St. Aubin Street Massacre PT 1

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Old cases, new waters.

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This October, we're setting sail with Virgin Voyages on the first ever True Crime Podcast Cruise, and we want you to join us.

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Took the words right out of my mouth.

Just another day at the office.

I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson.

I'm a journalist who's spent the last 25 years writing about true crime.

And I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solved them.

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

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

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

Some are solved, and some are cold.

Very cold.

This is Buried Bones.

Hey, Kate, how are you?

I'm great, Paul.

How about you?

I am doing good.

Do I hear construction sounds in the background?

What's going on?

Listen, if I'm in here with you, you do not hear construction sounds because I am the construction crew in this project of mine.

It is just me and my dad, but he doesn't do anything when I'm not here.

We are building a cottage.

It's a shed.

It's a she shed, but it's a cottage.

In my backyard, I have kind of a wooded area in my backyard.

And I have a little cottage.

It's going to be 120 square feet.

And it'll be where, you know, I do some taping and stuff with you.

And I do some book writing with me.

But I'm doing it in Victorian style, 19th-century college.

Well, there, you know, that seems appropriate, doesn't it?

I mean, we're not going to have a chamber pot or anything, but it's definitely, it's going to be decked out.

I'm in love with that time period.

I love the 1800s.

So I've been collecting different antiques.

I just picked up a pair of chairs, Victorian-style chairs, king and queen style from like a Facebook Marketplace for $150 for this pair, and they're beautiful.

They're beautiful, beautiful.

They're red, deep red, and I'm very excited.

I've always thought I should sit in a king or a queen chair, and now my dream has become a reality.

Well, now that's all regarding interior design.

I'm kind of interested in the construction.

Are you swinging your own hammer?

I am.

I'm swinging.

Well, it's probably more going to be like a nail gun, but it is.

Okay.

Well, still, that's impressive.

Yeah, and I get to do, so my dad has done construction for a large part of his life.

And so he's going to really help me get it up.

And we're setting the foundation now and figuring all of that out, kind of the Pyrrh and Beam Foundation.

We have a good section in our backyard that is very deceiving.

It's just trees, cedar trees, oak trees, elm trees that are beautiful.

And so you can't really tell how deep our backyard is, but it's very deep.

And it's just a, I call it the forest or the woods back there so i thought i'm gonna make this cottage and i have a faux fireplace and i'm gonna have a he's gonna build me a faux chimney a chimney because of course i have to have a chimney and i'm doing all this paul because man i love my kids but

they are bugging me a lot when i'm trying to get writing done and they you know they're in constantly sort of in my room which is fine that's not a problem but it can be kind of you know distracting when i'm trying to write so i said said to my kiddos, I'm creating, I'm making this cottage.

It's going to be in the forest.

It's, you know, a two or three minute walk back there.

And one of my girls said, do you really think putting a cottage in the backyard is going to stop us from coming out there and

bugging you

to go for a drive or whatever?

I mean, just to see like a TikTok dance they did.

And she said, do you really think that's going to stop us?

And I said, I guess, suppose not.

I don't think so, I guess.

I'm having visions of certain fairy tales like Little Red Riding Hood or what is it, Hansel and Gretel.

Hansel and Gretel.

Maybe I should tell them that story, and I'll be like the woman with the gingerbread house.

Yeah, I'm going to have to scare them a little bit.

I told them that they were going to need to spend the night out there because the forest gets so dark at night.

And we have like huge owls that live in it.

And I'm sure all kinds of critters that our dogs scare away during the day, but not at night.

So we'll see.

I think one good scare will send them back in.

But I'm prepping.

I'm getting it ready.

It'll be done before Halloween, which is great.

But I'm excited just because that 1800s is just where my heart is.

And I've never been able to really have a space of my own to be able to create it.

So, you know, the men, the vanity fair drawings I showed you, I found of my dad.

My dad had one and I have like 15.

They're going to go up

on the walls.

And I'm excited about it.

It's what I have a Lionel train set that I'm excited to put up on some shelves.

We're going to have bookshelves and it's going to feel like a cottage.

So hopefully at some point, our listeners are actually going to be able to check it out, you know, and see where I'm going to be taping from from now on.

Yeah.

You know, I've got my man cave and you've got your woman's retreat out there.

That's going to be cool.

I'm going to have the glow of a gaslight and you have the glow of your aquarium.

That's right.

So there you go.

It's the major parts of our life.

I think that's important.

But, you know, I told you I'm an atmosphere kind of person.

So that's where I head is that.

So I'm very excited.

Well, I'm looking forward to it just for your sake.

I get for my sanity.

Yes.

Yes.

Like I said, I adore my kids and they support what I do.

They support my writing, but they just want to be with me all the time.

And I love that.

I thought that as teenagers, they were not going to be with me all the time, but they are as of right now.

So I'm going to be grateful for that.

But at the same time, mama does need to have a cottage for sure.

Yeah, for sure.

Absolutely.

