St. Aubin Street Massacre 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.

Hi, Kate.

Hey, Paul.

You ready for part two of our story?

I have been waiting all week for this one.

It's a complicated story with lots of theories, more theories than forensics.

I love both, but I like when we dig into theories, too, and try to figure out sequencing.

I know we don't always have the most information, but I think it's a great talk we always have.

Well, but it's all part of just the process of solving crimes is you have to develop theories.

And you constantly are tweaking a theory or completely throwing them out as evidence comes in, forensics comes in, new theories arise that better fit.

You know, so that's just part of the process.

What's hard about these old cases is, you know, I will tell you that police went ahead and released them.

They didn't have enough evidence.

There's not enough information.

And we just have to sort of trust the police for 1929 to know what they're doing.

And I realize that when we have a case that is more ambiguous and we aren't 100% sure what ends up happening here, that certainly the police might not know what they're doing and let a suspect go that we would have never let go and probably a guilty person.

But we do the best we can based on the information we have.

And sometimes we get some really great investigators and medical examiners and sometimes we don't.

It's a crapshoot.

No, for sure.

You know, and that's sometimes we just have to trust the information that we have.

But there's been times, I know you've told me some things, and I go, well, hold on, I don't trust that.

I agree.

And we always want photos.

So I wish that we had some more photos in this situation.

But let me go ahead and summarize our story.

1929, Detroit, Michigan, a couple of months before the great stock market crash that happens in October.

And we are with the Evangeliste family who Benny Evangeliste is from Italy.

He is seemingly a great family man.

The whole family ends up murdered one night and is discovered the next morning by one of his colleagues.

His head has been decapitated.

He's sitting slumped over at his desk in his chair.

His hands are what they describe as in the prayer position.

And then his wife is dead upstairs with his 18-month-old son.

Hacked to death is, I think, probably one of the ways I would describe it.

And then three little girls next door are also dead.

And the police are stymied.

They're trying to figure out what happened.

This is a well-known case.

So, you know, getting in and trying to figure out who the suspects are is difficult for them and could be difficult for us.

We have very limited forensics.

We've got some fingerprints that they're trying to match to different people.

And then I've been teasing this all along.

We have a victim with a very, very

different kind of secondary life that's going to be coming up.

And I think we'll throw some intrigue in here.

So I know your interest is peaked at this point.

Aaron Trevor Burrus: No, for sure.

And from what I remember is you were talking about two men and a search of a barn and some weapons being found.

So I'm kind of curious to see what they found.

So the police have dismissed Vincent Elias, who was the man who I told you discovered the bodies.

They thought maybe his thumbprint would match,

but they couldn't say conclusively.

There wasn't enough evidence.

You and I have already talked about a contaminated crime scene.

I don't know what it would have been like in 1929.

My memory from America Sherlock of crime scenes in the 20s where basically neighbors showed up and started bringing food when the coroner was still there.

Yeah.

Like examining the body.

Yep.

And that's just at any time, especially with older cases, the older the case, the sort of it's like a funnel that expands in terms of all the various possible

alterations to the crime scene that have to be taken into consideration.

And now when you're starting to talk about 1929, it's wide open.

Wide open for sure.

They start looking at Benny's business colleagues, and they find out that there are two men, as I had mentioned in the last episode, who were probably the last people to see him alive, aside from whoever killed him, if we go down that route.

So one of the men is named Angela DiPoli.

He's 34, and he is questioned because he and his friend, who's a 42-year-old named Umberto Pecchio, had stopped by Benny's house on the night of the murders when we presume they were murdered that night into the early morning.

They said this is a very innocent meeting.

One of the men had recently purchased some property from Benny and he was just making a payment.

But being Italian, I think the police were suspicious.

And being, you know, people who were in his circle, police were suspicious.

So they find Angelo, the first guy, and they go into his possessions.

They go into his barn, and they find a short axe, a long curved banana knife, both with reddish stains, and a recently washed pair of shoes in the possession.

They did not conclusively say whether this was blood or rust, but they did say that this is only about a half a mile from Benny's house.

You know, this is a barn, so presumably he has animals.

And again, they can't even say that this is blood, but Angelo was briefly arrested and released.

They don't have enough on him.

So what do you think about that?

I mean, they're really, they're trying to, they're doing the right thing, right?

They're going after people who had last seen Benny, who we think maybe have been the main target.

But at the same time, you know, they're coming up empty because they just don't have enough evidence for anybody.

