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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, how are you?

I'm doing well, Paul.

How are you?

I am doing good.

I got my hot toddy here, and I'm ready for this next case.

What's in a hot toddy?

Is that whiskey?

Is that just hot whiskey that you microwave?

Is that what a hot toddy is?

See how naive I am, listeners?

I don't know.

Well, I kind of fibbed a little bit.

It's a little room temperature, but yeah, it's a little whiskey.

So that's all it is.

It's warm whiskey.

Is that a hot toddy?

By my definition, yes.

I mean, this is not what I thought we were going to talk about today, but they used to use whiskey for everything, didn't they?

Did you ever read in history everything that whiskey had been used for?

I mean, for like knocking out little babies so they'd stop crying to

anesthesia to everything you could think of.

Sure.

Yeah.

And I knew about the anesthesia.

You know, if they had to amputate, the poor victim had to have a bunch of whiskey inside and then have to bite down on a leather strap to prevent biting his tongue.

God, what a horrific time.

I know.

Can you imagine?

I mean, I just, and, you know, in one of the other episodes, we talked about women who died in childbirth and how a lot of the times it's because the doctors weren't washing their hands and they were getting a bacterial infection.

I mean, how awful.

Yeah, no, thank God we live in modern medical times.

Yeah.

What I was going to tell you when you mentioned the hot toddy was it reminded me of American Sherlock, you know, my book.

We were talking about Oscar Heinrich, the forensic scientist at the center of my book.

So he got his start working at a pharmacy.

When his dad died, he had to quit high school and he started working in a pharmacy.

And he said that it was the best thing that ever happened to him because it was sort of like a school on handwriting analysis because he could never interpret the doctor's script.

What the doctors know.

Yeah.

So he said there's that.

And then, of course, there's all kinds of chemistry and kind of toxicology.

He said it was most valuable for human behavior because there would be drug addicts who would come in, and he said he would just watch them and how they were trying to con the pharmacists into giving them drugs that didn't, you know, belong to them.

But one thing that I noted, I had not known this, was that during prohibition, the pharmacies really started ticking up on medicinal alcohol.

So, you know, if you needed to treat something, Oscar learned how to make medicinal whiskey at his pharmacy.

And I didn't know this little fact, but it became such a big business that Walgreens, I'm looking at my book now, Walgreens expanded from 20 stores in the United States to more than 500 stores, basically based on medicinal whiskey.

That was the only legal way to get it.

I get it.

I understand.

And then we whip back to your hot toddy, which is, I can't take cold whiskey, let alone hot whiskey.

Nope, I know.

I've tried to get you to imbibe, but unfortunately, you just seem to want to stick with your cider.

I do.

I know.

I love cider.

Right now I have tea, but you know, like I said, if I had any alcohol during our show, I would be in the fetal position and sleeping on the floor of my sound

about 30 minutes.

Yeah.

Nope.

I need need it just to kind of soothe the nerves because I still get a little anxious before you and I start our episodes.

No, you don't.

Yeah, a little bit.

Why?

Because you're scared you're going to say the wrong thing or that I'm going to outsmart you.

See, I can't even get that out without laughing.

Outsmart you.

Well, let me tell you, you'll need some whiskey for this one.

This is a story that's set during, I mean, Prohibition, 1921.

Love it.

Great time period to talk about.

We're in Portland, Oregon.

Portland is one of my most favorite cities.

And you said you've been there a couple of times.

I was there twice.

The first time I went to Portland was actually for a Golden State Killer, you know, doing kind of an early form of the genealogy process and found somebody that was up there in the Portland area that I thought possibly was related to who I was looking for.

And turns out he was about 900 years ago.

So that didn't help.

Wait, what?

No, we collected DNA from this old man in a convalescent home thinking that possibly, you know, the Golden State killer was maybe a son or a cousin.

And he just was so distantly related that it was, you know, far beyond, you know, the genealogy paper trail that we need to be able to use.

And then the second time I went to Portland was during my book tour.

But that's when I had the hosts of Small Town Dicks interview me on stage.

Oh, that's nice.

Yeah, so that was Yardley, Dan, and Dave.

And this was the first time that Dan and Dave revealed their identities to the world because they had been active law enforcement.

They had always kept their identities hidden.

And so they, what do you want to say, stepped out of the closet at that Portland event?

Hmm, that's good.

So you have good memories of Portland.

Absolutely.

Well, this is not a good memory story, I'll tell you that.

But I do like going to places and time periods that I'm fond of.

And I love Portland and I love 1921.

1921 for me from American Sherlock is Fatty Arbuckle case, which was really interesting, you know, very classic old case.

And so I remember a lot of sort of Hollywood scandals.

That's not this.

This is a little bit of a mystery.

And, you know, we're really going to dig into a lot of questions that I feel like I haven't had answered by you yet.

So let's go ahead and get into it.

Let's set the scene.

This is July 11th, 1921.

Instead of introducing you, first of all, I guess to say the main players, I'm going to start with the action here.

There is a neighbor named Robert Green.

It's about midnight.

He's getting ready to go to sleep, which would have been about three hours after I normally go to sleep.

I go to sleep at like 9 p.m.

So midnight, Robert Green says it's time to go to bed.

He hears screaming from his neighbors.

And the neighbors are a family called Agees.

And they live across the street on North Druid Avenue.

And the family is interesting, I would say relatively young couple.

That's Harry, he's 29, Louise is 26, and they have two young children, a three-year-old who's a girl and a six-year-old who's a boy.

Robert hears screaming.

He sees Louise, who's the wife, running over to his house.

She's in a nightgown and she's saying someone is killing Harry.

So someone's killing her husband.

Robert then sees Harry, the husband, staggering to the door, holding his neck before he collapses to the ground.

So Robert runs across the street with Louise and they go to help Harry who's now lying on the floor in the house.

His throat has been cut and when Robert looks down at Harry he's awake and his lips are still moving but he can't talk.

So that's my first question is does that mean his larynx was cut?

Because I'm going to tell you this.

Normally I kind of hide this information, but a pathologist will eventually say that whoever did cut his throat, unless it was Harry, he had missed his jugular vein.

So why would he not be able to talk?

Well, I think, you know, when you start talking about a cut throat, it is entirely possible that the trachea could be transected.

Trachea is in the center of the neck.

Now they're talking about jugular veins.

Yes, those often are cut, but it's also the deeper carotids, you know, where when those are cut, obviously death ensues very, very quickly.

You know, right now, I would only speculate as to why he couldn't talk without more descriptors of what the pathologist found.

