This episode may contain content of a graphic nature, including descriptions of physical and
sexual violence against adults, children, and animals. Listener discretion is advised.
Hi everyone, I'm Tanya and I'm Talia, and we are Crimes and Consequences,
a true crime podcast. Ay Tanya, Hi Talia. Welcome back everybody
to this week's episode of Crimes and Consequences. This is an oldie goodie.
Yes, you may have heard of them as the lipstick Killer. I have
never heard of this one. Really, yeah, it seems like there's probably
a few lipstick killers there probably, Well, this is about William George Harron's
I'm a give you a little background. Okay, okay, I'm ready before
I do, though, everybody knows hit the like subscribe, follow love,
need more, button, need more, whatever it is on your favorite app.
And with that, we're going to dive into this. All right,
let's do it. See. I kind of like the older ones that because
there's I don't know what the word is, but there's something interesting about killers
that aren't in our time, Like it just shows that there were killers.
Yeah, like throughout time. Probably there's weirdos everywhere at anytime, anytime in
our in our human existence. Okay, so let me tell you about William
George Harrens. He was born in nineteen twenty eight, he was on the
eve of the Great Depression, and he was raised in Evans, still in
Illinois. He came from a poverty stricken home and his parents they argued all
the time. They had no money. Yeah, I know, they probably
just were yeah, yeah, fuck, I know. At the age of
elemon, William claims to have witnessed a couple will say making love. Oh
no, that's a nice term. Yeah. When he told his mother,
she would tell him that all sex was dirty and he would get a disease.
Did he ever tried it as a result. One time, when he
was a little older, he was kissing a girlfriend and he just burst into
tears and started vomiting right in front of her, voiting because it's dirty.
It's dirty, and it's you're gonna get a disease. It's gross. Gross.
As a child, he was pretty quiet and he spent most of his
time alone. When he became a teen, he just took to the streets
in search of what we'll call cheap entertainment. Are you being nice? And
unfortunately that included petty theft. He was just kind of what's the word,
a little hoodlum? Yeah, yeah, so it's an old term, right,
he's a hoodlum. When he was twelve, he worked at a grocer
store, so he actually had a legit job. One day, he accidentally
short changed himself, so the register was a little off and I think he
had to pay for it. Oh shit, Yeah, he was messed up
on the whole change to someone. So he ended up stealing a single dollar
bill from an apartment by reaching through the crack in a chain door. And
he's twelve, and after that it all went downhill. Yeah. He soon
graduated to stealing larger amounts of money and then later personal items from people.
That's so creepy. Eventually William had himself a small collection of stolen items that
ranged from the expensive to the more mundane. He had things like cameras,
cocktail shakers. Oh they're probably like sterling silver or something, guns gone,
yeah, and even handkerchiefs. You why, why do you want someone's handkerchief?
It's the thrill that I told you. That was his form of entertainment.
Then he really began like taking robbing home. Seriously. He would look
for apartments that forgot to lock their doors. He would then check to make
sure like no one's home and sneak in, and he'd steal anything that had
any sort of value. And he's young, so that a lot of things
may have seemed like they had value, but most of the time he was
hunting for wallets and purses or any cash. At thirteen, he was arrested
for breaking into a local building's basement and when he was arrested, he was
carrying a loaded gun. Oh shit, it's not a good start. No,
So the police ended up searching the heron's home and that revealed more weapons
hidden in a refrigerator. Come on, now, nobody found it. And
I don't know. Maybe they I had to come on, they're poor as
hell. Maybe he's in a bag looked like meat and dashed in the produce
store behind some cucumbers or something, and they also found some in the loft
they had the attic. William admitted to a string of burglaries. He's like,
yeah, I did it, and he was sent to what I believe
is called the balt School of Wayward Boys. Wayward change the name. Nobody
wants to be like, yeah, I go to that Wayward Boys school.
Where school you go to, I know, something different? But he was
there for several months. He claimed that he stole mostly for fun and it
was a way to release tension. Okay. He described it as a hobby
for him, something to do while his parents were busy fighting with each other.
Yeah, okay, blame the parents. They're so they're busy fighting.
What else could I do? What else could I do? I couldn't just
go out and like play baseball with my friends. No, I needed to
go rap. I got to release this tension. I got to release his
tension. Not long after he was released from the Wayward Boys School, he
was arrested again. Oh no, This time he was sentenced to three years
at what I believe is called Saint Bede's Academy, and that was operated by
benedictin Monksh Yeah during this time and sent to a nunnery right. Yes.