Well, on the surface, these two men being there in the evening, you know, now you have potentially what you'd call opportunity, especially if they're still there after the family has, you know, Santina and the girls and the 18-month-old have gone upstairs and these two men are alone with Benny doing this transaction.

You know, one of the things that I'd want to know is if they're there to make the payment, did the investigators find that payment in Benny's office, somewhere in the house?

What mode of payment was it?

Was it cash?

Was it check?

That's a significant item that I'm interested in.

The weapons that are found in the barn, I think, are interesting.

I'd like, under this scenario, I like the idea of two offenders inside this house, one with an axe and one with this banana knife.

This banana knife, I'm envisioning, is like a machete.

That's kind of what I'm thinking.

And this is where that would, in my mind, be a weapon that could inflict the decapitation to Benny as he's sitting in this chair versus the axe.

And it sounds like the axe may be more consistent with the types of injuries that are present on Santina and the children.

So on the surface right now, I'm intrigued by Angelo and Umberto, but I have a feeling that you're going to be telling me that they were somehow eliminated.

Angelo was eventually cleared.

They talked to Umberto about this case, but he was never arrested.

Angelo was briefly brought in and arrested, but only based on these what could have been rusty weapons that were found in his barn.

and they couldn't conclusively say that there was blood, which is a little confusing to me because there would have been blood tests available.

Now, with rust, I mean, I don't know.

I remember in the David Lampson case, you and I talked about on My Favorite Murder, there was some confusion about a blood test that might have come up with rust or blood, and it was inconclusive.

Does that make sense to you?

No, it could.

I think in 1929, it's possible that there were some of these what we call catalytic blood tests, presumptive tests.

Basically, it's a color test.

And so, whether it be back then, maybe I could see it being like benzidine.

Today, there's orthitolidine, there's leukomalachite green, there's phenol phthaline, and all of them have their pros and cons and their sensitivities, and their cross-reactivity with other substances.

But it's usually the first type of test.

If I'm noticing a stain that I think might be blood, I'll choose one of these tests.

And in essence, blood reacts with the chemical after an oxidizing agent is put in there.

And you get this like with benzodine or orthitolidine, a very apparent or obvious is a better term, obvious color change.

And it tells you this could be blood.

Rust generally isn't going to react with these tests, though I wouldn't put it outside the realm of possibility.

But then there are other types of substances that can.

So that's why they're considered presumptive, but they're a good first step.

So if the visual appearance on the axe and the banana knife is more like a stain, rust, particularly under a microscope, is very obvious, you know,

especially in a fresh case.

You know, you can have rust form as a result of the aqueous aspect of the blood on an iron type of object.

But it should be pretty apparent that you're dealing with a fresh blood stain versus rust on these items.

And then, if it reacts with a presumptive blood test, then it's like, okay, well, back then they probably couldn't sort out is it human versus animal?

And they most certainly weren't doing ABO testing, you know, to be able to at least narrow the population.

But at least, you know, now it's like, oh, you have blood on these items that are consistent with being the types of weapons used at the homicide scene.

Explain it.

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So, you know, Angelo is released.

I'm assuming you're right that he was questioned and arrested and then released within days of all of this happening because that's immediately where they went.

They wanted to know who found the bodies, and they looked at Vincent and released him, and then they wanted to know who saw them last.

And so they eliminated these two guys.

I think it would have been pretty obvious that this was blood or not blood because it would have been recent.

But and then, of course, they were alarmed by the recently paired, you know, washed pair of shoes, which I thought, if he has a barn, of course, he's washing shoes all the time.

I mean, the proximity of these two guys the night of the murders couldn't be ignored.

So, definitely put them, just know the police in 1929 cleared them.

It doesn't mean we have to clear them.

Sure.

And they very well could be what we run into all the time, these red herrings, where, oh, this is interesting.

Things are kind of adding up, but it turns out not to be the case.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: We have now three levels of odd stories.

I'll go weird and then weirder, then off the wall for me.

Okay, so there is a theory by a writer named Jess Willard, who wrote about this.

And Jess says that there were a number of notes that police discovered in the Evangeliste home that indicate that the family might have been threatened by a local criminal group called the Black Hand.

So before you remember what we just talked about a couple of episodes ago, this is not, don't confuse this with the black glove.

Okay, because I just had deja vu.

I was like, what?

No, it's them.

Glove hand, glove hand.

So black glove was different, and that was the woman who was weighted down with a massive rock in the cistern.

This is a group called the Black Hand.

They were known for targeting and preying on Italian Americans who had earned a lot of wealth since they had come to the United States.