But yes, if your throat is cut and your trachea is transected or the larynx has somehow been affected, that could prevent you from talking.

And there's no stab wounds to his chest or anything like that.

It's just all through the neck, right?

Yep, you got it.

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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.

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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.

This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack and hydration sponsor.

IQ Bar is the Better For You plant protein-based snack made with brain-boosting nutrients to refuel, nourish, and satisfy hunger without the sugar crash.

The Ultimate Sampler Pack is a great way to try all IQ Bar products and flavors.

You get nine IQ bars, eight IQ Mix sticks, and four IQ Joe sticks.

All IQ Bar products are entirely free from gluten, dairy, soy, GMOs, and artificial sweeteners.

With over 20,000 five-star reviews and counting, more people than ever are starting their days on the right foot with IQ Bar's brain and body boosting bars, hydration mixes, and mushroom coffees.

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.

Text Bones to 64,000.

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

Message and data rates may apply.

See terms for details.

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So, Robert is traumatized, the neighbor.

He leaves Louise and Harry on the ground and he runs to the neighbors.

Not everybody has a phone in this neighborhood.

So he goes to the neighbors whom he knows does have a phone.

They call the police.

The little boy, who's six, wakes up and, you know, he is on the porch when he sees his father die, which is terrible.

So there is now a confusing crime scene, and this will come up very quickly for question number two for me.

A lot of neighbors wind up gathering on the porch.

There's a commotion, of course.

There's already Louise had been screaming to begin with.

There's Harry, the neighbor who's dead on the porch.

And they are already going through the house before the cops even get there.

So, of course, what I write down in my notes is a contaminated crime scene.

But before I ask you about that, I wondered when it became a thing to really secure a crime scene in history.

So, listen to this.

This is an article written by Livia Gershon, and she says that the first practical guide to investigating a crime scene was written by Austrian jurist Hans Gross in 1893 and translated into English in 1906.

So what Gross said was there were instructions to an investigative officer who would lead the effort.

They would secure the perimeter, protect the scene from contamination, including from the officer himself.

And, you know, he said, you will have, as an officer, the impulse to immediately touch any object of apparent significance.

You have to fight that impulse, essentially.

So they have been talking about securing crime scenes for, you know, decades.

So I was wondering about that.

I mean, I have written so much about this time period, neighbors just walking all over the place, and how it must have been awful to get a conviction if you have a good defense attorney saying, how do we even know that these are this person's fingerprints or anything?

Right.

Well, and that's, you know, fundamentally why crime scenes have to be secured

as soon as you possibly can.

Of course, life-preserving measures take precedence.

And so whether it be, you know, patrol officers arriving first, securing the house, making sure there isn't a threat inside the house, rendering first aid, EMTs coming, you know, there's a lot of chaos if there is going to be any type of medical attention going on.

But once that step, if that step is needed, once that step is done, then absolutely freezing the scene and preventing unnecessary entry into the scene is critical because a lot of evidence is very fragile.

You mentioned fingerprints.

You know, you could have, let's say, the killer's fingerprint on a doorknob.

And now a patrol officer trying to secure the house grabs that doorknob to open up the door and eliminates the fingerprints.

Shoe impressions,

tracking blood all over the place as you walk through the house.

That now confuses the blood patterns inside the crime scene scene and on and on and on.

So, you know, in this particular case, obviously it is a very contaminated crime scene, maybe.

So it just depends on, you know, where the actual

violence occurred in the house.

Did the people go in to that location or not?

And then Harry's body, his clothing, is also part of the crime scene and has critical forms of evidence that can be interpreted.

Trevor Burrus, when police are reporting and or CSI, whoever it is, and everybody is securing a crime scene and collecting evidence and all of that, is there some sort of systematic way that all officers across the nation are taught?

Like, is there a standard that says, this is how many officers we need with the yellow tape?

This is what you should do next.

This is what you should do next.

Or does everybody just do whatever they want to do

depending on their jurisdiction?

Aaron Trevor Barrett, you know, I would say that there's, in essence, best practices.

Every crime scene is different.

Now, you can kind of group crime scenes into kind of clusters as to the circumstances.

You have an outdoor scene versus an indoor scene as the first obvious thing.

And then how you deal with an outdoor scene versus an indoor scene.

You know, you take certain steps as a result.

Depending on the circumstances, there may be additional measures that have to be taken to protect the scene.

And sometimes you don't have to take as many measures.

You know, and that's really upon the expertise of the people that are arriving on scene, you know, whether it be the patrol officers or the CSIs or the forensic scientists.

You know, I know like by the time I got out to my crime scenes, I was a deputy sheriff criminalist, that crime scene became mine.

And I've seen in other jurisdictions that the investigators control the crime scene.

And oftentimes they don't have the wherewithal about the physical evidence because they've never done the work themselves.

And then they often inject certain biases into how that crime scene is processed.

And so I really like the model of having that independent CSI that once they're there, they are controlling how that, the processing of that scene, the documentation of the scene, who goes in and out of that scene, because they're sort of like this independent physical evidence investigator that that should be paired with, you know, the actual investigators as sort of a check and balance.

Well, there doesn't seem to be anybody in control of this particular crime scene of Harry's death.

So that's unfortunate for us.

As we know, though, the forensics available in 1921 were pretty limited.

Yes, there are microscopes.

Yes, they can look at hair and kind of determine what's animal hair, what's human hair.

No blood typing yet.

And fingerprint analysis is a thing-ish.

Yeah.

I mean, not great yet.

So it's pretty sketchy.

We're in the middle of the third degree era of policing.

So finding out who did this will be tough.

I have a photo of the exterior of the house and a map of the interior.

I don't think I'm going to show it to you just yet.

Just know that I have it.

So Harry is now dead.

It is confirmed.

He has been cut across his throat, and the pathologist will have a little bit more information.

But let me set the scene inside the house so that we can start to figure out what the police are trying to figure out.

What is the motivation to kill this man when his wife is also right there and there are these two little kids?

So he is dead by the time the police get there.

And the scene seems very confusing.

It seems apparent to the police from all of the blood in the bed, in Harry's bed, that Harry was first attacked when he was lying in bed.

He was lying next to his wife.

It's midnight.

They're asleep.

It looks to investigators like whoever attacked him had stood behind the head of the bed and bent over him.

Now, I'm not sure how they came to that conclusion.

Can you think about would that be the spray, or would what do you think that would be for them to determine that?

Well, that I guess I'm puzzled because typically nowadays the head of the bed is pushed up against the wall.

And so this bed is potentially out in the middle of the the floor or somehow positioned where

the offender could have accessed Harry from behind the headboard?

