Passing Notes PT 2

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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 Holz, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solved them.

Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes.

And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.

Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st century lens.

Some are solved and some are cold.

Very cold.

This is Buried Bones.

Hey, Kate.

I guess we have a second part to a two-parter today, huh?

We do.

We have a kidnapping of a young girl, 17-year-old, named Leslie Whittle.

And she is from a village in West Midlands of England, and she is from a very wealthy family.

Somebody has come into her home.

She shares with her mother.

She has an adult brother who lives not far away, but it's just the two of them in a house that you and I, you know, talked about being sort of visibly exposed to people because it's sort of walls of glass almost, the second floor.

So she's been taken, it looks like just wearing a robe and her slippers and if she was wearing pajamas.

And the police have not seen her.

The kidnapper or kidnappers have left behind notes, odd notes, using a label maker, which is an interesting choice.

They have confusing instructions and her brother cannot figure it out and they keep missing each other and this is not working.

And there are cassettes that are being played over the phone of Leslie's voice.

There is a guard who was shot by, it sounds like our prime suspect here, a man they've dubbed the Black Panther, because they were able to use some ballistics and some fingerprinting to connect this man, this violent robber, with the shooting of the security guard and with the murders of four postal workers the year before to Leslie's kidnapping, because in this guy's car, they find items of hers, as well as the tape recorder and cassette tapes that have some instructions that were just never delivered.

And the police are kind of at a dead end.

They don't know what to do next.

They haven't done such a hot job, it sounds like.

They were at a location where Leslie could have been kept, and they did sort of a discreet sweep, they said.

But other than that, they have not heard from Leslie for it looks like almost two weeks.

And then when they find out about this Black Panther, this

man who they've dubbed the Black Panther for killing all of these people and being very sneaky, then it starts to be very concerning.

And you said you were very concerned at the end of episode one about Leslie.

Yeah, you know, this Black Panther has shown a proclivity to utilize violence.

You know, he's killed four postal workers.

He shot at a security guard six times, I'm sure, with the intent to kill, as well as now he's got possession of 17-year-old Leslie.

This is a very serious offender that is capable of committing homicides.

You know, so now, in my mind, Leslie's safety is in question.

And I'm not even convinced at this point that he kept Leslie alive at all.

You know, he pre-planned these crimes.

He thought ahead, had her record multiple plans on the cassette player.

He may have decided, you know, during his planning process, trying to keep her alive was just logistically cumbersome.

And he would be more successful being able to move around and hopefully get the money he wants without Leslie being drug along.

And one of the things that we've seen in previous cases where it seems like the kidnapping victims, the ransom victims have been kept alive alive is how upsetting it is to find that out, that they've been kept alive.

There could have been a chance that they were not murdered, that they were reunited with their families.

But getting the media or getting the police involved, well-meaning citizens, just mucks up everything.

On the other hand, I'm certainly not advocating for not getting police involved in these situations, but this is the kidnapper who has shown in the past to have the most violent tendencies, right?

With the robberies and with Gerald.

And like you said, right, he's willing to use a weapon.

I'm not 100% sure we've seen that in any of our previous cases.

They felt a little like haphazard, some of those kidnappings, but this guy, you're right, sounds very serious.

Do you have anything to add before I tell you what happens next?

I'm sure you don't know this.

I'm kind of curious with the Black Panthers, you know, with the postal workers that he killed.

He left some alive.

You know, did he make any statements to them about what he was after, et cetera?

Three murders occurred in 1974, the year before, involved violent robberies of post offices in different locations across the country.

So there were three of them, and all three men ended up dead.

Okay, so Black Panther is going into a post office and killing a postal worker inside the office.

That's what it sounds like, right?

Okay, and then he is.

He is touching surfaces during this process, maybe

part of the theft aspect where he doesn't have gloved hands on, which is interesting, you know, during this timeframe.

Usually, I shouldn't say usually, but, you know, of course, that's the one form of evidence back in the 70s that could be used to identify him.

You know, so there's a little bit of carelessness on his part in these post office robbery homicides.

And then now he shoots a security guard, leaves the car abandoned.

The shooting of the security guard, I wonder if Leslie was in the car at the time, you know, or he had put Leslie somewhere and was just concerned that the security guard would connect him to either the robbery, homicides, or the abduction of Leslie, you know, but obviously he's he's willing to pull the trigger for self-preservation.

Yeah, let me remind you what they found inside this car eight days after this happened.

There's the gun that he used to shoot Gerald, there's a box of bullets, there's a foam mattress, a flashlight, Leslie's slippers, several unused dymo labels, a tape recorder, and those cassettes that we talked about.

So, like everything tying him to Leslie is there.

They use these bullets.

Now, the BBC only says they used the bullets found in the car to link him to the other murders, these postal worker murders.

To me, that didn't, I was trying to channel you.

That didn't make sense.

I wonder if they meant that they used the gun with the bullets to be able to match it.