Yes. During his time at the school, he stood out because he was
really an exceptional student. He was very smart. He was released when he
was sixteen, and he had such good test scores that he was able to
enroll at the University of Chicago. Really, yeah, he's sixteen, He's
wasting his life. Now he's not. He's going to school. Okay,
he was wasting his life met with the months before he got sentenced to live
with the monks. Yeah, now we know what to do with our kids.
While the school proved to be good from academically, it didn't really hell
with his what we'll call bad streak. In other words, he was still
stealing. Yeah, he's getting his thrills. He's still getting his thrills.
As a matter of fact, he was seventeen years old when he was at
the University of Chicago and he got arrested again. Oh shit, Well,
yam can't stay out of trouble, no, because he likes the thrillsoutely.
On June twenty six, now we're in nineteen forty six, he was robbing
an apartment when he was spotted by another neighbor who called the police. Police
fired after William pulled out a gun. Oh no, yeah, and they
managed to fire off two shots. But it was a hit over his head
and there was a nearby flower pot. Oh, and it broke and it
ended up rendering him unconscious. So the flower pot fell on I guess that's
kind of crazy. It's like in a movie that happened to me once.
Actually, well, no one was shooting a gun, but I was sitting
on my parents' deck and flower pot fell and hit me right. Yeah,
that explains a lot, now I understand. It hurt like a son of
a bed. Let me just tell you long term effects. But I didn't
fall unconscious, so I must have knocked his ass. Real guid. He
was arrested and taken to the Cook County Jail in Illinois. At first he
was just a thief. They didn't know that he would end up being the
lipstick killer. Let's take a look back some shall we. Let's do that.
Three terrible murders took place just five months earlier, between June of nineteen
forty five in January of nineteen forty six, so that's an eight month span.
Chicago was on the alert, but the rest of the country was as
well. So let me tell you about the first one. It's June fifth,
nineteen forty five, forty three year old Josephine Ross, who was three
times divorced. She was unemployed. She lived with her daughters Mary, Jane,
Jacqueline, and I don't know where her other daughter is. They lived
in Kenwood Avenue apartments in the Edgewood District, which is located in Chicago's North
Side. Her body was discovered at one thirty that afternoon when Jacqueline came home.
She usually she went to work and she would come home for lunch.
She found the apartment she lived in with her mom turned upside down. The
drawers were pulled out, chairs were knocked over, and newspapers were unfurled across
the floor. She ran to her mother's bedroom and then she saw something she
would never forget. Josephine was sprawled across to her bed. Her throat was
gashed many times and there were multiple stabbings. Her head was wrapped in a
dress. Blood was spewed across the room. It was on the walls,
the drapes, the furniture, It soaked the mattress, and there was an
adjoining room several articles of women's clothing in undergarments. They lean this pool of
bloody water in the bathtop. Oh that's weird. The only thing missing from
the house was some change. Really, no fingerprints were found, only dark
hairs that were in Josephine's hands. Who was clutching these dark hairs that indicated
to authorities that she was struggling with this intruder who eventually killed her, so
she ripped his hair out. Josephine had a fiance, but he had an
alibi. They questioned all her former ex husbands because she had three right and
her former boyfriends, and they all had alibis, so the police had no
suspects. There was a witness who saw a man loitering around the apartments and
running from the scene, and he had a dark complexion and he was wearing
a white sweater and dark pants, but they weren't able to locate them.
Next, we have this honorably discharged from the US Navy named Francis Brown.
Francis Brown was petite, brown haired, and demure. She lived in room
six one one at the Pine Crest apartment building on Pine Grove Avenue, not
far from where Josephine Ross had lived, and she was home alone on the
evening of December tenth, nineteen forty five. She arrived a little late.
It was about nine thirty. Francis was told by a desk clerk, because
remember she's running a room, that a man had entered the foyer earlier asking
for her. When the man was informed that she was out, the man
left. According to the clerk, Francis seemed to have been expecting the caller
the person the man there. Her nude body was discovered the following morning by
Martha Ingalls. She was a housemaid, curious s twoy francis radio was playing
really loud at nine am and why her door was a jar. Martha peeked
into room six one one and she found Francis's bed splattered with blood and a
trail leading to the bathroom. Oh. She found Frances stretched over the bathtub,
her head wrapped in her pajamas, a butcher knife rammed into her neck,
and a bullet hole in her skull. Oh my gosh. No valuables
were taken, but there was a message written in lipstick on the wall of
her apartment and it read as follows quote for Heaven's sake, catch me before
I kill more. I can't control myself. Wow. I feel like we've
had that before. And one of our Patrion episodes we had a killer yea
uh huh, and he's like, I'm not going to stop and it was
on a mirror and I think I did. It was something like the title
had to do with mirror or something. Yeah. Yeah, we've done so
many guys, I know un together at some time. I mean, I
remember it, but I don't remember the name. Please found a bloody fingerprint
smudged on the door jam of the entrance, and an earlier witness, his
name was George Weinberg, came forward to report that he did hear a gunshot
at like four am. And additionally, of course there's that night clerk.
