WEBVTT 1 00:00:29.960 --> 00:00:33.640 Welcome to our latest episode of The Path Went Chili. And because we're recording 2 00:00:33.640 --> 00:00:37.759 this right before Christmas, and Ashley is a very busy person around the holidays 3 00:00:37.759 --> 00:00:41.039 with how those kids around in our household, Jules and I will be recording 4 00:00:41.039 --> 00:00:45.159 this one alone. And because she doesn't know all that much about this case, 5 00:00:45.479 --> 00:00:48.799 I'm going to share the details with her and she's going to provide the 6 00:00:48.840 --> 00:00:52.439 reaction. So the case we're going to be covering is the murder of a 7 00:00:52.479 --> 00:00:56.679 woman named Ruth Marie Terry, who up until last year, was known as 8 00:00:56.679 --> 00:01:00.880 an unidentified decendent nicknamed the Lady of the Dunes. And Jules, you said 9 00:01:00.920 --> 00:01:04.239 that you heard some basic details about this case, but don't know a lot 10 00:01:04.239 --> 00:01:08.799 about it. Yeah. I think for me, this case just really stuck 11 00:01:08.879 --> 00:01:14.959 because of the name. There's something like otherworldly about the name, the Lady 12 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:19.120 of the Dunes. It's like a movie title or something from a comic book, 13 00:01:19.560 --> 00:01:23.079 and so it really stuck with me. It's sort of like the Orange 14 00:01:23.079 --> 00:01:26.200 Socks. Yeah, you know, Jane do that one really stuck with me 15 00:01:26.280 --> 00:01:30.079 because of the name. So I don't really know any details about this case. 16 00:01:30.120 --> 00:01:34.879 This is when where I'm completely in the dark. I just remember the 17 00:01:34.959 --> 00:01:38.680 name because it had this like eerie resonance that I couldn't shake. So I'm 18 00:01:38.719 --> 00:01:42.879 really glad we're going to be talking about it today. Yeah. I always 19 00:01:42.879 --> 00:01:46.400 say that whenever you find a deced in who cannot be identified, it's best 20 00:01:46.439 --> 00:01:49.840 to give them a memorable name, because then people will remember it. Because 21 00:01:49.920 --> 00:01:53.359 this took place all the way back in nineteen seventy four, but people never 22 00:01:53.400 --> 00:01:57.640 stopped talking about it until the identification was made recently. And this is a 23 00:01:57.680 --> 00:02:01.840 little different from the norm because because it is technically a solved case. But 24 00:02:02.200 --> 00:02:05.959 at the time of this recording, I'm working on one of my Trail Went 25 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:10.240 Cold Update episodes, where I provide updates about cases featured on the Trail Went 26 00:02:10.280 --> 00:02:14.840 Cold that have been solved or in major developments, and there was just so 27 00:02:14.960 --> 00:02:17.120 much to write about with this particular case. I find in a lot of 28 00:02:17.159 --> 00:02:22.599 these stories involving John or Jane does that for years, the Internet comes up 29 00:02:22.639 --> 00:02:25.759 with all these wild theories about who they might have been and what their backstory 30 00:02:25.919 --> 00:02:30.039 was, and more often than not, when they are identified, the explanation 31 00:02:30.240 --> 00:02:34.240 is pretty mundane. But this is one of the rare examples where the real 32 00:02:34.319 --> 00:02:38.759 story actually might be crazier than a lot of the theories that were shared about 33 00:02:38.759 --> 00:02:44.560 her. So this case is solved and that she has her identity back, 34 00:02:44.759 --> 00:02:47.439 or do we know who murdered her? They've done both. They identified her 35 00:02:47.680 --> 00:02:52.840 last year and this year they finally announced that they're pretty sure they're certain who 36 00:02:52.919 --> 00:02:57.400 killed her. Wow, because we see a lot of these Jane and John 37 00:02:57.439 --> 00:03:02.319 Doe cases and it's almost like it's solved in that we've given them their identity 38 00:03:02.400 --> 00:03:07.039 back, but at the end of the day, we still don't know who 39 00:03:07.159 --> 00:03:10.879 murdered them. So this is a pretty unique case to be able to give 40 00:03:12.800 --> 00:03:16.319 to be able to give Ruth Marie Terry her identity back, and also to 41 00:03:16.439 --> 00:03:20.800 know who killed her. So I really can't wait to get into the details 42 00:03:21.159 --> 00:03:23.000 exactly. And when I share the details, you'll probably be saying yourself, 43 00:03:23.039 --> 00:03:28.439 I cannot believe this wasn't solved a long time ago. So fortunately some mistakes 44 00:03:28.439 --> 00:03:32.840 were made. So this case takes place in nineteen seventy four in Barnstable County, 45 00:03:32.879 --> 00:03:38.280 Massachusetts, in the Cape Cod area, and it took place on July 46 00:03:38.360 --> 00:03:42.000 the twenty sixth, when a thirteen year old girl was walking her dog around 47 00:03:42.039 --> 00:03:46.639 the Race Point Dunes, which is a beach located just outside of Provincetown, 48 00:03:46.120 --> 00:03:51.639 and this poor girl wound up stumbling across the decomposing nude body of a woman 49 00:03:51.719 --> 00:03:54.759 who was lying on top of a towel. The police were notified and they 50 00:03:54.840 --> 00:03:59.719 estimated that the victim had been between twenty to forty years old and had been 51 00:03:59.759 --> 00:04:03.800 dead approximately ten days to three weeks at that point, but because of the 52 00:04:03.840 --> 00:04:10.199 decomposition, her face was unrecognizable, though she still had some long auburn reddish 53 00:04:10.240 --> 00:04:13.680 blonde hair at the back of her head, which was used as one of 54 00:04:13.680 --> 00:04:16.839 the big clues. Her head was resting on top of some clothing which likely 55 00:04:16.879 --> 00:04:21.439 belonged to her, and one of these clothing was a blue bandana, and 56 00:04:21.600 --> 00:04:25.800 there was no sign of any struggle, so the evidence showed that she was 57 00:04:25.839 --> 00:04:30.439 probably in the middle of sunbathing before someone came up from behind her and attacked 58 00:04:30.439 --> 00:04:34.279 her. They did find some footprints in the sand which likely belonged to her 59 00:04:34.360 --> 00:04:39.000 killer, as well as some tire tracks, and because this was a pretty 60 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:43.319 remote area, that probably explains how she was not discovered for a couple weeks. 61 00:04:43.920 --> 00:04:47.079 Well. What was crazy was the level of brutality with her murder because 62 00:04:47.480 --> 00:04:51.879 she had been hit with a blunt instrument been killed with a blow to the 63 00:04:51.920 --> 00:04:56.680 back of the head which crushed the left side of her skull. Her throat 64 00:04:56.680 --> 00:05:00.879 had also been slashed so deeply that it nearly reached her spine and almost completely 65 00:05:00.920 --> 00:05:04.439 severed her head from her body, and there were signs that she may have 66 00:05:04.480 --> 00:05:10.560 been sexually assaulted post mortem with an object, though the actual object was never 67 00:05:10.600 --> 00:05:15.120 found. And not only that, but her hands had been removed, probably 68 00:05:15.279 --> 00:05:19.120 to help prevent identification from her fingerprints, and a number of her teeth were 69 00:05:19.199 --> 00:05:23.639 also removed. They didn't remove all her teeth, but because a lot of 70 00:05:23.639 --> 00:05:28.040 them were missing, they were unable to make a comparison with dental records, 71 00:05:28.079 --> 00:05:32.680 which was frustrating because she looked like she had extensive dental work done with some 72 00:05:32.759 --> 00:05:35.920 gold crowns to her teeth, but because they didn't have her full set of 73 00:05:35.959 --> 00:05:42.360 teeth, it was impossible to make a comparison. Wow, that literally made 74 00:05:42.399 --> 00:05:46.319 me feel sick to my stomach. The idea that somebody would come upon her, 75 00:05:46.480 --> 00:05:51.360 whether they were following her or just by happenstance, and decided to victimize 76 00:05:51.399 --> 00:05:57.680 her cave in her skull, slash her throat so deep that it almost reaches 77 00:05:57.720 --> 00:06:02.000 her spine, and then to okay, well, now we need to do 78 00:06:02.040 --> 00:06:05.639 some friends and countermeasures. We don't want her to be identified. And then 79 00:06:05.680 --> 00:06:10.240 that makes me think, if you're worried about that and you're gonna go so 80 00:06:10.319 --> 00:06:14.160 far as to remove teeth and hands, do you know her? Could you 81 00:06:14.240 --> 00:06:17.800 be tied to her in some capacity? Because this is well before DNA, 82 00:06:18.319 --> 00:06:23.839 So even if there was DNA left behind, if there was no link between 83 00:06:24.079 --> 00:06:29.199 the killer and Ruth