Because wouldn't that, the bullets would be kind of useless if it's just a standard gun, right?

They'd have to fire it through, the bullet through the gun to match it to bullets found inside the postal workers, right?

Right.

So the gun, and we don't know what type of gun, if it's a semi-auto or revolver, but let's just, I'm going to make an assumption.

Let's say all they did is recover bullets from the post office crime scenes.

You know, as that bullet passes down the barrel of the gun, you know, the lands and grooves of the rifling of that barrel get

in essence impressed on the side of the bullets.

And then there's very microscopic striations that that end up also on the side of the bullet that is unique to the kind of the tool marks that that inside of the barrel of the firearm leaves on the bullet.

And so now that they've recovered the gun out of this vehicle, they test fire that gun and then compare the marks on those test-fired bullets to the marks on the evidence bullets.

And they're able to draw a conclusion.

Yes, this gun fired the bullets in these robbery homicides at the post offices.

Well, there you go.

I mean, I think that they feel like there's pretty definitive proof, and they're desperate to figure out where he is and where Leslie is.

And her mother and her brother are petrified of all of this, as I had said before.

Now we are fast-forwarding 51 days after Leslie was discovered missing.

They launch finally a very extensive search of Bathpool Park.

And now I can show you a photo in a second so you can actually see what this place looks like.

The reason they do it is because some schoolboys find a flashlight as well as a dynamo label that says drop suitcase into hole.

So they found an old instruction.

I mean, this must have been what he was talking about, Torch Lane and all of the weird torch.

So you can see the next instructions.

He says, drop suitcase into hole.

And of course, because it's 51 days later, the police just throw out subtlety and decide they're going to do a full-on search.

But this is the reason why they go back to this park.

I mean, this place, it's foggy and it's.

Yeah, no, this photo speaks volumes.

First, I'm not seeing any residential structures, commercial structures.

It literally looks like

somewhat rolling hills with groves of trees that are lacking their leaves.

And in the foreground, now you see all these men with all of them look like German shepherds.

Yep, sure do.

Yeah, there's no variety in the breed.

No bloodhounds here.

You know, and

obviously they're searching.

And this is, you know, what, after 51 days after Leslie was abducted, you know, that is not sounding good for Leslie at all.

No.

And no word from the kidnappers at this point.

Yeah.

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I always feel like I have to have something to perk me up in the afternoon.

IQ bars are really convenient and they taste great.

And right now, IQ Bar is offering our special podcast listeners 20% off all IQ products, plus get free shipping.

To get your 20% off, just text Bones to 64,000.

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That's B-O-N-E-S to $64,000.

Message and data rates may apply.

See terms for details.

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We'll be recording buried bones live at sea.

That's right.

Kate and I will both be part of the first ever True Crime Podcast Voyage, hosted by Virgin Voyages and iHeart Podcasts.

This is five nights of mystery, luxury, and Halloween fun, sailing to the Dominican Republic and Bimini Bahamas, adults only.

No kids, no stress.

Expect a live podcast recording of buried bones, crime-themed trivia, behind-the-scenes sessions with iHeart hosts, and yes, plenty of surprises.

And it's all wrapped in the full Virgin Voyages experience.

20-plus eateries, Michelin star chef-curated menus, lux staterooms, Wi-Fi, and entertainment included.

It's not just a cruise.

It's a celebration celebration of thoughtful true crime storytelling, and we want you to join us.

Book your cabin now at virginvoyages.com/slash true crime.

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We'll see you on board.

We don't know about Leslie yet, but you know, we don't have anybody who can identify the man who sounds to be definitively the Black Panther because the three postal workers are dead.

No one else could identify him except the security guard, Gerald Smith.

He's in critical condition, but he gave a very detailed description of the attacker.

And they made a sketch, and we love a good sketch.

So let me go ahead and show you.

They send this out to the press.

Let me show you the sketch, and you could tell me from one of the quality, if you like the quality of this sketch.

And two, you know, what parts of it would be helpful?

He looks very menacing, this guy.

Oh, wow.

That's the guy who was prowling around the rail yards.

Okay.

So the security guard confronts him outside of the vehicle.

That would explain some of the lack of maybe firearms damage to the vehicle from shots being fired out of it.

Neil, first, you know, I'm looking at a sketch of a man that the sketch is from knee height all the way up to the top of his head.

So this the security guard saw this man standing in front of him.

The first thing that stands out is the clothing, whereas this man appears to have something akin to, I'd call it like maybe a car coat or a half trench coat.

I'm not sure if that's the correct term, but you know, this type of, it looks sort of like a trench coat, but instead of going down to the ankles, it cuts off at the knees, appears to be maybe zipped up or buttoned up, but then there's a belt around the waist that's holding the coat closed.

And then what appears to possibly be a

t-shirt of of some type or shirt underneath this coat.

But then he's got a backpack on.

And he's got a bag in his left hand.