Is that how you're interpreting that?

Well, maybe that's my cue to go ahead and show you this.

Let me share.

I know.

See, this is how I find stuff out.

Let me share what I would say is a very crude drawing, but I know you find these helpful.

So this here in the lower left-hand corner is the map of the room.

So if you see the little dashes from bed, I think that means his pillow is in the center of the room and their feet are toward the wall, unless you interpret that differently.

And then I think the dashes are there showing you Harry's route to get on the front porch where he ultimately died.

I guess I haven't seen a bed positioned like that, but this is a, what I would call a bird's eye view.

sort of a crime scene sketch showing the inner layout of the house, you know, with the various bedrooms, their relationship to the living room, dining room, as well as the door that Harry went out to get out onto the porch.

The bed that I'm assuming Harry originated from, where there's all this blood, it does look like they've somewhat drawn in the pillows to the part of the bed that is actually sticking out into the floor.

And so I think I agree with you is that, yes,

the foot of the bed is actually what's pushed up against the wall.

In terms of their positioning of Harry, this is where it's critical to understand what the pathologist found.

It sounds like Harry's throat is cut while he's laying there, possibly while he's asleep.

You know, I'd be looking for the possibility of defensive injuries on his hands, indicating that he was, you know, conscious and aware that he was being attacked.

But if he doesn't have those defensive injuries, then I think it's possible that he was asleep when his throat is cut.

Now, in terms of what you call it a spray, when your throat is cut, and if it's cut deeply enough to where it breaches the carotid arteries while your heart is still pumping, you can get what is called an arterial spurt.

And that's a pretty significant blood pattern if it's present and you have an artery that's been breached.

If the carotids were not cut as a result of this neck wound, then in essence, what you're going to have is more passive bleeding.

And it sounds like the,

or I think if I remember correctly, you said the pathologist said his jugular veins weren't cut.

Correct.

This is interesting because typically with,

you know, when you have a throat that is cut, the knife wound is going directly across the front of the neck.

And, you know, the jugulars are fairly superficial.

And so if the jugulars are not cut, then it sounds like this incision is pretty focused in the front of his neck, which might indicate that his trachea or larynx was damaged as a result of this.

However, if there's bleeding after that neck wound, you now, like when he stands up, he's breathing, or even when he's laying down, he could potentially be breathing in this blood.

This blood is getting into his

trachea, potentially this oral cavity.

And if he is gasping, you know, trying to breathe, you get potentially these expiratory patterns of blood that come out of the mouth.

And so that can look like blood spatter, and that can often be misinterpreted as to what caused that type of pattern.

So blood patterns, when you do blood pattern analysis, you always want to know what the autopsy results are first so you can correlate the injuries with the patterns at the scene.

Well, one thing to note about this is this is a small house.

So, look, it looks like it's only two bedrooms.

You walk through the front porch where Harry died, and there's a living room and a dining room.

And then it looks like the master is on the left where he sleeps with Louise, and there's the kitchen.

And then there appears to me to only be one other bedroom, which is, I'm assuming, where the boy and the girl are sleeping, with just the kitchen separating them.

And then we've got a back porch and then a back, one bathroom, it looks like for the house.

So, just noting that, we're going to end up coming back to this sketch.

And I do want to show you: here's the photo of the house.

It's just a very small, modest house, but I thought you might be interested in access.

Like, we're not talking about the deep back top floor where they are.

I mean, this is pretty exposed, and it's right on a big street.

Well, and at least per this sketch, it looks like there's just one door into this small house.

It's a single-story house.

There are multiple windows.

I can't see all the windows around the house, but in the sketch, I can see the location of the windows.

I mean, those could potentially be points of entry for an offender if an offender actually got inside this house, you know, and I think we'll have further discussions on that.

And then it looks like Harry came out that front door and collapsed right on that porch.

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 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 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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So, setting the rest of the scene here.

So, we know that the police think that the origin where this happened was Harry was in bed.

All the blood is there.

He holds his neck.

He kind of crawls/slash/staggers out onto the front porch and he dies.

So, they go and they look and they say, This place is a mess.

In the bedroom, Harry's pant pockets are turned inside out, and they were just, you know, wherever he left them last.

The drawers in the bureau are opened.

Louise's purse is on the floor.

It's open.

Now, why we have to go back?

So this is obviously looking like a burglary.

Why we have to go back?

Something weird.

There is a pile of jewelry and some silverware found on the ground outside the house.

underneath a dining room window.

So we'll go back to the photo that I showed you, but the dining room window is locked from the inside.

So no one went out through it, or at least it's locked by the time the police get there.

And the jewelry, the police say, looks like it was placed.

It doesn't look like it was flung.

It was almost like it was stacked outside.

And it was dropped from a few feet up.

So they thought that this was curious.

And the dining room is on the opposite side of the house of the bedroom.

So let me show you what I'm talking about because they're starting to try to figure out is this a staged burglary or something

bigger happening here?

When you see

the sketch down here and it says Jay, that's where the jewelry was.

So you see the bedrooms kind of in the upper left-hand corner.

Whoever did this had to go through the bedroom, into the living room, hang a left at the dining room, and then I don't know.

This stuff ends up out of this window right here.

So it's curious.

Yeah, and that window is locked from the inside.

Correct.

So if this jewelry was dropped out of this window, then that person closed the window and locked it.

Early on in my career, I processed a fair number of burglary scenes.

That's how I really learned sort of the fundamentals of crime scene investigation.

Burglars don't do this.

So, you know, when a burglar enters into a house and is gathering up items of value, there's usually a container that they use, whether it's something that they've brought themselves or something from inside the house.

A common container that burglars use are pillowcases.

You know, so any jurisdiction has these pillowcase burglars, you know, so they don't have any burglary tools on their person as they're walking through the neighborhood, but they can get inside the house and now they can start gathering up items and sometimes a significant number of items that they can place into a pillowcase or the homeowner's backpack or whatever container that they can find.

So for a burglar to take these items of jewelry and toss them out the window and then lock the window, that isn't right.

So that's a red flag to my mind.

But I'm kind of curious to see what else, what other details you provide.

Okay.

Let's go back to the scene.

So the police are automatically, just like you, this is a big red flag for them, especially just the locked window, the way that this is piled up neatly.

They said that maybe the killer robbed the house of jewelry and silverware, put it out the window, and it landed weirdly.

I don't know about that.

Then locked the window and then went back to the bedroom to look for cash.

And then Harry woke up and saw the person, but didn't make it out of bed because I guess this is a a burglar who came armed with a knife or a razor or something.