Well, this story that I'm getting ready to tell you is wild.

This is a big case.

Everybody has asked us to do this case.

So this is a big case.

We're making it a double.

Okay.

Good.

Okay.

Good.

I wish this were set in the 1800s.

It's not.

It's 1929.

Gritty, Detroit, Michigan, which is a great place to be.

And so, you know, I need you to help me sort out a really, really confusing, wacky scene with this story.

All right.

I'm looking forward to it.

I need to start out with a trigger warning.

This is definitely a violent story, even more, I think, than usual.

But this is a story that I have had probably no less than 10 listeners over the last four years email me about because in Detroit, it's pretty well known.

It's the St.

Albans Street Massacre.

And it's a very dramatic story and it's part of this area's history.

1929 for me is very recent compared to what we usually talk about.

So this will be one that's going to be hard to untangle, but I think you're going to enjoy talking about it.

And obviously this is set during the Great Depression, right?

Right before.

Oh, okay.

We're kind of getting into it, but it is happening literally months before Black Thursday happens, which is the stock market crash.

I mean, the country's already starting to feel it, but the stock market crash is the thing that really triggers a lot of what happens afterward with the Great Depression.

And so this is right before this happens.

Got it.

In Detroit.

So, if I were to label this story in a neat little glass jar and put a label on it, I would call this Things Are Not Always As They Seem.

This is that story.

So, I can expect to be misled at some point during this story.

Not by me.

You're going to march me down the wrong path.

I can tell it already.

The wait is over.

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We'll be recording Buried Bones live at sea.

That's right.

Kate and I will both be part of the first ever true crime podcast voyage, hosted by Virgin Voyages and iHeart Podcasts.

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

No kids, no stress.

Expect a live podcast recording of buried bones, 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, luxe staterooms, Wi-Fi, and entertainment included.

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So it is 1929 Detroit, Michigan.

I don't know a ton about Detroit.

I've never been to Detroit.

Have you done a trip to Detroit before?

I bet you have.

You know, I've only passed through the airport

during my book tour, so I have never personally visited Detroit.

I've watched, you know, some historic things about the auto industry in Detroit, you know, and then, of course, how things have changed dramatically over the decades in that city.

But I imagine in 1929, Ford and some of these other automakers are probably, this is a booming business in Detroit.

Yep, the auto industry has provided quite a lot of decent paying jobs, which is something that's very appreciated, especially right before the Great Depression really comes down.

It's a draw for a lot of people who want better economic opportunities, and that includes immigrants.

So in the early 20th century, there was a very large population that came from Poland and Germany and Russia and Italy.

And today we're going to talk about a family, the patriarch who was born in Italy, and he comes to the United States around the turn of the century.

So his name is Benny Evangelista, and he was just 19 years old when he came to the United States, and he eventually shortens his name to Evangeliste.

So that's what we're going to kind of go with, Benny Evangeliste.

He spent a chunk of his time in Philadelphia, but by 1929, which is when we're really getting into the story, he's in Michigan.

And then he moves to Detroit in the 20s, early 20s, because of the reputation of being an economic hotspot.

And again, three months before the big stock market crash in the beginning of the Great Depression.

So let me tell you who is in this house, which is our crime scene.

It is Benny.

He's 44, and he has made a small fortune in Detroit in the real estate business.

He's very successful.

He has a business partner, well-known, you know, kind of a well-known person in the community.

He's married to a woman named Santina.

She's 38.

And there's a daughter, Angeline, who's seven.

A daughter, Margaret, who's five, another one who is named Jean, and she's four.

four.

And then they have a boy who is 18 months named Mario.

I wonder if Benny, I see this list and I wonder if Benny just said, we're going to keep going till we get a boy because he has three girls and then he ends up with a boy.

But who knows?

They had been recently married.

And the family doctor is not quite sure about the origin of where the kids are coming from.

There's a little bit of speculation that she, you know, she had been married before, whether or not these were her kids from a previous marriage or whether or not these were Benny's kids, but at least Mario was.

So we have these kids.

He seems like a great dad.

She seems like a good mom.

They live in a nice size two-story house on St.

Alban Street near MAC Avenue, which is in Detroit's Eastern Market neighborhood.

And let me tell you a little bit, I know I'm whipping through all this information, but let me tell you a little bit about the house.

It's, like I said, a pretty nice size house, five rooms and a bathroom on the upper level.

There's two front rooms upstairs that are bedrooms that are connected by a door.

And then the back three rooms are unused and not really furnished.

And then they have four rooms on the lower floor.

You know, this is where Benny offices with his real estate business.

And there is also an attic and a basement.

So they have a big amount of space, but they've got four kids.

So you've got, you know, a husband and a wife and their four children who are all small.

I mean, the oldest kid is seven.

Angelina is seven.

So, you ready to hear more?

Do you have any questions?

No, you know, I'm just now looking where St.

Aubin Street is located at in Detroit.

It looks like it's just a couple blocks north of the Detroit River.

And you mentioned Mack Street, is that right?