Marie Terry, then it makes you wonder, like, 84 00:06:29.480 --> 00:06:34.439 why go to all this trouble when somebody could come upon you while you're taking 85 00:06:34.480 --> 00:06:38.839 her hands off? And what did he use? Did you just have this 86 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:43.639 with you whatever it would be to remove the hands. Yeah, that's a 87 00:06:43.639 --> 00:06:47.480 good question because we've technically never found out how this was done, like how 88 00:06:47.519 --> 00:06:51.000 they removed the hands and how they removed the teeth. So it just seems 89 00:06:51.040 --> 00:06:57.000 so precalculated that she just happens to be sunbathing in a remote area and whoever 90 00:06:57.040 --> 00:07:00.199 this was just happened to have maybe a hacksaw or a pair of pliers inside 91 00:07:00.199 --> 00:07:05.120 their car while they did this. So needless to say, investigators figure this 92 00:07:05.240 --> 00:07:11.000 was not this person's first homicide. It sounded like this was someone with experience 93 00:07:11.040 --> 00:07:15.600 at killing people and doing whatever they could to prevent identification. That just really 94 00:07:15.639 --> 00:07:20.360 took me kind of for a ride because I was not expecting there to be 95 00:07:20.480 --> 00:07:24.519 Like when you first describe the scene, okay, you were saying that she's 96 00:07:24.560 --> 00:07:29.399 found on a towel, you almost picture this kind of idea of this serene 97 00:07:29.439 --> 00:07:34.000 scene where this woman is found kind of sunbathing and she's just passed away on 98 00:07:34.079 --> 00:07:39.519 a towel. But then when you go further and you describe it and just 99 00:07:39.720 --> 00:07:44.279 the utter brutality of it all. And to think that this poor thirteen year 100 00:07:44.279 --> 00:07:48.000 old girl is the one that happens upon the body, I cannot even imagine 101 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:53.399 the trauma that that inflicted upon her. Oh exactly, Like you're just out 102 00:07:53.399 --> 00:07:56.120 there with your family, just taking your dog for a walk, and you 103 00:07:56.279 --> 00:08:00.199 not only find a body, but someone who has been brutalized and killed in 104 00:08:00.240 --> 00:08:03.800 the most gruesome fashion possible. And the way that the towel was spread out 105 00:08:03.879 --> 00:08:09.040 made investigators think that it was possible that someone else had been lying next to 106 00:08:09.079 --> 00:08:11.720 her before she was murdered. So just imagine her position. You're just out 107 00:08:11.720 --> 00:08:18.199 there for a relaxing day of sunbathing before your partner just decides to attack you 108 00:08:18.240 --> 00:08:20.720 by bludging you to death and then removes like a lot of your extremities. 109 00:08:22.399 --> 00:08:26.279 Yeah, I can even imagine what that would have been like for all the 110 00:08:26.319 --> 00:08:31.480 first responders and the people who are typically going to investigate a crime, because 111 00:08:31.879 --> 00:08:33.600 in this area, I'm just going to take a wild guest and say, 112 00:08:33.600 --> 00:08:37.639 there probably aren't a lot of murders, would I be correct? Yes, 113 00:08:37.679 --> 00:08:41.440 definitely. They do some weird things I'm going to talk about during the investigation, 114 00:08:41.879 --> 00:08:46.279 which seemed to indicate that they probably did not have a lot of experience 115 00:08:46.320 --> 00:08:48.960 with homicides. Yeah, that was kind of my gut feel. Just when 116 00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:52.480 you said the area and everything, I thought, well, this might not 117 00:08:52.600 --> 00:08:58.279 be something that they run across all too often, So the experience of the 118 00:08:58.320 --> 00:09:03.000 investigators would be called into question, and hence why she remained a Jane Doe 119 00:09:03.080 --> 00:09:05.759 for so many years. Yes, uh, exactly. They did search a 120 00:09:05.759 --> 00:09:09.639 whole bunch of missing persons cases but could not find any matches, so that's 121 00:09:09.679 --> 00:09:13.879 why they gave her the nickname the Lady of the Dunes, which, like 122 00:09:13.919 --> 00:09:16.879 you said, is a very haunting, memorable name and I think has allowed 123 00:09:16.879 --> 00:09:22.480 this case to stand out over the past fifty years or so. So she 124 00:09:22.639 --> 00:09:26.600 was just buried in a cemetery in Province Town under a headstone which simply read 125 00:09:26.720 --> 00:09:30.799 unidentified female body. They didn't even put her nickname on the tombstone, just 126 00:09:30.879 --> 00:09:33.559 like the most generic name there. And here we're going to talk about the 127 00:09:33.600 --> 00:09:39.399 inexperience of the investigators because the police chief did a very bizarre thing. Instead 128 00:09:39.399 --> 00:09:43.600 of burying the victim's skull, he decided to keep it on a desk inside 129 00:09:43.639 --> 00:09:48.120 his office, saying that he was going to use it as a constant motivator 130 00:09:48.120 --> 00:09:52.759 in order to kind of drive him to solve the case and identify her. 131 00:09:52.279 --> 00:09:56.679 And I guess the bright side is that because her face was so heavily decomposed 132 00:09:56.679 --> 00:10:00.440 and they didn't know what she looked like, a couple of year years later, 133 00:10:00.480 --> 00:10:03.320 he finally decided, hey, I still have the skull. Maybe we'll 134 00:10:03.399 --> 00:10:07.000 use this to make a clay bust of like her face to show what she 135 00:10:07.120 --> 00:10:09.200 might have looked like. And then he turned the skull over to the forensic 136 00:10:09.279 --> 00:10:13.759 artists and they did it. But I cannot imagine that a police chief would 137 00:10:13.799 --> 00:10:16.159 get away with that today, taking the skull of a murder victim and keeping 138 00:10:16.159 --> 00:10:22.200 it on his desk, Uh, sir, That is definitely not the right 139 00:10:22.279 --> 00:10:26.639 choice. But I can understand it was a different time and his intentions were 140 00:10:26.639 --> 00:10:31.559 good. Even though I believe a body should be at rest, I think 141 00:10:31.960 --> 00:10:37.679 the feelings that underlied his decision to do that were good ones. He wanted 142 00:10:37.720 --> 00:10:39.720 to solve the case. He wanted to give her her name back and find 143 00:10:39.759 --> 00:10:45.360 out who murdered her. And it did provide some assistance, I guess in 144 00:10:45.480 --> 00:10:48.559 doing those clay busts. Did you see the clay bust of her? I 145 00:10:48.600 --> 00:10:52.600 did, yeah, and it's floated around for many, many years, and 146 00:10:52.639 --> 00:10:56.200 it's always been my visual of what she looked like, so it was very 147 00:10:56.240 --> 00:10:58.960 helpful. But believe it or not, I looked through some old newspaper articles 148 00:11:00.039 --> 00:11:03.360 and the police chief actually photographed himself with the skull on his desk, and 149 00:11:03.399 --> 00:11:07.120 it was printed in the local newspapers. And I can only imagine if this 150 00:11:07.200 --> 00:11:11.679 happened in a cold case today, there would just be so much outrage over 151 00:11:11.720 --> 00:11:15.919 the internet over his decision to do that. Yeah, it's a little bit 152 00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:18.440 tone death. But it was, like I said, it was a different 153 00:11:18.480 --> 00:11:26.399 time. I think our sensitivity towards crime victims and just our emotional intelligence with 154 00:11:26.440 --> 00:11:31.279 regards to murders and those types of things, and like what a victim should 155 00:11:31.399 --> 00:11:35.799 and would require in death is just completely different. So when we look at 156 00:11:35.799 --> 00:11:39.679 it through the lens of now, it's like, what like fifty years later, 157 00:11:39.759 --> 00:11:43.080 it's a long time we're looking to like half a century. So at 158 00:11:43.159 --> 00:11:46.679 least we can say that it provided something good out of it. But yeah, 159 00:11:46.720 --> 00:11:52.159 if it happened today, it would be extremely macabre and weird and people 160 00:11:52.159 --> 00:11:54.720 would be like, what is wrong with this person? It just it would 161 00:11:54.759 --> 00:11:58.600 not happen today. There's no way that you could get away with it in 162 00:11:58.639 --> 00:12:01.240 the age of the internet exactly. And to be fair, the skull was 163 00:12:01.279 --> 00:12:05.600 eventually buried with the rest of her remains, so she did finally get a 164 00:12:05.639 --> 00:12:09.480 proper burial. Well that's good. At least she got to rest in totality 165 00:12:09.519 --> 00:12:15.080 her entire body. So now we're going to talk about some leads that were 166 00:12:15.159 --> 