She'd been stationed in the lobby of the building. She reported a nervous man.
He was about thirty five forty years old. She thought he wade maybe
one hundred and forty pounds. He got off the elevator, fumbled for the
door to the street, and he left. Now next, we have a
beautiful six year old named Susanne Degnan. She went to bed Sunday evening and
this is January sixth, nineteen forty six. She spent the whole day earlier
with her family. She went to bed. Her parents were Jim and Helen
and they had a happy family. They lived at Thorndale and Kenmore in the
Edgewater district. They had two daughters, Susanne and Betty. They shared a
huge, huge turn of the sentry kind of home. They shared it with
another family, one of those big homes. They occupied the first floor,
and then the people named the Flynn's had the upstairs floor. During the night,
the only sounds that household heard were the momentary barking of the Flynn's dogs,
which wasn't unusual. I mean, I have dogs, they barget flies,
and they heard some men talking in the street. Cecilia Flynn thought one
of the men had said something like, this is the best looking building around.
Helen, Susanne and Betty's mom at one point sat up in bad She
woke her husband up. She explained she thought she'd heard Susanne crying. The
couple listened for a few minutes and then they hear anything, so they went
back to sleep. So it's the morning. Now it's January seventh. Jim
Dad went to wake up his daughter's for school. He thought it was odd
that Susanne's door was closed, since she was afraid of the dark and she
always kept her door open. So he peeks inside her bedroom and her window
is fully raised. The curtains were blowing just like you see in the movie.
Yeah, the cold breeze, and Suzanne was nowhere to be seen.
She couldn't be found. The rust of the family gets up. They're looking
everywhere. They're in the looking in the closets, they looked on the fire
escape. They woke up the Flints and asked them if they could search their
part of the home. And that's when they began to panic because Suzanne was
not in the house. And she's six and she's taken from a window.
Right. That's brazen, right, because in the nature of this crime,
we have a child that's disappeared. The police department dug into this case with
fervor. There was a new police commissioner's name was John Prendaghast, and he
became personally involved like this meant something. The Degnan apartment, according to this
author, her name is Dolors Kennedy, she wrote this book, was immediately
quote filled with police from the area, eager to resolve the disappearance of Suzanne
Degnan. On the floor of Suzanne's bedroom, they found what they thought was
a discarded tissue. But it wasn't, Tanya, Oh was it? It
was a ransom note? Oh shit, really a ransom note. It was
probably blown from the bed because the window was open in the wind and it
read quote get twenty thousand ready in weight and weight is spelled wrong for word?
Do not notify FPI or police bills in fives and tents. Yeah,
that's a lot of five sutents. On the backside was a warning burned this
for her safety. Oh that's ominous, dude. You can't even spell weight,
right. You think you're going to get away with nappy? Bring it
for ransom and don't don't notify the police. Oops, already did that.
Who's not going to notify the pol? They always notify the police. Come
on. Exactly outside the apartment, police found a seven foot ladder that,
when held upright, reached to the sill of the girl's window. Oh godamn
it did say she was on the first floor, But that's fine. The
ladder, police learned, had been stolen from a nursery several blocks away.
Investigators spread throughout the ear They're searching, they're asking questions, They're hoping to
find a witness or something. There was an anonymous call that suggested they search
the local sewers. Shit the sewers. Oh shit, But before I tell
you more, I'm gonna take a quick break. That evening detective Lee O'Rourke
and Harry Benois did just that. They searched the sewers, noticing that a
sewer her cover a nearby Wilthrop Avenue looked misplaced. They flashed their light into
the well. It's not really a well, it's a sewer, yeah,
and they found what looked like the head of a golden haired dow No,
it wasn't a doll's head. Before that evening ended the rest of Suzanne because
it was just her head. Oh shit. Her legs and torso were found
scattered in the debris of other sewers. Are you kidding me? Her arms
weren't found for several weeks. Oh my god, who fucking does that?