Yes, near Mack Street, and that's in the Eastern Market neighborhood.

So, yeah, I'm seeing it.

Obviously, Detroit today has a major freeway system that wasn't present in 1929.

But it does appear that this St.

Aubans Street is somewhat surrounded by some industrial areas.

I'm seeing like the Rivertown warehouse district.

It's an interesting location.

I just, you know, of course, I always look at the geography as I assess cases and I'm trying to just get a sense.

There's some harbors, there's some parks.

Okay.

I've got a better feel.

Got a good feel.

Okay.

I like it when you do that because the research that you like, do you immediately like to hop on we've had some stories where it's been pretty key like remember the story about the man who was from cuba but purported to be from china he ends up dead in new york and you were able to look at the street and even currently today and you could tell how close a witness when we say the witness was across the street and i'm going that's bs there's no way this witness is going to have that kind of a detail and then you said no look at the street it's a very narrow street and you're going to be able to see whatever you want from across the street i like that you immediately kind of go to that.

Well, it really is part of my process, you know, even with cases that I've worked that are decades old and maybe the location of the crime has changed considerably, but the space is still there.

And sometimes it can be very informative.

Well, I have a photo of the house, but it's more of like, because this is a very dramatic story, it's more of the crowd and you can see the house, but it'll give you a better idea of how residential it is.

And then I have a photo of the family.

So let me show you.

There is the Evangeliste family.

So there's Benny in the upper left-hand corner and his wife, and then the four kids and the little baby she's holding.

Yeah.

So their house, they're pointing, you can see how many people are standing in front of here.

They say homes in the neighborhood no longer exist.

And I don't know how old this newspaper clipping is, but this is what it was like.

So tell me what you think.

Well,

in terms of the house, this is a photo from across the street looking at the front of the house, but it's not directly in front.

It's at an angle, so I can see the other houses that are next to the victim's house.

It looks like there's at least the three stories above ground.

You have the main floor, a second floor, and then maybe an attic.

There's a large balcony off the second floor.

And I think you also said that this house had a basement.

So there's no question that this is a

sizable house.

Now, the street, it looks like a fairly wide street, almost as if it's a main thoroughfare in the area at the time.

There's automobiles that are parked on the curb opposite from the side of the street of the house.

And then, as you mentioned, a very large crowd.

And what is going on there?

Is this a photo like after the crime scene is found?

Yes.

Okay.

So this is everybody, once they've read about it in the newspaper, these are people gathering to gawk, essentially.

These are looky-loos.

The looky-loos, these, you know, well-to-do people.

This is a great example, Paul.

I mean, how many people do you think are out there?

It's just sort of eyeballing, a couple hundred or more?

What do you think?

Somewhere in that range.

I mean, this is not a small crowd.

This looks like there's like a major event going on.

Yeah.

You know, and somebody is standing up on the porch of the victim's house, almost like he's presenting to this crowd.

It's really bizarre.

Well, this is what I've said many times when people say, why are we so, all of a sudden, everybody is so crazy about true crime and this is a genre that's exploded.

No, it hasn't.

We've always been like, this is a great illustration.

We've always been fascinated with the stories.

It's just the mode of communication, you know, the creative aspect of it, how we can deliver these stories has exploded.

It's not our interest in it.

And this is, like I said, a great illustration of that.

Look at all these people coming out.

I'm sure there are kids in the crowd.

So

this was definitely a big story at the time.

These people are reading something in the newspaper.

They're not watching the news, right?

They're actually reading it in the newspaper, and they're taking time out of their lives to go to this crime scene.

Aaron Powell, Jr.: And, of course, you have to think about it.

This is before the Internet, of course, and this is where they probably thought they would get the most authentic information would just be going down there and seeing what the police are saying versus Googling every news source or blogger or YouTube you can think of, which is what we would do now.

People would just up at these crime scenes.

So let's get to the crime that made this a crime scene.

The wait is over.

Ladies and gentlemen, the next up live music finals are here.

On September 26th, TikTok Live and iHeartRadio bring you the biggest night in live music discovery.

Streaming live from the legendary iHeartRadio Theater in LA.

The top 12 artists you've been following will take the spotlight for one final career-defining performance.

Judged by music gurus gurus and industry powerhouses.

Tom Pullman, chief programming officer at iHeartMedia.

Beata Murphy, program director of 102.7 Kiss FM.

Justina Valentine from MTV's Wild and Out.

And viral guitarist John Dretto.

Hosted by iHeartRadio's JoJo Wright and EJ.

This is the ultimate showdown.

The judges will crown the next up live music winner and you have the power to decide who takes home the People's Choice Award.

Don't miss a second.

Follow along at TikTok Live underscore US.

And be there live, September 26, 7 to 9 p.m.

Pacific.

Together, let's witness the dawning of the next music superstar.

Only on TikTok Live.

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, luxe 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, all of this happened on the night of July 3rd, 1929, but it's not discovered until the next morning when Benny's real estate colleague shows up for a meeting because Benny's office is in the house.