During the investigation, they find the most recent letter from the Black Hand and includes this line, this is your last chance.

But it's dated six months before the murders.

I think the big issue that Jess points out, because I think you're going to say time doesn't really matter to people who are focused in on a vendetta, she says by 1929, the black hand was basically defunct.

She says, having evolved into a traditional mob-like structure of typical organized crime, the enterprise was no longer getting itself mixed up with extorting money from Italian immigrants.

Of course, that doesn't mean anything, but there is this six-month-old letter that seems very threatening.

And it's definitely from the Black Hand, which is an anonymous society.

So what do you think about that?

I think that's very interesting.

You know, the six-month timeframe doesn't concern me at all.

Even with this black hand, right?

Not glove hand.

Right.

Even with this black hand group being somewhat defunct and possibly being absorbed into more of the traditional mafia.

And we know this era, you know, the Italian mafia was prevalent.

And I don't know specifically Detroit, but Chicago for sure.

You know, we're talking about days of Al Capone, you know, and during this era.

In some ways,

and this is where we get into why is the entire family wiped out?

And with nothing apparently taken or anything else, this could be a message.

You know, this outfit could potentially be conducting similar operations against other families.

And this is a way to, in essence, underscore that this outfit is serious about their threats.

We will come and kill you and we'll take out your entire family.

So that theory right now, I think, is interesting.

So I'm want to hear what other theories you've got.

Yeah, no, I thought it was interesting that Jess says there's a, Jess Willard says a number of notes.

I don't have information on what the disagreement was.

I mean, it's obviously some kind of an extortion scheme.

Benny fits right into the demographic.

And, right, you could have a wayward black hand person who wants to keep up with this.

We don't really know.

But I do have a question.

I don't remember if I asked you this.

Do you think that the person who did this had to have any kind of a knowledge of the house, which is sprawling if you look at that photo?

It's a big house.

It just seems risky to me to be a member of the black hand, who I'm presuming has maybe they've never visited.

I can't imagine imagine they would ever visit the home of somebody who they were extorting.

Would it be difficult in a large house to do what you're saying you want to do if you're unfamiliar with the house at night?

I don't think so.

You know, not knowing the complexity of the layout of this house, but my, when I've been in homes like this from the, you know, kind of the same vintage, you know, the staircase that leads upstairs is usually a significant staircase in the center of the home.

You know, you have an offender who goes in, you know, sees a light on in Benny's office and goes straight there.

There's somebody there before going upstairs.

Once Benny is taken care of, the offender is confident there's nobody else on the first floor, then he can take his time to go upstairs potentially.

But there's also, I mean, some of these

offenders will go into the the house ahead of time to get a feel for the layout.

They burglarize the house.

They're not taking anything.

They're literally just breaking in, seeing the layout, and then now they make their strategy.

So when they do go in and attack, they can do it efficiently.

So I'm not overly concerned, even though this is a large house, that it suggests that the offenders had to have prior knowledge of the layout of the house in order to commit this crime.

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Is this the use of an axe or a banana knife or whatever this weapon was, which was obviously probably pretty large and sharp and heavy or something?

You said there was going to be a lot of blood.

Is this not risky to be an outsider coming in, killing these people, getting blood all over the place and all over yourself, leaving fingerprints behind, leaving shoe prints behind, walking out a side door or a back door out of the kitchen into the night, potentially covered in blood.

That seems risky to me.

Why not do so?

I don't know.

Is it not risky?

Aaron Ross Powell, it all comes down to what the offender's knowledge is.

Most killers don't understand

what they're getting into in terms of the amount of bloodshed that can happen or may not happen.

This is often a huge misperception of the general public.

And I'm going to bring up the O.J.

Simpson case, where you see the photos where Nicole and Ron Goldman were killed, and you see all this blood.

What people don't recognize is that most of that blood happened after the offender left.

And offenders don't understand when they go in.

You know, they may not understand when you decapitate somebody that, yeah, you potentially are going to have arterial spurts occurring where next thing they know, they've got this gush of blood that has landed on them versus somebody going in and stabbing somebody who's fully clothed.

And if there's just a few stab wounds, it's not a very bloody scene at all.

So, you know, this is just where

it may.

be, you know, they choose these weapons.

First, these are weapons that aren't making a lot of noise from a gunshot type of perspective.

They are weapons that,

if this was the intent, are very intimidating weapons.

And this is where you could see where there could be a level of control before the violence starts.

But this is also during this era, as we've had with the other cases.