So, you know, that in part, I never see the composites like this.

You know, that's really detailed in terms of the clothing and the backpack and the bag that he's holding.

But the face, there's a lot of detail in this face.

You know, first, this is a very good artist just in terms of the ability to sketch, because this is close to photorealistic, not really photo level, but in terms of when I look at this face, I see

a human face that is something that I could envision in the real world.

You know, oftentimes there's some composites and you're going, well, you know, proportions aren't quite right, but, you know, the composite is trying to convey distinguishing features.

The man's eyes stand out.

He's obviously got somewhat of a scowl and an angry look

with kind of a firm set jaw.

You know, and of course, he's being confronted by a security guard.

So this is kind of the, you know, what the facial expression would probably be accurate to, is he's not happy that a security guard is standing in front of him.

You know, so this, yeah, this is a very interesting composite.

And I can't speak to the accuracy of it right now until we know who this guy is and can look at the actual face of this guy side by side.

But, you know, this is something most certainly you'd want to put out to the public because it is so detailed.

So Gerald is helpful from, you know, his hospital room.

He gives us this really good sketch, you know, really good description.

Okay, so now we need to go back to the park.

So we are at Bathpool Park.

They are doing a search because they found a flashlight and the label that says drop suitcase into hole.

So this is March 6th.

The next day, they have zeroed in on, now this just sounds like a nightmare to me to search.

There is an extensive drain and tunnel system underneath the park.

There are various levels and platforms with this thing going totally underneath the park.

They think that this would have been the best spot for a kidnapper as both a hiding place and a potential escape route, should he need it out of the park, because there are all these different exits and entrances and stuff that people just don't know about.

So, what do you think about that?

I mean, this just sounds like the beginning of a bad horror film.

You're, you know, sending some police officers down underground to try to find this girl who might still be alive, a kidnapper.

There could be a whole team of kidnappers down there, and they have to go through this extensive tunnel system.

Yeah, that would be a process.

You know, anytime you search,

you need to track where you've searched.

And when you have tunnels like this, I could see where just trying to stay on top of, well, what has been searched and what hasn't been searched could be problematic.

Well, let me give you, they did a mock-up of some of the tunnels where they think that this might have happened.

So I'm going to show you that real quick.

So this is their, now I don't even know what this is made of, but this is their rendition of this section of the tunnels.

I don't know what the material is.

I don't understand it.

I just see a series of tunnels along with, you know, like ways to climb down ladders and stuff.

I mean, it looks very complicated.

Yeah.

So I'm looking at, you know, this photo, which is a, it looks like the cross section of part of, you know, this bath pool park.

And so most of what I'm looking at, it took me a while for my eyes to adjust, but in essence, they've used some sort of, for lack of a better term, like a clay to represent the earth.

And then they've got.

cross sections of pipes to illustrate the tunnels.

At the right side, they have a very tall vertical tunnel, if you will, that shows rungs that somebody would have to use to climb down into or up out of this vertical section of, I would say, maybe a pipe to get to the surface.

Then there's a long horizontal area.

with two other vertical connections to the surface.

Neither one have the man ladder built within them.

One to the furthest left, which is the shortest one, has some sort of cage on top of it.

I think what strikes me is the diagonal part of the tunnel that's on the right-hand side of the image that kind of dives from the long horizontal tunnel.

It dives diagonally to underneath the vertical pipe that has the man ladder.

That diagonal aspect tends to suggest that this tunnel system may be more for water flow, you know, plumbing aspects, drainage aspects of the park.

At this point, we don't know if the offender actually used this tunnel system, but if he did use this tunnel system, how does he know about it?

You know, that's

something that I'd be wanting to know once we identify the offender.

Does he have a connection to this park?

Did he have a connection to this tunnel system?

And then that's why he knew about it.

Yeah, but to hold up inside of this system, this looks like it's going down probably, I don't know, 12, 14 feet

for that first horizontal long section, and then goes even deeper than that, you know, into, I'm assuming it's some sort of drainage system.

Yeah, I can give you some more information too.

It's just daunting to look at something like this and to think this is, you know, potentially where this young girl could be.

And it's 51 days now, 52 days.

Okay.

So he sends an officer into the system's main shaft.

So I don't know who pulled the short straw on that one, but this guy.

That's what we call the rookie job.

Eclaud, listen to this.

This would have petrified me.

He climbs down a 60-foot ladder carrying a flashlight and takes notes of what he sees.

Because you got to know, there's no like, there's no lighting system.

There are pins and batteries.

There's a notepad.

So they're right.

Somebody's been down here.

And down on the platform, there's a sleeping bed, a foam mattress, and a tape recorder.

And there's a blue robe hanging off a beam that looks like the one missing from Leslie's room.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

He also finds some wire on the platform.

So let me show you a photo of this kind of hodgepodge of things.

Well, first of all, let me show you the manhole.

Let me show you this poor guy.