The police are saying this is a thing.

They don't really think that's what happened.

They feel like this is, you know, something that pretty clearly was focused on Harry and murder and not on jewelry and money.

So they make a discovery in the street, 25 feet away from the front door, police find a straight razor with a black handle and it has blood on it.

This is not belonged to Harry.

So they think maybe this is the murder weapon, but this is not Harry's straight razor.

First of all, all, when they say straight razor, I'm assuming it's the kind of razor, the old school razor that men used to shave with.

Is that right?

Is that what you would think?

That's how I'm interpreting it.

Yeah, that's what barbers use today.

So when you go get a shave at a barber, they use a straight razor.

That would terrify.

Have you done that?

That would scare me to death, having somebody come at me with one of those or with a handle on a razor.

I guess you're used to it.

I actually have.

Yeah, and it is.

You know, you sit there and you think this person with a single stroke could end my life.

Yeah, little sweeney todd action happening.

Well, that's what they have.

They have this straight razor.

They assume this is what the murder weapon is.

It's got some blood on it.

So, you know, this has all become a mystery.

Louise is hysterical and the neighbors, everybody's trying to console her and the police are investigating and they don't think it's a burglary.

So now we have to learn a little bit about the couple.

This is not straightforward the way we think it could go.

There's some complications here.

And I will say, I usually say this at the top of the episode, but I want to say it now.

This is some he said she said.

This is what this story is about.

He said she said.

And I don't even have that many of those.

Okay.

So it's interesting to see how people perceive the main players in a murder case, especially in 1921, which is still, you know, a conservative.

We're not in the roaring 20s yet.

It's still a very conservative country.

Many people think women should be wearing corsets still.

So, you know, this case kind of brings up some different things as far as our culture.

Let me tell you about these folks.

So they moved from the Ozarks region of Missouri, beautiful, to Portland.

They had known each other their whole lives.

They grew up on farms next to each other, which is sweet.

They got married when Louise was 17 and Harry was 20.

And then, you know, Harry wanted to work in a World War I shipyard, so they moved to Portland.

And since moving to Portland, they had very robust social lives.

They were members of a church.

They had a lot of social clubs that they were active in.

Louise played trombone in a local band and took private lessons.

We have not had a trombone player involved in any of our cases yet.

I thought that was interesting.

I guess that's surprising for a female trombone player from this era.

You know, I'm not sure I've seen

that, you know, watching old historic, you know, like the jazz musicians from that time frame.

So interesting.

Okay.

Let me tell you what Louise said to investigators now that we know about Harry and Louise.

She said her kids are asleep, that the night that Harry died, they had both gone to bed about 10 o'clock, and she had fallen asleep pretty quickly.

She assumed Harry had.

She was woken up two hours later by his moaning.

So she climbs over him, runs to the front door, which this is not a big place, as we talked about before.

It was, you know, a few steps, basically.

She saw someone running through that front door at the same time wearing a long overcoat.

You know, one note I would say is my first instinct, I guess, was, why did she not stay there and tend to him?

She was not covered in blood.

So that's not what she did.

She wanted to run out and get help.

Is there a wrong reaction to have in that situation?

You're either, you know, trying to help your husband, but there's nobody who knows help needs to be called because they don't have a phone, or you're trying to, you know, get help and you're leaving your husband there bleeding out.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Well, I think it really comes down to, well, what is her perception at the time?

Right now, I'm just hearing that she's hearing her husband moaning.

You know, is this akin to he's having a bad dream, you know, or

does she see something that causes her to, you know, climb over him and run out?

We can never

say that there's the perfect way somebody should respond, you know, when there is a crime that has occurred.

You know, we've seen that over and over again.

Some people, you know, their loved ones have been killed and they respond a certain way and other people respond a different way.

And of course, you know, you pay attention to the response, but it's not a reliable predictor as to whether or not somebody was involved in the crime because they didn't respond the way that you think they should have.

So in Louise's situation, it's, you know, I guess I'm just kind of confused.

Harry's moaning, and now she's running out of the house.

She must have, you know, taken in more information or sensed something more than just hearing him moaning.

Yeah.

She must have.

I mean, I think the big deal to me is she didn't have any blood on her.

I don't know why I didn't think that she wouldn't at least touch him if there was that much blood and she's lying next to him.

But they report that she doesn't have any blood on her.

She says, I didn't clean up anything.

I just knew something was wrong with him and ran.

And then she she saw this person leaving in a long overcoat.

Right.

Now, I do want to address that, though.

When people see a very bloody crime scene, and it sounds like the bed has a fair amount of blood in it, a lot of that blood possibly was deposited after Louise left the bed.

So that's, you know, because you have to think about the dynamics.

If Harry's laying there, his throat is cut.

Yes,

there's going to be some external bleeding.

Louise gets up and she gets out.

There's not a lot of blood that has saturated the sheets or the mattress or the pillow, whatever

the circumstances are.

And then as Harry lays there for a period of time, now you get more blood being deposited, but then also fabric causes.

blood to spread even further, even if there's not more blood being deposited.

So when you now go into and take a look at this bed, it looks like half the bed is covered in blood.

I was like, well, it it actually wasn't like that when Louise was in the bed.

That makes sense if things happen the way that Louise said they happen.

I would say the police are very suspicious of Louise because there's nobody who else is there around.

I mean, you know, if they're thinking this is not a burglary, somebody's targeting Harry, they're looking at her first.

I'm not saying that's the right thing.

I'm saying that's where we are right now.

Sure.

Now, I think, you know, going back to, you know, what was observed in the room where his pants have pockets turned out drawers have been pulled out you've got money and jewelry that has been deposited outside this all must have occurred before louise got up and got out of that that bed

so now that's part of the assessment of louise and how and why is somebody doing this while she's asleep next to harry and then why does that offender only attack harry when louise was laying right next to him asleep?

So there are,

again, there's some red flags here.

So I want to know more.

But, you know, we go back to the theory that you say all the time, which is you eliminate the threat.

Louise isn't a threat, right?

I mean, Harry is the threat.

With Louise, he can probably intimidate her and he can do whatever, we can take whatever he wants, right?

Well, you eliminate the threat, but you're also eliminating the witnesses.

So if you're taking the step to kill Harry, yes, you kill him first, but then you would also eliminate Louise.

And this offender, at least per Louise's statement, it's not like she's in the bed and seeing somebody standing over her in the bed, like he was about to, you know, take further action against her.

It almost sounds like she wakes up, Harry's throat has been cut, and the offender is running out of the house.