00:12:18.480 used to try to identify the woman. Of course, it turned out that 167 00:12:18.519 --> 00:12:20.480 a lot of these turned out to be false, but many of these leads 168 00:12:20.519 --> 00:12:24.399 are quite interesting. Of course, they went through a number of candidates of 169 00:12:24.480 --> 00:12:30.039 missing women, and sometimes when they launched an investigation, it turned out that 170 00:12:30.080 --> 00:12:33.679 the woman was still alive, so she obviously could not have been the Lady 171 00:12:33.679 --> 00:12:37.759 of the Dunes. But a interesting candidate was a twenty five year old woman 172 00:12:37.879 --> 00:12:43.360 named Rory Gene Kessinger who was actually part of this big criminal organization. I 173 00:12:43.360 --> 00:12:46.960 think it was kind of a radical group and stuff where they would like commit 174 00:12:48.039 --> 00:12:50.960 robberies and stuff in order to finance like a lot of their activities. And 175 00:12:52.039 --> 00:12:54.840 she had a pretty tough life. She had run away from home at the 176 00:12:54.840 --> 00:12:58.120 age of fifteen and became involved in drugs and bank robbery and lived under a 177 00:12:58.200 --> 00:13:03.960 number of different ali and by nineteen seventy three she had become a member of 178 00:13:03.039 --> 00:13:09.559 a gun running drug smuggling syndicate. And in nineteen seventy three she was actually 179 00:13:09.639 --> 00:13:15.519 arrested in Pembroke, Massachusetts by federal agents. So and Kessinger when the police 180 00:13:15.519 --> 00:13:18.799 buss did it and actually picked up a gun and fired at the police officer. 181 00:13:18.919 --> 00:13:22.080 She didn't hit anyone, but it was just added to her charges. 182 00:13:22.159 --> 00:13:26.120 So it seemed likely that she was going to go to prison for a long 183 00:13:26.159 --> 00:13:30.879 time, but she was held in the Plymouth County Correctional Facility, which is 184 00:13:30.919 --> 00:13:35.639 not too far away from Provincetown, and on May the twenty seventh, nineteen 185 00:13:35.679 --> 00:13:39.000 seventy three, a corrupt guard managed to smuggle her a hack saw blade, 186 00:13:39.320 --> 00:13:43.840 which she used to cut through the bars of her cell and escape out a 187 00:13:43.840 --> 00:13:46.320 window by using some sheets to climb out, which is like an old school 188 00:13:46.320 --> 00:13:50.879 thing you'd see in a cartoon, someone tying up some sheets to climb out 189 00:13:50.919 --> 00:13:54.399 a window. Yeah, whenever I think of prison escapes, I always think 190 00:13:54.600 --> 00:14:00.159 of, like, you know, like escape from Alcatraz or something like that, 191 00:14:00.360 --> 00:14:03.240 and like the crazy length that they went to, and this is right 192 00:14:03.279 --> 00:14:09.360 in line with something like that. And it's crazy to think that she was 193 00:14:09.639 --> 00:14:13.360 so adept at being able to commit all of these crimes and move around and 194 00:14:13.399 --> 00:14:18.639 then she goes to prison and manages to break out. I mean it's one 195 00:14:18.639 --> 00:14:22.080 of those like Body and Clyde type stories where you're like, WHOA, that 196 00:14:22.279 --> 00:14:26.840 is pretty incredible that somebody was able to do that and to have the wherewithal, 197 00:14:26.919 --> 00:14:31.440 and the fact that she was a woman is just adds another layer of 198 00:14:31.519 --> 00:14:35.200 interest to it. So I could see why Kessinger would have been a really 199 00:14:35.240 --> 00:14:39.879 good kind of suspect, because if you're running with this criminal syndicator organization, 200 00:14:39.000 --> 00:14:43.759 you're running drugs, guns, whatever, you know. I think that there 201 00:14:43.799 --> 00:14:48.919 could be a motivation to not have your body be identified if they had the 202 00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:52.720 reason to end your life, so to take teeth, to take hands, 203 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:56.080 that would totally make sense. And to know that she was in the area, 204 00:14:56.480 --> 00:14:58.759 well that's just another check towards yeah, it could possibly be her. 205 00:15:00.639 --> 00:15:05.159 And here's the big twist is that Rory Kessinger's fate is technically still a mystery. 206 00:15:05.240 --> 00:15:09.440 She has not been seen since she escaped from the jail in nineteen seventy 207 00:15:09.440 --> 00:15:13.279 three. There was always speculation that her criminal associates may have killed her and 208 00:15:13.320 --> 00:15:18.559 disposed of her body because they didn't want her to talk and possibly reveal more 209 00:15:18.600 --> 00:15:22.120 information about their organization. And it did make sense, like you said, 210 00:15:22.200 --> 00:15:26.240 that if they didn't want her to be identified, they would cut off her 211 00:15:26.240 --> 00:15:30.600 hands, because obviously, since she was arrested, Cassinger's fingerprints would have been 212 00:15:30.600 --> 00:15:35.759 on file. But in the two thousands, they finally started doing DNA testing 213 00:15:35.840 --> 00:15:39.639 on this case, an option that was not available back in nineteen seventy four, 214 00:15:39.159 --> 00:15:43.399 and they finally tracked down Cassinger's mother got a sampler of her DNA and 215 00:15:43.639 --> 00:15:48.200 it did not match the Lady of the Dunes DNA, so she was ruled 216 00:15:48.240 --> 00:15:52.600 out as being the victim. But to this day, Rory gene Kessinger has 217 00:15:52.679 --> 00:15:56.240 still not been found. And I do think the explanation that she was murdered 218 00:15:56.240 --> 00:16:00.399 by her criminal associates is the most logic, because I can't imagine how a 219 00:16:00.480 --> 00:16:04.759 twenty five year old woman who escaped from jail would manage to stay off the 220 00:16:04.840 --> 00:16:08.480 radar for the next fifty years without being found. But it's still a very 221 00:16:08.519 --> 00:16:14.159 intriguing mystery within a mystery. I mean, it is possible. It sounds 222 00:16:14.159 --> 00:16:18.000 like she had quite a lot of special skills. I don't know I who 223 00:16:18.080 --> 00:16:22.399 want to call them those, but I think that there's a possibility in the 224 00:16:22.480 --> 00:16:27.039 seventies that she may have been able to acquire a new identity, go somewhere, 225 00:16:27.159 --> 00:16:32.720 get married, have a normal life. I think it is equally as 226 00:16:32.879 --> 00:16:36.600 likely, maybe even more likely, that her criminal organization could have killed her. 227 00:16:36.639 --> 00:16:40.200 But I think given the time period, she could have just slipped by 228 00:16:41.120 --> 00:16:45.919 unnoticed, got a driver's license, under this new identity. It was pretty 229 00:16:45.960 --> 00:16:51.840 easy back then to fake identities, So I think we can't discount the possibility 230 00:16:51.879 --> 00:16:55.960 that maybe she just she knew that if she ever came back to where she 231 00:16:56.080 --> 00:17:00.240 was from or got in contact with her family, that she would be found 232 00:17:00.279 --> 00:17:03.039 out. And maybe she had a new family and they didn't know that she 233 00:17:03.119 --> 00:17:07.839 used to be a criminal, so going back to her old life just wasn't 234 00:17:07.839 --> 00:17:11.920 an option. Yeah, that has happened where people who were involved in criminal 235 00:17:11.920 --> 00:17:17.440 activity when they were young women and then managed to escape from jail did wind 236 00:17:17.519 --> 00:17:21.359 up starting a family and living an ordinary life for several years before they were 237 00:17:21.400 --> 00:17:23.319 captured. I don't know if you've heard of a woman named Margo Freshwater, 238 00:17:23.440 --> 00:17:26.960 but she broke out of jail in the nineteen sixties after being arrested for a 239 00:17:27.039 --> 00:17:30.759 murder, and I don't think she was found till like the late nineteen nineties, 240 00:17:30.799 --> 00:17:34.960 early two thousands, and at that point she was living with a husband 241 00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:37.960 and had children of her own and had just lived like she was like a 242 00:17:37.960 --> 00:17:42.079 pta mom, practically just an ordinary looking woman. And then everyone was just 243 00:17:42.119 --> 00:17:45.880 shocked when she was recaptured and it turned out that she had killed someone several 244 00:17:45.920 --> 00:17:52.000 decades earlier. Yeah, that doesn't surprise me because I think back at that 245 00:17:52.160 --> 00:17:55.839 time period, even if you were on the run from the law, if 246 00:17:55.880 --> 00:18:00.319 you had the connections to be able to acquire a new identity, and of 247 00:18:00.359 --> 00:18:03.960 course it was not nearly as difficult as it is now because you're not