Let me show you what he had to climb down first.

So this is a manhole that this officer had to go down.

I mean, this is not a lot of room to maneuver.

No, in essence, this is a photo that anybody listening is going to be familiar, like with the kind of the man covers to the sewer systems in the middle of streets.

This is similar, except it's square, not much bigger.

It looks like it's maybe two feet by two feet, you know.

So I don't know what the size of the shaft is, but obviously it's a narrow opening that the officer would have had to go through.

Looks like they've tented it, tented over this.

So and and then you have this plain clothes detective with a couple of uniform bobbies, you know, in the photograph.

And the detective is opening up this cover.

You know, I think when you said that this officer had to descend 60 feet down this shaft, well, obviously the mock-up that I was describing earlier is not to scale.

60 feet is much deeper than what I would have imagined.

And now this is getting to where this is so dangerous to anybody entering in that, not only just from a fall perspective, but from oxygen.

Oxygen deprivation literally is what we would call a confined space.

You have to be specially trained to go down into something like that in this day and age.

OSHA monitors this big time.

Your vitals need to be monitored.

They have to pump oxygen down into something that deep potentially.

It just all depends on the circumstances.

You know, I've had to go underground typically for drug lab scenarios, and I have hazmat specialists standing by keeping track of the environment and me going down into this space, let's say taking Leslie down that deep, you know, one of my concerns is, is that, well, what is the environment down there just to sustain life?

Let alone to be able to see.

Yeah, this would be a very scary scenario.

Well, now let me show you the things.

So her bathrobe looks like a sleeping bag.

Yeah, and that's a, so, you know, this photograph is showing, you know, on the left-hand side, what appears to be a sleeping bag.

Right in the middle is, is this foam pad that has coils of what appear to be metal wire?

To the right of the pad appears to be the robe, and then right to the top of that, which the robe is somewhat on top of, appears to be a second sleeping bag.

They're disgusting.

I mean, I don't know why I think that's a big deal, but it's filthy.

They're filthy down there, you know?

Yeah, everything looks, well, the sleeping bags, I can't tell as much, but the robe and the this foam pad, very soiled.

Yeah.

Is the soiling due to having, you know, gone down into this environment?

Is this soiling because you've got maybe a body that's decomposing?

You know, what did it smell like?

You know, so I would have questions, but that type of cord, you know, this is, if that's what I'm seeing, and that's this metal cord, and if it's being used to control Leslie,

this is the type of material that would cut into her skin if it's tied tightly or if she's fighting against it.

This would not be, this isn't, you know, soft binding material for comfort.

This is like almost like the worst type of material you would use to keep somebody under under control because it'd be so painful.

Let me show you a close-up because I do want to emphasize that.

Let me show you a close-up of this: the wire, the circular wire that you saw that could have been used to control her.

It's like a braided, metal, braided wire.

So, yeah, so this man is holding up, it's just a loop of this cable part.

And in essence, what it is, is it's a twisted cable.

You've got multiple smaller metal wires that during manufacture have been twisted around each other.

and i don't know that what the correct term of that is in order to make a larger cable and some of this cable has untwisted probably because it's close to a cut end and then on the right hand side down near where the man's fingers are that's holding this you can see the original twist of this cable i am guessing that this cable is maybe three eighths inch in diameter.

I mean, this is not something that you could tie a knot in.

It is something that that you could potentially bend around, let's say Leslie's wrists or her ankles, or use it as a ligature to strangle.

But this is not a material that one would use, an offender would use to have, you know, basically control and compliance from the victim.

You know, again, this is potentially suggesting that Leslie was not treated very well in the early days after her abduction.

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This October, we're doing something very different.

We'll be recording Buried Bones live at sea.

That's right.

Kate and I will both be part of the first ever True Crime Podcast Voyage, hosted by Virgin Voyages and iHeart Podcasts.

This is five nights of mystery, luxury, and Halloween fun, sailing to the Dominican Republic, Ambimini, Bahamas, adults only.

No kids, no stress.

Expect a live podcast recording of buried bones, crime-themed trivia, behind-the-scenes sessions with iHeart hosts, and yes, plenty of surprises.

And it's all wrapped in the full Virgin Voyages experience: 20-plus eateries, Michelin star chef-curated menus, lux staterooms, Wi-Fi, and entertainment included.

It's not just a cruise, it's a celebration of thoughtful true crime storytelling, and we want you to join us.

Book your cabin now at virginvoyages.com/slash true crime.

That's virginvoyages.com/slash true crime.

We'll see you on board.

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Okay, well, let's get to this, you know, the whole part of this, which is you have this officer down there in this, what I consider to be an absolute nightmare of a scenario, 60 feet under the ground by himself, only with a flashlight, pitch black finding all of these terrible things he finds this wire on the platform which he follows there's wire because it's just laying there but it's leading somewhere it's tied onto part of the platform and he drops further into the shaft so he follows it to the edge of something that goes over the shaft and the end of the wire is around leslie's neck yeah she's hanging by the wire no clothes naked her feet are just inches from the very bottom of the drain system And I can tell you more.

