#570 - Twelve Scary Hours - Westport, Connecticut

Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit about a delicious dog food, Ollie.
If your dog could talk, they'd want Ollie. They'd ask you for Ollie.
That's what I'm talking about. It's a fresh whole food diet.
It's not just delicious. It can add, like, years to your puppy's life.
Yeah. You want that good, healthy food that's more tail wagging.
And this is. This is real food.
Like, this stuff looks good. I'd eat it.
Yeah. That's how I was like, this looks pretty good.
I might sit down with you on the floor and you could share. It is nice to be able to pop something down on the floor for him that looks like something that you'd put over rice or whatever and eat it yourself.
That's what I mean. It looks great.
All you need to do, you fill out their 30 second quiz that Ollie has for you. They create a customized meal plan based on your puppy's weight and activity level and health info in general there.
You get expert recommendations. Dogs deserve the best, and that means fresh, healthy food.
Head to ollie.com slash STM. Tell them all about your dog and use code STM to get 60% off your welcome kit when you subscribe today.
Plus, they offer a clean bowl guarantee on the first box. So if you're not completely satisfied, you'll get your money back.
That's O-L-L-I-E dot com slash STM and enter code STM to get 60% off your first box. Now back to the show.
Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show and tell you about Audible.
Let Audible expand your life by listening. Explore over one million audiobooks and exclusive Audible originals that'll inspire and motivate you all in one easy app.
Tap into your well-being with advice and insight from leading professionals and experts on better health, relationships, career, finance, investing, and more. Maybe you want to kick a bad habit or start a good one.
Either way, I love listening to these titles on Audible. Right now, what I'm checking out, number one is Evil, E-V-E-L, about Evil Knievel, and The Red Ripper about Chikatilo, the famous Russian serial killer.
And it is really detailed, really interesting. Good listen on both of those.
And there's so much more. I'm listening to like 12 things at once right now on Audible.
I love it. Get advice and insight from leading professionals and experts on health, relationships, career, finance, investing, and more.
There's so much opportunity to learn and more to imagine when you listen. Start listening today when you sign up for a 30 30 day trial at audible.com slash small town murder.
Now back to the show. Hi, this is Steve Buscemi, you know, the actor.
Well, now I'm an actor and podcast host from piece of work, entertainment and campsite media in association with Olive Productions comes Big Time, an Apple original podcast.

Each episode follows the story of one misfit with big dreams

who isn't afraid to bend a few rules

or take a shortcut to get there.

Well, who steals bees?

I was duped.

I shoot you in the leg.

This is Big Time.

Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express.
Yeah, and choo-choo. Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy.
Yay indeed. My name is James Petrogallo.
I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman.
Thank you, folks, so much for joining us all aboard the murder train, pulling away from the station. We have a very weird episode for you today.
Just a strange one. Can't wait to get into it.
Before we do, very quickly, shutupandgivememurder.com is where you get tickets for all your live shows if you would like to come to a live show yeah get your tickets now i'm telling you right now the tickets may is the next batch of shows coming up which is chicago and st louis st louis is just about sold out chicago's getting there grand rapids is just about sold out i think i think madison sold out i'm pretty sure that uh portland is sold out San is sold out. It's really, really.
If you want tickets, get them right goddamn now and get in there and do that. Shutupandgivememurder.com Also, Patreon is what you want.
Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all the bonus material. And we have so have so much bonus material for you.
Anybody, $5 a month or above, you are going to get all of it, including, as soon as you subscribe, hundreds of back episodes you've never heard before, bonus stuff. And then new ones every other week, including this week.
This week, for Crime in Sports, we're going to talk about disasters of all kinds. We did some industrial disasters, some hot air balloon disasters.
It's just like a disaster grab bag we're going to talk about. We love when it goes bad.
It's crazy, especially when it's old-timey, like the Molasses River that happened in Boston. That was wild.
And hot air balloons, how do you expect that to go right? It seems like it would be a miracle every time it lands, I would imagine. Oh, my God.
How'd that happen? Then for small town murder, since we always debunk everything, we're going to talk about psychics that actually succeeded in what they were trying to do. Find bodies and do things like that.
Very interesting stuff there. We'll get into all that and more.
Patreon.com slash crime in sports. That said, I think it's time to get into this.
I think it's time, everybody, to sit back. Let's all clear the lungs here.
Arms to the sky. Let's all shout, shut up and give me murder.
Let's do this, everybody. Yeah, let's go.
Let's go on a trip, shall we? We have to. We are going to Connecticut this week here.
Westport, Connecticut. Westport is in southwestern Connecticut.
It's the Westport. Yeah.
The one by the land. Well, it sits down on the Long Island Sound down there.
Oh, is it? It's on the water. So it is a port.
It's a port. Yeah, it's Westport, southwestern Connecticut by the Long Island Sound.
It's basically a suburb of New York City, though. Oh, all right.
Anything within two-hour driving distance is a suburb of the city, and this is about an hour and a half, depending on traffic, to New York City from here. So definitely a burb.
It's about an hour and a half in the other direction to Ellington, Connecticut, which was our last Connecticut episode, Detective Fitbit. I remember that was wild.
That was interesting. A whole case solved by a Fitbit.
That's crazy shit. Then this is in Fairfield County.
Population in this town, 27,168. So a nice-sized town.
It's remained that size for years and years and years. They're not building anything more.
It's nice. A lot of larger properties on wooded lots and shit like that.
This is a very leafy suburb. The median household income here, buckle up, $236,892.
That's median. My God.
Median is almost a quarter of a million a year. Wow.
Median home cost here, you better be making a quarter million a year because the median home cost is $1,473,500. Almost 1.5.
That's all I can say to that. Good for you guys.
That's great. Holy shit.
The nickname, they don't have a motto, but they have a nickname of this town, which is capital W, little E, capital P, little O. Weepo, which is, they're not Poe at O.
No, you are not. At O.
They're not par in the slightest, these fucking people. I get it's Westport.
Weepo. But no, it's not.
Don't do that, because that's what it sounds like. A little bit of history of this town here.
Officially incorporated in 1835, they got lands from Fairfield, Weston, and Norwalk and just made a town out of it here. I guess there was a guy named Daniel Nash led 130 people to petition the town of Fairfield for Westports Incorporation, and they wanted to assist their seaports' economic viability that was being undermined by neighboring town seaports.
It's like, you have a seaport. You're concerned with that.
But we're concerned with our seaport. So let us deal with this shit.
So for several decades after that, it was a big agricultural community. It was the leading onion growing center in the United States, which I had no idea.

You can smell it in fucking Times Square. You can smell the onions.
That's crazy. And it became a shipping center in part to transport the onions.
Right. That's how it worked.
Once the collapse of the onion industry happened, then mills and factories replaced that. And now it's just replaced with rich people.
So that's it. Starting about 1910, this is when people in New York City discovered a nice little leafy burb about an hour and a half away.
And this is when artists and musicians started moving here. This became an artsy town.
F. Scott Fitzgerald moved here.
Yeah, that guy did some shit. Yep, because he didn't want to deal with all the business shit in New York.
Is that Star Spangled Banner guy? I'm moving there. No, no.
F. Scott Fitzgerald is not the – no.
Is he not a composer? He's a writer. He's a writer.
He's an author. F.
Scott Fitzgerald. The great Gatsby.
I know who he is. I was going to say that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which would make sense seeing the light across the thing.
You're on a sound. It all makes sense now.
So that was before he wrote that, too. He moved there.
Francis key there you go yeah it's an f scott you got it i'm on board you got that shit the uh this it became got a reputation as an art center and people were calling it a creative heaven at that point all right and then in the 20th century there's industrialization and all this in new New York. And all this industrialization everywhere else made fashionable people come here.

And it became Westport very fashionable.

More writers and artists came.

Farmers started. Cachy stuff.

Yeah.

Farmers were selling off their land for housing developments and shit like that.

And it changed from farmers to the suburbs at that point.