dealing 248 00:18:03.039 --> 00:18:07.920 with things like you know, watermarks and all those types of things that are 249 00:18:07.119 --> 00:18:12.480 in special holograms that are on identity like IDs. You could just basically find 250 00:18:12.519 --> 00:18:18.160 somebody who was deceased and take their identity. I don't think it took the 251 00:18:18.200 --> 00:18:22.599 special skills that it requiring connections to criminals that it requires today. I think 252 00:18:22.599 --> 00:18:26.160 you just had to have a little bit of knowledge. So I think that 253 00:18:26.160 --> 00:18:30.240 would be probably a good option for a lot of people rather than having law 254 00:18:30.359 --> 00:18:34.039 enforcement be after you. You just change your identity, move somewhere new, 255 00:18:34.279 --> 00:18:37.920 and all of a sudden you're that person, and essentially you're like in witness 256 00:18:37.960 --> 00:18:41.279 protection, but you put yourself there, so you just know that you can't 257 00:18:41.319 --> 00:18:45.240 reach out to your family or people from your old life exactly. So if 258 00:18:45.359 --> 00:18:48.880 Roy gene Kessinger does get arrested sometime in the future, I won't be the 259 00:18:48.960 --> 00:18:53.400 least a bit surprise if she's still alive living a normal life somewhere, But 260 00:18:53.839 --> 00:18:57.000 now we're going to talk about her. Next lead a convicted murderer named hatt 261 00:18:57.079 --> 00:19:02.519 And Clark who has been in prison since nineteen ninety two. He's only been 262 00:19:02.559 --> 00:19:06.599 officially tied to two murderers, but there has been speculation that he's a serial 263 00:19:06.720 --> 00:19:11.039 killer who could have killed at least eleven victims. And he popped up on 264 00:19:11.079 --> 00:19:14.720 the radar in two thousand and four because he sent a letter to a prison 265 00:19:14.759 --> 00:19:18.880 pen pal which showed a hand drawn map of the Cape Cod area, which 266 00:19:18.920 --> 00:19:22.720 featured a home where his grandparents lived, which was not too far from where 267 00:19:22.799 --> 00:19:26.160 the Lady of the Dunes was found, and he wrote on the letter, 268 00:19:26.279 --> 00:19:29.599 the murder is still unsolved, but what the police are looking for is in 269 00:19:29.680 --> 00:19:33.319 my grandmother's garden. And he also included a drawing of a new woman lying 270 00:19:33.319 --> 00:19:38.079 on her stomach with her hands missing and the words summer nineteen seventy four, 271 00:19:38.279 --> 00:19:42.680 which seems oddly specific. And since Clark he would have been in his twenties 272 00:19:42.720 --> 00:19:45.960 at the time he was living in the area, he did look like a 273 00:19:47.079 --> 00:19:52.200 promising suspect. But the problem was that he was a paranoid schizophrenic who had 274 00:19:52.200 --> 00:19:56.519 a history of lying, and he also when he was questioned about this, 275 00:19:56.680 --> 00:19:59.279 he said that, oh, yeah, I did murder her, but I'm 276 00:19:59.319 --> 00:20:02.799 not going to reveal identity because the police were not nice to me and beat 277 00:20:02.839 --> 00:20:06.240 me up during my interrogation, so I'm not going to reveal too many details. 278 00:20:06.240 --> 00:20:08.680 And then people started thinking, maybe this guy is just doing this for 279 00:20:08.720 --> 00:20:15.599 attention. How much of that information was revealed in the media, pretty much 280 00:20:15.640 --> 00:20:18.000 all of it, Like, if you were living in the area, there's 281 00:20:18.039 --> 00:20:22.440 a good chance you would have found out that this woman had been found in 282 00:20:22.519 --> 00:20:25.880 Cape Cod in the summer of nineteen seventy four, and that she was found 283 00:20:25.880 --> 00:20:29.680 with her hands missing. That was all public knowledge, so it's possible that 284 00:20:29.759 --> 00:20:33.319 Clark could have just read about it and then just decided to take credit for 285 00:20:33.359 --> 00:20:37.119 it. And there were a lot of mental health issues with them, like 286 00:20:37.200 --> 00:20:41.119 he once claimed that he was responsible for eleven additional murders, but it turned 287 00:20:41.119 --> 00:20:45.599 out that the reason he did is because he had a bearded cell mat and 288 00:20:45.640 --> 00:20:48.559 he literally thought the guy was Jesus Christ. So that's why he decided to 289 00:20:48.599 --> 00:20:53.160 come clean and reveal all this new information. But because he had grandparents who 290 00:20:53.200 --> 00:20:56.240 were living in the Cape Cod area. They finally said, okay, let's 291 00:20:56.319 --> 00:21:00.759 take him out there and perform a search of his because he said something about 292 00:21:02.079 --> 00:21:06.440 evidence being buried in his grandfather's garden. But because Clark was kind of a 293 00:21:06.440 --> 00:21:10.759 weird guy, he insisted that this bearded innate come along with him on the 294 00:21:10.799 --> 00:21:15.119 search because he still believed he was Jesus and wanted him there when they found 295 00:21:15.160 --> 00:21:18.680 all this evidence. And he also insisted on dressing up in women's clothing wearing 296 00:21:18.720 --> 00:21:22.759 a dress while this was going on. And not surprisingly, during this search, 297 00:21:22.839 --> 00:21:26.640 they didn't find anything at all in his grandfather's garden, and they've pretty 298 00:21:26.680 --> 00:21:30.359 much realized that, yeah, Clark was just taking a credit for a crime 299 00:21:30.400 --> 00:21:33.400 he did not commit, and ruled them out as having any infolvement in the 300 00:21:33.440 --> 00:21:40.599 lady of the dude's case. I feel like the detail about the missing hands 301 00:21:40.640 --> 00:21:45.119 maybe should have been holdback information, because if you say that you murdered somebody, 302 00:21:45.960 --> 00:21:49.759 you know you're going to know specifically that you took the hands. But 303 00:21:49.799 --> 00:21:53.640 when you put that in the paper and you release that on the news, 304 00:21:55.160 --> 00:21:57.480 then it becomes part of the public knowledge and it's sort of like, how 305 00:21:57.519 --> 00:22:03.039 do you then identify who is the actual killer if people come forward and start 306 00:22:03.079 --> 00:22:07.599 trying to confess. But I guess at that point in time it was very 307 00:22:07.680 --> 00:22:11.160 rare that they thought that somebody would confess if they didn't do it. I 308 00:22:11.200 --> 00:22:15.160 mean, given the fact that he had a history of doing this and he 309 00:22:15.200 --> 00:22:18.839 was a paranoid schizophrenic, maybe made them raise a couple of eyebrows. But 310 00:22:19.359 --> 00:22:23.319 I think at that time in the seventies, if you confess to something, 311 00:22:23.720 --> 00:22:29.200 you did it exactly. And like we talked about, the Province down Police 312 00:22:29.200 --> 00:22:33.359 department didn't have a lot of experience with homicide investigations, so back in nineteen 313 00:22:33.359 --> 00:22:37.519 seventy four, they may not have been thinking about stuff like pullback information, 314 00:22:37.880 --> 00:22:41.799 like let's keep the detail about her hands being cut off away from the public 315 00:22:41.519 --> 00:22:45.920 in order to weed out false tips. And of course Clark he was not 316 00:22:45.039 --> 00:22:48.960 arrested until the early nineteen nineties, and the crime took place in nineteen seventy 317 00:22:48.960 --> 00:22:52.279 four, so he would have had ample opportunity to read about this crime in 318 00:22:52.319 --> 00:22:56.559 the newspapers and then remember it when he made a false confession years after the 319 00:22:56.599 --> 00:23:00.720 fact. Do you know if they were ported the detail about the teeth in 320 00:23:00.759 --> 00:23:04.160 the paper, I think, so, yeah, it sounded like they were 321 00:23:04.200 --> 00:23:07.000 just looking for any leads they can find. They probably thought, well, 322 00:23:07.920 --> 00:23:12.079 that's because she also had like an expensive gold crown dental work, so I 323 00:23:12.079 --> 00:23:15.640 can understand why they would want to release that because that's very distinctive. It 324 00:23:15.720 --> 00:23:18.880 sounded like she came from wealth or money, so they were thinking, maybe 325 00:23:18.960 --> 00:23:22.160 someone will read about her dental work and say, oh, I remember giving 326 00:23:22.200 --> 00:23:26.799 a procedure that to a woman matching her description back in the nineteen seventies. 327 00:23:27.119 --> 00:23:32.319 But it didn't really lead to any new tips. So here is a very 328 00:23:32.359 --> 00:23:37.319 interesting new lead which occurred in twenty fifteen. You might be familiar with Joe 329 00:23:37.359 --> 00:23:41.599 Hill. He's the son of the legendary Stephen King, and he's also a 330 00:23:41.640 --> 00:23:45.839 horror novelist. And in twenty fifteen he started getting an interest in cold cases 331 00:23:45.960 --> 00:23:51.599 and he read a book about amateur sluice and how they can help solve crimes. 