Well, we know, but it looks like Jesus Christ. A basement washtub
below one of the apartments off of Wilthrop Avenue proved to be the place of
dismemberment. So he brought her into an apartment like a laundry room, right,
and he just cut her up? What the fuck? Like, what
the fuck is that? Yah? Yeah? And it's like, how are
you not worried that someone's gonna walk? Yeah? They found blood, pieces
of human flesh, and blond hairs in the dream. Oh poor little Susianne.
I don't know what the fuck is sex? What a matter of people?
I hate people do. Chicago's greatest manhunt and perhaps one of the most
intensive ever conducted in the nation at the time it was on. Yeah,
police had the task of trying to pluck the killer out of a city of
four million. It's a long time ago, guys. Yeah, this isn't
like DNA, And yeah, I really feel for cops back that it had
to because I can't even imagine. They worked around the clock. This is
a quote from an author, Lucy Freeman. They worked around the clock,
often driving their own cars and using their own time a police work day and
night. They questioning potential suspects. They interviewed more than eight hundred people.
They gave lie detect her tests to one hundred and seventy geez. The crime
Laboratory compared seven thousand sets of handwriting with a ransom note. Can you imagine
the tedious job that was. Now, we have computers to put it in
and see, but these people had to do it all manual. The police
received over five thousand, two hundred and fifty tips from all over the world,
and they investigated three thousand, one hundred and fifty three of them.
Geez police believed the kidnapper slash killer must have driven a car the few blocks
to the place of dismemberment, so Suzanne had been put in a car.
She was seventy four pounds and carrying her through the streets would have probably caused
too much attention. But I don't know. With him, I don't either.
These streets weren't empty. Even in the late hours, there were still
people. Witnesses had seen a woman in the vicinity carrying a large bundle in
both her arms. Near the Degnen home, she got into what seemed to
be an awaiting automobile where a balding man sat behind the wheel. Another witness
he was a seresman on Furlow he saw a large, dark man carrying a
shopping bag, but the couple and the man with the bag they were never
identified. The author I talked about, Dolores Kennedy said quote. The most
promising suspects were arrested, and upon those arrest State's Attorney William J. Towey
and Chief of Detectives Walter G. Storms would tell the press that this time
they had found the killer. Inevitably the suspect would end up passing a lie
detector test or I have an alibi, and police were forced to admit that
the fingerprints that they did have didn't match, so they were basically leading the
public un to believe all we got him this time, and then it would
just fall Yeah, a janitor. Sixty five year old Hector Berber was arrested
on suspicion. So they actually arrived at he worked in the apartment building where
the Degnans lived, and the sink where Suzanne was believed to be dismembered.
That was in an area that he frequented a lot, and the grimy state
of the ransom note because it was dirty, suggested it could be a janitor.
Really, if janitors have dirty hands. Okay, okay, don't you
think that's a stretch. That's a big stretch. That's a big stretch.
The police were so confident that they told the press, quote, this is
the man. Oh, despite the discrepancies between his profile and the one that
they had developed originally, which stated that the killer had skills of a surgeon.
Oh oh yeah, that's right, because she wasn't dismembered, or was
at least a butcher. They just felt confident he was the one because the
notes dirty and janitors, I guess are dirty. I guess all the janitors
obviously never looked dirty. All right, right, he doesn't go home and
wash his hands. Come on, he was an older and you know he's
sixty five. I guess as the elderly. It doesn't seem so old to
me. He was beaten by the police. Oh no, under questioning for
forty eight hours. Damn. He suffered injuries, including a separated shoulder,
oh out of him, and he still didn't confess. Yeah. Wow.
He got a lawyer through the janitor union, and he was released on a
writ of habeas corpus. You know what he had to say about this experience
said quote, Oh, they hang me up. They blindfolded me. I
can't put up my arms, they're still sore. They had handcuffs on me
for hours and hours. They threw me in the cell again. I was
blindfolded. They handcuffed my hands behind my back and pulled me up on bars
until my toes touched the floor. I know, eat, I go to
hospital. Oh I'm so sick anymore, and I would have ended up confessing
to anything Oh that's some human violation right there. Fucking shitty, that's how
they did it back in the day. Though. Yeah, he's lucky he
held his ground right because he need be hanged. Probably probably he ended up
spending ten days in the hospital. Oh shit, what it's a long time,
so longed in. You can't do that shit, not anymore. No,
not they do. But it was determined that Hector, sorry, couldn't
write English well enough to even by the crude standards of a ransom note for
him to have written it like he couldn't read or write. He sued the
Chicago Police Department. He sued for fifteen thousand, and you know what the
judge did, what gave him twenty wow wow, which would be a lot
of money today less what a ransom note was for was for twenty grand Oh
well he didn't write it, yeah, exactly. Five thousand dollars of the
twenty thousand awarded to Hector was given to his wife, as the police had
tried to pressure her to implicate her husband in the murder. They were laying
on the pressure, fucking ing as winner turned into springs. Her time is
going by. Yeah, police had their theories, they had lots of them,
but they had no concrete leads. The ransom note had been sent to
the FBI laboratories, and I told you there were fingerprints that were found.