Then famous people started moving here. In 1960, Paul Newman moved in and lived there until he died.
How about that? I'm sure he had five houses, but he lived there. Just being handsome.
Hell yeah. Just being handsome until he's dead.
And his wife, Joanne Woodward, the other actress, she still lived there after he died even, just stayed there, liked it. Here's reviews of this town.
Got a couple reviews here. Five stars.
I appreciate the location of the town and what the town has to offer. It's an hour from New York City, making the city very accessible and contains a beach, a nice downtown area, a public pool, the public sports courts and fields.
The high school is very intense, but contains amazing sports theater and music facilities and programs. These are rich kids.
Smart kids, yeah. The parents are monitoring, not necessarily smart, but rich.
Yeah. Rich, all rich people think their kids will be smart no matter if they're dumb or not.
That's what rich people think. We can buy them being smart kids.
Yeah. I am rich enough that that kid is not dumb.
It's weird. Very fucking weird here.
Here's three stars, beautiful town, and relatively nice people. In my opinion, people can be spoiled, arrogant, and extremely out of touch.
Well, they're called rich people. They're called rich people that live in this.
Yeah, this is not the real world. And then finally, one star, a very all caps nasty town oh nasty it's run shit about you oh she's got a whole this is a whole thing here it's run by an insider's click of real estate people hedge fund people showbiz types and if you're not a quote insider type you're deemed a sub citizen yeah so if you're not rich yeah that's how rich works yeah if you're not wealthy these people don't like you really yeah is that right are you here to trim my hedges that's what they think at that point um the police are very nasty basically thugs for the real estate people and if you complain to town hall about Hall do? Or Town Hall do? They, quote, refer your complaint back to the police.
They are nasty people, the whole lot of them. The realtors are also extremely nasty, and they engage in serious blacklisting practices.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a small town where you're not rich.
It's a small town of rich people that don't want anybody that's not rich there. Because you bring down the property value, you poor fuck.
That's why we don't live there. Yeah.
So, things to do here. West Tober Fest.
Okay. Yeah.
It's a craft beer and fall festival. Let's see here.
Promising a day of craft beer delights, live music, community camaraderie in the heart of downtown Westport, beer enthusiasts can indulge in a diverse selection of over 50 local and regional beers, from crisp lagers and bold IPAs to rich stouts and refreshing non-alcoholic drinks. The festival promised...
Rich douche beer. Rich douche beer.
Rich IPA. Tears of the of the poor is what one is called.
It's great. Tears of the poor children.
Holy shit. The festival promises more than fantastic brews.
It will also feature delicious food and lively music. local culinary favorites favorites will serve mouth-watering treats to satisfy any appetite

and the musical performances will be by one band called quote One Bad Oyster. Why? How do you have a rich community and just have one shit band? You've probably priced out the riffraff.
Dude you should see their logo is a cartoon oyster shell open with a looks like a lump of gray. An oyster like angry, like it's got teeth and it's like, and it's got a it's got a bomb sitting next to it with like a, you know, a cartoon bomb with like a, you know, a fucking thing coming off.
Yeah, that's because they bad oyster. Okay.
It's an explosive oyster. Wow.
And there'll also be a Stein holding contest, a pumpkin chunking event hosted by CBS News weather anchor and Westport resident Lonnie Quinn. Wow.
Oh, well then. There's Lonnie Quinn.
By the way, one bad Oyster, here's how they describe them. One Bad Oyster's not your average band.
They're an energetic and lively ska surf band hailing from the vibrant Fairfield County in Connecticut. Oof.
That sounds rough. But they say they've been rocking the tri-state New England venues with their infectious beats and catchy tunes.
Holy shit. Let's talk about a murder.
I gotta get to the murder. Before I have to murder them.
Before I have to talk more about One Bad Oyster. Now, we're gonna go back in time farther than, I think we've done one case older than this.
Maybe two. Normally don't go back in time this far, but this is such a fucking harrowing tale that I read it and I'm like, how do we not tell this story? Just because it's like a story of it's one of those narratives where it's like, then this happens and this happens.
It's not like this is what happened. It's the you're going to go through it and it's white knuckle.
And it's like it's a story of death and survival and horrifying shit. It's wild.
We'll get into it. Let's go here.
1962.

Yeah.

63 years ago, way farther back than we usually go here.

So let's talk about some people.

Pierre and Isabel Silan.

Silan, S-I-L-L-A-N.

If his name's Pierre, I'm going Silan because it's Pierre.

Pierre and his wife, Isabel.

She's 50 years old. He's a little bit older than that they have some kids as well they have three kids they have Paul who is 24 the son he's the oldest he is in the army stationed in Germany by now in 62 Pierre Jr.
again somebody named the junior the second kid so weird must have had a commitment to name something after somebody's dad or some shit before that.

So Pierre Jr. is 20, and he's away at college.

So neither of the boys are in the house at this point.

They're both out of the house doing their own thing. They have one child at home, and that is Gail, their daughter, G-A-I-L, not G-A-L-E.

She's 14 years old.

So they live in a fucking incredible mansion, these people. Really? It's a three-story home in a wooded area at 31 Stony Brook Road, and I'll give you the stats on it later, but I'm going to show you a picture of this fucking house.
What the fucking shit? It looks like an apartment complex. Yeah.
It's probably four stories. There's three above ground.

Three above.

It's fucking. Look at that great room.

It's got three Arcadia doors.

It's insanity, dude.

That's the garage.

I don't even know what to say about this fucking place.

It looks like four houses, like four big houses they crammed into one house.

It is a five-bedroom, eight-bath, 6,503-square-foot house. I can't believe there's only that many bedrooms.
There should be 11. It's bonkers.
Dude, this house is all rooms. You'd think there'd be more.
It's on a .95-acre wooded lot backed up to woods. It's fucking incredible, this house.
These people are doing very well for themselves. They're happy.
They smile a lot. They bought it a couple years earlier for $75,000, which was an exorbitant amount of money for a house back then.
Absolutely next-level expensive. They're doing very well for themselves here.
The exact date we're going to go to is November 12, 1962. It is Veterans Day this day it's a monday it's very important that it's a monday and a veteran veterans day because the kids are home from school this day it's a holiday for a lot of people not for pierre pierre is a textile designer pierre is a very successful man he does not take days off doesn't yeah he doesn't get fucking federal holidays off.
When you live in a 6,500-square-foot house, you work when other people aren't, hopefully, unless you're an inherited asshole. I'm a veteran of the textile industry.
I have to work. So it's a holiday for the kids, though.
So Pierre leaves for work at about 7 a.m. He's got a commute to New York City.
So he leaves his wife and daughter in the house. They're both asleep.
Like I said, the boys are ones at college, ones in Germany. He goes out the kitchen door, which God knows how many doors there are in this fucking house.
I mean, on the backside, it's got so many, which he closes, but he doesn't lock because it's 1962. This is a very good neighborhood.

Yeah.

So he doesn't even lock it.

They don't even bother locking this giant house up.

So he then gets on the train and goes to New York on the commuter train.

Okay.

Now, here comes what I'd like to call 13 hours of hell.

Oh.

Okay.

I'll give you a quote.

This is Gail, 14-year-old Gail.

Quote, I awoke suddenly and thought my watch had stopped. I couldn't seem to figure out what time it was.
I put on a red wardrobe over my flowered nightgown and went out into the second floor hallway. I was going to check the time on a grandfather clock downstairs.
No phone sitting next to her, nothing like that. She's got to check that.
She said, as I walked into the hallway a man was standing there and not her dad or either of her brothers he was a tall light skin man he had worked in our house as a handy man about two weeks ago okay so she knew she recognized him so this is about 8 45 p.m. She gets up, starts down the hallway toward her parents' bedroom,

also to go downstairs the same direction.

P.M.?

A.M., I'm sorry, A.M.

She walked past an intersecting hallway,

and that's when this man grabbed her by the neck

and pulled her back into her bedroom.

Uh-oh.