You know, so that seems more of Harry is targeted, you know, and that's it's odd that the offender has taken the time before killing Harry to go through the drawers and go through his pockets and put the jewelry outside.

Something is not adding up here.

Well, the police agree.

A physician who works for the coroner will later say that he believes it looked like Harry's windpipe had been severed, and he's calling B.S.

on Louise's story.

He's saying Harry would not be moaning or not enough to wake her up.

Now, what do you think about that?

Remember, Robert, the neighbor, said Harry's mouth was moving, but no words were coming out.

Yeah, no, and that adds up.

The trachea, the windpipe, you know, being transected.

Absolutely.

If you can't get, you know, air up through your vocal cords, you can't utter a sound, but you still are able to mouth, you know,

you don't have all these nerves that have been severed, you know.

You still have, you know, motor control over the innervations and the muscles that are in your face.

So, you know, it comes down to, well, what exactly is this moaning sound?

With this doctor saying his trachea is transected, his windpipe is transected.

He's not vocalizing anything, but there is going to possibly be air passing in and out to this wound.

Is she hearing that?

She can't even identify it.

She just assumed it was moaning.

Something woke her up.

Sounds of pain.

So the police say, okay, tell us about the suspect that you saw running out the front door when you were running to go get help from your neighbor.

So the only description she was really able to give, because his back was to her and he was wearing a long overcoat, was that he was short and squat.

The issue is, is the next day, she says he was tall and lanky.

So I'm going to go back to what you've said before, which is, you know, inconsistencies can be alarming at the same time.

Witnesses stink sometimes.

They can't remember anything.

And my description of short and squatty as a woman might be different than your description of one.

Oh, for sure.

And she's also seeing this individual in what sounds like a trench coat in the middle of the night.

Yeah, in the dark.

You know, and so this is where, you know, of course, if she's being interviewed and he's short and squatty, and then the next day he's now tall and lanky, then the follow-up is, well, why are you changing your description?

You know, and if she's saying, you know, I started thinking about it and I remember, I can remember him, you know, running past, let's say, the living room sofa.

And now as I think about, you know, how tall he is relative to the sofa, he was taller than what I initially thought.

Is there a really good reason for her to change so dramatically in this physical description?

Yeah.

Well, let's see.

There is a coroner's inquest held three days after Harry is killed.

Of course, the police are still interviewing everyone in his life, including Louise still.

The coroner is a guy named Dr.

Earl Smith.

I mean, the jury agrees that Harry was killed by a sharp object.

There's now an interesting debate on whether or not the coroner looked at Harry's neck wound and can say it was this razor.

He's not sure it was the razor.

Multiple doctors who examined the body agree that this looked a little bit more like a large knife.

And herein lies my question to you.

This is their description and the reason why they think it was a knife and not this bloody razor, this straight edge with a handle that was found 25 feet away.

They said the cut had been deeper in the middle than on the ends and that hairy skin had been damaged by what looked like the hilt of a knife.

So, I mean, I know it matters in a way.

Can they really tell that based on a neck wound?

Which one is describing the neck wound?

Is this the pathologist?

It's like four of them, and they're all kind of having the same agreement that it's deeper in the middle than on the ends, and it looks like kind of a jagged cut.

Okay, so yes, you know, they can they can make assessments, they can even determine, a pathologist can determine, is it a single-edge or a double-edged knife?

You know, but of course, assessing the wound in terms of the depth of the wound, with it being deeper in the middle than on the sides, well, that helps explain why the jugular veins, the carotids, aren't cut because those are on the side of your windpipe or the trachea.

So, this knife wound sounds more like it has more of a stabbing motion to the center of his neck than like an ear-to-ear type of incision that we often see with throats that have been cut.

Now, you can stab the knife in, but also do an incisive movement and then pull it out.

And that would explain almost, it would almost look like a V-shaped neck wound from the the surface of the skin into the neck structures.

And that's now he's got his trachea transected.

He can't talk, yet his jugulars are intact.

His carotids must be intact unless the knife went underneath the jugular on one side and possibly severed a carotid.

I mean, there's got to be, I imagine, some significant bleeding going on if Harrias is getting up and walking out of the house and collapsing due to loss of blood,

or potentially due sort of almost like an asphyxia because his lungs are filling up with blood, but either way, he's got a significant bleeding injury inside his neck.

But it's not like both carotids are completely cut.

You know, like if we have a homicidal throat slashing, you know, this can often be near decapitation.

And that person dies within a matter of seconds because the brain absolutely has no blood pumping up into it.

The carotids are completely transected, and all the bleeding is going, there's no blood pressure up to the brain.

That type of neck wound, it's close to instantaneous death.

We don't see that with Harry.

So Harry is getting enough oxygen up to his brain to be able to get up and walk out of the house before collapsing.

So the description of these medical experts of the neck wound, it makes sense to me, but there is going to be something happening in terms of significant bleeding.

And right now, I'm not hearing, oh, yeah, the jugulars were cut or the carotids were cut.

There are other blood vessels in the neck that this knife probably transected, and that's the source of the blood.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: So, do you agree with them based on their description that this is more likely to be a large knife instead of a straight edge, which is consistent all the way across, based on what they're saying?

Because it makes a difference, Paul.

I'll tell you that.

Well,

in terms of the size of the knife, you know, right now I don't have any information that would be informative as to the size of a knife.

However, you know, envisioning the typical straight edge where, you know, the front, the top of the blade is blunt, and then you have the working edge of the blade along, you know, just the single edge, and then you have that handle.

I could envision a way that that blade could have been used to inflict a similar similar-looking neck wound.

They're observing the hilt of a knife handle in the neck.

Well, necks aren't very big, you know.

So, if this knife is going all the way up to the length of its blade to where now you have this part of the handle contacting the skin, that doesn't sound like a very long knife to me at all.

You know, we're talking a few inches.

I'm not sure what they mean by a large knife.

Are we talking about like a chef's knife?

No, because in order to get that hilt to contact the skin, for them to see that, that knife has gone completely through the neck and into the bed, you know, so they would be seeing that complete, you know, through and through type of injury.

Well, let's continue on because there's a lot more ahead here.

So the newspapers, of course, are yellow journalism, they're reporting this all over the place.

It's a really big story.

And, you know, people are fascinated with the idea that police think this woman might be responsible for murdering her husband.

And public opinion starts to shift against her.

She is arrested, but as a, this is an interesting phrase, is this a real thing?

Witness under arrest, but she's not charged.

So what is that nowadays?

What would we call that?

A false imprisonment?

I guess.