This seems to be a more common thing back in the 1920s than in the 2020s.

But if I'm picturing the mafia, the mob doing this, or these are people who are apparently evolving into that sort of criminal, it just seems so messy and you have to carry around a weapon.

I mean, they didn't find the weapons.

So you have to carry around a weapon and it just seems, I don't know, it seems more haphazard than I would think a group that is moving towards being in organized crime would be.

But I know you can also say, well, you've got these people, you've got numb nuts in every group.

I mean, there are people who don't know what they're doing in every organized crime, you know, group.

Well, and part of it is there's probably less risk back in 1929 with them walking away with the murder weapons than potentially today.

They don't have cops and patrol cars on a beat roving around back then, at least not with the same type of volume that we see today.

And part of the use of these weapons may,

if it is, let's say, to send a message.

to other families that they're extorting, the use of this weapon is going to be a very strong message.

If you don't do what we say, you're going to end up like this family, and it's going to be a horrible time for you.

Well, we'll put a pin in that theory.

So we've got several pins happening.

We've got the two guys with the axe and the banana knife, and then we've got the black hand, not to be confused with the black glove society, extorters.

Now we've got a very similar crime that happened two weeks before Benny's family and he were murdered.

Now the police are wondering if this happened.

This is 10 miles outside of Detroit.

I don't have a lot of information.

I mean, the researchers did digging.

I did digging.

This did not turn into a massive story.

There was a family called the Chapinski family.

It was a mother and her three children.

And the newspapers say they were mutilated with the same, they say, the savage ferocity, which characterizes the St.

Albans slangs.

So Axe murders, a woman and her three children.

Two weeks earlier, but not in Detroit.

They have bloody prints from that scene too.

The police compare the Chapinsky scene with the St.

Alban murder scene, and they don't match at all.

And they can't find that killer either.

They compare the bloody prints at both crime scenes.

From the two cases.

Yep.

That doesn't mean much to me because you can't say that the bloody fingerprints from either case are from the same parts of the offender's hands.

You know, as an example, you know, you could have a bloody, you know, left pinky at one scene, and you could have a bloody thumbprint at the other scene.

And of course, they don't match.

You know, unless the latent examiner, the fingerprint examiner is able to

see enough of the hand, you know, like let's say three fingerprints or two fingerprints side by side at one scene and form, okay, this is an index in the middle.

And then they see something similar at the other scene, and then now they have confidence.

I'm comparing the same fingers.

And if they don't match, then you could potentially eliminate.

But typically, you don't have that.

And so now I'm like, okay, so if they're just going off of they can't make a comparison between the bloody fingerprints at these scenes, you know, absent that there's sufficient detail to know they're comparing apples to apples in terms of the parts of the hands.

I don't put any weight on that whatsoever.

You know, it is interesting that a mother and kids are hatcheted or axed to death a couple months or a couple weeks before the St.

Aubans case.

Two weeks, 10 miles away.

Yeah, in the distance, I mean, that's nothing.

You know, so now it's something that has to be paid attention to.

And then is there overlap in the victimology, you know, or are you now dealing with something that maybe I talked about early on?

Are you dealing with a psychotic offender?

And this is what that psychotic offender needs to do, you know, in order to answer whatever mental state that offender is in?

So if we look at black hand, it doesn't seem like a mother and three children where the mother might be a widow.

We don't know much about her.

You know, this is not somebody they would be extorting money from.

So if they're trying to connect to those two cases through the black hand group, I don't think that works.

I will tell you, there's a little bit more of a definitive thing down here.

So here's an interesting theory.

Tell me what you think about this.

Benny has a very good old friend.

He hasn't talked to for a long time, but an old friend named Aurelius Angelino.

This is something that the police start to focus in on.

In the 1910s, Aurelius was convicted of murdering his two children with an axe.

He was convicted and sent to prison.

So six years before Benny's murder and his family's murders, Aurelius Angelino escaped and they never found him again.

So what they're saying is, you know, of course, they are looking back at Benny's history and saying, maybe this guy came back, maybe they had a beef, and it's the same method, but good Lord, I mean, how many, I've talked about so many axe murders spanning hundreds of years.

I don't know if a guy killing his children with an axe is going to translate to going to his friends, but this was another theory they explored.

Yeah, that one's wide open.

Yeah.

As I've mentioned, you know, it's all in the offender's mind and their perceptions.

And so Aurelius and Benny may never have had a beef.

Aurelius gets convicted of axing his two kids to death, and now he's in prison.

And he ultimately learns of Benny's success and becomes jealous.

And now,

because he's in, he's a warped mentality, he decides, well, I'm going to take my anger of having lost, you know, my half my life of being convicted on these cases out on Benny and his family for whatever reason.

You know,

it's speculative.

You know, it is, it looks like it's roughly 20 years prior that Aurelius committed this crime against his kids.

But he's showing a propensity to commit a similar type of violence and has a relationship or had a relationship with Benny.

So he's at least somebody that can't be dismissed outright.

God, there's a lot of things going on in Benny's life.

Oh, buddy.

You don't even know.

Get ready.

I hope you have your whiskey or whatever you're drinking by hand.

I'm starting.

You can see I've got a pretty good pour going here.

So all right.

You were drinking water in the last episode.

Yeah.

Well, I knew this episode was going to get me, so I decided okay.

Oh, gosh.

We're going to go full-leaded on this one.

Yeah, this is going to be interesting.

So we're going to rewind to when investigators find the bodies.

They go down into this sprawling house has a basement.

They go into the basement.

And I know you're thinking I'm going to say that Benny killed a bunch of people and stored the bodies down there, and it's like the family is seeking revenge.

That would be interesting, but no.

The walls of this basement are covered with a bulky green cloth, and there's a large card placed in the window, and the card says, Great Celestial Planet Exhibition.

Okay, the police go, what the hell?

The Detroit Free Press does a great job describing this scene.

It is the weirdest altar ever uncovered in Detroit.

He did this.

Benny did this.

Eight or ten wax figures, each hideously and grotesque to the extreme.

They're suspended on an altar in a circle by wires from the ceiling.

And among them was a huge eye, electrically lighted from the inside.

Okay.

Benny Evangelist

is very interested in the occult.

And he is, in fact, identified by a lot of people in the neighborhood as a all-divine prophet religious leader.

Okay, so would he have gatherings down in the basement?

Oh, yeah.

Animal sacrifice.

Do you need to take a drink?

Yes, I do.

I mean,

so I'll show you a photo while you're doing that.

And you might need another one.

The only photo I have of this bizarro scene is the creepiest mobile I've ever seen.

This is not what you would put on over your kid's crib.

Hanging paper dolls That is what Benny had called to people his sanctuary.

So I want to show you this.

The police were petrified when they saw it because they thought it was the weirdest thing ever.

So hang on.

So now things get weird.

Anytime you introduce the occult, I think you can pretty much say, now we really have to pay attention to this.

Let me show you.

You see why I saved this theory for the last?

Yeah, so I'm looking at a photo which has a caption, the ghoulish set of dolls suspended from the ceiling in Evangelist's basement were said to be the rulers of his religious world.

Benny's into some weird shit here.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, I have a lot more details.

Just off the top of my head, you know, this is where it becomes very important to understand Benny's religious philosophy, the commitment and dedication of his followers.

So when I initially heard about, you know, the totality of the scene and how Benny was found, and one of the theories I put out there is, is it possible that Benny had somebody who would come in and if Benny's the one that killed his family, would he have somebody that could come in, kill him, and then stage it to take it look like somebody from the outside must have come in and killed everybody?

Right.

Now, do you have somebody within this cult that Benny is a leader of that is willing to do something that Benny directs him to do?

And is Benny of the mindset that death to his family is going to free their souls and they go on to a better life or this and that?

You know, so I'm kind of curious to hear more about this thing that Benny's involved with.

Hold on.

I'll show you.

Now, I guess is a good time.

Well, you have no idea how much I've been jumping around on my document.

I've been moving around more than I ever have.

So I have been withholding withholding something from you about what was found around Benny's body because it's too weird and I needed you to hear all of the other stuff first before you jumped right into this theory because this is certainly the most fascinating theory to me.

So I had teased this before.

Benny and his wife had had a child who had died.

Police found three photos of a child.

This is the kid who died, who they had, and presumably, I would think, died of natural causes.

A child in a coffin on the floor of the office.

So three photos of a child in a coffin, his kid on the floor of the office near his corpse.

They ultimately identify these as death portraits, you know, which were very common, particularly in the 1800s, but definitely early 1900s, of the son that they had several years ago.

So they're kind of surrounding him.

And that's why I kept asking you about suicide.

It just is such a weird scene.

And of course, I can tell you there's a lot more about his religion.

He wrote a book.

Yeah, at least based on the description of Benny and his decapitated head, he didn't do that to himself.

But could it be an assisted suicide?

Absolutely.

The picture of his dead child in a coffin placed around him.

You know, it's possible he put those there, or it's possible whoever assisted him with his own suicide, if you will,

basically did this as part of Benny's wishes.

You know, so Benny is, for whatever reason, again, it's all coming down into, you know, what Benny's personal philosophy is, is that he needs to have his entire family, his wife, all the kids in the house that are alive dead.

He also needs...

to be whole with this process, his dead child, to be present in this photo montage, if you will.

And then he also has to die.

And it's interesting that it's through the use of, you know, this decapitation.

You know, and is this part of the philosophy that this is how everybody needs to die in terms of being hacked to death in order to, let's say, move on to the next world or the next life or whatever he believed in?

You know, I have a case in which I believe this is exactly what what the victim wanted.

This is the, you know, I have an audible out there called The Riddle of Emin Bodfish.

And to

move on from this blue demon conscience that she had that was making her life miserable, she recognized that she had to die an unexpected and violent death.

And she needed to be bludgeoned in the head where this demon resided because she writes in her diary, I need to move on to my next life because she believed in reincarnation with her religious beliefs.

Is this what's going on with Benny in terms of I need to kill my entire family and we have a better life that will also bring back our dead child to be part of the family again?

You know, I'm now kind of speculating, but I can say from experience, this is a very real mentality.

And with Benny's bizarro cult stuff going on, I think it becomes very realistic.

Well, here we go.

The family doctors, a guy named Alf E.

Thomas, said he is insane.

He thinks Benny is insane.

And the friends around the neighborhood, even though they thought that Benny was nice, say this guy was a confirmed religious fanatic.

And I say that because these are our witnesses who have no dog in the fight.

They're sort of just observing.

They're not involved.

They're not his clients.

And I'll explain what I mean by clients in a second.

But you've got a doctor and you've got neighbors who say, this guy seems way off the rails and his wife is just along for the ride is what it sounds like.

Now let me tell you about what he does.

So he is

someone who people can pay money to and he will do certain services for.

He provides clients services like hexes, herbs.

He has carried out the ritualistic sacrifices of animals, and he claims to have cured people of curses.

He calls himself an all-divine prophet of a religion that he invented, of course.

He claims that he receives visions directly from God.

He has even written a Bible explaining his theory, the one I told you that's on the internet, called The Oldest History of the World.

There were multiple volumes that he self-published.

in 1929.

Marin has a note for you, our researcher.

She said that in 1929, he was referred to as a cult leader, but neither of us can find evidence that he actually had this like following.

But that was the vibe he was giving.

He was charging people money.

He would get $10 for private readings during which he called upon the powers of his own cult to heal various ills or spiritual ills, physical ills of which patients were afflicted.

That's $200 a pop.

So he had a legitimate business and then he had this business.

But what alarmed me was all divine profit of a religion he invented.

And receiving visions from God also sort of pricked up my ears a little bit.

What do you think about all of that?

Oh, I have a term for this: nut job.

Religious fanatic, for real.

You think about this.

You know, it's one thing to be fanatical about a religion, but think about the personality

can be discerned from the descriptors of how, you know, he seems to have this cult-like following, these people who are gravitating towards him.

This is that psychology that we see, that personality, such as Charles Manson, David Koresh, Jim Jones, these types of individuals have this warped sense of reality and they want to have followers that in essence look up to them, kind of put them up on a, on an altar in essence.

And it's now getting into, and we've seen it with some of these groups where the leader says, we must all do this and everybody ends up dead, suicide, you know, somebody needs to follow a comet.

I forget the name of that group.

And now everybody's dead because they're believers in this one leader.

These leaders are often very charming.

You know, they're able to convince people that are looking for something in their life,

you know,

that these leaders can possibly provide.

These followers are often very gullible.

So this is what it's sounding like.

And now I'm really

going into, yes, it seems like Benny probably decided that for whatever reason, it was he was at a point in his life in which he had to have his family killed.

He had to remember his dead child that was in the coffin and the photos around him.

And he had a gullible follower, somebody he trusted, that was willing to come in and minimally at least kill Benny through decapitation and take the murder weapons with him.

Now, right now, I can't say, is Benny the one that killed the entire family?

Or do you have something like Helter Skelter with Manson, where you have a group of these followers that came into this home, killed killed the family, and left, making it look like it was a homicide with some stranger that came in without a connection that Benny was actually the one orchestrating it all along.

I had not thought about the follower aspect of it.

I had thought that this was his idea.

I just was so bothered by the hands in the prayer position.

There would have been no misinterpreting that for any police officer.

He was Catholic, by the way, devout Catholic.

So I don't know how that fits in with what he's thinking, but he was starting to dip his toe into the film business.

He had plans to make a motion picture depicting the history of mankind.

I mean, talk about delusions of grandeur here.

This is definitely off the rails.

And the pictures of the kid around really bugged me.

It didn't feel like any other explanation except the one that you're talking about.

Except I didn't know about, I didn't think about the follower.

And I think, you must be right about that.

That makes sense.

I'm fairly confident in that.

Wow.

Benny didn't cut his head off

without leaving evidence of the mechanism to cut it, being able to cut his head off.

Because after his head's off, he can't clean up after himself.

You know, so somebody came in minimally and cut Benny's head off and possibly did more.

So, this, you know, my suspect pool

is now within some of maybe his closest associates within this cult.

Who could he trust to do this?

And

who has the capability?

It takes a special person to cut somebody else's head off.

And when I say special, I mean

this is not what just anybody can do.

You know, so who within this group of followers

would be trusted and also could commit this crime, whether it's just killing Benny or whether it's killing the entire family.

Gosh.

Well, let me, I'm not throwing you a curveball.

That is as curvy as the curveball as I can throw you for this case.

There is a man who pops up three years later.

This goes on unsolved.

And three years later, there's a guy who pops up named Robert Harris in 1932.

He was notorious as being sort of violent and a little wacky.

He is a religious fanatic, also, but he is a follower of Islam.

He's a black man.

And I I don't see evidence that they knew each other, but he confesses.

He said,

you know, I did this,

and he had been convicted for killing a man and claimed that his victim was a sacrifice.

So investigators say this guy has confessed.

He's been violent.

This is what we, you know, this might be a potential.

So while they're waiting to compare the prince, he starts talking about he's plotting to kill other people.

He wants to kill the mayor of Detroit.

And it seems clear to them that Robert Harris has some real mental health struggles, even though he had been violent.

He clearly was violent at one point.

His prints don't match with the prints found at the Evangelist home.

So before you started talking about a follower, I kind of dismissed this.

But, you know, another religious fanatic, I don't know.

What do you think?

There's nothing really tying him to this case except his confession, and that's it.

Aaron Powell, Jr.: Well, it all depends on the details he provided in his confession.

Does he provide information that was never made public that matches up with the crime scene?

I mean, in many ways, and we see this all the time with these whodunit cases, you do have your crackpots that come out, and they want to be associated with that case, you know, whether, you know, admitting to, you know, they're saying, yes, I'm responsible for this homicide.

And it's just part of their warped perception of the world that they want to have that notoriety right now that's what this robert harris sounds more like you know somebody who's falsely confessing to this crime than somebody who actually committed it even though he's got this maybe a a religious fanaticism but it's in a completely different philosophy yeah you'd have to show a you know based on the the the crime scene it and and the victimology of benny this is where did did benny reach out to this Robert Harris or did a follower reach out because the follower is going, I know somebody who's capable of committing this level of violence that is needed in this case.

Why wasn't the family just poisoned?

Why didn't Benny just drink poison?

You know, there's purposeful decisions behind how these crimes are committed, unless it's truly a psychotic aspect.

And this is where now the type of violence used in this crime is significant to Benny and or the offender.

And now with this cult-like thing

and everything you've told me, it's like, yeah, this is something that Benny has told somebody he needs to have done to him and his family.

And right now, I'm just not buying Robert Harris.

I think it goes back to somebody who was very close to Benny within this cult.

I can't even believe you're saying this, Paul.

It's just like

the wildest, weirdest thing that this guy asked someone to do this, not just to him, but to his family.

It just seems so off the wall.

But all it takes is for you to know that he has such fervent beliefs.

And, you know, the animal sacrifice, of course, was very alarming to me.

And this just self-absorption, everything, narcissism, everything that goes into it.

I wish I knew what happened.

Like, what was the thing that made him say, this is it, July 3rd?

Was it a celestial thing?

This doesn't sound spur of the moment.

Have you dealt with these kinds of cases very much?

Not the fanaticism, but I mean, you know, people wanting to die.

Aaron Powell, Jr.: Yes.

You know, I talked about the Emin Bodfish case, which there's some overlap in terms of this philosophy of needing to die a certain way and moving on to the next life, you know, kind of alternate religious philosophies being involved.

I have a case, in fact, I've been talking to my own therapist about that really bugged me.

And a little bit of a trigger warning.

I mean, this can be a difficult case for some to hear, but I had a 15-year-old girl whose father came in, gave her a hug, and then blew her head off with a 357 magnum, and then stepped out into the hallway and committed suicide.

And he left a video of why he did it.

And he did it because Jesus was calling him home and he could not leave his daughter in this evil world.

So he killed her and then took his own life.

So you could see where a warped religious philosophy can cause somebody like that to kill his family, a family member.

That's where when I start listening to something as you've described Benny and his victimology and this cult, laying out his dead child's death photos in the coffin around him.

This is where it's like, yes, it is very in line with this mentality that I need to kill my family.

And be together.

They look at it as this is a good thing, and it's a hard thing to

accept for

those of us that are looking at the world in a more normal sense, but it happens.

And it's unfortunate that it does happen.

Well, the conventional wisdom has always been about this case, that

know, maybe this was one of his quote-unquote cults, even though it doesn't seem like he had a cult, one of his clients, one of his members, one of his followers, who was mad.

So not what you were saying about, you know, doing his bidding, but who was angry about maybe Benny's a fraud or maybe Benny told him the wrong thing or the person himself has some mental health struggles.

Or really, I think it's settled down to a random act of violence.

You know, somebody found an unlocked door and came in and did this, some some maniac, but it doesn't explain

so many of the weird things that come with it and the prayer hands and the photos on the floor.

If it is not Benny asking somebody to do this, then someone knows a lot about Benny and is trying to send some kind of a weird message.

I don't know any other reason why this would be on the floor.

I do not buy these other.

It's not a random act.

It's not a vindictive type of crime like we talked early on as being a possibility.

I mean i i do think the the photos laid out of his dead child in the coffin around benny that's hugely telling you know who has access to those photos benny you know that this this eliminates in my mind the random person they would have no idea what those photos are how significant they are even a vindictive person coming in why would they do that this is something that was significant to benny he had access to those photos he died in a way in which basically his hands are folded in a prayer-like posture.

It's like he accepted that he was about to be killed.

And this is where I truly, truly believe this was an assisted suicide.

It was a family massacre.

And it was being driven by Benny's own personal religious philosophies.

And he had a confidant that was willing to do that.

And boy, could you not pick a better one, most likely, than someone who's one of your followers who is never going to say anything, right?

I mean, talk about somebody who's devout to him, I would assume.

Nope, absolutely.

You know, and that's just part of

you find the right person and they're willing to commit this type of crime, whether they did all of it, all the homicides, or they just killed Benny after Benny killed his family.

You know, right now, I have no idea.

But that person, for their own self- protection, self-preservation, as well as maybe even their ongoing religious fanatical philosophies, isn't going to come forward and say, well, yeah, Benny had me do this or Benny was the one to orchestrate it.

They're going to take that secret to their grave.

Well, this is an unsolved mystery.

And I have had listeners lining up to say, why don't you please talk about the St.

Alban massacre?

So this is an upsetting story because you and I both have kids.

And I hate talking about children who have been murdered.

by, it sounds like in this case, the parent or, you know,

at the behest of the parent.

But, you know, I think that this is a story that has just been talked about for almost a hundred years now.

And I feel like when I read it, I thought, I bet, Paul, with the occult aspect of this, I bet this is going to really alarm him.

And I was really glad to hear that I was not alarmed for no good reason.

And there were so many theories thrown out there.

This has not, the one you and I have been talking about is not the one that has ever taken hold in any way.

I've actually actually never read it that this was his, you know, decision.

And that is what I immediately thought too.

I thought, this is weird.

So I hope we have a story next week that is as compelling with that many theories, a little more forensics, you know, but theories are great too.

Yeah.

You know, in this particular case, oftentimes somebody's involvement in alternate religions or what could be classified as occults, you know, people think, oh, that's got to be be the reason.

And I will tell you 99% of the time, it's not the reason for the crime that was committed.

But I truly believe, based on the circumstances, the evidence, the crime scene, the victimology, that Benny's own personal religious philosophies is the reason why that family ended up dead.

And it's sad.

But I'm looking forward to a, maybe what you want to call a change of pace for the next case that you give me.

Probably not, but we'll see.

Good work today, Paul Holes.

Get yourself an extra whatever it is that you're drinking that's brown in that small glass.

It's a bourbon.

That's what I will tell.

All right, Kate.

Thank you again.

I'll see you next week.

Sounds good.

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 Maren McClashin, Allie Elkin, 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 Decoat the Criminal Mind, is available now.

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