Of course, there's an autopsy and all that.

Yeah, I want to know,

are her wrists bound?

Are her ankles bound?

Obviously, the offender, it's not like she inadvertently fell off this ledge.

Sounds like the offender either she was dead ahead of time and he hung her, or that's how she died is he literally pushed her off this edge.

And this was a hanging.

It's awful.

You know, when you start thinking about the scenario, you know, when does Leslie realize what's about to happen?

Yeah.

So let me tell you about what the pathologist said.

They had pretty good ones in 1975 in England, but I mean, we'll see.

I was a little confused.

Following the post-mortem, they believe Leslie actually died weeks earlier.

Thank goodness, just shortly after she was abducted.

So hopefully this did not last long.

They said that her cause of death was determined to be, I'm going to say this wrong, V-A-G-A-L inhibition.

Vagal inhibition.

Yeah, so the vagus nerve.

Well, this is what they say.

This is translated in the newspapers as shock or fright.

Strangulation is not mentioned as a cause of death.

And the AP says that a police surgeon likened this to like a diver jumping suddenly into ice-cold water and suffering cardiac arrest.

Based on her autopsy, they did not think it was strangulation.

They didn't see signs of that kind of strangulation.

And you had said you thought maybe after she died, he hung her, you know, as a way to hide her or something else.

Yeah, you know, I would think that if the hanging itself was the cause of death, they would see definitive signs of that.

Fatikia, I mean, whatever, all the other lists of things, right?

Right.

I mean, she's hanging.

There is going to be physical damage.

to her neck structures,

possibly to her cervical vertebrae if she fell a distance, like you see in your typical hangings, where the floor drops out from the person that has the noose around their neck.

That's a lot of force that's concentrated in a very small cross-section of the neck.

In terms of this conclusion of like a vagal reflex, that almost sounds more like they couldn't figure out why she died.

And considering that they thought she was dead for weeks,

there is going to be decomposition.

This location is sheltered from insects, but I imagine it's still not a great location for body preservation.

So I kind of think that maybe they didn't

find any diagnostic features to determine a cause of death.

And this is maybe the one thing that they could think of.

I'm not sure what they would be seeing in a body of this condition that's hanging to be able to draw a conclusion that it's a, you know, some sort of vagal reflex that caused her death.

That I would need to know more about.

Well, we'll have more information, I think, a little bit later once we get our suspect together.

So they're trying to find Leslie's killer.

They start attempting to link the evidence from the drain system, like the sleeping bag and the tape recorder, to a specific suspect.

So they start referencing serial numbers and labels, anything, any warranties, anything, but they aren't really getting anywhere.

When the news gets a hold of this, the media finds out about Leslie's body.

A couple reaches out to investigators and says that they were in the park the night that Ron Whittle was there screaming, This is Ron Whittle.

You know, is anybody here?

But they were there earlier in the evening.

They had seen a car flashing its lights at them.

They weren't sure why the car was doing that, and they rode it off.

This is not Ron's car.

This is the kidnapper's car.

So I don't know where the timing went off, but they said that during the same time, the exact same time, the couple also noticed a police car.

And this is not a police officer who was working on Leslie's case.

So it's totally coincidental that he was there, but he was in the park in his car.

So the police wonder if the kidnapper saw this car and that frightened him enough to abandon the whole thing.

And then he ends up killing Leslie.

But I don't know.

What do you think about that theory?

Oh, I think that's a legitimate theory.

Now, it's curious that if the kidnapper is flashing his headlights in this, what appears to be a fairly wide open space, how did Ron not see that?

I think the timing was different.

So, this is what I think.

Remember, Ron got lost.

And I wonder if the kidnapper is flashing his lights, thinking Ron is there somewhere.

He's trying to say, here's, this is where I am.

But Ron was several hours late.

So the couple was not there when Ron was there.

The couple was there much earlier because Ron got there, I think, at three in the morning.

So it's bad timing.

I could see where if it's dark out and the kidnapper's sitting there waiting for Ron and then this patrol car rolls has its headlights on and kidnapper thinks it's Rod and then recognizes, oh shit, that's law enforcement.

Now there's panic.

So yeah, I think that's a bona fide theory right there.

It's awful.

And I'm sure when Ron finds out this theory, you know, if he had known how to get there, but then the kidnapper is giving him terrible instructions.

It's just awful.

I mean, all of it.

I will tell you, if Ron had shown up on time with the money, I think both Ron and Leslie would be hanging in that shaft.

I was thinking that too.

Yeah, this is not a guy who seems to be playing by any kind of moral rules at all.

He would have just pulled out a gun and killed him.

It probably did save his life that he got lost.

Yeah.

And I'm not convinced that Leslie was alive even at that point.