Person of interest who's been collected by the, I don't know.

Here in the United States, you have to have probable cause in order to deny somebody their freedom you know that's a constitutional right that we have and so

now

to to say that she's a witness under arrest that you know at least the way that I'm interpreting that where okay they don't have a a they don't have a sufficient probable cause but they think she's the one responsible she's a suspect that's how I would describe her she most certainly is a suspect but you still need to cross that probable cause threshold in order to deny somebody their right to freedom.

And it doesn't sound like they've got that with what you've told me yet.

Mm-hmm.

I agree.

And she is doing the right thing.

She's clamming up.

She's not talking to anybody about her attorney, which just drives the press crazy and the police, but especially the press.

And, you know, they start describing her as a caged tigress, gross, because she had reddish hair.

And they start to sexualize her very much, I would say.

Speaking along those lines, the police are saying, and the prosecutor is saying, okay, what's our motive here?

And I will tell you, they don't have a great motive.

So the neighbors are saying they seem like a good couple.

Of course, we never know.

She is taking trombone lessons from a handsome man.

His name is J.H.

Clecker.

He is sleazy, I will tell you that.

And the police say that they think these two people were having an affair and that she wanted things to get more serious and you know the way to convince Clecker that she's serious is to kill her husband they also think maybe they were in on it together and this is where we come up with sort of desperate police trying to find a motive and at the same time the he said she said so I can tell you more about Clecker the trombone teacher or what the police are thinking.

I will tell you they never do a good job settling on did Luis do this to draw her boyfriend in, or did they do it together so they could be together?

There is zero evidence for either one of these theories.

No, but, you know, at least during the investigative stage,

this

is, I would say, a decent theory.

From the information, this crime scene does have an element of staging that is apparent.

You know, two pockets obviously turned out of Harry's pants, drawers being pulled out, the money and jewelry being weirdly positioned outside.

You know, considering Harry is in essence executed, you know, that's where I'm seeing contradiction.

I'm seeing staging.

And anytime you see staging, that suggests that the person responsible in their mind thinks that they are likely going to be considered a suspect.

And so that would be Louise, and that would be somebody she is in an intimate relationship with, which is this JH trombone player.

Now, whether or not Louise acted alone in order to make herself free to be able to continue on a relationship with JH, or she convinced J H

to come over and make this look like a burglary, but kill Harry so those, so Louise and J H could have a future together.

Either scenario, I mean, those are real, you know, either one has happened time and time again throughout history.

So, you know, I think during the investigative stage, that is a decent theory, but now you have to prove that, you know, and is J.H.,

you know, the man in the overcoat and Louise is lying about, well, it's a stranger versus, well, I knew exactly who it was.

And what is J.H.'s description?

Is he short and squat or is he tall and lanky?

You know, is there a reason where she goes, oh, maybe I described him too accurately the first time.

So now I'm going to go the opposite way and say he's the opposite.

You know, the strange man in the overcoat is a taller guy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think he's a medium guy.

He's not short and squat.

He's not super tall.

He's in the medium range.

Number one, get that out of the way.

Number two, here's the problem with Clecker, I think, is that Louise said, I am not sleeping with this guy.

I am not having an affair with this guy.

Clecker says, I don't know if she killed her husband or not.

We were not having an active affair.

We had some intimate, inappropriate, intimate moments.

I had a girlfriend who was in San Diego, who's supposed to be moving up to Portland.

He says basically, this hot woman, Louise, who was married, was hot for me.

And a couple of things happened that was not a big deal.

I wasn't interested in her.

I have no idea if she wanted anything deeper with me.

She didn't profess her love for me.

I don't know if she killed her husband.

He had no proof.

And Louise says, this guy's nuts.

I did not sleep with this guy at all.

But the police are using Clecker's story to really kind of bolster their idea of why would a woman who is a homemaker, whose husband makes a good living, who seems to have a good marriage, why would she,

in 1921, kill the golden goose and go with this trombone guy who doesn't have a steady job.

He brags about sleeping with her or fooling around with her.

I think that there is a little bit of a disbelief of why this would happen, but there's zero proof.

I mean, Louise denies sleeping with this guy, and he can't come up with anything.

There's no witnesses who saw them out.

I mean, there's just nothing.

And I'll say one more thing, Paul, because I know you probably want to say something here.

His family, Harry's family, and Louise's family all come from Missouri.

No one believes this story.

Everybody is behind her, including Harry's brother.

They've known known her

the whole life.

I mean, they live next door to each other on this farm.

And everyone says this is nuts.

She did not do this at all.

And she wasn't sleeping with this guy.

You know, the police saying that why would Louise do this?

Yes, it appears that her life with Harry, the relationship with Harry, at least on the surface, is good, on the outward appearances of things is good.

But we've seen time and time again that it's what the person is feeling on the inside.

I right now cannot just say, oh, no, you know, Louise

is not involved.

It's like Louise very much could still be involved in this, even though everybody, including her friends and Harry's family, are

saying, no, there's no way she would have done this.

Right now, I've got a staged crime scene, and one of the individuals that

has the

access to Harry as he's laying in bed is Louise.

So she's still, in my mind, a suspect.

The relationship with this J.H.

Clecker, you know, that has to be drilled down on because now it's not to eliminate other possibilities, but it doesn't seem like this is where you have a random stranger who's broken into this house and was trying to commit a burglary and then decided to just, you know, cut into Harry's throat.

That's not how these crimes occur.

The staging really suggests that it's Louise, this Klecker, or somebody else that's close to this family circle that is committing this crime.

And at least right now, the two potential suspects, or what I would say the two suspects, are Louise and or J.H.

There may be somebody else that comes along, but right now they're the suspects in Harry's homicide.

Okay.

Well, let's continue on.

Louise and Harry's families, as I said, all think this is crazy.

This is not what happened.

Harry and Louise had a great marriage.

Because the whole family is in from out of town, the trial is pushed up from September to July.

So this is less than two months after Harry is murdered.

And the prosecution, boy, I was shocked when I read this.

They're looking at the death penalty for a woman.

So now we've moved from Louise being a witness under arrest to Louise being charged for Harry's murder.

Right.

And it is totally based on Clicker, what he tells the police.

And he, again, is not saying she didn't confess to me.

I don't think she did.

You know, he's not saying anything except, yeah, we had some inappropriate relationship stuff, but that was it.

I mean, he was, that was the extent of it.

And they ran with this.

There's no other evidence.

The police said that's why we're arresting her is because of what this guy said.

Yeah, it's flimsy.

Very flimsy.

He's offering very interesting information for sure as a witness, but you need to corroborate that somehow, some way.