332 00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:55.400 And he also read about the Lady of the Dunes case because he is 333 00:23:55.480 --> 00:23:59.480 from the New England area, so he took a particularly interest in it. 334 00:24:00.039 --> 00:24:03.799 And then during the summer of twenty fifteen he went to a fortieth anniversary screening 335 00:24:03.880 --> 00:24:08.559 of the all time classic movie Jaws, and about fifty four minutes into it, 336 00:24:08.599 --> 00:24:14.119 they got to a crowd scene which showed this young woman with dark flowing 337 00:24:14.240 --> 00:24:18.920 hair, and he blew bandana, and he became convinced this might be the 338 00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:22.599 Lady of the Dunes because she bore resemblance to the composite sketch of her. 339 00:24:22.720 --> 00:24:27.720 And it turned out that Jaws was filmed in Martha's vineyard during the summer of 340 00:24:27.799 --> 00:24:32.079 nineteen seventy four, the approximate time of the murderer, and I think it 341 00:24:32.119 --> 00:24:37.319 was only about one hundred miles away from Provincetown. So he went back and 342 00:24:37.359 --> 00:24:40.960 watched the movie again on DVD, kept pausing it and looking at her, 343 00:24:41.319 --> 00:24:42.680 and I think it was one of those things where if he had been watching 344 00:24:42.680 --> 00:24:45.799 it on home video the first time around, he never would have noticed her. 345 00:24:45.880 --> 00:24:51.160 But because he was watching it on the big screen for an anniversary showing, 346 00:24:51.519 --> 00:24:53.519 he saw this woman and it just popped into his head, thinking that 347 00:24:53.599 --> 00:24:57.160 might be the Lady of the Dunes. So they looked into it. He 348 00:24:57.240 --> 00:25:00.880 passed on information to investigator, but of course it really wasn't much to work 349 00:25:00.920 --> 00:25:04.960 with because after all this time they're not going to be keeping records of every 350 00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:08.799 single person who was an extra in a crowd scene in a movie that came 351 00:25:08.839 --> 00:25:14.119 out forty years ago. And of course, like she looks like any other 352 00:25:14.160 --> 00:25:17.920 woman from the nineteen seventies, wearing like long hair and a bandana, so 353 00:25:17.920 --> 00:25:22.119 there was nothing really distinct to really show that she would have been the lady 354 00:25:22.119 --> 00:25:25.640 of the Dunes. But on the bright side, even though like investigators thought 355 00:25:25.640 --> 00:25:27.559 it was a major long shot, it helped bring the case back into the 356 00:25:27.599 --> 00:25:32.519 spotlight. And to this day, this is the detail that many people remember 357 00:25:32.519 --> 00:25:34.880 about this case, that there was a murder victim who could potentially been an 358 00:25:34.880 --> 00:25:40.400 extra in Jaws, one of the most famous films of all time. Wow, 359 00:25:40.480 --> 00:25:45.519 that's such an interesting detail. And I can't even imagine being Joe Hell 360 00:25:45.680 --> 00:25:48.519 and watching this, being so familiar with what the bus looks like, and 361 00:25:48.559 --> 00:25:52.160 then seeing this extra, which I imagine would have had that reddish blonde hair, 362 00:25:53.240 --> 00:25:56.279 like you'd said, right, because there was didn't she have like reddish 363 00:25:56.319 --> 00:26:00.000 blonde hair, And that was part of what they used to try to identif 364 00:26:00.119 --> 00:26:03.400 fire her. Yes, though if you look at on screen it looks more 365 00:26:03.440 --> 00:26:07.119 like darker hair. But because she's from a distance away, it could have 366 00:26:07.119 --> 00:26:11.680 been reddish blonde. But I've seen Jaws a bazillion times, so of course, 367 00:26:11.759 --> 00:26:14.759 before I learned about this development, I had never noticed her in the 368 00:26:14.799 --> 00:26:17.640 crowd scene before. But I guess it must have been on Joe Hill's brain 369 00:26:17.720 --> 00:26:19.720 because he's just watching the movie and he's like, Oh my god, I 370 00:26:19.720 --> 00:26:25.240 think that's her. That is so crazy. Have you watched Jaws since you 371 00:26:25.359 --> 00:26:29.319 found out? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, Like I've seen 372 00:26:29.319 --> 00:26:32.599 that film so many times, and I looked, I paused the frame and 373 00:26:32.640 --> 00:26:33.839 I look at her, and it's like, yeah, she does kind of 374 00:26:33.839 --> 00:26:37.039 look like her, but it's just such a generic look, like she looks 375 00:26:37.079 --> 00:26:41.359 like a million other young women from the nineteen seventies. So there's nothing you 376 00:26:41.400 --> 00:26:45.640 can really point to and say that absolutely had to have been the Lady of 377 00:26:45.680 --> 00:26:48.599 the Dunes. I think it was just kind of confirmation bias on Hill's part, 378 00:26:48.640 --> 00:26:52.880 where he wanted to solve this case so badly that he was really really 379 00:26:52.920 --> 00:26:56.319 hoping it was her. But in retrospect, it turns out that this was 380 00:26:56.319 --> 00:27:00.920 nothing more than a red herring. Well, it didn't end up doing a 381 00:27:00.960 --> 00:27:03.920 disservice to the case, though, because like you said, it brought it 382 00:27:03.960 --> 00:27:07.359 into the forefront again and people can go, WHOA, there's this association with 383 00:27:07.480 --> 00:27:12.319 Jaws. We've got Stephen King's son, and we've got this really eerie name, 384 00:27:12.440 --> 00:27:15.480 the Lady of the Dunes. So I can see how that would peque 385 00:27:15.519 --> 00:27:19.440 everybody's interest. Oh exactly, Like a lot of people who had never heard 386 00:27:19.480 --> 00:27:23.400 of the case before finally did learn about it in twenty fifteen because of the 387 00:27:23.440 --> 00:27:27.400 whole Jaws Joe Hill connection. So I can't really blame him for bringing public 388 00:27:27.440 --> 00:27:30.680 even though it turned out to be a false lead, because it gave a 389 00:27:30.720 --> 00:27:33.960 lot of extra exposure to the case. So I covered this on the trail 390 00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:37.920 went cold in twenty sixteen, and at that time she had still not been 391 00:27:37.960 --> 00:27:42.240 identified, And at the time I thought one of the most intriguing leads to 392 00:27:42.319 --> 00:27:48.640 explain her murder was the notorious gangster James Whitey Bulger. And I'm sure you've 393 00:27:48.640 --> 00:27:51.720 heard of him, right, Oh, yeah, for sure. Isn't he 394 00:27:51.799 --> 00:27:55.599 the one that was like working with the FBI for so many years where they 395 00:27:55.640 --> 00:27:59.319 like left him out there to keep committing his crimes and he was just like 396 00:27:59.319 --> 00:28:02.880 a rat on other people. Exactly, Yeah, he was a major organized 397 00:28:02.880 --> 00:28:07.519 crime boss who headed the Winter Hill Gang in Boston from like the late nineteen 398 00:28:07.559 --> 00:28:11.039 seventies until the mid nineteen nineties. And if you've seen the Martin Scorsese film 399 00:28:11.039 --> 00:28:15.200 That Departedge, you'll know that the Jack Nicholson character the mob Boss is totally 400 00:28:15.240 --> 00:28:19.240 based on Whitey Bulger. And in twenty fifteen they flat out made a movie 401 00:28:19.240 --> 00:28:23.480 based on Balger's life called Black Mass where he was portrayed by Johnny Depp. 402 00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:27.519 And of course, for many years he was one of the FBI's most wanted 403 00:28:27.559 --> 00:28:30.960 fugitives. He went on the run in nineteen ninety four, and even though 404 00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:34.680 he was one of the more recognizable criminals in the United States, he actually 405 00:28:34.720 --> 00:28:40.799 managed to stay off the radar for seventeen years until twenty eleven, where at 406 00:28:40.799 --> 00:28:44.759 the age of eighty one, he was finally tracked down and arrested in Santa 407 00:28:44.799 --> 00:28:51.519 Monica, California. I've seen both those movies. He's an incredibly interesting figure 408 00:28:52.200 --> 00:28:57.039 and was brutal, and it's just it's incredible that he was giving information about 409 00:28:57.079 --> 00:29:00.960 other people an other organizations. But it's like he's the head of the snake. 