He's not going to be strapped with a teenage girl, you know, that just is so risky.

This guy.

No, for sure.

Okay.

All right.

Nine months, nothing happens.

They cannot find Black Panther until December 11th, 1975.

So this is 11 months after she is initially kidnapped.

Two policemen stop a man they believed is being suspicious near a post office.

This guy and his post office is in Mansfield, which is about 100 miles northeast of the widow's home in Highley.

When the guy is questioned, he gives a false name and then he pulls a gun and he orders the officers to drive him to a nearby village.

Remember, they don't carry guns, the police officers.

There's a struggle that results in everybody exiting the car.

And as the man starts to run,

they restrain him.

They flag down customers from a nearby restaurant and then everybody overpowers this guy and they arrest him.

So they go and do a search.

I would not red-herring you.

This is our guy.

They find various paraphernalia, including firearms and face masks that are directly linked to Black Panther.

And there is also a wire that looks just like the kind of wire found around Leslie's neck.

And they said, this is it.

This is the guy.

His name is Donald Nielsen.

And when you're ready, I want to do a comparison of his photo and our fantastic sketch artist to see if there's a likeness here or not.

But this is the guy.

That's his name.

I'm just kind of curious.

Is Donald Nielsen?

Is he from the United States by chance?

No.

UK.

why?

Just because of the use of the firearm.

This sounds more of like an American-type crime than a British-type crime.

No, but he was in the armed forces.

Oh, there you go.

Okay.

I'll tell you about Donald once we get further into here.

Let's look at the sketch and look at the photo.

So let me show you the sketch first.

So that's the sketch, menacing guy.

And then we have

him.

Menacing guy.

You know, so I'm looking at what appears to be a mugshot of Donald Nielsen.

What appears similar to me and the sketch.

Definitely the eyes.

Even in this mugshot, he has that hard stare, the heavy eyebrows.

You know, there's definitely some differences in terms of the face shape, but I would say that's well within tolerance.

I think the composite is close enough that if somebody saw it and knew Donald,

and especially that outfit in the composite will go, hey, you might want to look at this guy.

Absolutely.

Well, he does not look like somebody you want to meet in an alleyway, that's for sure.

He looks pretty upset, mad.

And he eventually will tell us what happened with Leslie.

So his mom died when he was 11, and he was the constant butt of jokes, you know, throughout his young adulthood and adolescence.

He was born with the last name Nappy, and this is a word for diaper, common word for diaper in the UK.

Yeah, so he, that would not be good.

He adopted the surname Nielsen in the 60s after his daughter was born because he wanted to spare her the same ridicule.

He was in the armed forces, as I had mentioned to you before.

So there's the reference with the gun.

He struggled really a lot.

He struggled financially after he left the military.

He was in various careers, including carpentry and security.

And then he, you know, went into crime.

By the mid-1960s, he was carrying out a lot of burglaries to boost his family's income.

Police say 400 burglaries without being caught.

He started robbing post offices because he needed more money between 67 and 74.

And he carried out about 19 post office raids in Yorkshire and Lancashire.

So he admits eventually to being the Black Panther and the man responsible for kidnapping Leslie.

He read about all of these lucrative kidnappings in the United States and decided that that would be a really good idea.

So he targeted her after reading about the inheritance and everybody was calling her an heiress.

So that is that.

He's very violent.

He's had a long history of crime, you know, clearly has no problem killing people.

He does detail what happens.

I want to get your impressions of Donald right now, and then I'll tell you what he says happened and you can tell me what you think.

Well, first, I don't have any sympathy for him with the last name of Nappy.

Try having the last name of Holes.

Oh, Paul.

Come on.

I have been referred to about every body orifice as possible.

I know.

As a young kid, I'm sure.

I mean, the worst I ever got was Awesome Dawson.

So I know.

I'm sorry.

Oh, poor you.

And Kate the Great.

I mean,

I'll let anybody listening use their imagination to how the surname Holes could be referred to.

But

okay, so obviously kind of a disrupted childhood.

He was in the military.

You didn't go into the details of what he experienced in the military.

Did he see action?

Was he on the front lines?

That can be very traumatic.

And then the getting out of

the service and now struggling financially.

It's still,

you can make a choice.

There are other ways to make money.

He chose the criminal route.

All along, the post office, robbery homicides, as well as the Leslie abduction, they're financially motivated.

You know, he's a financially motivated offender.

He chose to go down a criminal path.

He

has a predisposition for violence.

You know, he most certainly could, you know, commit robberies without doing the homicides.

And, you know, I don't know the circumstances of the post office crimes, you know, but chances are, my guess is, is that he made a decision to kill these postal workers.

He possibly could have successfully robbed these places and walked away.

He's got a gun.

They don't, right?

So he chose to kill them.

He chose to kill Leslie, you know, so he has that violent predisposition.