You know, and of course, in this day and age, we would be looking for physical evidence, you know, such as, you know, like this straight-edge razor.

Is that Harry's blood on it?

And if it is, that likely is the murder weapon.

Whose DNA?

is also on this razor, you know, on the handle.

I know they don't have that technology today, but, you know, this trombone instructor saying, well, we had sort of an inappropriate thing.

She was kind of coming on to me, and Louise is completely denying it.

You know, it's like, God, that's not enough to push this up to where, oh, yeah, I'm confident that Louise is Harry's killer.

You know, she's still a suspect and potentially a strong suspect.

You know, maybe there is some motive there, but I'm unconvinced right now.

Okay.

Well, let's talk about Flimsy.

One of the neighbors, the prosecutor loves this.

One of the neighbors who came to the house before the police showed up, one of those contaminators, I call them, said that Louise's side of the bed did not look like it had been slept in, like the pillow was too fluffy.

You know,

I don't know how I feel about that.

And I know you're one of the things you'll say is, like, I don't know if that makes a difference.

Number one, to me, it's what's more important is that there's no blood on her.

That seems a little bit more important than whether the pillow was fluffy.

And it's a neighbor, a layperson who's determining that to begin with.

What do you think?

Yeah,

I mean, it's an observation, but it's sort of like I would need to

see the photos of that to verify: is there something that seems to be inconsistent with Louise having slept on that side of the bed that night?

But that's very subjective.

Now, the blood on Louise or the lack of blood on Louise, that's where, well, I need to see the photos of the bed.

You know, I need to know the extent of the blood patterns.

I need to know better, you know, the, you know, the blood patterns on Harry in order to assess whether or not somebody could have been on Louise's side of the bed and gotten up and left

without getting any blood on them.

And part of that assessment is also, as I explained earlier, well, how much blood was there when Louise would have been in the bed versus how much blood is being seen at the time that these contaminators are walking into the bedroom?

Yeah, I mean, I think, and I'm not sure this occurs to the police.

I mean, they really focus in on who is the most likely suspect, and they can't get around Louise.

Now, I will say, I mean, Clecker, I don't know how I feel about him.

I don't know who to believe, her or him, but I'm sure he is whiplashed by what the prosecutor does.

Clecker is the prosecutor's star witness in this, and the prosecutor cannot seem to decide whether or not Clecker and Louise did this together, or it was Louise alone.

So, you've got this trombone teacher sitting on the stand testifying for the district attorney, and the district attorney is in some ways, accusing him of doing this.

They cannot settle on anything.

I will say this.

So, things get a little complicated.

You have not, I'm surprised, you haven't asked this yet.

Did Harry have any money or did Harry have a life insurance policy?

I'm sure you were going to get to that, though, right?

Well, after looking at the house, I'm pretty confident that there wasn't a ton of money in this family, you know, but most certainly it's all relative.

You know, it's what's what is what is something.

I mean, I've seen a woman killed for $5.

Yeah.

You know, so it's all relative.

I hadn't

even formed the thought of the possibility of life insurance.

I should have, but I didn't.

Oh, okay.

Well, good.

I'm glad I caught you in something.

I did outsmart you.

So they find out that Harry did have a life insurance, a modest one, although you're right.

I mean, it's all relative.

$4,500 in a life insurance policy.

Today, that would have been about $80,000, which doesn't seem like it's a lot

many people.

And as you pointed out, modest neighborhood, modest family.

Sure.

So there's that.

Okay.

The biggest weird thing that happens in this case is this.

Clecker is on the stand and the prosecution sits down and there's cross-examination.

Okay.

Now, Louise's defense attorney produces something and it's a piece of evidence that shocks the whole courthouse.

Okay, including Clecker.

And the reason that he's able to do this, I'm going to tell you what it is in a second, is that there is no discovery in 1921.

There are no discovery rules.

Will you quickly and swiftly explain the concept behind discovery rules and why they're important and how this lawyer can really throw a gotcha at Clecker on the stand?

You know, in a nutshell, and this isn't going to be

the real legal description, so any prosecutors out there listening to me don't cringe too hard.

But fundamentally, the prosecutors have to turn over everything that they have in their case to the defendant's attorneys.

This is the discovery.

Now, there are select items that can be withheld, but that's very limited.

And fundamentally, this process is that if the people who are prosecuting the defendant have information, have evidence that is potentially exculpatory,

you know, that's what the defense attorneys are looking for.

And that way, the discovery process guarantees that the defendant is able to mount the most rigorous defense possible

with all the evidence and all the information that the investigating agency and the prosecutor's office has compiled.

And this is now where

there's a case decision, Brady v.

Maryland, which really cements the obligation of the prosecutor to the point of potentially being personally liable if it is found that they've withheld potential exculpatory information from the defense.

So, like when I was working for the DA's office, one of the most impressive things that I saw was how rigorous the prosecutors for my office were at ensuring that the defense got everything that they could possibly get.

And there's always going to be some things that are contentious in this adversarial system as to whether or not it was actually turned over under discovery or not.

Now, in this scenario, it sounds like Louise's attorney is producing evidence.

Now, the defense doesn't have the same discovery obligation, you know, so this is where if the defense discovered evidence, and sometimes, you know, defense attorneys hire their own investigators, et cetera, then that is something that they could potentially produce if there is sufficient relevance to defending, you know, the defendant.

Sometimes the defense will do, let's say, scientific testing on the people's evidence, evidence collected by, you know, the investigating agency.

Well, and there, now there's a little bit more of, okay, you need to inform the prosecutors in terms of what

you've done with our evidence, you know, with the people's evidence.

But under this scenario, it doesn't sound like the situation would require the defense attorney to have divulged anything up front under any type of discovery process.

And I may be completely wrong, but that's my understanding.

Yep.

And you're right.

I mean, that's what leads to this, what I can only describe as a Perry Mason moment in the courtroom.

So let me tell you what happens.

Louise's lawyer reaches down looking at Clecker into a bag, and he produces an overcoat.

And we remember the notorious overcoat that the suspect Louise says was wearing as he was running out the door after murdering her husband.

Yeah.

It is bloodstained.

There's a hunting knife in one pocket.

There is trombone.

I really want to get through this without laughing.

There is sheep music in the other pocket.

For trombone.

Yes, yes.

It would be not great if it were clarinet, but yes, for a trombone.

So

there's trombone sheet music.

There's a knife in the other pocket, and then it's blood-soaked.

They say with human blood.

So I have never gotten, I have looked everywhere, I have never gotten a satisfactory answer about whose blood this could have been.