410 00:29:02.599 --> 00:29:04.839 He's the very worst of the worst, and you guys are in league 411 00:29:04.839 --> 00:29:10.240 with him. Some of these choices are really interesting that law enforcement makes with 412 00:29:10.279 --> 00:29:15.240 regards to who they choose to get into bed with, because he really and 413 00:29:15.359 --> 00:29:19.920 truly was a horrifically scary guy and he did really, really horrible things. 414 00:29:19.960 --> 00:29:23.920 It's not just like he's dealing in guns and drugs and whatever. Like. 415 00:29:25.119 --> 00:29:29.359 There's a lot of murders attached to Whitey Bulger, oh exactly. And one 416 00:29:29.400 --> 00:29:33.240 of the reasons he's been associated with this case is because he was known for 417 00:29:33.359 --> 00:29:37.400 cutting off the hands of his victims to avoid fingerprint identification, and also removing 418 00:29:37.440 --> 00:29:42.759 their teeth to avoid them being identified by their dental records. So since he 419 00:29:42.839 --> 00:29:47.559 was from Massachusetts in the nineteen seventies, I can see why he became a 420 00:29:47.599 --> 00:29:51.960 compelling suspect in this case. But as an aside, I've always found it 421 00:29:52.000 --> 00:29:56.519 amusing that the movie The Departed came out in two thousand and six when Bulger 422 00:29:56.640 --> 00:30:00.519 was still on the run as a wanted fugitive, and apparently there was like 423 00:30:00.559 --> 00:30:03.359 a former Massachusetts police officer who went to a screening of the movie and was 424 00:30:03.440 --> 00:30:07.960 convinced that he saw Whitey Bulger in the audience, but he was never able 425 00:30:07.960 --> 00:30:11.759 to get him tracked down and arrested. But I've always wondered how Bolger thought 426 00:30:11.839 --> 00:30:17.400 watching like Jack Nicholson on screen portraying a character who's loosely based on him, 427 00:30:17.640 --> 00:30:22.480 And I wonder if he was flattered by the betrayal. I can imagine that 428 00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:26.240 maybe in the looks department you might not be all that flattered, but I'm 429 00:30:26.279 --> 00:30:30.680 thinking every other department you're like, Wow, this guy has charisma. Because 430 00:30:30.759 --> 00:30:36.920 Jack Nicholson is undeniably charismatic, and when he's on screen, you want to 431 00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:41.799 watch him not because he's beautiful, but because he's magnetic. And so I'm 432 00:30:41.880 --> 00:30:45.440 sure that Whitey Bulger would have been one of the first butts in the seats 433 00:30:45.680 --> 00:30:48.440 to be able to see who is going to be playing me? What is 434 00:30:48.480 --> 00:30:52.359 this film all about? When you find out that it's Score, Sce and 435 00:30:52.519 --> 00:30:56.279 Nicholson, and then you've also got DiCaprio and Damon attached to it, so 436 00:30:56.519 --> 00:31:00.680 you've got all of these huge names. It was a huge blockbuster film. 437 00:31:02.079 --> 00:31:06.440 So for him, I'm sure he got some kind of smug satisfaction in knowing 438 00:31:06.480 --> 00:31:10.079 that this film is bringing in millions and millions and hundreds of millions of dollars 439 00:31:10.480 --> 00:31:14.279 and he's still on the run. Oh definitely, yeah, I'm sure he 440 00:31:14.279 --> 00:31:18.160 probably had some satisfaction thing I'll never be caught, even though a movie based 441 00:31:18.200 --> 00:31:22.119 on me is being released. And of course, the reason he was allowed 442 00:31:22.119 --> 00:31:25.279 to remain free is because he had made a deal with an FBI agent named 443 00:31:25.319 --> 00:31:30.799 John Connolly who would just provided information about his rivals and in return, Connolly 444 00:31:30.799 --> 00:31:33.720 would ensure that he was never arrested for his own criminal activities and then to 445 00:31:33.839 --> 00:31:40.000 depart. In Matt Damon plays a undercover officer who works for Jack Nicholson's character 446 00:31:40.039 --> 00:31:45.519 who infiltrates the police and feeds some information and this character was loosely based on 447 00:31:45.640 --> 00:31:49.599 John Connolly and the final apologue dwhyite Bulger is that after he went to prison, 448 00:31:49.720 --> 00:31:53.440 he was actually murdered. In twenty eighteen, at the age of eighty 449 00:31:53.519 --> 00:31:57.960 nine, he was transferred to a new prison and shortly after he arrived he 450 00:31:59.039 --> 00:32:02.480 was ambushed and and brutally beaten, which just shows that even if you're eighty 451 00:32:02.559 --> 00:32:06.359 nine years old, if you've done a lot of horrible things and made a 452 00:32:06.359 --> 00:32:08.799 lot of enemies, then people are not going to forget that, and they're 453 00:32:08.839 --> 00:32:13.160 not going to let your age prevent you from being the victim of a horrible 454 00:32:13.200 --> 00:32:17.440 death. So quite a fitting ending to his life. Oh that's rough. 455 00:32:17.480 --> 00:32:22.799 At eighty nine years old, you'd think, oh my gosh, well this 456 00:32:22.880 --> 00:32:24.960 guy's going to die soon, so let's not, you know, inflict any 457 00:32:25.039 --> 00:32:29.559 violence. It seems like a waste. But you've got some people that you've 458 00:32:29.640 --> 00:32:35.559 clearly really pissed off and that are holding major grudges because to kill an eighty 459 00:32:35.640 --> 00:32:38.880 nine year old man in such a violent way so many years after the fact, 460 00:32:39.200 --> 00:32:43.319 says you inflicted a lot of harm on a lot of people. Oh 461 00:32:43.359 --> 00:32:45.039 yes, and he was in a wheelchair at the time when they attacked him. 462 00:32:45.119 --> 00:32:49.559 So karma, God, karma did get this guy back at the end, 463 00:32:49.599 --> 00:32:52.440 because he did some horrible things. And I think that's just the only 464 00:32:52.480 --> 00:32:58.160 appropriate ending to his life considering the circumstances. So here's the reason that Bulger 465 00:32:58.480 --> 00:33:01.039 was looked at as a suspect in the Lay of the Dunes case. I'm 466 00:33:01.119 --> 00:33:06.000 kind of skeptical about this story. But there's this woman named Sandra Lee who 467 00:33:06.039 --> 00:33:10.160 claimed that she found the victim's body before it was discovered by the thirteen year 468 00:33:10.200 --> 00:33:15.599 old girl. She said she had been camping with her family outside of Provincetown 469 00:33:15.799 --> 00:33:20.960 and took her dog for a walk and then she stumbled across the decomposing body 470 00:33:20.960 --> 00:33:23.119 of this nude woman. But at the time, she was just so terrified 471 00:33:23.480 --> 00:33:28.480 that she never bothered to report this discovery and only came out about it many 472 00:33:28.559 --> 00:33:31.680 years after the fact, And that was probably because she grew Sandra grew up 473 00:33:31.680 --> 00:33:36.920 to become a mystery writer and published a fictionalized book based on the case, 474 00:33:36.920 --> 00:33:42.839 which was titled Shantytown Provincetown's Lady in the Dunes. But she was the one 475 00:33:42.839 --> 00:33:47.039 who was certain that Whitey Bulger might have been the victim's killer, because apparently 476 00:33:47.119 --> 00:33:52.880 Sandra's stepfather said that, even though Whitey Bulger was from Boston, that when 477 00:33:52.920 --> 00:33:55.720 her stepfather went to Provincetown, he would often like to drink at a bar 478 00:33:55.960 --> 00:34:00.519 called the Crown an Anchor, And the stepfather said that apparently Whitey Bulger was 479 00:34:00.559 --> 00:34:06.119 there a lot. But the interesting anecdote is that the Crown and Anchor was 480 00:34:06.160 --> 00:34:09.639 a gay bar, and there's been a lot of rumors going around that Whitey 481 00:34:09.679 --> 00:34:15.480 Bulger was bisexual. I don't know if they were ever conclusively confirmed, but 482 00:34:15.440 --> 00:34:20.199 Also, another detail which Sandras spread, which I'm not entirely sure is true, 483 00:34:20.320 --> 00:34:22.840 is that the towel that the Lady of the Dunes was found on may 484 00:34:22.920 --> 00:34:27.679 have belonged to the Crown and Anchor Bar. It might have had its name 485 00:34:27.719 --> 00:34:31.880 on it. So this led to the speculation that there were apparently rumors that 486 00:34:31.920 --> 00:34:37.280 Whitey Balger had been seen with a woman matching the Lady of the Dune's description 487 00:34:37.440 --> 00:34:40.760 sometime in nineteen seventy four, So they wondered it could have been a thing 488 00:34:40.800 --> 00:34:45.400 where maybe he was hanging out at this gay bar and he wanted to keep 489 00:34:45.440 --> 00:34:49.119 this a secret because he's the most powerful mob boss in Boston and he doesn't 490 00:34:49.159 --> 00:34:52.119 want anyone to find out that he takes these secret trips to Provincetown in order 491 00:34:52.159 --> 00:34:57.599 to hook up with men. And her theory, Sandra's theory is that maybe 492 