Pushed her up against the, closes the bedroom door

and pushes her up against the bedroom door that's closed. Yeah.
He held her by the throat. 14-year-old.
Yeah. Here comes the mom.
Here comes Isabel. She knocks on the door saying, is everything all right? I heard, is everything all right? She couldn't answer from in there.
She's getting choked. Right.
Gail passes out. Oh, that kind of heavy choke.

Choke her.

Yeah, he's choking her

so she can't get noise out

to alert her mother.

So chokes her till she passes out.

She hits the ground,

passes out.

Okay, this is great.

Now, it could have been fainting,

but it's probably choking,

probably from the choking.

So this guy who has come

into this house is Harless Miller, H-A-R-L-I-S, Harless, which I've never heard as a name before. I don't think it really exists.
Nope. Harless Miller.
He's 32 years old at the time, and he is a part-time landscaper and gardener who has done work around here for 10 years. okay he's worked on property, as a matter of fact, on at least six different occasions in October and November of 1962, and on the adjoining property on at least four occasions during the same period.
So for the last two months, he's been around doing landscaping shit. Now, Harless had never failed to report for work on a scheduled day ever, but on November 10th, he, um, he was supposed to work Monday.
They told him Saturday, you'd have to work Monday, but he didn't show up to work that day. The first time he's ever done that.
Um, now a little bit about Harless. He is from Sarasota, Florida, but he lived in Norwalk, Connecticut.
And I And like I said, didn't show up that morning for work. And when one of his employers telephoned his landlady to see where the fuck he was, she just said he was out.
So he wasn't home. He wasn't sick.
They also said that Harless was, we find out he's the oldest of seven children. He's born to his mom's name is mary jones and she go everybody calls her aunt mary and um everybody said that she is a very upstanding lady down there um her first husband died right after her last child was born which is convenient now you have seven kids and fucking by yourself her second husband was killed in a gun duel with a neighbor.
Wow. Yeah.
In the 50s? In the wild, in like the 40s, I think. Yeah.
That is fucking crazy. Through it all, though, Aunt Mary would raise her kids up by, this is she made a living by picking beans and selling hogs.
Ooh. That going, man.
The county never had trouble with Harless at all, though. One guy here, though, said that that was down there.
But the deputy police chief, Jack Royal of Sarasota, said that he used to work in a pool room down there and meeting Harless.

And he said Harless had a record of three arrests, gambling, carrying a deadly weapon and rape. They accelerated fast.
Yeah. The last charge was dismissed in 1960 on the grounds of insufficient evidence.
now Harless calls himself several aliases

Harris, Hollister, and Ulysses

as well as Harless. That's what he goes by.
So it's very interesting. A little background on Harless here.
His mom, Aunt Mary, would never say anything bad about her, but Harless was married before this to a woman named Jimmy Sue. Jimmy spelled like you.
Jimmy Sue. God damn it.
Jimmy Sue called Harless a, quote, mean man and accused him of carrying a gun everywhere. Wow.
Original Florida man. He is.
Jimmy Sue said Harless was a turpentine worker when she married him

and everywhere uh jimmy florida man that he is uh jimmy jimmy sue said harlis was a turpentine worker when she married him in 1953 so he's got excessive brain damage probably if he's been working around turpentine in the 50s probably just ate everything he's got so not just for the inhalement but inhalement inhaling it butaling it, but is that what it's going on? Everything. It doesn't matter.
The absorption. Oh, the chemicals.
Through the skin, it's crazy. In the 50s, there wasn't like safety measures or anything like that.
Fuck you. Fuck that.
Yeah, OSHA, you kidding me? Get out of here. So during their marriage, the first year of their marriage, she said that this is amazing.
She marries a turpentine worker, and things aren't all settled.

During the first year of their marriage, honeymoon period, okay,

he tried to rape his aunt.

What?

He tried to rape his own aunt.

Ew, what the fuck, man?

I don't know, but his uncle shot at him, and he away his uncle was not impressed not having this shit harlis hollister whatever the fuck you want to call yourself boom at least there's one sane person in florida jesus christ and the sanest guy is the guy shooting at somebody that's the craziest thing here shooting at his nephew raping his wife what the fuck man he tried to rape his aunt oh boy oh man um so he ends up having a son with her of course because he's got to be fertile if he's this fucking stupid wow saying gross so after that um well before the son was born harlis went off to florida uh while his son willie james was born and he didn't return until the baby was two months old he just left for four months when the when his wife was pregnant then jimmy sue said he banged my head against the wall and he beat me up very often then luckily for her he finally abandoned her in 1957. She was like, whew, thank fuck.

Thank God he left.

Where she had to get a job as a cook at the local jail to support her son.

And she described her son as ain't got no temper like his pa.

I don't know.

That's confusing.

His pa's got a temper and he ain't got it.

Okay, that's good.

He's a calm kid. He's a calm kid.
He's not a jerk like his dad, which is terrific, I guess. Um, so he was been, when he was around Westport, he went four months without a job.
And then he'd been a handyman for the last two months doing landscaping and shit like that. And that's when he's been hanging around this neighborhood.
Um, he drove, apparently he, the, his boss that he worked for said, quote, Harless drove a relative of mine up from Florida about six months ago. He just sort of took a vacation until he started working with me two months ago.
He wasn't doing anything. He said that this boss said that his the boss's brother, Clyde, have a long have a cleaning business.
all the time and he seemed like a good guy. So here's this good guy.
This is who Gail is trapped in a room with. Hoo-wee.
Tried to rape his aunt. Yeah.
That's where we're at right now. So I am not.
And is that the second rape or is that the one that we may have tried for? Oh, that's he didn't get charged with that. That was just family affair.
I shot out of him, he ran away, everything's fine. Oh, boy.
That was an official, yeah. So who knows how many people, especially in the 50s, even less people reported rapes.
God damn it. I mean, he might have been doing this everywhere.
He's a bad, bad, bad man. So I've got a temper like his pal.
So Gail said he grabbed me and put a piece of cord around my neck and started choking me. I tried to pull the cord loose and he forced me back into my bedroom, held me with the cord as he locked the door.
Then he started choking me again. Holy shit.
She said I fought him as hard as I could, but he pushed me back onto my bed. Just then my mother must have heard me struggling and choking and she started pounding on the door and shouting my name.
I guess then I must have fainted or passed out from being choked. So, wow.
She gets her consciousness back here, comes to, and there's nobody there. She's alone in a room.
So she goes downstairs and sees Harless on top of her mother on the floor with his hand around her neck choking her mom. So she tries to help her mother.
By the way, Harless is 6'3", 195 pounds. So he's my size, my size, an inch shorter.
So that's a pretty big guy. You know what I mean? So she's trying.
She's a 14-year-old trying to help with a physically imposing person here.

But what ends up happening is he just sees that she's awake and then grabs them both and drags them both back to the mother's bedroom.

Oh, boy.

Where he chokes both of them and places a rope around Gail's neck.

Okay.

And so this is how Gail describes it. Apparently, he to the door, unlocked it and started choking my mother.
When I came to, I ran out into the hallway and the man was bending over my mother and was choking her with a cord. She'd been forced down to the floor and was fighting and screaming.
The man then forced us into my mother's bedroom. This is fucking crazy.

Then she said, my mother asked him if he wanted money, and he said he didn't want any money.

No.

She then asked, why are you doing this?

And he said, quote, you wouldn't understand.

This is for fun.

Which I honestly think he's being honest.

You wouldn't understand what a rapist and a monster guy feels like here so um then gail said why do you hate us like you must hate us to do this to us why are you doing this and he said quote i don't hate you you wouldn't understand i hate me yeah so then he started choking her after that she after she said why do you hate us and he choked her unconscious again. So now she's been choked unconscious twice now, Gail.
When she regained consciousness, she was on the floor with her hands tied, hog tied, basically, hands and feet bound. And her mother was on the floor beside her with a rope around her neck, unconscious and breathing heavily.

So he like left her there.

So Gail said, I kept fainting and waking up, fainting and waking up.

When I came to, he was choking my mother again and I screamed, stop, stop.