Though he may have had some, you know, struggles in his early life, there's nothing about his upbringing or anything, as far as I'm concerned, that should cause anybody to have any sympathy for him.

No, and he's a parent, too.

I mean, that's just nauseating.

Let me tell you what he says.

He had planned all of this pretty meticulously.

That night, January 14th, he entered the house wearing a hood and all black clothing, such was his way.

He forced the door open and gagged and blindfolded Leslie in her bedroom upstairs and brought her out to his stolen vehicle at gunpoint.

She was just wearing her

robe and slippers, so what police thought.

He hid her in the back of the car beneath a foam mattress and he drove her over 60 miles to Bathpole Park, where he imprisoned her in the dark, damp drain shaft.

I mean, he just says very straightforwardly, I gave her nothing.

to keep her warm and comfortable except for this sleeping bag.

He made her take off the robe so she was completely naked.

I will say there's a note that says that there has never been a suggestion that she had been sexually assaulted.

He never said anything about that.

It could have also been that they just didn't find evidence.

They would have seen evidence.

I don't know about after 51 days, but I mean, certainly, you know, in 75, they would have seen physical evidence of something.

So I don't know.

Do you want me to pause there or do you want me to keep going?

Well, keep going because I need to know more about when, you know, how long Leslie had been dead and hanging.

But yeah, keep going.

Okay.

So he says he made her, of course, make the recorded tapes that eventually he shared with her family.

This was a very complicated plan that he had done before.

You know, he knew it was never going to be this one drop.

He wanted to do what some articles were calling a ransom run that I've read about before.

So a ransom run is requiring, you know, the family to go from one location to the next to the next, like a scavenger hunt.

And then finally, there's a money drop at a specific location.

But the plan went off script super early when, you know, Ron missed that phone call because the police said you're going to miss this phone call.

Nielsen had actually called that night at midnight when he was supposed to talk to Ron.

And the police had said initially, well, no, don't go to that phone booth.

The kidnapper, I'm sure, has made us by now.

And he hadn't.

He did say that the plan got bungled after he saw that off-duty cop or that cop and got frightened in the park that night.

So we do have more information about sort of what happens and with her death too.

I can talk about that now also.

It comes out in trial, but I can skip to that.

Well, I think, you know, everything he's saying just matches up with the details of the case in terms of it obviously was pre-planned.

Does he ever address why he used a box of candy?

in order to leave the message in the first place

at the house?

No.

And it was Turkish Delights, which have various definitions from the 70s.

And so I just said, oh, I'm just going to say a box of candy.

I don't know if it was significant or just something he had in his car, but it would have had his fingerprints on it.

I'm assuming, unless he wore gloves.

Yeah.

You know, I think, you know, the type of ransom note that he left, it wasn't like a piece of paper that he could, he's placing on the kitchen counter.

It's a strip of this dymo, you know, like a label.

So, you know, containerizing it into a larger object that would stand out to the family, I could see the reasoning, but, you know, why a box of candy?

Why not something else?

And it may have been at what you suggested.

You know, maybe that was just the one thing he happened to have, you know, and thought, well, I'll just use that.

The family will look inside that.

Yeah, to make clear that this is something unusual that was not theirs.

The trial for Nielsen begins in June of 1976.

He's charged with kidnapping, grievous bodily harm, firearms, possessions, and four murders.

So the three postal workers and Leslie, and I have bad news, Gerald Smith died.

That's a security guard.

You would think he would be included in these, and it would be five murders.

And so it was something interesting I did not know.

At the time, English law said that there was something called year in a day, a year in a day rule, which prevented murder charges from being brought if the victim died more than a year and a day after the attack.

Isn't that interesting?

So it meant that they could not include Gerald Smith's death.

He survived for over a year.

If it was over a year and a day, he couldn't be included.

And that law has since changed.

Okay, here's details.

I mean, this guy, what an asshole.

In the trial, it comes out that in the final days of her life, I don't see how long he kept her alive.

It did not seem within, it was within like two or three days, it sounds like.

He tied her to the side of the pitch black shaft using a wire noose that I showed you that was fastened around her neck.

Remember, she was very petite.

The noose was designed to prevent her from moving at all.

And he says that any big shift, and police say this too, any big shift in position would tighten the wire around her neck, which could potentially strangle her.

He says I didn't kill her.

He said she accidentally fell off the ledge into the lower shaft of the draining system and that he'd only tied the wire around Leslie's neck to restrain her not to kill her.

But most people thought that he killed her in a fit of rage after probably the cop, he spotted the cop or what, you know, any number of reasons.

But the truth is unknown.

And, you know, the pathology report is sort of inconclusive.

I wonder, Paul, knowing where she is now, though, if she's standing there for days naked and it's cold and it's January and it's wet down there, if the cardiac arrest theory is not so out of bounds.

Yeah, you know, I think that this is

now getting just from a medical side, it's it's above me in terms of, okay, you know, because I've heard of, you know, the vagal reflex, vagus nerve issues causing death in terms of the condition that she was left in, you know, the fright that she would be under.