00:34:57.599 --> 00:35:00.360 if this woman found out about it, why decided he had to keep her 493 00:35:00.440 --> 00:35:05.079 quiet, so he lured her to this beach and then decided to kill her 494 00:35:05.480 --> 00:35:08.679 and also went to the trouble of removing her hands and removing her teeth so 495 00:35:08.719 --> 00:35:13.400 she would not be identified. And even though this whole gay bar theory does 496 00:35:13.440 --> 00:35:17.199 seem a bit far fetched. The sheer brutality of the crime does sound like 497 00:35:17.280 --> 00:35:22.039 something that Whitey Bulger would have done, so I can understand why he was 498 00:35:22.079 --> 00:35:27.920 considered to be a possible suspect. Yeah, that's just another interesting layer to 499 00:35:28.119 --> 00:35:32.000 Whitey Bulger for sure, whether or not it's true, I could see why 500 00:35:32.119 --> 00:35:37.880 she would think that that is a viable connection, especially if the towel did 501 00:35:37.920 --> 00:35:42.480 have the crown and anchor embroidered on it or you know, screen printed on 502 00:35:42.559 --> 00:35:45.000 it. That would be an interesting thing when you're going, okay, well, 503 00:35:45.039 --> 00:35:50.599 not only is there a connection with Whitey Bulger to Provincetown, but we 504 00:35:50.639 --> 00:35:54.599 also have a connection to this very specific bar. And then we have a 505 00:35:54.719 --> 00:35:59.519 very similar em o to what we know to other murders that he's committed with 506 00:35:59.559 --> 00:36:02.519 the removed of the teeth in the hands. And then the woman is lying 507 00:36:02.639 --> 00:36:08.800 on a towel which has the bar emblazoned on it so or embroidered on it, 508 00:36:08.880 --> 00:36:14.519 and I can see why she would be convinced that this is a really 509 00:36:14.559 --> 00:36:19.239 good suspect because at the time, we didn't have the Internet at the time, 510 00:36:19.360 --> 00:36:22.400 in the seventies. I mean, I don't know how much law enforcement 511 00:36:22.960 --> 00:36:28.039 talk to each other. So the knowledge that there would be other people out 512 00:36:28.039 --> 00:36:31.000 there removing hands and teeth, I just don't think there would be a lot 513 00:36:31.039 --> 00:36:35.440 of public knowledge of that. You might read about somebody like Whitey Bulger in 514 00:36:35.480 --> 00:36:38.679 the paper, and you might know about that specifically, but you're just not 515 00:36:38.800 --> 00:36:43.840 going to know that there's other killers that have done this, or even think 516 00:36:43.880 --> 00:36:46.800 that it would be something that anybody would do for any other reason than maybe 517 00:36:46.840 --> 00:36:51.840 they were in the mob and they didn't want that person to be identified. 518 00:36:52.440 --> 00:36:57.199 So it was just an interesting time back then. I can imagine exactly. 519 00:36:57.280 --> 00:37:00.559 Yeah, I mean, there really wasn't any conclusive evidence to tie Bulger, 520 00:37:00.639 --> 00:37:04.039 but the detail about the crown and anchor thing on the towel, I never 521 00:37:04.079 --> 00:37:07.079 saw that at any public source. It was only revealed by Sandra Leie. 522 00:37:07.280 --> 00:37:10.800 And I'm still not one hundred percent certain if that detail is true or if 523 00:37:10.800 --> 00:37:15.039 she might have exaggerated things. But there was also rumors that like Whitey Bulger 524 00:37:15.199 --> 00:37:20.119 was like trafficking sex workers at that point, and they figured maybe the lady 525 00:37:20.119 --> 00:37:22.519 of the dunes is from another country, she was trafficked in from Europe or 526 00:37:22.559 --> 00:37:27.480 something, and if she didn't have any family or friends in the United States 527 00:37:27.760 --> 00:37:30.159 that could have played a role in the reason why she was never identified. 528 00:37:31.360 --> 00:37:35.119 Well, that would make total sense too, if it's somebody that you're not 529 00:37:35.239 --> 00:37:38.840 looking for, somebody that hasn't been reported missing. I'm sure her family wants 530 00:37:38.880 --> 00:37:44.800 to know where she is, but she comes to these shores and she's murdered, 531 00:37:44.880 --> 00:37:47.320 and nobody knows to even look for her. So she's not even on 532 00:37:47.360 --> 00:37:52.760 the radar of law enforcement or anybody else because she hasn't made any connections. 533 00:37:52.320 --> 00:37:58.000 It just highlights how easy it would be for criminal figures to get rid of 534 00:37:58.559 --> 00:38:02.159 women that they deemed to be aquote unquote problem who were under their employ with 535 00:38:02.159 --> 00:38:07.480 regards to sex work, because nobody's going to be reporting the missing exactly. 536 00:38:07.559 --> 00:38:10.559 Yeah. So that's why I figured, is it turns out that was completely 537 00:38:10.599 --> 00:38:14.719 wrong, That would turn out that the lady of the dunes was just a 538 00:38:14.880 --> 00:38:17.400 regular person with a family who did miss her, that she was not a 539 00:38:17.519 --> 00:38:21.760 sex worker who didn't have any close family and friends in the area. But 540 00:38:21.800 --> 00:38:24.800 I can understand why people believe that at the time. So when I covered 541 00:38:24.840 --> 00:38:29.400 this on the Trail Went Colled back in twenty sixteen, I did think that 542 00:38:29.440 --> 00:38:32.320 the white Balger theory was the most logical, and he was still alive that 543 00:38:32.440 --> 00:38:36.880 at that point he was in prison, but he hadn't admitted to any more 544 00:38:36.960 --> 00:38:38.639 murders. So I was thinking to myself, even if he did this, 545 00:38:39.400 --> 00:38:43.360 he may never come out and admit it, even though he was going to 546 00:38:43.360 --> 00:38:45.400 remain in prison for the rest of his life. And of course, in 547 00:38:45.400 --> 00:38:51.199 twenty sixteen, we had not started, not yet started using genetic genealogy as 548 00:38:51.239 --> 00:38:55.199 a tool for identifying John and Jane does. I think that was only after 549 00:38:55.239 --> 00:39:00.119 twenty eighteen, after the identification of the Golden State Killer, that they started 550 00:39:00.199 --> 00:39:05.559 using genetic genealogy in a whole bunch of cold cases, and that has led 551 00:39:05.599 --> 00:39:08.760 to the identification of a lot of decendents these past several years, Like it 552 00:39:08.800 --> 00:39:13.800 seems to be like a weekly occurrence now where they announced that a John or 553 00:39:13.920 --> 00:39:16.880 Jane Doe had been identified. So I started thinking to myself, when are 554 00:39:16.880 --> 00:39:21.079 they going to identify the Lady of the Dunes. It almost seems like it's 555 00:39:21.119 --> 00:39:24.400 inevitable. And little did I know that they were secretly working on this case 556 00:39:24.440 --> 00:39:30.480 behind the scenes. And what was crazy is that was last Halloween October thirty 557 00:39:30.519 --> 00:39:34.719 first, twenty twenty two, which I think is one of the biggest days 558 00:39:34.760 --> 00:39:37.760 in the history of true crime because there were just so many developments within the 559 00:39:37.760 --> 00:39:40.800 case of a few hours. I know, in the morning, they held 560 00:39:40.800 --> 00:39:45.360 a press conference that Richard Allen had been charged with the Adelphi murders, which 561 00:39:45.400 --> 00:39:50.119 was a pretty big deal. Later that day they announced that our old friend 562 00:39:50.159 --> 00:39:53.559 Steve Panke had been found guilty of the murder of Janelle Matthews because the jury 563 00:39:53.599 --> 00:39:58.239 had reached a verdict during the early morning hours. So I'm thinking to myself, 564 00:39:58.280 --> 00:40:00.559 Wow, this is quite a day. And then later that afternoon they 565 00:40:00.599 --> 00:40:06.960 announced that the lady of the Dunes had positively been identified as Ruth Marie Terry, 566 00:40:07.119 --> 00:40:09.599 which completely took me by surprise because I had no idea they were even 567 00:40:09.639 --> 00:40:13.039 working on the case. But I'm thinking to myself, wow, this is 568 00:40:13.119 --> 00:40:16.079 three high profile cases that have been solved in one day. It was pretty 569 00:40:16.119 --> 00:40:21.920 incredible. That is a lot of true crime news in one day. And 570 00:40:22.000 --> 00:40:25.480 I do remember that day because it was a lot of excitement on Twitter, 571 00:40:25.679 --> 00:40:30.599 right, like people were so jazzed up to be able to I mean, 572 00:40:30.679 --> 00:40:34.679 Delphi is right up there with one of the cases that I think most people 573 00:40:34.679 --> 00:40:37.199 who love true crime. I mean, you know, are very interested in 574 00:40:37.199 --> 00:40:40.599 true crime. Love true crime might not be the right phrase, but they 575 00:40:40.639 --> 00:40:45.320 