So this guy named Vincent alias shows up for this meeting and he comes inside and then he sees the scene.

So he sees Benny's wife.

After he goes upstairs, he sees Benny's wife, who is Santina, and her body is slumped over the bed.

Her head is described as horribly mutilated and nearly severed from her body.

Her arm also has a very deep cut in it as if the murderer was attempting to amputate it.

So when he doesn't see people downstairs, he goes upstairs and the first bedroom he encounters is where Santina is.

So just that part, I will tell you that these injuries are repeated with the kids.

Basically decapitated, she slumped over the bed and a very deep cut as if the murderer was trying to amputate her.

Without me going into where Benny is or the scene or anything like that, what do you think just of that sort of level of brutality?

They immediately think it's an axe that has done it.

What is that?

Is that a mad person or, God, that just seems awful against a woman?

Aaron Powell, Jr.: Well, with this type of injury, I've worked cases that include a machete, which can produce similar types of injuries.

So, you know, it appears that the killer is utilizing this type of weapon, which today is relatively unusual, but we've done a fair number of stories from this timeframe.

This is a much more readily available weapon, it seems, back during this era.

So it's hard to really extrapolate anything behaviorally about the offender by choosing to use this weapon.

This may have just been the weapon that was most immediately available to to this particular offender versus a firearm or a knife or something else.

I think this idea that the offender is trying to purposefully amputate Santina's arm, no, that doesn't sound right.

When somebody is being attacked with a weapon like an axe or a machete and they go into a defensive posture,

it is common to see this type of injury to the arms.

You know, people are familiar, like if somebody is warding off blows, let's say somebody has a hammer or a bat and is beating on somebody and the arms go up, the forearms will get a lot of bruising.

Just like if somebody has a knife and is now stabbing against the victim, the defensive injuries, you get the incisive injuries of the knife on the hands and on the forearms as they try to protect themselves.

When somebody is attacking you with an axe and your arm goes up, that axe is going through the arm.

My interpretation right now is Santina is aware she is being attacked and is going into a defensive posture.

And that's when the axe hits the arm and an axe will produce an injury in which literally the arm could be completely severed or it can go through the bones and let's say it's at the forearm level.

skin is the only thing holding part of the arm to the body.

So that's what it sounds like.

She's aware she's being attacked, goes into a defensive posture, and then, of course, her head is receiving blows either from the blade of the axe or the back of the axe, as well as sounds like her neck is hit with the axe, probably as almost like a coup de grace, you know, where this could be the last blow, which now the offender, she's lost consciousness and the offender ends up basically taking the axe to the neck and nearly cutting her head off.

Aaron Ross Powell, well, it gets, of course, much worse.

So we are not thinking that this is what they say, an intentional amputation of the arm.

We're thinking that these were defensive wounds, which definitely tallies with, I think, what's coming up.

She is protecting her baby, Mario, who's 18 months old.

He dies too.

She is holding him, and he has several gashes on his head.

So I don't think it's clear whether or not the killer is targeting both, you know, Santina and Mario, or Mario just gets some gashes accidentally.

But I will tell you the other three kids are dead also.

Well, I think if the killer is purposely moving through the house and is killing the other kids, then Mario may not just be ancillary.

I think the killer, knowing that Santina is trying to protect Mario, was able to inflict sufficient injuries to Mario to kill the 18-month-old, in addition to being able to inflict the injuries on Santina.

And this also plays into how Santina is going to be responding to the offender.

Because you imagine if she's got her baby, you know, she is going to be trying to hold on to the baby in a way to prevent the offender from hurting the baby and maybe has the baby in one arm with the other arm up in a defensive posture at some point.

And then that's when that arm gets the blow from this axe.

You know, and if you imagine if she's hugging onto this baby, the offender has free rein to her head.

She's not able to put her arms up above her head to help shield.

Not that it would do much good, but this is all part of just thinking about the dynamics of how this crime would occur, how Santina would be responding physically to trying to protect her baby as well as warding off the offender, and then how the offender has access to be able to inflict certain types of blows or certain locations of blows with an axe while, you know, Santina is trying to do two things, keep herself safe and keep her baby safe.

Well, it's an awful scene.

It's very, very bloody.

And when investigators eventually move over to the next bedroom, this is where they find the three girls, the ones that are ranging from seven years old.

So there's a seven-year-old, a five-year-old, and a four-year-old.

They're all in the same bedroom, which is right next door to the parents' bedroom.

And two of them are in the same twin bed.

And I don't know why I thought that that was interesting because it's a huge house with lots and lots of bedrooms.

I mean, because they're young, it's possible that they just wanted the kids right next door and kind of grouped them in there.

They could have heard something.

You know, if we take Benny out of the picture for a minute, the killer probably would have targeted, of course, if, you know, if she's the only adult upstairs, the killer would have targeted the mom first and maybe the kids huddled together.

But, you know, these three girls are all together in one room and they are all found dead.

They have several gashes on their faces.

One of the children has a very similar injury to her mom.

We don't know which one could have been the oldest.

It appears like the killer tried to cut her arm off according to investigators in 1929.

And

their faces specifically seem to have been targeted.

So now you've got a mom and four children who are all dead upstairs.

I would postulate that the killer goes in, and I don't know the sequence, mom versus the three girls in the other room in terms of who was killed first.

But my suspicion is, is these girls are, or as you mentioned, at least two of them were laying in a twin bed together.

The offender's taking the axe to them, whether they're cowering and they're aware that there's something bad going on because they heard their mom screaming or they're asleep.

But he's just taking the axe and striking them in the head, whether they're face up, face down.

You know, that's that's what the killer is doing.

This one girl who has her arm, which appears to be partially amputated, I, again, go back to this girl is likely in a defensive posture.

So, you know, this devious killer who's trying to amputate his victim's arms, this just tells, with those investigators forming that opinion, that speaks to, I think, their inexperience with this type of violence.

Okay.

You know, before we get to the man in this situation, Benny, investigators say nothing was taken.

If we're talking about motive, just right now, before you know anything more, no money.

It doesn't seem to be there's any money taken.

But, you know, one thing I had not thought that was a good note in here was: listen, people kept cash, lots of cash all the time.

You know, with the girls and the mom dead, there's nobody there right now to say whether or not there was, you know, $5,000 worth of cash hidden and somebody took it.

But investigators are saying that robbery seems to be off the table.

If that's the case, and if this is not a family annihilation story, what is the motivation of a stranger with an axe to kill little kids who are unlikely to ever be witnesses?

Could that be something sort of inside that person, a desire, or is it a frenzy?

They describe it as a frenzy.

I just don't understand.

I still don't understand the motivation for killing kids who will never identify you if you're a stranger.

Aaron Powell, let's say this is truly a stranger.

That's the killer.

It's not unheard of.

And I've got one case that I didn't go out on, but I reviewed, which kind of similar, not with an axe, but basically a toddler was killed in his crib, and then the parents were also killed.

And that offender happened to have

what I would call a psychosis.

This is your psychotic type of offender.

Something internally is driving the offender to think that

they must go in and kill this family.

And what that thought process is, is something that can be just so bizarre because these types of offenders are not thinking right.

Richard Trenton Chase, the vampire killer out of Sacramento back in 1977 timeframe,

he had aliens tell him, I think, that when you pick up a bar of soap in the shower and it's all gooey underneath, that means that you had soap dish poisoning.

And the only cure for soap dish poisoning is to drink somebody's blood.

You know, so this is the type of psychotic mindset that, you know, an offender, such as in this case, you could have somebody who is suffering from something like that and ends up, you know, killing this, you know, this mother and the four kids.

So there's that possibility.

Then there's possibly a vindictive offender seeking revenge.

And part of that revenge is maybe Santina or Benny were the primary targets of this vindictive aspect, but decides to wipe out the entire family just as part of this whole revenge mindset.

It doesn't sound like, at least with the way that you set this case up, this does not sound like a fantasy-motivated offender at this point in time.

Somebody who's got some sort of fantasy, either sexual fantasy or violent fantasy that they need to commit for their own self-gratification.

Now, I wouldn't take that off the table yet, but it sounds less likely given the circumstances.

Right.

And investigators say there's not evidence of sexual assault on anybody, but, you know, of course, there's always the caveat there.

But from the onset, that's what they're saying.

So let's talk about the only male in the house besides little Mario, Benny.

So Benny has an office and everybody else was, you know, dressed in their nightgowns and were upstairs in bed asleep, presumably, whenever this happened.

Benny was not.

So

this could have been, and when I started reading this, I was thinking this is a family annihilator story.

It doesn't sound like it.

Benny's lifeless body is found slumped over in a chair in his office.

He's fully dressed in the clothes that he had been wearing that day.

His hands, so he's slumped in this chair, but they find his hands folded in his lap together as if he's praying, and his head is laying on the floor beside his chair.

He's been decapitated.

So my main suspect is now out the window.

Well, that'd be hard to be a self-inflicted wound.

And I'm assuming they didn't find any weird apparatus that, you know,

Benny set up a little guillotine to take his own life.

Not that I can tell, but this is where this story gets super weird.

When I get into the details about Benny and his life,

it gets weird.

So I told you that the police throw the robbery theory kind of out the window because there's nothing that anyone can tell is really missing when they start bringing people in who know the family and who know the house really well.

They search the home.

They think that the murderer left through an exterior door in the kitchen.

There's a set of men's bloody shoe prints that lead through the kitchen and go upstairs to the wife's bedroom and then back down.

And there's a bloody fingerprint and a thumbprint on the kitchen door's latch.

So this is good news.

We have fingerprints, which, you know, from writing American Sherlock said in the 1920s, I know that they were actively doing fingerprinting.

At this time period, we need a suspect, but, you know, at this point, at least we've got some kind of forensics moving forward.

So you have bloody shoeprints that appear to originate out of where Benny is located, and then those shoe prints go up to where Santina, his wife, is, or vice versa?

No, it's a kitchen.

So it's an exterior door in the kitchen.

So somebody goes through the outside into an exterior door, walks through the kitchen, goes upstairs.

I'm assuming, you know, killing Benny first.

I don't know if this is someone who needed to be familiar with the layout of the house.

It's a huge house.

And then they go upstairs, there's blood, and then they come back down and leave.

So let's assume the offender comes in with an axe.

I would be surprised that with a single strike with an axe, that that would completely decapitate Benny, especially if he's just sitting in the chair.

You know, the offender comes up behind him.

You know, Benny's positioning is odd, you know, sitting there with his hands folded, like maybe he was just sitting there.

Is he being controlled by this offender?

And Benny's just now acknowledging my life is over.

You know, if the offender and the autopsy would also be able to help answer this question, but if the offender is doing multiple strikes to Benny's neck,

that would be seen in the wounding pattern.

If a single strike went through Benny's neck, this is either a very, very sharp.

axe with a very broad blade,

like almost like your executioner axe that you see, you know,

or are you dealing with a sword of some type, which right now,

you know, I can't eliminate that as a possibility.

It's such an odd scene, especially with all of the blood.

And, you know, they're saying a man's fingerprint.

Well, and I do want to underscore, though,

this is going to be a very bloody scene.

All these injuries, you know, the decapitation.

that could be very bloody, you know, with the heart pumping, the injury to the forearms where the near amputation of these victims are still alive and their hearts are pumping.

You're going to have a lot of blood.

And some of this blood, if you have what's called arterial spurting, which is an absolute possibility with these neck injuries, you know, now you have blood that's gushing a distance, you know, away from where the victims are that the offender could possibly be stepping in

or on the offender's person, you know, his clothing or he ends up getting something on his hands.

You know, and of course, I'm kind of curious, does he manipulate any of these victims after they receive bleeding bleeding injuries.

But I'll let you continue.

Yeah.

And so I have a question a little bit about the sequencing.

I know we don't really know it.

He's on the first floor.

Everybody else is asleep upstairs.

You would normally assume that if this killer is somebody who knows who lives in this house, because they're targeted, it's not a robbery, that they would go for Benny first, right?

That's what we would think.

And plus, he's on the first floor.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Well, generally, you know, Benny is going to be perceived by the killer as the biggest threat.

And so the killer is going to try to eliminate that threat before moving on.

However, right now, I can't say you're dealing with a single offender in this case.

Right.

You know, even with the blood evidence that you've detailed, you can have multiple offenders go in, and then now they divide and conquer.

One offender or multiple offenders go in to deal with Benny in his office, and another offender or other offenders, you know, go upstairs to take care of mom and the kids.

Don't know this right now.

You know, so at this point, with the defensive injury to Santina while she's holding her 18-month-old son, I imagine

she's going to be quite vocal while she's being attacked.

You know, and that's going to alert potentially the other family members.

Now, we know kids can sleep through a lot, you know, so the kids next door may or may not have heard mom.

Would Benny have heard mom?

You know, this is in part of, you know, is this a simultaneous attack or is Benny dead at the time mom's being attacked or vice versa?

You know, that's just part of the complexity, I think, in evaluating this case.

To me, it's so complex because you have, you know, the wife who has defensive wounds.

We've got at least one of the kids who has defensive wounds.

It does not say that Benny has any defensive wounds.

He is simply sitting in his chair.

Santina was obviously moving.

I mean, she had a defensive wound and she slumped over the bed in a way that's not normal.

It's not like she was found in the fetal position or on her stomach as if she were sleeping and this happened.

This seemed like a fight in some way.

Why would that not be the case with Benny?

They really make it sound like it was like a kind of a clean.

clip off of his head.

The head's on the ground.

He's not fighting and his hands are in a prayer position.

I don't understand how you have all these other people fighting, but Benny, that's what I was asking you about, is there any way this could be a suicide?

Because this gets so weird.

Right now,

I'm going to table the suicide possibility on Benny, and I'm going to put out three options that I can think of off the top of my head with Benny.

One is Benny just happens to be sitting in the chair, and the offender is able to sneak up and basically do a blitz attack.

Benny has no idea.

You know, the offender is behind him and

now wields an axe or a sword and cuts his head off.

The second possibility is Benny is

basically

under such fear and control by the offender or the offenders in the room.

You know, he is recognizing,

I can't fight.

You know, he's given up the ghost.

Imagine offender standing in front of him with a gun, and then you have another offender behind him with an axe, and Benny's just there, not knowing that the guy behind him is going to cut his head off.

You know, there's that type of scenario.

And then that could be with a single offender or multiple offenders.

The other possibility, and this goes to victimology and understanding the family dynamics, is that mom and the kids are up and it looks like they're putting themselves to bed or in bed.

Was it routine for Benny to stay up later than the family?

And is he somebody who's imbibing?

You know, he's got his bourbon.

He's sitting there.

He's got a fair amount of bourbon inside of him.

And now he's in a slumber and offender comes in and Benny's just, you know, kind of out of it.

And the offender ends up killing Benny.

Those are three options that I can think of off the top of my head to kind of account for Benny being in this really bizarre position.

And then if you look at the suicide, that's where for Benny to have done this to himself, where he's cutting his head off,

absent somebody else coming in and staging the scene after Benny kills himself by cutting his head off in terms of removing whatever apparatus Benny used to decapitate himself.

This really, right now, I have to wait until you tell me something where I go, aha.

Okay, I can see how this happened to Benny if he's the one who's responsible for killing his family and himself.

But then it's also assessing the bloody fingerprints, the bloody shoe prints.

Does it appear that Benny has those evidence of that on his person?

Did he have a possibility of cleaning up that blood before he takes his own life?

Is there the possibility that somebody else came in under Benny's direction in order to be able to stage this as a, you know, I guess this would be a hex-tuple homicide?

You know, six people are dead, right?

Yeah.

So,

you know, in order for, let's say, life insurance policies to pay out, you know, and who's going to be the beneficiary of that.

Right.

They start exploring different possibilities.

Of course, they're going into different theories.

One is they're wondering about his business practices, of course.

So they are trying to figure out if there are any lawsuits.

He has been at the center of several different lawsuits because of the real estate dealings.

So the police initially think this is a good lead, but according to Benny's lawyer, he said, these are nothing.

Even if we lost, we'd be able to pay these off in a millisecond.

It is no big deal.

Of course, you and I talk about all the time.

No big deal in our heads is pretty different than no big deal in a killer's head, right?

Absolutely.

It's not necessarily anything that an offender to have motive doesn't mean that there's all some sort of legal action going on.

You know, you could have an offender that has felt slighted by Benny in a business practice and is deciding, okay, I'm going to take you out.

You've got somebody who's so vindictive.

And this would be maybe to Benny or to us evaluating what could possibly be perceived as such a trivial business issue.

Yet to that person, for whatever reason, it's like the biggest thing in their life that they feel slighted slighted on or they're mad at Benny.

So there's always that weird motive that doesn't just bubble to the surface when you evaluate these business transactions.

And the same thing on the interpersonal side.

You know, maybe Benny and somebody else got into a fight, whether it be the week before or five years before, and that person has just harbored that anger all this time, has decided, tonight's the night.

I'm going to go in and take care of Benny and his family.

Who knows?

You know, those are all possibilities.

You know, and I know investigators are looking at Benny's real estate transactions, but something you opened up the case with is that it's possible like three of the children aren't Benny's.

We aren't sure about the origin, I guess, of some of these kids.

The family doctor said that

he wasn't sure because they had been married recently, but that doesn't mean anything.

And I'll get to a kind of a weird fact about a kid who died several years ago, who definitely was Benny's and his wife's.

So, yeah, I mean, I know where you're going with this.

Yeah, we don't know about any, if there is a biological father walking around out there.

Aaron Powell, actually, yeah.

This is Santina's victimology is, you know, did she have a

horrible breakup with whoever the bio-dad is of these other kids?

Is there another man on the side?

You know, there's all of that where now you can see somebody who feels spurned by Santina is deciding to come in and take out this entire family.

But that's, again,

right now, it's, I think all possibilities are out there.

The oddity for me is, you know, Benny in his office.

You know, that does seem a little bit strange.

And again, more details.

Keep feeding them to me.

Okay, let me move through some of what I would consider to be the quote-unquote normal theories that might have happened here.

The first theory or the first line of investigation is that the day before the murders, Benny had made a phone call to a man who was a hired hand, but this was a guy who Benny had hired to watch over this demolition of a house that was happening about 60 miles away from Detroit.

So Benny wanted to see the demolition of this house.

He wanted to step in and buy lumber from the demolition site.

And so he told the watchman, when you can confirm that this demolition happened, I'll hire a delivery company to haul all the material to the house.

The demolition happened, and the delivery was expected to arrive on July 4th, which is just hours after the family was discovered murdered.

And it's never showed up.

which the investigators thought was really suspicious.

The night watchman or the watchman was presumably cleared, but we don't have a lot of details on that part of the investigation.

The delivery service was never identified, so they would have to talk to, you know, however many different delivery services there were out there.

And Benny never told the watchman the name of the delivery company.

So no one ever picked up this lumber to begin with.

And the police are sort of theorizing that somehow the delivery company did pick up or found out that this is where this wealthy real estate guy lived because they had his address.

And they're the ones who got involved and wanted to steal money, steal cash, but nothing was taken from the house.

It seems like a weak theory to me, but we do talk about opportunistic crimes like this.

Aaron Powell, yeah, what is the benefit to the offenders under that scenario?

You know, if they didn't take anything out of the house, and of course, there's always the, do we even really know that?

Because the entire family is dead.

And so,

what you had said at the beginning, in terms of is there $5,000 in cash that was just hidden away in something that the offender could open up, grab, and close it back like a drawer.

It's like, yeah, there's no way investigators are going to be able to know if anything was taken, unless there's bloody fingerprints inside a drawer.

Under this particular theory, the value, let's say it's a robbery/slash theft aspect, is going to be the lumber and whatever else from the demolition of the house.

You know, so maybe that's why that never showed up, is that this was such of such value to the offender's mind, is that they decided, well, we're going to take this and we're going to kill this family so nobody can report that this never made it.

I think it's weak.

You know, it's just, it's one of those things, like I always say,

I never eliminate any possibility.

I just put more or less weight on based on my assessment of the case and the information as it comes in.

Maybe something comes comes down the pipe where all of a sudden this becomes the prime theory.

Yeah.

And I will say though about the cash, like the nothing has been taken, so this isn't robbery theory.

This is a man who was an immigrant from Italy.

This is 1929 where people are starting to feel the inkling that something's happening with the economy.

I would be absolutely shocked if he did not have cash in his house.

Shocked.

They didn't find anything that I read.

You know, this is the amount of money that was here, and the thief stepped over it, and it completely ignored it and decided to go ahead and kill all these people instead.

But they also didn't find a big chunk of money.

So

I don't know, but I suspect there is money somewhere in that house.

Maybe the police just couldn't locate it.

Yeah, you know, this really falls under.

It's just like the phrase, no signs of forced entry.

Doesn't mean that there wasn't forced entry.

It's just that there weren't any signs of it.

It's the same thing with this financial motive aspect, whether it be a robbery or some sort of theft that the offenders were looking at doing, is it's possible that they did accomplish a robbery.

You know, Benny's sitting in his chair and he's saying, Yeah, in my desk is all the cash.

And they go and they open up the drawer to the desk, grab the cash, close the drawer, and then cut his head off.

You know,

investigators would never be able to piece that together.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Well, let's talk about obvious suspects.

We have a few of them.

One is the man who discovered Benny and his family dead.

Vincent alias, I told you, he is the colleague, the real estate colleague of Benny.

He had been brought in for questioning.

Reportedly, his thumbprint matched the one found on the kitchen door, which was bloodied.

And we've talked about that, like the sequence.

Of course, you know, Vincent, I'm sure, has been at the house a million times.

There are probably thumbprints of his everywhere, but not in the blood.

Right.

And so that would make this, you know, really kind of a unique situation.

But they said it's not conclusive.

They think that it looks close, but pattern matching in the 1920s was not particularly reliable unless you had just an outstanding sample.

So they released him.

They didn't have enough information.

I mean, even in 1929, they knew they didn't have enough on Vincent to say

that this is conclusive that he was there.

But what do you think about that?

I mean, this is a business colleague.

You know, he probably had been to the house many times.

Seems like a good suspect to me.

Potentially.

You know, part, you know, this bloody fingerprint.

You know, this is all part of the interview.

What did Vincent do once he found the bodies?

Did he actually go up and touch Santina or touch Benny?

You know, this is part of the crime scene contamination that we always have to account for.

The first thing I do when I arrive at a crime scene is, okay, how was this crime scene discovered?

Who discovered it?

What did they do?

When officers arrived or deputies arrived or paramedics arrived, what did they do?

What did they touch?

So by the time the scene is being processed, typically there is some type of contamination that is normal just because of the sequence of events that happens after the offender has left and by the time the scene is actually being investigated.

So this is where looking at Vincent and this bloody print, the interview process of Vincent has to see if his activities inside that house after discovering the scene could account for that bloody print.

And of course, as you were mentioning, how good of a print is it?

Sounds like they weren't able to make a good identification.

And is this a very partial bloody print?

And maybe the examiner just overstretched by saying it could be Vincent.

Well, we have two more suspects who met with Benny the night before.

when it sounds like the family was murdered.

We don't know an exact timeframe, but they were probably the last people to see see him alive.

And they are very suspicious that police are wanting to close in and make an arrest because when they search the barn of one of these two men, they find weapons that could have inflicted the kinds of injuries that the family sustained.

And I will have to give you more details.

in our next episode.

You're going to leave me hanging again.

I am.

I mean, when do I not, Paul?

It's pretty much every time we do a double episode.

I have to.

It's my job.

I'm about to lose my head over this one.

Paul.

Oh, God.

You guys tweeted him, not me.

Okay.

Next week, we will wrap this case up, which is still so much to talk about.

Because if you think some of this stuff is weird, just wait until you hear what Benny has been doing in this neighborhood, which is going to really, for me, throw the case into the wind.

And it feels like sometimes we have to start all over with this stuff.

So I can't wait to tell you what's happening next.

Oh, it sounds like there's some juicy victimology coming.

So, yep, I'm looking forward to it.

Okay, 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, and Kate Winkler-Dawson.

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Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer.

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