The man then ran over to Gail.

Harless does.

Picks her up, drags her in her own bedroom.

He tied her hands and feet here again because she was untied and then whatever. The mom was tied.
This show, Small Town Murder, is sponsored by BetterHelp. We're huge proponents of therapy because everybody needs it too.
And independence is very glorified.

It's easy to forget that we're all better when we have a little support system behind us.

And therapy can be a great source of support

for any area of your life

when it's time to shift the focus here

from doing it all on your own

to maybe it's a little better

if we ask for some help here or there.

It doesn't hurt and there's nothing wrong with it.

And we've benefited greatly from therapy.

Just talking to Jimmy about something

he wanted to talk to his therapist about this week.

So, I mean, if you can't beat it,

Make sure you subscribe't beat it. Makes therapy affordable and convenient actually, which is a big barrier to a lot of people.
Serves over 5 million people worldwide. You access a diverse network of more than 30,000 credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties.
And you can easily switch therapists at any time for no extra cost. Build your support system with BetterHelp.
Visit betterhelp.com slash smalltownmurder today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash smalltownmurder.
Now back to the show. Hey, everybody.
Just going to take a quick break from the show and tell you a little bit about our safest sponsors, Simply Safe. And everyone has routines that you go through, make you feel good, make you feel secure, like you have control over the world.
And a lot of times you don't, but you do if you're us and your routine includes arming your Simply Safe home security system. You know that's going to do well for you.
So when we're heading out, both of us, we both have them in our houses, our studios. You lock up for the night.
Yeah, this simple step does more than just protect you. It gives you peace of mind.
You're going to feel good about leaving, and then you're going to know it's going to be the same when you get back. You'll sleep more soundly.
I can leave the house with confidence, and it's amazing how a push of a button can give you that kind of confidence. And with SimpliSafe, we love it.
Like I said, it's in our studios, in our homes. It's really easy to install, too.
You can get professional installation also, but if we can put it up, you can put it up. Put it that way.
Visit simplisafe.com slash small to claim 50% off a new system with a professional monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's simplisafe.com slash small, S-I-M-P-L-I safe.com slash small.
There's no safe like SimpliSafe. And now back to the show.
Then he went back to the mother's room and she heard him pulling out drawers and dumping shit on the floor. She said, to my mother but there was no answer he comes back into her room um well he cut her bonds first of all she was bound and then he cut them and brought her back into the room and then bound her again okay um then left the room returned and untied her again he's untied her and tied her up like five times already.
What is that about? He orders her to change into a different nightgown. Yeah.
Put on a different nightgown, get your fucking robe and your slippers. Okay.
Okay? Then he tied her up again. Then he covers her up with a quilt, like makes like a big Santa sack with her basically basically.
Gets a big quilt, covers her all up with that and carries her downstairs. He then takes her outside, puts her on the floor of the back seat of his car and drives away with her.
Oh, my God. He just took her.
Okay. So Gail said her words were, were when the man returns he wrapped me in a blanket after warning me to keep quiet and took me downstairs and outside where he put me in the back car car in the back of his car on the floor gone okay gone by 9 15 out of there yeah it makes you feel like she was the reason he came there it's kind of the opposite actually we find out but yeah yeah it's weird 6 30 p.m pierre gets home from work he gets home he found his house dark yeah what the fuck the living room's in just complete disarray the bedroom's a mess what's going on no he can't find anybody yeah no one in the bedroom no one in the living room no one in any of the bedrooms he then says he has to go to the bathroom opens up the bathroom door and finds his wife isabel in her nightgown dead as can be sitting on the toilet with her head resting against the wall what is that he fucking posed her on the toilet that's wild with her head resting against the wall.
Yeah, she'd been dead for hours already. So he, oh, Jesus Christ, ran out, called 911, or at the time just called the local police or did whatever he could here.
It turns out she died from asphyxiation due to strangulation caused by a rope or a clothesline around her neck. Marks encircled her neck, could have been made by clotheslines, like the ones used to bind them both here.
Wow. So this is fucking crazy.
So clotheslines are a big thing. All of this tying up is done with clotheslines, by the way.
So let's get into the hell car here. Okay.
He around for hours what drove around the countryside for hours what is that about just driving around once he stopped and lit a cigarette and gail asked what are you gonna do now and he said haven't made my mind up yet and then drove off again again. At one point he stops, gets her out of the car, puts her in the trunk and drives away.
Very indecisive man. He has no idea how, if he wants you tied up, if he wants you in the car, in the trunk, he has no clue.
Gail said, we drove around for a long time. Then he stopped in a lonely place and put me in the trunk of the car.
My hands were tied behind my back. This is terrifying.
Then they drove around again for a long time. She just felt driving and turns and all the normal driving things.
Then they stop at a restaurant, a bar restaurant. And she said he opened up the trunk and asked me if I wanted a chicken sandwich not particularly no it's the best one in town not really she said i shook my head and told him i wanted to go home it'd take me home i don't want a chicken fucking sandwich you're strangling me all the time here this is crazy so um that's fucking wild okay um he then um he's he says he's going to get a sandwich um he takes her out of the trunk places her in the back seat ties her hands behind her back and to the rear door handle of the car yeah he then left to go get the sandwich he returned shortly telling her that the sandwich wouldn't be ready for like a half hour.
And at that point he untied her and took off her nightgown. And what she said, quote, did something to her.
Oh boy. Yeah.
He, then he rapes this young girl, which is fucking horrible in this car, which is a nightmare. Um, obviously.
And, um, yeah. Um, he then placed her on the floor with her hands tied behind her back and used another rope to tie her to the door handle again.

Then I guess he went in to get the sandwich, came out, got the sandwich and he, you know, this was and he asked offered her some.

She didn't want any.

She said afterwards, meaning after he attacked her,

I pleaded with him for a drink of water, and he left me.

Okay.

He left her.

She, oh, my God.

She said, quote, I struggled with the ropes as hard as I could and managed to.

She, like, ripped her fucking skin off to get the ropes off her hands. Like chew your arm off to make an escape basically.
Pulls it off, then tries to untie the one in the handle, but she's still tied up and she only has one hand. She said, I quote, I then pushed the handle with my head and fell out face first.
Wow. She stripped her fucking hands apart, struggling, and opened a door with her head.
Yeah. Those are those big handles.
I mean, this is a survival. This is like the guy driving the snowmobile while he's bleeding and shot and all that.
This is crazy. And this is a 14-year-old.
It's a big chrome handle that you got to beat out of it with your head yeah oh boy this is fucking crazy so now she's still tied up her hands are tied behind her she's sobbing her her clothes are soaked in blood yeah she's sobbing she's she just takes off and fucking runs as fast as she can hands tied behind behind her back in a bloody nightgown, screaming bloody murder. She goes to the nearest house she finds and just kicks the door until somebody opens it.
Good girl. It was about 6 p.m.
And so she'd been a prisoner for, this is going on 13 hours here. Not 13, but yeah, about 13 almost.
Or no, no, a little less than that. So it's like 10 hours.
Yeah. So this is Mary Burgo is the woman in the house.
And she found, this is in Norwalk. She found Gail on her front porch bleeding and tied up and said, holy shit, child come inside.
So she tells her the story. Gail tells her what just happened to her.
And this lady, Mary Burgo, calls the police. Then she called her home.
She called Pierre and Isabel's house, Gail's home, to let her know that she's alive. You know what I mean? So then she's transported to the hospital after that.
They take her to the hospital. This is crazy.
Now, before all of this, they take her to the hospital. The cops advise that she be kept under heavy guard until the murderer and kidnapper is caught because, quote, I'm sure he would try to kill her if he got the chance because she can identify him.
Absolutely. So where the fuck is Harless now besides shitting his pants?

Yeah.

You'd imagine driving as fast as he could towards some other jurisdiction would be what he's doing. Towards Canada or Mexico.
Well, we'll find out here. Number one, the bartender and two patrons of the Calypso Tavern, that's where the chicken sandwich was purchased, remembered that a man fitting the description

given by Gail bought a chicken sandwich

at about 6 o'clock. The bartender noticed him particularly because his customers usually didn't order food at that hour.
When the fuck are they eating? It's 6 o'clock. That's the time, isn't it? They eat at 10 o'clock? They eat at 3 o'clock? I have no idea.
They usually drink their dinner. Chicken sandwiches are ordered around 9 p.m.
People eat late? I don't know. The bartender noticed this Harless particularly because his customers usually didn't order food and he observed the man's left ear was lower than his right ear.
And it stuck out in his mouth. I don't know.
Stuck out to him. He must be real slanted for this guy to notice.
No shit, man. Like really off to notice that? It's got to be like at least like a two-inch difference, right? Is that a bad haircut or are you real misshaping stuff? Real fucked up.
Jesus Christ. Oh, man.
So an inspector for the Norwalk police talked with Herman and Clyde Whitmore, who owned the landscaping and housekeeping firm that he worked for. And I guess they're retained by many, many well, well to do families in the area.
And yeah, all this shit. And they said he confirmed that, yes, their crew had worked at the salon house two weeks before, and one of their temporary employees does fit the description of the fugitive.

And he said, only you should also say he has heavy lines under his eyes.

You should also say that.

Heavy lines and a diagonal head.

And a fucked up, lopsided head.

It's in italics.

So this is his landlady, Mrs. Elizabeth Richard, told police that harlan might be the man you're seeking uh she said only you should say he has a heart-shaped face and a narrow chin it's getting better he is a narrow chin and a fucked up ear thing you talk to three more people he's gonna have a horn this is crazy Natalic's heart head man and she added he and his wife Lucille were nice quiet people and they said were what do you mean were and she said oh they left here last night about 9.30 without saying goodbye I wasn't surprised, though, because he went off yesterday morning and told Lucille, when I come back, be ready because we're going away.
He planned this. He said, I'm going to go out and do some raping and pillaging.
You get your shit together because then we're going to fucking flee. But instead, what he did was he went to sleep that night.
They slept there that night, left in the morning. He was tired.
All tuckered out from his adventures here. It's a big day, yeah.
Big day. They asked what kind of person he was, and the landlord said, Harless was a pleasant sort.
He'd just come here after a day of working, sit and watch TV. He offered pleasant company to me, him and his wife.
One of those where they probably rented a room and they all had to watch TV together in the living room. So, yeah, he went home, went to bed.
After that, him and his common law wife took off heading south. That's that.
Investigators couldn't say whether the motive for the crime was robbery, kidnapping, rape. Who knows? All three? We don't know.
They expected to find the house empty or, you know, they said they thought maybe he expected to find the house empty or was surprised when it wasn't just the wife. Because if he watches every day, husband leaves at this time, kid leaves at that time, wife's in the house by herself.
But it's Veterans Day, but he's not off today. So he probably didn't realize that the kid's had off from school that day.
Oh, shit. So she surprised him.
They're thinking that she surprised him. He's like, oh, shit.
Fuck. There's a child.
Yeah. There's two people.
What do we do here? But he decided, well, that's the one I want to fucking kidnap and just fucking attack and destroy forever.

So his boss is surprised at all this.

I would hope so.

Like, that's what I expected from him,

but I hired him anyway to go into people's private residences.

I thought that was good.

I mean, his head, I should have known.

It's all lopsided and stuff.

I can't believe they sent that guy to the nice neighborhood.

Yeah, still a landscaper. He's bringing down the property value.
His employer voiced astonishment, saying, a good worker, a fellow who didn't ask questions. Is that a good worker? Just doesn't ask questions? Just does what he sold, yeah.
He wasn't one to talk much, but he gave me a good day's work. Somehow, though, I just figured he didn't care much about anything.
He never objected to anything, and he never favored anything either. He just, whatever.
He was just like, all right. He's like Richardson from Deadwood.
So he also says, I wonder what made him do it. I guess he wonders now himself what made him do it.
Probably not because he's a rapist, I think. That's what he does.
You wouldn't understand, man. You wouldn't.
Like he said, you wouldn't understand. I don't understand.
You don't understand. I don't get it either, man.
And if you're listening and you understand, I'm worried about you. Yeah.
Arrest yourself. Arrest yourself.
Holy shit. By the way, this neighborhood, it was like a bomb fucking hit it.
Oh, I can't imagine. They went bonkers.
All of a sudden, not only are doors locked, extra locks, fucking double pane locked windows. I mean, it is now.
Big dogs. Everybody is a big, all of it, guns, everything else.
Yeah, they're waiting because he hasn't been caught. They think he's stalking all their neighborhood here.
Now, at the hospital, it's Monday night when Gail comes in. She sleeps through most of Tuesday.
They probably gave her a sedative and said, fucking calm down. Her father was persuaded to stay away from her.
Okay, if you're this 14-year-old girl who's just been fucking attacked and raped and all, you need your people, I think. I think seeing your father would make you feel safe.

That's some security.

Yeah, no one's going to fucking come get me now.

Like, there'd be some feeling of grounding and security.

Instead, they convince him that it's better that he stays away because she will be able to see on his face his sadness, and she'll her mother's dead and that's not good for her recovery right now, they said. Maybe he just is sad that his daughter's hurt and we're not going to talk about mom right now.
We're worried about you. They said, let's wait until let's give her a couple days.
So her brothers were notified. Her one brother was rushing home from college and they even let Paul fly home from Germany where he was stationed in the army.

Your mother's dead.

Your sister's raped.

I think you can come home.

That gets you some R&R, right?

Right.

I would hope.

So now by Wednesday, now the newspapers all have the story in it, and she yelled at everybody and said, is my mother dead?

And the father broke into sobs and said, yes, she's dead. She didn't even know her mother was dead until Wednesday.
This poor girl. Holy shit.
Police talked to the press. A police officer told reporters that, quote, she is a very brave girl.
No one could have gone through a more terrible experience, but she's feeling much better today. And eventually she will have to know about her mother.
And then she was. Yeah.
Then they found her because she read that quote probably. You know what I mean? Fucking newspaper.
So the state motor vehicle bureau provided the information that Connecticut plates, five, seven, four to five, two had been issued for a turquoise and cream. 56 mercury hard top sedan owned by Harless mill.
That's a dope car. pretty dope car good color too shit yeah not bad at all uh he's described as 31 63 195 with obviously narrow chin heart-shaped face and uneven ears so yeah they're thinking is he headed to sarasota maybe right where he was um they talked to the sheriff down there and he says quote i don't think he's headed here why okay can you give us any reason he said quote he's too well known and he knows it why not try valdosta georgia that's where he comes from okay sure but you know don't bother me i got stuff to do yeah so a valdosta police the valdosta police reported that miller, don't bother me.
I got stuff to do. Yeah.
So a Valdosta police, the Valdosta police reported that Miller hasn't lived there since he and his wife and son, 10 at the time, his old wife, moved to Soperton, Georgia.

Soperton or Soperton, Georgia, which is where he was born.

And he says, by the way, his wife's name is Jimmy Sue, not Lucille. That's because lucille's his new wife jimmy sue was his wife down there this idiot has no idea nope he's caught up with him he said lucille must be a girlfriend nope it's his wife so that is fucking amazing the county sheriff down there where sopperton is said that miller was not in sopperton but he'll keep an eye out for him just in case.
So Friday, Gail is still in the hospital. This is the day that mom's going to be buried.
Isabella's buried this day. And since they did not know where the kidnapper was still, the police captain asked that Gail be kept in the hospital and miss her mother's funeral so she can be protected in the hospital.
Oh, boy. Because they haven't caught this man yet.
So they're using a hospital as like a hostage in there. I doubt a kidnapper is going to show up to the funeral to kidnap or kill the little girl.
While she's holding hands with her father. It's a lot of witnesses.
Yeah, and she's a murder victim, so I bet there'll be cops there. I don't think they're going to pop up and take her, probably, I would say.
I mean, it'd probably be a lot cheaper for everyone just to have a cop hang out out in front of their house. That would be the cheapest and easiest way to do this, and probably the most effective, too.
November 16th, 1962. This is about the same time that Isabel is being put into her grave in Tarrytown.
Beautiful place. 900 miles away.
There's some drama here. Here we go.
Word reached the sheriff that a turquoise and white mercury with Connecticut license plates was parked at Aunt Mary's house. His fucking mother's house.
Really? Yes. Which is off the road a bit on the outskirts of Sopperton.
With an agent for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and three FBI men, they drove down. This area is called the Bottoms, by the way.
Jesus. Yeah, not great.
They drove down and saw the mercury in the yard and a young woman leaning against it. She was looking at a pickup truck, also parked in the yard.
Aunt Mary sat there on her back porch. So the sheriff said, is Harless here? Aunt Mary didn't answer because she thought the sheriffs were there to arrest her son for non-support of his wife and child because he abandoned them.
He's a deadbeat. So she just sits there silent and the cop notices movement beneath a bag in the back of the truck.
Oh, he ran over, pulled up the burlap and yelled, come out of there. And Harless stood up and there he was.
What the fuck? He just jumped in the back of a truck and hid? Yep. He submitted to arrest without resistance.
Uh-huh. Yeah.
He, and this is fucked up too. We don't know.
Okay. First he was described as two men in the car.
Yeah. Then it was him and Lucille.
But now when they're here, they're calling her Rosalie Millage. What? The woman he's with who's 23.
But I don't know if that's what lucille goes by if that's her middle name or i don't know what the fuck it is but um i from what i know he she is with him because i've seen a picture of the two of them in the sheriff's office together so she was there they're like this is this him and his wife lucille so he didn't put up a fight and uh they were both him and his wife were taken in to the Sopperton police station before he was told why he was under arrest. He said, quote, I never knew any family named Salon up there.
All I knew up there was my bosses I worked for. And he said that he had that you guys have hunted down the wrong guy.
i didn't do this and i'm not fleeing from anything i'm just coming to see my wife sir your head bro so easy to draw she got you even she got yeah fuck he they said you were you were coming down here anyway it's just a coincidence that you left the day after a murder he said well i knew it would get cold up there and my landscaping job would play out. That's what it was.
I knew about it. It was going to be cold.
He said, so I was heading back to Florida and I stopped to see my mother. And the woman said she knew nothing about the crime.
She was just returning to Florida with Harless to escape the winter. That's all.
And they said, you know, you got the wrong guy. You got the wrong guy.
So they said, okay, why'd you shave off your mustache? Why can't you explain who owns the red bathrobe belt found in your trunk? Uh-oh. Yeah, along with clothing that belongs to them, blankets from their house, and a narrow brimmed hat, exactly the type described by Gail.
Why would he keep that? Why you have all that, sir? Oh, and they're going to find tons of clothesline all over the place and everything else. Hey, everybody.
Just going to take a quick break from the show and tell you a little bit more about our stylish and fashionable friends over at Quince. Elevating your style.
That used to be a real expensive thing. You want to change your look.
It's

expensive, but

with Quince, this is the way you can do it. The right

way, you can get high-end, versatile

pieces at a price that we can all

actually afford and actually want to pay.

And now I can upgrade my

style, getting nice, real good

luxury items and essentials that

sync up with what I want and what I want

to pay. It's perfect.
And Quince has all the must-haves, like Mongolian cashmere sweaters from $50. Come on.
That's ridiculous. Iconic 100% leather jackets and comfortable pants for every occasion, which I got a leather jacket and Jimmy got comfortable pants.
That's exactly what we did. It's great stuff.
So you, too, should do this. Indulge in affordable luxury.
Go to quince.com slash smalltownmurder for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's quince.com slash smalltownmurder to get free shipping and 365-day returns.
quince.com slash smalltownmurder. And now back to the show.
are amazing. My daughter loves them, and it's so hard to find a snack that a child will eat in the first place.
These have nutrients that are good for your brain, but she takes them to her volleyball game and feeds them to her teammates, and they all love them. They have so many different flavors.
They're amazing. Yeah, IQ Bar's totally free from gluten, dairy, soy, GMOs, and artificial sweeteners for a natural snack.
Try any of their nine delicious flavors, including mint chocolate chip, chocolate sea salt, banana nut, toasted coconut chip, lemon blueberry, and peanut butter chip. And right now, IQ Bar is offering our special podcast listeners 20% off all IQ Bar products.
Plus, get free shipping. To get your 20% off, text SMALLTOWN to 64000.
Text SMALLTOWN to 64000. That's SMALLTOWN, one word, to 64000.
Message and data rates apply. See terms for details.
Now back to the show. Hey, everybody.
Just going to take a quick break from the show and tell you a little bit more about Chime. Life is full of extra fees.
Boy, oh boy. They're everywhere.
Everything you buy, there's fees. Ever buy a concert ticket or an airline ticket or anything like that? Fees, fees, fees, games, you name it.
We're trying to make progress in life and we're trying to go forward and then these fees hit you and you go backwards. You need Chime.
Chime is a checking account that makes financial progress easier. You can move forward with this with features like no maintenance fees, fee-free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit.
Can't be that you can learn more at Chime.com slash smalltownmurder. This Chime is great stuff.
You always need a little help. You're always coming up a little short every once in a while.
It happens to people. Unexpected things come up.
Not only fees that Chime won't charge you, but you never know. You blow a tire out.
Your car breaks down. You never know when you need a few extra bucks and you might need it early.
Make progress toward a better financial future with Chime. Open your account in two minutes at Chime.com slash smalltownmurder.
That's Chime.com slash smalltownmurder. Chime feels like progress.
Banking services and debit card provided by the Bank Corp, N.A., or Stride Bank, N.A., members FDIC. SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply.
Boots are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits. Timing depends on submission to payment file.
Fees apply it out of network ATMs. So agents of the FBI joined the investigation here.
Obviously, they went up to do this and they charge Lucille and Harris with unlawful flight to escape prosecution. And then they'll put everything else on later.
By the way, the mercury that he was driving went through eight states undetected on the way back. He got pulled over three times on the way from Florida up to his mom's house.
Oh, wow. Going north, he got pulled over three different fucking times.
But not at all on the way down. He must have thought he got away with it, didn't care.
And they didn't have like a nationwide plate system.

So, yeah.

Then he says some incriminating shit when they get him in the police station.

Well, this is fucking crazy.

They get him in the Westport police headquarters here.

And we'll talk about this is before they get him to Georgia or to the headquarters in Westport.

But he's in Georgia at this point.

And he's quoted as saying, quote, if everybody says I did it, then I must have. Must have.
Must have. And that he said he was, quote, sorry for what he'd done to that woman.
Not good. Both of them.
Not fucking good. So they take him back to Connecticut.
They're arraigned in Georgia before the U.S. Commissioner Martha Daniel.
Then they were held in custody without bail in Augusta, and they waived extradition and were driven back to Connecticut by the Fairfield County District Attorney, his investigator. And the two men spelled each other driving on the 875-mile trip.
They made it in 17 and a half hours. Wow.
good time right there so they arrive in connecticut at 5 34 a.m now while he's in jail a connecticut county detective and a westport police sergeant went to georgia this is before they took him back up and examined his car without getting a search warrant what just went down there to pick through it then the car is brought back to Connecticut. They do a full take-apart examination again.
No fucking warrant. They get no search warrant for this shit at all.
They just said, what the fuck, we can do that. The upholstery, by the way, teeming with blood and hair from Gail.
Just all over the place. I mean, physical evidence is a big deal here.
Who seals's a dummy. Fucking unbelievable.
Certain objects taken from the car were submitted to the state laboratory in Hartford for examination. No search warrant again.
It's a lot, man, with this no search warrant. Including they found human hair identified as gales on the crank handle of the rear window and on the rear seat and floor.
Completely corroborating everything. They found blood stains on the cover of the rear seat, the blood being the same type as Gales, which is as close as you could get back then.
They do a lineup. They bring him back and Gale is asked to identify him and she does in the lineup obviously.
She was brought to headquarters and picked him out of a lineup of six men. Now, the officer later said the girl was given instructions by him, viewed the lineup without pointing to anyone in it, then left the room and talked with the officer, after which time she returned to the lineup and pointed him out.
So at this point, he is a lawyer because he's been arrested, and his lawyer is saying the identification wasn't made on the first viewing only on the second viewing and the the officer probably told her who to pick now my thing is she's 14 and back then everybody in 1962 everyone on earth hadn't seen a million police procedurals where they would show lineups and stuff she might have asked can they see me right she might have asked is this safe she might have asked can he hear me she might have asked anything on on fucking earth yeah so that's an interesting thing here but uh the court they're gonna he's gonna go to trial the prosecution here says my client wasn't there and didn't kill but he was but if he was there he didn't to commit the murder. He wasn't there and didn't do it, but if he did, he was an accident.
So either way, take it as one of those. That's our defense.
Wow. He said, this is the prosecution.
That's wild, man. The prosecution said, by Gail's story, I say Harless Miller was there and murdered Mrs.
Salon. And they said that he was acquainted with the layout of the home because he's been in there before.
And he, though, the defense says he contends he was in a bar part of the day of the murder. But the state introduced testimony that he wasn't there.
As a matter of fact, he was there at the exact time she said he was getting the exact type of food that she said he did. Yeah.
So charging that Miller, that Harlan Harless went to the Salon home with a rope. The prosecutor claimed that if he was as startled as the defense claims, the assailant may have been.
Why didn't he kill Mrs. Salon downstairs where Gail testified she saw him attempting to strangle her? There was no frantic situation.
He had time to premeditate. Yeah,

he was deciding what he was going to do. They said if the law requires that the eyewitnesses

were needed at the exact moment of expiration, how few cases would we be able to prove? Yeah.

Someone had to watch you murdering a person. Yeah.
They said there's no question of Gail's

identification. She was with Miller for about 12 hours under all sorts of circumstances.
She knows him. She'll pick his ass out.
They also talk about the rope. There's evidence which attempted to connect him with the murder.
They said a piece of rope which had been tied to her wrist was introduced, but the home she ran to that the girl fled to afterwards, she testified she thought the piece was heavier than the one that was shown in court. The woman from the, not the gal who was tied up, the woman whose house she went to said, I thought the rope was different, which is very weird.
Yet a police officer examining a piece of rope in court said he was able to identify it because of two knots tied in the two ends. So they said, yeah, this connects to that.
So another piece was introduced, found on the ground in the rear of his home, of Harless's house, by Westport police a few days after many newsmen and other spectators had visited the premises and failed to turn up the rope. So they're saying that could have been planted by anybody.
Sure. But nobody knew at that point that it was a rope with certain knots.
So, yeah. They said the type A blood found on the seat covers of the car, which matched Gail's blood, quote, could be anybody's blood.
Right. And also, he has a common physical appearance.
A lot of people look like him. Really? I've never seen anybody that looks like him, and I've only heard his description.
That's what I mean. And the fact that back then, 6'3 was extremely tall.
Right. Right now, in the United States, 6'4 and over is 1% of the population.
Wow. What do you think it was back then to be 6'3, 6'4? That was considered a giant back then.
Right. So that's crazy.
So Gail. Mess face.
Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of things to pick out.
The ear, the weird, the fucking heart face. So Gail has to and um i apparently they try to get a mistrial because she's describing what took place in the automobile and all of that kind of thing and and accusing him of committing heinous acts so they're like mistrial this is ridiculous the they said we have no facts before us on the record concerning this incident during the trial except the bare statement in the finding that the defendant moved for a mistrial based on the witnesses mischaracterization of this offense they're like she's a liar that one and they try to get a mistrial then harlis himself is testified he has to testify too he takes the stand.
You know, fucking he's got to do some acting here. He described his position in the two lineups in which Gale viewed him and testified to what he wore for each lineup.
He said he could see the legs and bottom of the coat of the, quote, lady or woman who wore or viewed the lineup and could hear her voice despite the bright lights which were shining on him. it's because lights don't make sound different that's why generally i think you make it louder if you got a headache but that's it that's about it yeah hey did you have a migraine at the time no asked whether his name was on the sweatshirt he wore for one of the lineups he said the word miller was up his shirt for one of the lineup appearances.
So that's interesting. Yeah, that wouldn't be great.
But she's standing there right there going, that guy did this. Right.
Period. Yeah.
Yeah. The defense, in closing, recounted the events.
And they said he, Miller came up here. He gave you his best effort to recount the events.
He said that he was, his client was upset because of the argument he had with his wife the night before. And he said, no one can recall what he did.
No one can recall what he did every minute of every given day, which is true. That's true enough.
Wow. They call her Lucille Harris and Rosalie millage interchangeably.
His wife, by the way. Yeah.
Don't get it. So the lawyer says you must examine every detail because a man's life is at stake.
So his summation required more than 20 minutes. And the defense was very dramatic.
He said, in this case, many questions have arisen as to who, how and. The state has attempted to prove by one witness all these elements.
Yeah. One witness who you held hostage for hours.
Right. Wow.
He said it was difficult to even cross-examine Gail. It was difficult to ask her questions about the thing that happened to her mother.
The question is whether Gail told the whole story, he says, alluding to several times during her testimony when she didn't remember something or didn't know, you know, because it was the most traumatic thing that's happened to a fucking eighth grader. Yeah.
The state had failed to prove premeditation. He said also, he said the excitement described in the home that day was a continuing thing.
There was no time to reflect.

None.

Okay.

Yeah.

Pointing out there were two telephones that were not used in the home, the public defender said this fact proves that this was an excitable period of time.

They didn't even call the cops because they were getting strangled intermittently.

What a fucking wild thing to say.

Then he says this, and this I would assume, if you said this now, a jury would come out of the box and fucking beat you with hammers. It's dangerous to rely on one witness, especially a 14-year-old impressionable girl in a first-degree murder case.
You can't believe. Can't depend on a rape victim.
She doesn't know. She's 14.
How does she know who raped her? That's ridiculous.

He said that this case would require intensive deliberation on the part of the jury,

which he said must decide the life or liberty of Harless Miller.

He also said that they must prove homicide, an unlawful killing done by another,

and that the accused committed the acts resulting in the death

and that those acts were committed with the specific intention of causing death.

Can't have an accident here.

Thank you. an unlawful killing done by another and that the accused committed the acts resulting in the death and that those acts were committed with the specific intention of causing death.
Can't have an accident here. So the jury is eight men, four women which I'm shocked there's four women on the jury back then.
A lot of these back then. Remember we just did the case.
They don't have any rights. No.
Well on the one we were talking about on the Patreon the lady from 19, right around this time yeah same it was the same kind of shit so uh and she got acquitted by an all-male jury and it was like 1963 so um there's a lot of circumstantial evidence and shit like that uh they find him guilty have to first degree murder and rape yeah you really have to here. But they did also recommend mercy as well.
They recommended mercy, which means they did not want him executed. They said they also recommended life in prison without the benefit of parole.
Don't kill him. Just hang on to him forever and ever and ever.
Yeah. Now, after the trial, by the way, his wife, Lucille Rosalie, is released from custody.
She had no idea what was going on. Yeah, she didn't know.
She's just real dumb. I think he found an idiot to do what he wants with, probably.
So she went back to Georgia. Now, Pierre Salon took Gail on a long trip to Europe and then moved with her from the horrible house here in Connecticut to a nice apartment in Manhattan.

He probably moved to fucking Central Park.

Wow.

Awesome.

That's good.

So, by the way, there's a new bill introduced right around this time. The headline, Slaying Leads to Plea for Bill, basically saying that there should be like a salesman has to register because he's knocking door to door and doing all this type of shit he has to back then he had to register i don't think you have to do that now but they said this should apply to domestic staff and landscapers as well really yeah they said the applicant would know he was on file and would have to be without a police record to begin with for all applications would be sent to the FBI in Washington headquarters.
So they said, yes, state rep John Shustak introduced or informed was informed at his home about the proposal. And he said he was in favor.
He said, I shall definitely propose such a bill to the state legislature. I discussed this very subject with a friend last night, and I think it's needed and needed right now.
A photo, fingerprints, and description of all house cleaners should be on record in local police offices. Jesus Christ.
How about not trusting your help? That's, yeah, no shit. That's interesting.
The state legislature convenes. This guy's the former mayor, and he indicated he would first have to consult with persons knowledgeable in bonding and registration to prepare an accurate proposal.

Yeah, you need people to know how to write a law.

So 1965.

Here we go.

Here's the appeal.

The appeal is based on no warrant for his car search.

The Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors, which is a real thing back then, the Supreme Court of Errors, which sounds like they just fuck everything up all the time. They're looking for errors.
They said the the the crime said Judge John M. Comley speaking for a unanimous bench was, quote, particularly revolting and atrocious.
Yet the conviction of him for this, they said the judge said not every search without a warrant is illegal. For example, a search, which is an incident, which is an incident to a lawful arrest is proper.
Meaning you pull them out of the car, there's something sitting right there. But the search of Miller's car was remote from the arrest in both time and space.
They searched it when he was in Connecticut two weeks later and then brought it to Connecticut and did it again. The U.S.
citizen's immunity from such a legal search is a cornerstone of the Constitution and the court is guarding against any erosion of that immunity and also that he wanted a new lawyer as well. He said his lawyer didn't call the exact people he wanted to call.
So he's a shit lawyer. Meanwhile, he's been in the bar since 1946.
He's processed 800 cases, done 40 jury trials. He's done very well.
Prosecuted five appeals to the Supreme Court, securing reversals on three of them. So, I mean, he's fine.
The lawyer's fine. But the court overturns the verdict.
Really?

Yep.

Overturned because they searched his car without a warrant and a lot of that evidence was used against him and you can't do that.

And that may have swayed the jury beyond just the eyewitness.

Right.

That's crazy.

So that's pretty fucked up.

And that doesn't mean he goes free.

No.

He's just going to try again.

Just try again.

So there's a retrial.

This time, no car evidence at all. Okay.
Who gots on the car evidence here? So he was convicted again. Yeah.
And you got plenty with everything else. You've got an eyewitness, for Christ's sake.
Awful lot going on here. Convicted again and sentenced to you, sir.
May fuck off.

Life in prison again.

Now, then there's a new law after that, though.

Okay.

Okay.

Several months passed and the Connecticut General Assembly passed a Public Act 573, a law abolishing natural life sentences, meaning life without parole.

Okay, so you've got to get parole.

Yes, it went into effect October 1st. Now, Miller and three other inmates in the state, there's only four people in the whole state on that, hope to prove that the law is retroactive, and if they succeed, they'll be eligible for parole in 20 years.
Now, what happened to Gail? What happened? Gail ended up attending the New York School of Interior Design and working many years at vital enterprises in vista new york as an interior designer wow and then in 2013 at 64 she died damn it so poor gail gail's dead 50 years later but yeah she had a better 50 years than there um the house by the way 31 stony brook in Westport is worth $4,651,000 right now, which is crazy on Zillow. I tried to find what the fate of Harless was.
I know for a fact he was in prison in the 80s because there was a video of him talking that I could only get a screenshot off of and the video wouldn't come up. I kept getting an error and it wouldn't work.
But he was in the 80s. He was still in prison.
And I don't know if he ever got paroled. If he's dead.
I tried to find his grave. I tried to find everything.
I assume he's dead because he was born in like 1930. So unless he's 95, he's fucking dead because he was 31 in 1962.
So he's got to be dead. But I don't know if he died in prison or if he ever got out again, and I hope not because he's a dangerous son of a bitch here.
That's a rapist forever. That is a rapist forever right there.
So there you go, everyone. That's Westport, Connecticut.
Wow. And you can see why it's, like I said, normally not such an old episode.
Literally, the last Connecticut episode was about a Fitbit solve the crime. So I I mean, normally we stay pretty modern.
But this case, just that narrative of this poor fucking girl fighting for her life and surviving. I know it's horrible that there's murder and there's rape and all that, but it's also kind of like she survived.
Yeah. It's very similar to Cheshire murders.
A little bit. But like this guy had a plan to get away.'s yeah like he's super planned it out those two were just willy-nilly sick sick fucks this guy was gonna try to get away he knew when he left the house that morning yeah that he was gonna do this he told his wife be ready to fucking take off right so ready to go he was gonna do some shit so there you go holy fuck that's a crazy case it's like i couldn't not do it i it.
I had other cases. I'm like, it's so crazy, man.
Veterans Day fucked him. Veterans Day fucked him.
And I got to give just Gail as a fucking survivor. She's a fighter.
And then she went on to have a nice life. You know what I mean? Good for her.
It helps to be rich, but still, good for her. You know what I mean? So there you go, everybody.
There is Westport, Connecticut. If you like the show or anything about the the show please get on whatever app you're listening on and give us five stars and say something nice really helps drive us up the charts and it is a free quick easy way to help the show if you'd like to do that other ways to help the show you can go to a live show shut up and give me murder.com get your tickets now because they're half the shows are sold out already shows months and months away are sold out so get your tickets right now Chicago St.
Louis those are the next ones up in early May and St. Louis is I think it's sold out now maybe just our comps that need to be released but it's just about sold out in Chicago is pushing it Chicago always a huge crowd there so great you definitely want your tickets for there get them now I'm do that at a shut up and give meder.com is where you get all of those and everything else, merch and all that kind of shit there.
You should also follow on social media at shutup and – or at shutup and – what is it? At Small Town Murder. At Small Town Murder.
Small Town Murder on Instagram. I'm sorry.
I am under the weather today. That's not good.
That is not good. That is, yeah, Small Town Murder on Instagram and at Small Town Pod on Facebook.

Patreon.com slash Crime in Sports is where you get all of the bonus materials, tons of it.

Anybody $5 a month or above.

Immediately you get hundreds of episodes of bonus shit you've never heard.

New ones every other week.

One Crime in Sports, one Small Town Murder, and you get it all.

This week for Crime in Sports, we're going to talk about disasters of all types. Industrial disasters, hot air balloons bursting into flames, all sorts of weird, crazy shit.
We'll talk all about it. Then for Small Town Murder, we are going to talk about psychics when they actually get shit right.
Because we debunked psychic stuff all the time. We're always like, oh, that one's full of shit and this one's full of shit.
Whether they're full of shit or not, a few times it actually worked. Sometimes they're right.
Maybe it's a lucky broken clock right twice a day or maybe they're psychic. We'll fucking find out and talk about it.
Patreon.com slash crime in sports. And you get a shout out at the end of the regular show because goddammit, we appreciate it and we want to tell you that, what you're doing for us.
So thank you very much for joining us. You want to follow us on social media, shutupandgivmemurder.com, drop down menu, head over there, follow us, hang out with us.

Keep coming back each week because you can't get rid of us.

And until next week, it's been our pleasure.

Bye. If you like small town murder, you can listen early and ad free now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts.
Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
Prime members can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
You know those creepy stories that give you goosebumps? The ones that make you really question what's real? Well, what if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories are not found in haunted houses or abandoned forests, but instead in hospital rooms and doctor's offices. Hi, I'm Mr.
Bollin, the host of Mr. Bollin's Medical Mysteries.
And each week on my podcast, you can expect to hear stories about bizarre illnesses no one can explain, miraculous recoveries that shouldn't have happened, and cases so baffling they stumped even the best doctors. So if you crave totally true and thoroughly

twisted horror stories and mysteries, Mr. Bollin's Medical Mysteries should be your new go-to weekly

show. Listen to Mr.
Bollin's Medical Mysteries on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app

or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.