her body, such as the cartilage structures to her trachea, her voice box, as well as the hyoid bone, which when there is strangulation, these structures can be damaged. And that damage several weeks later possibly would still be present for the pathologist to be able to ascertain that there had been violence inflicted to her neck.

Those types of injuries are not always present in strangulation. You know, so it's possible she was strangled, and yet you don't see those structures showing damage. Well, let's talk about the couple of things that seem consistent. So one, let's just assume she was strangled. We're not sure, but we can assume she strangled maybe. Number two, this is very close to the trolley stop, which is not far from where the other victims were.

were found. This is also a case where she was missing her underwear. So they, of course, at this point don't know whether she was sexually assaulted, but there's no underwear, which happened in a couple of the cases. So that's what really made them feel like this was connected, especially, of course, because Mary had just been murdered. These women had just been attacked a few weeks earlier. It just seemed too coincidental.

The things that are not consistent, and you tell me if this is a big deal or not, they were really feeling like the other women and the girls who had been murdered were sort of not hidden very well. They were just dumped. Even Ada in 1900, the 11-year-old, was in her family's outhouse. So she would have been discovered there.

But Elizabeth was hidden very well in the cistern. I mean, it was weeks and weeks before people found her. She had been fully clothed. Her clothes were not ripped apart. And actually, her body had been wrapped in a burlap sack. So this is different. But is it different enough to say, oh, no, I mean, there's no way this is the same guy? I would put this as a tweener because there are cases, you know, like I've assessed a

series of victims where we know the offender has committed all the cases.

And it is very typical to see differences from case to case to case. These offenders don't necessarily commit crimes. It's not cookie cutter. You know, there is differences. Either these differences are because of the circumstances that come up during the attack, the environment in which the attack occurs, who the victim turns out to be. You know, the victim, as I say, victimology is huge.

Or sometimes offenders, you know, they will change their M.O. based on prior experience in order to help them continue to commit attacks. In essence, they're recognizing they've made mistakes and so they learn from their mistakes or they like to experiment. And that experimentation is where, you know, they've heard of something, they've read something, they've seen something.

whatever. And they go, well, I want to try that. And so you may have this weird case that looks completely different than the previous cases. And you go, that's a different case. Well, it turns out, no, it's just the offender playing around, trying to say, oh, I think I might get off doing this behavior, if you will.

And then deciding, no, that doesn't work for me. And then going back to the typical MO. You know, with this last case, they're at least the geographic proximity. You have a female victim. You have a body disposal. You know, that is in line with these previous cases. The difference is, you know, the lack of removal of the clothing and due to the time passage can't determine cause of death or potential sexual assault. Yeah.

But I'm not so concerned that she's been hidden. That just may be the offender is aware that that feature is present and put her body down there. The burlap sack is something that's different. Again, I would have to assess, well, what is the purpose that burlap sack is needed? Is that for transport purposes?

And if there is any, you know, some of these burlap sacks have like labels on them, you know, is there anything that would indicate, you know, the origin of this burlap sack? You know, so that could be a significant piece of evidence. Just because it's occurring in the same geography, we have the same victimology, if you will, in terms of female in the right age, I would at least consider this as being part of the series. But

but also need to make sure that I'm looking at the possibility it isn't. Okay. Let's fast forward about 100 years because no one is arrested for Elizabeth's murder either. So these are all cold cases, whether they're together or not. None of them have been solved. So in 2015, there is a man named

Brian Froschner, you recognize his last name. This is Mary Froschner, the 15-year-old who left with the $9. This is her great-nephew. And he writes a book called Cold Cereal, The Jack the Strangler Murders. Great title.

And ahead of the publication, Brian has worked tirelessly to try to link all of these cases. And he said it seems really to be based on location and, as you were saying, sort of the MO, the way things are laid out. He thinks he knows who the killer is, and it's someone who the police had looked at, and it was really, I think, based on really the last case.

He thinks it's a guy named Smith Hick White. This is a black man. This is why I think the burlap sap comes in, okay? So this is a man who has a pretty extensive history of violent, sexually motivated behavior. In 1900, the same year,

Mm-hmm.

He was a janitor at that synagogue. So I wonder if he is finally in a location where he knows he has privacy, he's at the synagogue, and he knows next door there's a vacant house, and maybe the burlap sack is finally like the thing where he thinks, I should have been able to do this, but he was kamikaze-ing the rest of the time. And now finally this is like a situation where maybe he can control the evidence a little bit better.

I might be wrong about that, but that's where I was wondering if this is the same guy. I wonder if it's like, okay, well, finally he can take a moment. Well, and that may be, you know, the fundamental change is instead of being out in the wild, so to speak, with the other cases,

You know, now he has a victim in a protected environment. And with Elizabeth being found in the cistern fully clothed, offenders do redress their victims or make the victims redress before killing them. You know, I gave a presentation today.

a few months back to the International Coroners Association. And I told this entire group, I've got 700 plus pathologists and death investigators from all across the world. And I say,

I don't care if the victim is fully clothed. You still process her body for sexual assault evidence and other DNA evidence because offenders do redress victims. So there may be that aspect because now he can take time with Elizabeth in this protected environment, assuming it's occurring either in the synagogue or at this vacant house.

And now he's taken the time to redress her and then knows of the sister and knows that she won't be found for a period of time. The burlap sack is still interesting to me. You know, anytime the offender does something that is not needed, that's where I start focusing in on. And I have to see how this burlap sack was used there.