would like to have seen Delfi solved because you have, you know, two 576 00:40:45.440 --> 00:40:49.280 young girls, and anytime that there's children involved, I think that it hits 577 00:40:49.960 --> 00:40:53.480 home and it's particularly painful for a lot of people to listen to. So 578 00:40:53.559 --> 00:40:59.239 to know that there is an actual suspect arrested in Delphi, I know that 579 00:40:59.360 --> 00:41:02.400 caused a lot of excitement. And then on the Janelle Matthew's case was Steve 580 00:41:02.440 --> 00:41:07.400 Panky, and then with the lady of the Dunes being identified, it's just 581 00:41:07.599 --> 00:41:12.000 it's a hugely exciting day it was, and I distinctly remember it was a 582 00:41:12.039 --> 00:41:15.360 Monday and I was working my day job from home, but needless to say, 583 00:41:15.400 --> 00:41:17.239 I did not get much work done. I was constantly on social media 584 00:41:17.280 --> 00:41:23.000 and read it following all these developments. So she had finally been identified as 585 00:41:23.079 --> 00:41:29.519 Ruth Marie Terry, and not surprisingly, it was done through genetic genealogy by 586 00:41:29.639 --> 00:41:34.719 the organization AUTHROM Incorporated, who have identified a lot of John and Jane does 587 00:41:34.800 --> 00:41:39.039 these past couple years. They built a DNA profile from the victim's skelter remains, 588 00:41:39.119 --> 00:41:44.199 turn it over to the FBI, who entered the profile into a genealogical 589 00:41:44.280 --> 00:41:49.559 database, and within a few months the DNA wound up matching biological relatives of 590 00:41:49.599 --> 00:41:53.400 the victim and paved the way for the Lady of the Dunes identification. It 591 00:41:53.400 --> 00:41:58.920 would turn out that Ruth Marie Terry had originally been born in the small mining 592 00:41:58.960 --> 00:42:02.239 town of Whitwell, ten and this was a like a mountain town, like 593 00:42:02.280 --> 00:42:07.440 a very like she was from like a country family. She was literally born 594 00:42:07.480 --> 00:42:12.239 inside a mountain side shack and a very large family with a lot of siblings, 595 00:42:12.639 --> 00:42:16.280 and it sounded like she had it quite a tumultuous childhood because her mother 596 00:42:16.400 --> 00:42:21.039 died I think within a few months after Ruth was born, and her mother 597 00:42:21.079 --> 00:42:23.159 I think was only twenty three at that time, so she was pretty young. 598 00:42:23.800 --> 00:42:29.159 And Ruth got married when she was only thirteen years old. Oh my 599 00:42:29.239 --> 00:42:32.159 god, yeah, which is pretty young. She subsequently got divorced from her 600 00:42:32.239 --> 00:42:37.480 husband and remarried him, and got divorced from him a second time before she 601 00:42:37.599 --> 00:42:40.840 reached the age of nineteen. And it was after that when she left Tennessee. 602 00:42:40.920 --> 00:42:44.639 I think she realized, I need to have some more normalcy in my 603 00:42:44.679 --> 00:42:49.239 life, because I think she didn't want to be held down in this constructive, 604 00:42:49.400 --> 00:42:52.599 constrictive town where she gets married at such a young age. She wanted 605 00:42:52.599 --> 00:42:57.679 to see the world, so she subsequently moved to Michigan. Okay, so 606 00:42:57.800 --> 00:43:01.480 one thing doesn't really line up for me. The family life and the background 607 00:43:01.679 --> 00:43:07.239 and the type of husband that I'm sure that she married aren't in alignment with 608 00:43:07.360 --> 00:43:13.119 all of this expensive dental work. That is true. Like I still haven't 609 00:43:13.119 --> 00:43:15.199 been able to find out where she got this dental work. I'm presuming it 610 00:43:15.280 --> 00:43:20.239 happened later in her life after she left Tennessee, because we're going to talk 611 00:43:20.280 --> 00:43:23.760 about she would get remarried several years later, so I guess possibly when she 612 00:43:23.920 --> 00:43:28.920 maybe met her husband later on, he had enough money to give her the 613 00:43:29.000 --> 00:43:31.599 dental work. But I can understand why they wouldn't think it was Ruth because, 614 00:43:32.079 --> 00:43:35.960 for all we know, her family probably never knew that she had ever 615 00:43:36.000 --> 00:43:38.079 gotten dental work later in her life, So if they had heard about the 616 00:43:38.119 --> 00:43:42.840 lady of the Dune's case, they're probably not thinking to herselves that this woman 617 00:43:42.920 --> 00:43:47.639 with special dental work who was found in Massachusetts might be Ruth. Definitely not, 618 00:43:49.000 --> 00:43:52.639 because given the dental work. I thought, Okay, this is somebody 619 00:43:52.639 --> 00:43:55.960 who's been cared for and taken care of, and so I would think that 620 00:43:57.039 --> 00:44:00.199 she would come from a family that was had some love of affluents to be 621 00:44:00.239 --> 00:44:05.559 able to afford all of these you know, gold fillings and whatnot. And 622 00:44:05.599 --> 00:44:08.360 then to find out that she grew up and I guess like relative poverty and 623 00:44:08.440 --> 00:44:13.880 like a mountain town with all of these different siblings, with this tumultuous situation 624 00:44:14.039 --> 00:44:16.800 and her mother dying when she was very young. It's really sad and not 625 00:44:16.920 --> 00:44:22.480 at all the background that I had expected that she would have exactly Like, 626 00:44:22.679 --> 00:44:25.079 it's just kind of crazy that she would be married and divorced at the same 627 00:44:25.199 --> 00:44:30.519 man twice during your teen years from the ages of thirteen to nineteen. So 628 00:44:30.599 --> 00:44:34.039 I think this would be a good place to end Part one. So join 629 00:44:34.159 --> 00:44:37.639 us next week for part two of our coverage about the murder of Ruth Marie 630 00:44:37.760 --> 00:44:40.159 Terry Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit about the Trail 631 00:44:40.199 --> 00:44:45.159 Went Cold Patreon? Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three 632 00:44:45.239 --> 00:44:50.639 years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like early ad free episodes, 633 00:44:50.679 --> 00:44:53.840 and I also send out stickers and sign thank you cards to anyone who 634 00:44:53.880 --> 00:44:59.119 signs up with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars tier Tier two. 635 00:44:59.559 --> 00:45:04.400 We also offer monthly bonus episodes in which I talk about cases which are 636 00:45:04.440 --> 00:45:07.559 not featured on The Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon 637 00:45:07.880 --> 00:45:12.239 and if you join our highest tier tier three, the ten dollars tier. 638 00:45:12.800 --> 00:45:16.719 One of the features we offer is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of 639 00:45:16.800 --> 00:45:22.199 UNSAWD Mysteries, where you can download an audio file and then boot up the 640 00:45:22.239 --> 00:45:27.639 original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or YouTube and play it with my audio 641 00:45:27.679 --> 00:45:30.880 commentary playing in the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about the 642 00:45:30.920 --> 00:45:36.320 cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very first episode that I 643 00:45:36.320 --> 00:45:39.599 did a commentary track over was the episode featuring this case. So if you 644 00:45:39.639 --> 00:45:44.599 want to download a commentary track in which I make more smart ass remarks about 645 00:45:44.639 --> 00:45:47.199 Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join Tier three. So I want to 646 00:45:47.280 --> 00:45:51.519 let you know a little bit about the Jewels and Nashty Patreons. So there's 647 00:45:51.639 --> 00:45:54.519 early ad free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our Path Went 648 00:45:54.599 --> 00:45:59.199 Chili mini's which are always over an hour, so they're not very mini, 649 00:45:59.239 --> 00:46:02.239 but they're just toot to turn into a series and we're really enjoying doing those, 650 00:46:02.320 --> 00:46:06.599 so we hope you'll check out those patreons will link them in the show 651 00:46:06.639 --> 00:46:09.039 notes. So I want to thank you all for listening, and any chance 652 00:46:09.119 --> 00:46:13.320 you have to share us on social media with a friend or to rate and 653 00:46:13.360 --> 00:46:16.440 review is greatly appreciate it. You can email us at the Pathwentchili at gmail 654 00:46:16.480 --> 00:46:21.400 dot com. You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwink. So until 655 00:46:21.440 --> 00:46:24.360 next time, be sure to bundle up because cold trails and chili pass call 656 00:46:24.440 --> 00:46:29.599 for warm clothing. Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy