The Game's Afoot PT 2
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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.

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. ♪♪

How's it going, Kate? It's going well. I'm reading through my notes because, as you know, I left you on a cliffhanger last week with our case of Grace Asquith, and I'm ready to jump right to it. I would love to know what you had for breakfast this morning and what your fish are doing, but we're going to skip over the small talk. Okay.

and get right into this case. Is that okay with you? I guess. I was really hoping to let you know my three fried eggs turned out great, but let's get going. Three fried eggs. Okay, maybe we will circle back to that later. Okay, so let's get an update on this case. So we are in Boston and it is 1936.

and some public workers discovered two body parts and then quickly a third body part floating in the river in these sort of potato sacks. It's in Boston Harbor, actually. Eventually, the police identify the victim as 41-year-old Grace Asquith, who is a widow, quite a wealthy widow, and she lives at a lake house, which is

really more like a little cottage. They say that because of her dainty feet, they are initially able to identify her. And when they go to the scene, there is blood everywhere, except in the kitchen where there's a bizarre scene of corned beef halfway cooked on the stove and three glasses with some whiskey at a table and blood everywhere but in this kitchen.

Nothing's stolen, and her boyfriend is in the wind. This is a man she's been with for a few years. They apparently had a really nice relationship, and no one can locate him. And the big question that we discussed right at the end of the last episode is, is this man simply a suspect who will be cleared?

Is he an offender or is he a victim in this case? And I think it's all three right now because we don't know enough about what's happening. Yeah, you know, and something I didn't pick up on when you were talking during the first episode, I remember you saying that the table was set for three. Yeah, I was wondering if you were going to ask about that. Were there three glasses all with whiskey in them? I'll tell you what the scene says.

It is a table set for three people with a bottle of whiskey and used glasses nearby. I have not read anything about fingerprints, so they must not have gotten anything usable. Okay. We do have the one bloody footprint at the scene. Correct. But just one. There isn't evidence of multiple people walking around in blood. Just one bare footprint. All right.

So this opens up the possibility that this wasn't just Grace and a single person going to have dinner, but possibly there may have been another person present. Correct. So there might have been three people. The only thing we can assume right now is Grace is one of those people because she's the victim. Yes. As we talked about in the last episode, the police are...

trying everything they can to solve this. There's a $500 reward. There's all-point bulletins. They're looking in America. They're looking in Europe. There's photos of John. Where is this man? We cannot figure out where he is. Okay.

So let's talk a little bit more about Grace and other men, because we haven't talked about Grace and other men yet. And I don't mean this in a positive way, because Grace was having problems with someone before she was murdered, and it wasn't John. In the early days of the investigation, which is sort of when they were putting out the reward information for John Lyons, they were

someone spotted one of the bulletins and came forward and said, I am Grace Asquith's attorney. His name was George Locus. And he went to the police station and said, I have someone for you to talk to. His name is Oscar Bartolone, and he did odd jobs at the Asquith house. He understood where everything was in the house.

He was friendly at first with Grace and with John. But now the attorney says, because she's been murdered and John is gone, I am suspicious. And if you're going to talk to anybody, Oscar's the person that you speak with.

This reminds me a little bit of the Sam Shepard case. Ultimately, we believe a window washer or window repairman was the one who was responsible for murdering Sam Shepard's wife. It is the opportunity. This is somebody who might have been let in, and this is someone who knew, you know, the space and maybe knew her schedule. So this is someone in her circle, not the closest person to her, but somebody who was definitely in her circle.

Right. And somebody who probably doesn't have much in terms of financial assets, you know, and of course, Grace has a fairly sizable bank account as well as having valuables in the house, but we also have nothing taken from inside the crime scene. Right. If we are now considering the possibility that Grace and two

guests were present prior to Grace being killed. You have Oscar and John. How well did they know each other? Is it possible that they could team up in a conspiracy in order to kill Grace and benefit from that?

Or does Oscar have the capability of being able to take on both John and Grace at the same time if Oscar is the one that is responsible for Grace's homicide? Well, and one of the issues with this story is we don't know specific relationships, the friendly aspect of the relationship. We don't know how much Oscar and John and Grace might have spent time together because, of course, Grace is dead and John is gone.

and on the run or something. So the reason that George, the attorney, is alarmed is he says a month before, if we're going to believe police and say that this happened, let's say mid-September, the month before Grace had come to her attorney's office and Grace said that Oscar, this handyman, one night broke into her house.

and he attacked her. The attorney said that she had bruises and she had a black eye. He attacked her while she was sleeping. We're going to presume this was an attempted rape. And this is terrifying to me. He got into her home by crawling through a trap door from the basement garage. That is my worst nightmare. Somebody crawling in the walls to get into the house.

Oscar's relationship with Grace is he's a handyman. He works around the house. And inside. He's been in and out of the house. Okay. Do we know, does he have full access to the house even when Grace isn't there? I don't know if he has a key. I doubt it. But I don't know if she said, hey, if you need to fix anything, you can come by anytime. Sure. But after this happened...

She had, I think, locked her door before, but after this happened, she was incredibly alarmed. And so this is the victim saying very clearly that a man had assaulted her in the past. And now the attorney is saying, you need to pay attention to this guy, Oscar.

Yeah, you know, and Oscar obviously is becoming a very interesting person in this investigation. Now, we go back to the potential dinner of three people. It doesn't sound like Oscar would be somebody that Grace would welcome to her dinner table after this potential rape attack. Probably not. Let me give you some more information and then you can surmise what you'd want from this.

The attorney, when he heard this story, said, you need to go to the police. You need to press charges. And she said no. Let's first talk about the various reasons why people don't press charges. This is not her husband or her boyfriend. Why would somebody not press charges against someone who's not in their inner circle? Are there reasons?

You know, it's very much a personal reason. You talk to, you know, survivors of sexual assault and they make the decision as to whether or not they're going to come forward and alert law enforcement. And the reasons they do that are varied. For some, the idea of becoming a victim of sexual assault varies.

is something that they just don't want to confront. They don't want to live with that. You have others that I could see in this situation with Grace. You know, Grace has a certain social status. And here's Oscar, who she may be sympathetic to in terms of he's probably lower income. You know, maybe she doesn't want to impact his life any further and is more forgiving of the type of physical violence that he inflicted on her.

There's so many reasons, you know, and it's hard to say up front. I don't even know if Oscar knows something about Grace that he could hold over her head. Well, you mentioned the reason why she said to the attorney, I know I'm not going to do it, which is she didn't want any publicity.

She was somewhat in the public eye, and she just didn't want any attention brought on herself, which is understandable. She was scared. She was scared by this man. Here are a couple of interesting facts. She never told her boyfriend about Oscar's break-in, and she told the attorney that she had not told him. The idea that I get from the research is that it's because John was in and out of town all the time, and...

She just didn't see him privately for a while. And the last time people believed they saw each other, Grace's sister was also there. And so there was not a moment where they could really chat about what happened. But she was alarmed enough that she had told her friend Isabel that she was afraid of Oscar.

and that she was afraid something was going to happen to her, and she wasn't really sure what to do, but that she had really tried to get a new lock and really secure the house as much as possible. Yeah, and investigators at this point in time need to be making a beeline to wherever Oscar's at and now talking to him. You know, John's in the wind. Now Oscar is a prime suspect because he's already shown that

that he has a predisposition to violence towards Grace because of a recent event. I agree. So they do go to Oscar because unlike John Lyons, Oscar is there and he's available. He is married. He's a father of three. His family, though, was not in the United States. They were living in Italy where he was from. He was a former chef and now he was working as a butcher. Okay.

Okay. It's another coincidence. So I know that we have said butchers and surgeons should not be given preferential treatment when looking at suspects, but this was obviously a coincidence. But this is someone who works with knives, obviously, and is very comfortable with them. Sure, and very comfortable with taking bodies apart. Yeah. So when the police get to Oscar and they bring him in, they start asking all of their questions about,

"'How long have you known Grace?' He said, "'I've known her about five years, up until the murder.' And he said, "'I had nothing to do with this.' And they said, "'When was the last time that you saw her?' He said, "'September 19th. He had whiskey with Grace and John at her house.'"

So he is literally placing himself at the crime scene the night that likely Grace was killed. Does this seem smart to you? It doesn't seem very smart to me for him to do that. Unless he's telling the truth.

And he has nothing to do with Grace's homicide. You know, he'd be in far worse shape if he lied about it and said, oh, I wasn't there. And then evidence comes to light that would prove that he had been there that night. Then that becomes even more suspicious.

I think the police are thinking about all those things. I think they're also thinking that he is not American and he's from another country, which in the 1930s was not very helpful to someone who was an immigrant, who the police are looking at for the murder of a beautiful white woman. And that's just the facts. There's some of that at play.

here, too. They start searching the house, his house, and they find burlap sacks that match the ones used to wrap up Grace's body. We've talked about this, though. These are sacks that they found at her house. These are sacks that a lot of people had. So this is just a little bit of circumstantial evidence, but helpful for police if they really feel like he's the one who did this. Yeah.

To a point. Okay. I would need to know more. It's sort of like in this day and age, we deal with body parts that get thrown into trash bags. Well, who has trash bags? Everybody has trash bags. And that is, well, what brand of trash bag? You try to break it down as much as possible, but it's still, there's a lot of people that will have that. Now, is it possible to physically match

Let's say the source of trash bags from the suspect's house to the trash bags that the victim's body parts were in. And there's various ways that that can be done from whether it's just, you know, where these trash bags were formally joined together to looking at extrusion marks during the manufacturing process to see do those line up properly.

And it helps kind of put greater association to that evidence. Right now, all I'm hearing is burlap bags. I'm going, that's not blowing my socks off from an evidence standpoint. There needs to be something more. Was there a special brand, a rare brand? Or did they find trace evidence that was somewhat unusual that's shared between the source of the bags at Oscar's house and then what was found on the body? Something more needs to be present.

Well, I think that they were less discerning about evidence than you are, clearly, because this next bit of evidence will even less blow your socks off, if that's even a phrase. So,

So remember, she was missing green curtains, and she was also found, her body parts were found wrapped in green curtains. Police found very similar green curtains. Of course, they could not say definitively if these were the ones that came from her house, but they found green curtains. They were on sale at a store near his home. So it sounded to me like they felt like these were curtains that maybe he had tried to repurpose, or simply just as a note that this,

you know, he is in the vicinity of these green curtains. Maybe hers aren't the missing ones. Maybe he bought ones in this store. It just seems very haphazard for them to even list this as a piece of evidence in this case. With these green curtains, I would want to know, did he purchase those green curtains, you know, in the days after Grace was likely killed? Yeah. Can we show that they are the same, you know, make model of green curtains that the store was selling?

And in thinking about the disposal of the body, burlap sacks are not watertight. They're not bloodtight. So it almost is as if the offender dismembered her body, possibly not knowing how these body parts were packaged. But I'm thinking that the offender is aware blood is going to be seeping out of these body parts. And I need something that is more bloodtight than just burlap sacks.

Yeah, and I don't know if the offender is thinking clearly at all. If you take these two men, I guess John Lyons is an ex-soldier, and he was getting a pension, and then you've got this other guy, Oscar. I'm not sure either one of them are master criminals here, and I'm wondering how quickly this happened, because...

If it's John and he knows her schedule and he knows who is likely to show up, like is Isabel going to come visit in the next couple of days, then John can take his time. Oscar doesn't know her schedule that well, and Oscar might not know who's going to pop up any day. So it seems like he would have to move more quickly. What do you think? Am I profiling too much? Did I go overboard?

You know, well, most certainly the offender having knowledge of what potentially could interrupt the commission of the crime, which is including the cleanup aspect of the crime, that's going to influence the offender's actions for sure.

sure. And John being, I'm assuming, an intimate partner of Grace is knowing what is going to be happening in that house and knows how much time he would have in order to accomplish this crime versus Oscar. I'm still kind of curious if Grace was telling the truth and Oscar assaulted her, broke into the house and attacked her the month prior, what's he doing in that house? He is admitting he was in that house at night drinking whiskey with John.

How did that come to pass? Did Grace invite him over? Did John invite him over? Did he just show up and those two were just having dinner and they invited him in? You know, this is all part of the interview process to start to piece together, you know, what are the events that led up to Oscar being in the house the night of the homicide? Well, let's go back a little bit and I'll give you a little bit more information about Oscar and his relationship with Grace.

So after this attack happened where she didn't press charges, which was in mid to late August, this is about six weeks before she died. After that attack happened, Grace said she had stronger locks installed on the house. And Oscar came back September 16th. He came back a few days before this supposed whiskey, you know, extravaganza happened and

And when he came back, John again was out of town. He was gone. She told Isabel that she kept the door barred and told him to never come back. But he kept coming back. He came back the next day and then the next day after that. When you say he's coming back, he's like knocking on a front door and asking to come in? Or is he actually breaking into the house? No, he's trying to come in. It's as if he didn't realize he did something wrong. So in essence now, Oscar is a stalker.

It sounds like. And a very violent stalker, too. So this is what the attorney says. And we are getting to a point where they're going to arrest Oscar soon. Grace's attorney said what happened after he kept coming back. So he came back September 16th. He came back the 17th. He came back the 18th. He said, I don't know what happened after that last event, September 18th, which is the day before this whiskey thing happened.

He said, because of course I didn't see her after that, but she told me that he came back day after day. The attorney says, I believe that Oscar returned on Saturday the 19th and managed to get inside. So what he says is interesting. He says he got inside and he believes he was the one who was responsible, but he says Oscar probably called John Lyons. So the attorney believes in his heart that they were in on it together.

that John Lyons and Oscar were in it together. And I'm assuming to get Grace Asquith's money is what he thinks. Okay, and is there any details to substantiate that Oscar and John have that kind of relationship? No, other than Oscar's claim that he and John and Grace had a whiskey together, which just seems outlandish compared to, you know, when you contrast that with the information she gave her own attorney. Yeah. So...

Her picture is, this guy's terrorizing me. The attorney's picture is, she's being terrorized. She was murdered by this guy. And I think that he contacted John Lyons too, but I'm not 100% sure. It's just like a gut instinct that he had. There's no phone records for them to track down. And John is gone still. So there was no way to prove it. I think he just felt like this seemed a little too much like a setup.

in order for maybe John to get some of the money. Now, they're not married. So how is John getting money anyway from Grace? The money is not going to go to him. It's probably going to the sister, I would guess. Yeah, there's a lot that just isn't adding up. This relationship between these three, it doesn't make any sense.

from a perspective of financial motive, just because Grace is killed doesn't mean John's going to get her assets. So there must be a mechanism that he can exploit in order to be able to get some sort of financial assets from her, whether it be access to her account or

which, you know, back in 1936, it's not like he could go to an ATM and anonymously withdraw money. I imagine he would have to go into a bank. Right. You know, and then there would have to be all sorts of fraud occurring for him to be able to gain access to her account. And then Oscar, I mean, he is the last person Grace is going to be socializing with. You know, so there's something not adding up in any of this.

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

turns, and catchy tunes, all leading you deeper into the thrilling storyline. This is your chance to test your detective skills. And if you play well enough, you could make it to the detective club. There, you'll chat with other players and compete with or against them. June needs your help, but watch out. You never know which character might be a villain. Shocking family secrets will be revealed, but will you crack this case? Find out as you escape this world

and dive into June's world of mystery, murder, and romance. Can you crack the case? Download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. That's June's Journey. Download the game for free on iOS and Android.

So the idea that Bartolini called Lyons, that Oscar called John, is a little curious. And the police think that might have happened, right?

They think that what happened was not that John was in on it. They believe he is the second victim. They think there is so much blood that there have to be two victims. They think that either John was there and Oscar killed both of them, or more likely that he got in just as he had been trying to do. He managed to get himself in. He killed Grace during an attempted sexual assault and

and then called potentially John Lyons to come over and then killed him too. Now, the motive for that, I have no idea, but the police really believe that John Lyons is dead. He's not gone. And for me, this is where with this crime scene and the lack of cleanup that the offender did throughout the house where all this blood is, I would expect that if I were to see Lyons

Inside this crime scene that I would see evidence of two homicide victims that had been dismembered. So on October 30th, 1936, so this is about a month after all of this is discovered, he is indicted on three offenses, three different offenses. Murder with an unknown instrument, breaking and entering from the 9th of the 18th, the initial attack, and assault with intent to rape, which is also with that August 18th.

So the murder and then two offenses from what happened in August. And he has put on trial. He just said, I didn't have anything to do with this. The last thing I could tell you is I had friendly drinks with these two and I left. He's in total denial that anything happened in August, that he's been breaking into anybody's house.

So there are people who are on the witness stand. There's an x-ray specialist who reportedly used a projector to show photographs of Grace's skull and pinpointed six different fractures on her forehead and her cheeks and the top of her skull and the base, which is consistent with the state's theory that she had been bludgeoned to death.

And this is what led to her death. I know this doesn't really matter that much, especially because they can't find the weapon. But that also seems like something that could happen to a severed head in a potato sack that's bouncing around a rocky harbor for several weeks. Well, this is where...

the competence of the pathologist comes into play. Let's say you have a bludgeoning that's occurring while the victim's alive and you have lacerations, you know, to the scalp. The margins of those lacerations are going to show blood flow. The heart is still pumping. You got bleeding that is occurring. Now,

Being in the water, the wound margins may not appear as distinct as if she had been found fresh. A lot of this, your favorite subject, could be answered by blood patterns present at the house. If she's receiving multiple blows to her scalp and now you're having blood spatter patterns that are being deposited...

That would help corroborate that, yes, this is likely where the bludgeoning occurred in the house and that these wounds were not post-mortem as a result of the actions in the water or the disposal process itself.

The extent of the wounds also, I think, would come into play. If you're seeing depressed skull fractures, multiple areas, I would attribute that more to intentional violence than something, you know, this head just kind of floating around and possibly, you know, bumping into rocks and stuff on the shoreline.

And again, this is not something that I think particularly matters, but I find interesting. The x-ray specialist said that Grace's legs had several fractures, but these were all believed to have been made post-mortem. Can you tell that, really? I mean, I know you can tell an old fracture, but how can you tell the difference between he broke her legs while she was alive and her legs were intentionally broken or accidentally broken when they were tossed into the harbor after she died? It doesn't matter. I just think it's interesting. Yeah.

We talk anti-mortem and post-mortem, you know, before death, after death. But oftentimes, a lot of the wounding characteristics to the body fall within this perimortem range. You can't say it's before death or after death. It's just kind of around the time of death. And that's where these fractures, unless there was something really significant to show that they occurred well after death—

And I can't imagine what that would be right now. I would say these fractures at best could just be characterized. These appear to be perimortem. So let's talk a little bit about the tiny, tiny bit of forensics they did have. The footprint, Oscar, for what it's worth, his foot seemed to match the footprint. Now, do I think that they're examining the whorls and the swirls and everything else like they should be doing? Probably not. Not in 1936. Okay.

Do I think they looked and said, yeah, this matches his size, basically, in a roundabout kind of way? Yes. And that's what I think they did. It was just more evidence to put forward. It is. You know, it's an association. It's just how strong of an association is it? Did he have anything unusual about the size of his feet? Did he have any unusual—

disfigurements, because that sometimes is something that comes into play. So that's where, you know, for me to weigh in and say, oh, it's got to be Oscar's footprint and the victim's blood at the scene. Well, if it's the size, it's not an exclusion. And that's the strongest statement you can make. I agree. So let's talk a little bit about the motive and the timeline. The motive seems pretty straightforward. The state says that Oscar was infatuated with Grace and

He was aggressive with her. She was fearful of him and just wanted him to go away. And the state believes that he had gone on a bender with alcohol and flew into a rage when he finally was able to get into the house and then killed her. And then they, of course, think that either John was there or John was called there and that Oscar killed him too. And there's no evidence of John, body parts, nothing popping up.

So this fits in with what they say happened a few days afterwards, which is fishy. So this supposedly happened September 19th. And on September 20th, which is the night after that murder, Oscar was supposed to have a dinner date with some friends. He said, I can't come. I don't feel like it.

The next night, he was supposed to do a bathtub installation. He's a handyman. He said, I'm sick. Then Wednesday, he finally emerges two days later and says, I feel much better. I can do this bathtub installation.

So I think the state is insinuating that on those three days, the night of the murder and then subsequently the next two days was when the dismemberment happened. Would it really take that long to dismember, let's say, two bodies? No. In terms of actually accomplishing the dismemberment and the packaging, it wouldn't take that long. But you still have the transportation aspect. So if Oscar is truly responsible for killing both John and Grace inside that house...

Obviously, both of their bodies have been likely dismembered and packaged and now transported. How is Oscar transporting? Does he have his own vehicle? Is he borrowing a vehicle? Have they searched that vehicle? How thorough are they looking at trying to find evidence?

such as blood evidence, that would be showing that these body parts had been in something of Oscar's possession. Yeah, and I don't think they found that, but it doesn't seem like they necessarily needed to because the jury was convinced with this evidence. So, you know, to conclude, you've got a man who, according to Grace's attorney, was obsessed with her

was violent with her. She didn't press charges. That doesn't mean anything. It happened. A

According to this one attorney, if we believe everything he's saying, you've got a missing boyfriend who might have been the offender, the main offender. Oscar could have shown up and had some drinks and left. That seems unlikely. I would even venture to say, let's take that off the table. I would certainly believe the attorney more than I would believe Oscar. Wouldn't you? I mean, do we just take that off the table that he was invited to come in either by John or by Grace?

Yeah, that doesn't add up with the situation that Grace is telling her attorney. Here you have Oscar, whose her attacker is showing up unwanted after that attack. She's not going to be inviting him. I would strongly lean towards Oscar showed up that night.

And I believe in all likelihood John was either there at the time Oscar showed up or John showed up just to have dinner with Grace that night. And Oscar was already, you know, inside. And Oscar was able to take both John and Grace out. I think the state's case against Oscar, though for prosecution purposes, is relatively weak. Yeah. He's at the level of what I would say, hey, he's a prime suspect.

But what do we have? We have him admitting to being there that night. But of course, he's saying they were alive when I left or something to that effect. We've got a footprint that he can't be excluded from. He's a butcher and a store down the street from where he lived sold the same type of green drapes that her body was found in. Yep. I think he is likely the killer of Grace for sure and likely John's.

Just it's not a strong case from my perspective. Not yet. I think there's more that possibly could have been done. Well, now we're going to enter the face of this story where we learn that the law is not often fair, nor does it work fully all the time. I think I agree with you. I think Oscar's the one who did it. But there's a complication there.

Oscar is convicted in September of 1937. He's sentenced to death in the electric chair. But in between his sentencing and the date of his execution, there's some new information. There's a woman who knew John Lyons. Her name is Olive Weatherby. And she reported to the acting governor of Massachusetts, who was a man named Francis Kelly, that he had been in touch with John Lyons.

she had seen John two weeks after he supposedly disappeared. I don't think she approached him, but she saw him and she said, I can confirm that he's there. She said he was walking by a Weymouth Highway and she did not come forward sooner because that was the first question I had. She did not come forward sooner because she was looking for a job and she was afraid all this publicity, kind of like with Grace, all this publicity was going to cause her problems.

This woman says John was spotted. I know him and he's alive. And he is now officially in the wind and should be a suspect is what the assumption is here. What do you think about that? Is one person who knew him spotting him enough to confirm that he's alive? Yeah.

A can of worms all over the place, I think is what you're going to say. Well, it is. And it's not unusual. I mean, you do have people who want attention. And this is an easy way for somebody to get attention because at this point, especially in 1936, how do you verify what she's saying is true? Right. You know, unless an investigation has ensued or you have other witnesses who are saying, yeah, he's living in that little house, you know, in that little bungalow down the street.

and you can actually verify that he's still alive, how do you put any veracity on what this woman is saying? Exactly. She could just be trying to get attention now, now that she's finished with her job application process, got a job, whatever else. Now she's saying, hey, I saw John, and her name is in the newspaper.

Or she's friends with Oscar. Or Oscar's family has paid her to say this. If that's the case, it worked because they delayed his execution and a committee was appointed by the governor to take another look at Oscar's case. And the committee said it would be a grave error to take this man's life while John Lyons might still be out there because he's another suspect.

So three years after she's murdered, his sentence is commuted to life imprisonment, and it gets a little worse after that. But what do you think about all that? The possibility, this one woman saying John Lyons is alive, it has now derailed the state's plan to have this man executed. And I'm not going to talk about the death penalty and my feelings about the death penalty on this show.

But I know that that was the state's intentions, and now that is not what is happening. He is at a minimum commuted to life imprisonment. I don't have a problem with the sentence being commuted, in part because I just think the case against Oscar is lacking, even though I think he is responsible. This was a jury trial, I think you said, right? Yep. Yes. So, you know, per our justice system, Oscar—

had 12 jurors, you know, in essence, convict him, and then he was sentenced to death. And now you have somebody just coming out of the blue saying, oh, hold on. She could just be absolutely making it up. It's now causing this domino effect. I think I have a bigger problem with that aspect because that could happen in any case at any time. Yep.

So this is another development. In 1961, so this is 25 years after the murder, Massachusetts' first Italian-American governor has decided to pardon Oscar because I'm assuming they feel like this is a miscarriage of justice and there's some bigotry going on here. The long-term supporters of Oscar believed that he...

he had helped remove and dismember the body because he was afraid of John Lyons, the real killer. So that is what these supporters have said. Oscar, for his part, is released from prison in 1961, and he is deported immediately to Italy and never heard from again. And John Lyons...

is still never heard from again. He is gone. He has either disappeared or he is in the Boston Harbor, and we don't know. But that woman is the only one who had ever seen him, who reported it at least.

Yeah. You know, so Oscar served 25 years. He was saved from execution. I don't know how fast Massachusetts was executing their death row inmates back in the 30s, 40s, et cetera. In all likelihood, he probably would have faced execution, I would imagine, during that time frame. I think for me, in many ways, you see homicide, you know, defendants that are charged with murder and it's not a death penalty case anymore.

Oftentimes, if they're not sentenced to life without parole, an LWAP case, you see the sentence of 25 years to life. And in this case, due to the lack of a really strong case against Oscar, and again, I think he's responsible. And all I think about is this is a guy who terrorized this woman for, it sounds like more than a month.

and then beat her to death. I don't think there's any doubt he's the one who did this. Beat her to death, broke her skull in parts, and then to add to it, dismembered her, and they still had never found her torso, her arms. It was absolutely terrible. So by the letter of the law, I agree with you. This was a weak case.

And if you are just looking at this as a law school student and you go, boy, he really shouldn't have been convicted, or if he did, really 25 years max, yes. But knowing what he did, it's infuriating to me that he ended up in Italy doing whatever with his family. It's nauseating. And I hate that that's the way the law works, but we can't predict what people did when and what evidence we're going to have. I just, it's disgusting to me.

Well, this is often the dilemma that prosecutors face, you know, when they are looking at charging somebody with crimes. What can they prove? As investigators, we know this guy did it, right? Right. But then you go to a prosecutor and the prosecutor will go, well, I agree with you. He did it. But what can I prove and get 12 people to agree to convict?

And that's oftentimes a very frustrating aspect to the process is where you know, like in this case, if you were to – assuming everything that we heard about Oscar's activities leading up to the homicide of Grace in terms of the stalking, the attack, the attempted rape, etc.,

You know, if you look at all that and say that is all true and that's all provable, then Oscar is easily convicted of a multitude of charges. Now, they charged him with those prior acts. They did. Yeah.

And he was convicted of those prior acts. And so you could see from a statutory standpoint and a sentencing standpoint, he could be eligible for the max from the legal side. But I'm just kind of thinking like you are. If he was truly doing that to Grace and ultimately took her life in this horrific manner, then

then the fact that he is able to live out his last remaining years, he's enjoying a life that he doesn't deserve. Yep. That's the frustrating part. And that's just part of the limitation of the justice system oftentimes, where it's like, God, you know, we wish we could get this guy on more. We just know we can't prove it. Paul, I'm back to being in a crabby mood.

This case makes me so sad. There's justice and then there's not, and there's mystery about it. And I know we all love a good mystery, but this woman ending up in Boston Harbor floating around, it's sad. And now I'm going to have to figure out what am I going to do? Is there an herbal tea that can help me feel better from this? What are you going to do? Not have another cup of coffee. I know that. Oh, no, no. We're back to whiskey next week, yeah? There's a good chance, for sure. Yeah.

Interesting case, I think, is what you were getting ready to say. It is. It is another interesting case. It's another case, even though that it's, you know, approaching, what, 90 years old? Yeah. It just shows, you know, how absent the technologies and maybe some of the investigative, the lack of investigative acumen that these agencies had back then. This is a crime that could happen today and does happen today. A stalker shows up and kills somebody, and it's just such a tragic thing that these people

people exist. Well, on that note, I will see you next week for another case. I'm looking forward to it. All right. Sounds good. Thanks, Kate.

This has been an Exactly Right production. For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com slash buriedbones sources. Our senior producer is Alexis Amorosi. Research by Maren McClashen and Kate Winkler-Dawson. Our mixing engineer is Ryo Baum. Our theme song is by Tom Breifogle. Our art

work is by Vanessa Lilac. Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer. You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at Buried Bones Pod. 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.