It may have just been to ball her up inside this sack. So if he's seen outside carrying this heavy object, nobody can recognize it as a human body. It may be as something, just a disguise. I would have to evaluate it a little bit further. The dragging the little girl at the fairgrounds, you know, kind of...

to a hidden area. I think that's how you described it. He, he, remember I mentioned that trap door spider type of offender. Yeah. That's what he was doing. And also that right there lines up with the way the offender, at least with the, you know, up until Elizabeth, the way the offender was attacking the prior victims. So that's consistent.

I think there's something to be said about with what the author Froschner is writing. I'm going, okay, you know, there is enough there where I would consider him. There's always suspects, right?

but I would, I say, okay, I've got a prime suspect. However, I caution, I've seen too many prime suspects that add up and only to be eliminated with DNA. You know, so that's, that's the, the, the frustrating part sometimes with these really old cases. We've talked about Jack the Ripper and I've said, well, that's an unsolvable case. You can come up with circumstantial evidence against multiple men as being Jack the Ripper, but you can't

prove it. I don't care how many circumstances that you bring up. Same thing with this particular suspect. There's some circumstances there I like, but because I've been burned by circumstances turning out to be coincidences, I'd want to see that objective identifying evidence to say, yes, he is right.

But I give him kudos that he's at least identified somebody that I, having some expertise with this, go, yes, he's looking at the right characteristics. And just to add to it, when White is kind of publicized as maybe a suspect, all kinds of people come forward saying,

in this time period and say, "He was a predator. He tried this with me. He tried that with me." He also has large hands. I know that doesn't really make a difference, but that's just another little bit. Now, last little bit.

And tell me what you think about this. So the first instance happens in 1900 with Ada. That's the first murder. And he goes to prison in 1910 for raping and choking a girl at the synagogue I told you about where he worked.

So he's never been arrested at all for any of these murders. It's simply going to jail for rape and for choking a girl. While he is in prison in 1910, this all stops. It never happens again. No more rapes like this, not with these circumstances.

So he's convicted in 1910. He escapes in 1912. He goes to Cincinnati area, not far from Cincinnati, and he's on the run for 10 years until a girlfriend turns him in. In that 10 years, three women in that area vanish.

And they feel like it's connected. Brian Froschner at least feels like it's kind of weird that this happens. I don't have a lot of details of these women going missing. But the big point was all of it stopped when he went to prison, in Dayton at least. Yeah, you might be disappointed in my answer with this. I know what you're going to say. He could have just moved or...

He was done. He aged out of all of this. I have just looked at so many men. I know. You know, and that's a data point where, oh, they're in custody. We don't have any attacks while they're in custody or, you know, they've died and no more attacks after, you know, this person died. And it turned out that was just coincidence. There's something to be said about Smith and he's devastating.

Definitely a prime suspect in my mind in terms of how the details, the characteristics of his known predatory behavior and his geographic proximity, that all seems to add up. And

It's just I can't ever get away from knowing that coincidences do occur. Yeah.

You know, my hope would be is that, and it's a long shot, I've rarely seen departments with, you know, cases from this vintage still having evidence, you know. But if they happen to have it, of course, the technology today exists to be able to show whether or not Smith was truly responsible for some, if not all, of these cases.

Well, and I don't want to harp on this, but I find it interesting that some of these suspects were black and all of the victims were white. I don't know if it's the time of night when this happened, the trauma, everything, but no one can even talk about race in this case.

Smith Hick White is black. So you would think that's the first thing in 1900 someone would say. What does that say? Does that say the trauma and the darkness and the just fastness of all of these crimes coming in and doing it and leaving?

Is that just all say, boy, you can't even do an identification that you would at least think they would be able to say whether the person was black or white? All of that in terms of, you know, the traumatic aspect as well as the darkness. But

also recognize, you know, you're dealing with just a few potential witnesses. We don't even know if these witnesses saw the actual offender, except for Bertha, the family group that was out there walking. But this type of offender is committing a blitz attack. We know with Abe, he comes up from behind, and Abe just happens to sense something to start turning around before he's hit on the head and then shot.

He doesn't get a good look at the offender. Bertha is running away, right? You know, and this is at night. It's sudden. We have so many limited witnesses, and I think it's only Bertha that truly can say she saw the offender in that particular case. So it's not surprising that we're not getting a description that has a strong... You know, the race characteristic is...

One of those things that typically is a very, you put a lot of weight on it because most people under the right circumstances are able to say, I'm seeing white, I'm seeing black, I'm seeing somebody of color. But in this, under these circumstances, it doesn't surprise me at all.

Well, I think Smith Hick White is an excellent suspect in all of this. And I want to give the family member, Brian Froschner, incredible credit for this, for a great nephew, 100 years later, trying to solve, you know, a case that came from his family. And I talk about this all the time in the books that I write, in the podcasts, how important it is in your family history that these mysteries have

closure, even if you didn't know these people hundreds of years later, there are people... I mean, this man spent years trying to figure out if his family member had been part of a string of serial killer murders, and he believes it. I give him a lot of credit for that, boy. That was a lot of work that he did. I do think, you know, based on everything that you told me, that there is a serial killer at work here. And...

Smith is a prime suspect. But again, if and when, you know, the physical evidence exists and can be processed, there's always just going to be, you know, that little footnote. Yeah. You know, in terms of circumstantial case, don't know for sure. Well, Paul, I might, and I can't believe I'm saying this, I might, might, might be warming up to unsolved cases. Oh, wow. Maybe. Don't be expecting these every week. It's not going to happen every week.

But I am going to keep a good eye out for you because I know you enjoy them so much. They just give me the heebie-jeebies sometimes. Well, think of it this way. You've got a good book in front of you, and you get to write the last chapter. Oh, that was very profound, Paul Holes. Every now and then, I pull something out. With that, I'll see you next week. All right. Sounds good. Take care. Bye.

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 bestselling memoir, Unmasked, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, is also available now.