I mean, imagine if you're a 17-year-old girl and you're left alone in absolute darkness, 60 feet down in a shaft and you're hearing sounds,

you know, because guess what's down there?

There's rats down there.

There's going to be other types of sounds, you know, water running.

This would be a very, very scary environment.

And you've got this noose around your neck that basically you have to be absolutely still or it just continues to tighten.

Yeah.

You know, that's where I think the pathologist is looking at the circumstances that she was bound under and the environment environment versus some diagnostic feature he could see at autopsy.

I just don't, if she accidentally fell off that shaft or was pushed off that shaft, and I mean, she's falling, I don't know how long, but obviously her body weight, she's hanging under her body weight because her feet aren't touching the bottom.

You know, this would cause some significant damage to her neck.

And is it possible that that damage from the hanging could obscure evidence of strangulation?

Yeah.

But if she did die of a vagal nerve reflux,

was she just laying on the

platform and then was she pushed off by him?

Or did she, you know, under collapsing from this vagal reflux that now she falls?

But then I would think that being so close to death that it would be indistinguishable, they would find evidence of literally strangulation from the hanging.

So I don't know.

You know, that's literally getting a high-end forensic pathologist to assess everything.

And then I would need to hear from that person what their thoughts are.

He killed her no matter what.

Yeah.

I mean, he is absolutely responsible for her homicide.

I kind of want to go back to the fact that she's nude.

Yeah.

As I mentioned before, like with this metal cable.

You know, this is not a type of binding material one would use if you want your victim to be as compliant as possible because it would be so uncomfortable and so painful.

You have to think about, okay, if I'm going to be having to control this 17-year-old girl, Leslie, how do I do that and minimize

her resistance or her, and part of that is minimizing her discomfort.

And now you're down in this cold shaft and he's having her take her robe off, that further causes discomfort.

So that's where I start going, hold on.

Why is he doing that?

I am not convinced that once he had her isolated, that there wasn't any sexual activity.

But if she's down there for almost two months and dead, they're really not going to be able to find evidence of any sexual assault.

Well, thankfully, he is found guilty, of course.

He gets five life sentences, no possibility of parole.

He died just in 2011.

He was 75.

This is not an old story.

75, you know, 1975.

So he died at age 75.

He had developed a neurological disease and

the family went on.

They have a bus company that still operates.

It doesn't seem like the family is that involved with it, but we aren't sure.

I feel like I don't know a lot sometimes about our our criminals and their background and like their criminal history and sort of how it all builds and particularly about how violent these kidnappings can be.

Because I feel like we've had bungling kidnappings, but this was really that end up somehow with people dead.

But this was really calculated and scary.

And this was somebody who needed to be stopped and killed, you know, five people.

So a really sad story for a 17-year-old girl who I'm assuming had just all the potential in the world and, you know, just devastating for her family.

To bring that kind of case to you, I think, is important.

Unfortunately, whether it be be kidnappings, like in Leslie's case, or sexual assaults, or homicides, you know, you have victims who, you know, they go to bed at night thinking they're going to wake up the next morning and life will be the same.

And within a matter of hours, their lives are either completely changed or taken away from them.

Somebody like this Nielsen guy, he was on a kind of this escalation of criminality from, I don't know how far back, you know, whether he did anything in the military, but definitely after he got out of the military, he's committing the burglaries, you know, he's doing the robbery homicides, and then he's doing an abduction homicide of a girl.

He just escalated over time.

And though the primary motive is financial, you got to ask the question about why the escalation?

You know, what is truly his inner motivation?

You know, is he just angry at the world and is just getting more and more pissed off and escalates the violence as he goes on?

Once Layton's tied Leslie's abduction to these post office homicides, it's like, okay, you know, this is a bad, bad guy.

He is a threat to public safety.

And, you know, fortunately, law enforcement found him before he committed another crime.

Unfortunately, they didn't.

find Leslie before she was killed.

Okay.

I don't think I can talk about this story anymore.

It's a tough one, it is a tough one, you know.

It is

well, Paul, thank you for going through the story with me and talking about all the forensics.

It's nice to have a reminder there was a time when we did have good forensics that we could talk about on this show and not just sort of like wishing the real killer will walk through the door or, you know, like looking at tea leaves to try to figure out who the killer was.

There, we are in the 70s able to pick up on some things.

Yeah.

And thankfully, the police finally got it together there at the end.

But I will see you next week for my hope is a drastically different story that we can talk about.

Okay.

Well, as always, I look forward to it.

Okay.

I'll see you next week.

Thanks.

This has been an exactly right production.

For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com/slash buried bones sources.

Our senior producer is Alexis Emerosi.

Research by Marin McClashen, Allie Elkin, and Kate Winkler-Dawson.

Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.

Our theme song is by Tom Breifogel.

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 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.

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