Of course, the defense attorney is proclaiming that this is Klecker's coat, that, you know, he's the one who murdered Harry, and then he discarded this.

So then I have more information, but I want to get your reaction first.

I don't know whose blood this is.

They say it's human.

I am dubious that this would be human blood.

I mean, unless we really believe that this is the overcoat of the person who murdered Harry.

Yeah, you know, this right off the bat, there's issues.

You know, of course, today we need to see, is that Harry's blood on the coat?

But going back to 1921, you know, this is where if Harry is, in essence, is his front of his throat, his windpipe is being transected, and the offender immediately runs off, it's entirely possible that offender has zero of Harry's blood on him or her.

And that's where evaluating the blood patterns at the scene and Harry's injuries, all of that has to come into play as to whether or not the blood patterns on this overcoat are even consistent with the crime scene.

You know, so, I mean, this could very well just be mocked-up evidence

at this point.

There was absolutely no chain of custody.

It's not being documented.

It doesn't sound like as to where it was collected from, you know, who's had possession of it, documenting that the knife, the trombone music, you know, the blood was all there when that overcoat was first found.

So, you know, I'm very skeptical about this evidence, at least right now.

You know, it just seems like this seems too, I'm going to use the term staged again.

I mean, come come on trombone music inside the pocket well listen to this Louise's dad is the one who found it

you didn't even take a sip of your drink you put it right back down yeah well yeah but is the dad trying to put the suspicion on J.H.

Klecker you know my daughter's innocent he's the killer yep you know this this is where

there's questions about the veracity of the the evidence right off the bat and that's where you know definitely investigation into this evidence, forensic testing into this evidence has to be done in order to even determine, does it have relevance to this case?

Yeah.

I mean, I think one of the things is that he found it.

He said he found it in the neighborhood rolled up under a fern plant.

And, you know, one of the issues that the police say is that, and then he turned it over to the defense attorney.

The police say, listen, how long do you think this has been here?

And of course, the dad's like, well, obviously the killer deposited it there and hid it there after the killing, which was four weeks earlier.

It had rained numerous times and there was no sign of rain water washing out this blood and the sheep music was

perfect.

I mean, I'm surprised they didn't ask Clecker to perform whatever the song was that was in his pocket at the time.

Well, you know, the complexity is this is now being produced by the defense in court.

So there isn't an opportunity to really scrutinize this evidence.

And this is where, you know, the prosecutor, I think, would be very much in the right to be able to object to relevancy

without

further scrutiny of that evidence.

Not just the dad getting on the stand and saying, I found it here.

There needs to be a deep dive into this evidence to determine whether or not

it is what the defense claims it is.

Yeah.

Well, none of that happens.

I mean, they can't get it thrown out.

The jury has heard it.

The judge is allowing it to be heard.

This is the last major murder trial in Oregon to have an all-male jury.

They deliberate for 30 minutes.

That's it.

Half an hour.

And they come back with a verdict.

Her life is on the line.

This is a capital case.

What do you think, Paul, holds, they came up with?

Guilty or not guilty?

Well, there's what I think they should have come up with based on the case against Louise.

But my fear is

that with such a short deliberation, all-male jury, this Perry Mason moment with the overcoat, I have a feeling that

they convicted Louise.

No.

They acquitted her.

Oh, wow.

I think that there was enough, there was, you know, witnesses who were saying, well, the coat could have been there, and they were him and Han.

I don't think anybody liked Clecker because he came off as sleazy.

And I still think in 1921, there was absolutely the belief that a woman couldn't have done this.

She didn't testify.

And that was that.

They never found out or never convicted anybody of murdering Harry.

And Louise and the two kids, the boy and the girl, leave town.

And she dies in 1986 at the age of 91.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

So that's the end of that story.

I mean, what do you think?

I don't have a problem with Louise being acquitted, though.

I

still think that she is potentially Harry's killer.

Yeah.

I think the prosecution jumped the gun on charging her.

Didn't build up a good enough case, nor am I convinced about this J.H.

Klecker not having any involvement.

I think this investigation got up to a point where two suspects were developed, and they could have acted independently, or they could have acted in concert, and they didn't do enough to incriminate or exonerate either one of these suspects.

Further investigation was needed before anybody was charged.

And, you know, now, unfortunately, you know, it's over 100 years later,

you know, Harry's death is, there is no justice.

There's no answer.

Yeah.

Two kids with no dad.

Yeah, boy, what a story.

And I think that it was, it really did come down to the he said, she said,

and planted evidence, weird evidence, sleazy trombone teachers.

I mean, I just think this was a complicated case.

Well, and I know the way that I would be looking at this case if I was with the investigating agency is, okay, one of the suspects has been acquitted, can't go after Louise anymore due to double jeopardy.

However, J.H.

Klecker is still in play.

And then now let's really try to determine was he involved or not.

And there could be all sorts of investigative tactics used in order to try to wean that out, including potentially gaining cooperation from Louise,

because she now could turn state's witness and said, yeah, I hired Klecker to kill my husband, but you can't do anything about it because I've been acquitted.

But she could say

he was the man in the overcoat.

There's all sorts of things that could have happened if they decided to pursue the case.

But I've seen sort of the philosophy with prosecutors is that, well, we knew we had the right person.

They just got acquitted, and therefore we're not going to pursue the case any further.

I've got a woman, early 70s, dumped, had been raped, semen evidence vaginally.

They charged a guy, and he was acquitted of her murder, you know, many decades before.

And I was like, well, I'm convinced that he is her killer.

Where's the DNA?

And the prosecutor was like, what doesn't matter?

I was like, it's an unsolved case.

If it's an acquittal, it's an unsolved case.

We now have the technology to prove whether or not the person acquitted was the actual killer, or maybe we would actually find the real killer and be able to arrest and charge that person.

So

it sounds like in Harry's homicide,

once Louise is acquitted, then

the investigating agency and the prosecutor's office just dropped pursuing it because they were convinced that Louise was Harry's killer.

They put all their eggs in one basket, and then that basket got acquitted and left town.

So there you go.

Well, next week, we will not have this type of case.

I'm going to stay away from both straight razors, which scare me, and also heavy knives.

And we'll be going for a different weapon.

I can tell you that already.

All right.

Well, as always, I'm looking forward to it.

All right.

See you next week.

All right.

Thanks, Kate.

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 McClashin, Allie Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.

Our mixing engineer is Ben Toliday.

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 Deco the Criminal Mind, is available available now.

And Paul's best-selling memoir, Unmasked, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, is also available now.

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