Most of the prints belonged to the family members and the policemen who handled it,
because he's back then his hands were dirty, No, just kidding,
Yeah, who knows whose hands were dirty? But a few smudged prints hadn't
been identified. Thomas Laffey, the Chicago Police Department's expert, spent a lot
of time trying to match them with thousands and thousands of files, but he
couldn't. That had to be frustrating as all hell. Right, at some
point you're like, guys get blurry, and you're like yeah, they're like,
oh, I can't look at any more fingerprints. They also, I'm
sure they all start to look the same. Right. The search seemed impossible,
But then something changed. A college student named none other than William Harrins
turned up out of nowhere, and the spotlight of suspicion was turned on him
with full force. So now I'm going to go back over the night he
was caught, which I did talk to you about earlier. Remember the flower
Oh yeah, yes, so he's about eighteen. Now it's June twenty six,
nineteen forty six. William was arrested on attempted burglary charges because someone saw
him breaking into an apartment and he fled and the buildings janitor nice pursued him,
blocked his path out of the building. Up. Yeah, hello hero,
janitor, Hero not dirty hands. William, though, ended up pointing
the gun he was carrying the old janitor and said, quote, let me
get out, or I'll let you have it in the guts. Oh okay,
go ahead. Then surface police go the doors right there. Yes,
I will not block. The janitor stopped chasing him. Yeah, William made
his way to this nearby building. He was Lena lay low, but someone
spotted him and they called the police, and I described it a little bit
before. But two officers closed in from two different directions, and William was
trapped brandishing a revolver. He points the barrel at one of the officers.
Now, one of the reports say that he pulled the trigger and the gun
misfired. The police stay he pulled it twice in a misfired. William's versions
a little bit different. He said he was just basically bluffing with a gun
and the cops charged after him. A scuffle resulted and it ended only when
an off duty police officer dropped three flower pots on William's head, so they
had fired after Adam. One of the flower pats fell down, and then
the officer threw some nice at his head. At least two nice because they
are total three that he said. According to William, you remember drifting into
consciousness only when he was being questioned. The police had it taken him to
Bridewell Hospital, which is right by the Cook County Jail. He says policemen
were threatening him. They were pushing him, they probably were, and then
punching him. Yes, given what we know, they probably were. And
they were jabbing him in the body and he felt his hands being pushed onto
an inkpat. Oh, they're getting his finger pricked. He would know because
he's been arresting quite a few rights. He claims he was drifting in and
out of consciousness, and then the questioning became more intense. They were demanding
to know how he did it, to say how he did it, and
that they knew he did it. At one point, someone allegedly punched him
in the testicles, causing him to near vomit. They also burned him with
ether. Really, m, how do you burn someone with either poor ether?
Oh? Okay, let's liquid like alcohol? Yeah, I think I
think right. Thought it was like, Oh, I guess it is like
chloroform or whatever. They did it wow allegedly yeah. William later said he
was interrogated around the clock for six consecutive days, being beaten and abused by
police, and he was not allowed to eat or drink in six days.
Yes, I don't know if I believe that. I wasn't allowed to see
his parents for four days, and he was also refusing an opportunity to have
a lawyer for all those six days. Now I would normally say I don't
believe it, but given what we know about one janitor, yeah, I
don't know. I don't know. So this gets even crazier too. Psychiatrists
doctor Haynes and Roy Rinker gave him sodium pentathal truth serm. Okay, they
didn't have a warrant, his parents didn't consent. But he's eighteen, so,
oh he's not quite eighteen, that's why. And then on the truth
serum he was interrogated for three hours. Oh, they were going to get
this guy under the influence of the drug. The authorities claimed, William spoke
of an alternate personality named George Merman. Okay, okay, and it was
George Merman that committed the murders. William claimed that he recalled little of the
drug induced interrogation, which is probably fucking true. I mean, I don't
know. I've never had truth serum. Please. No, I've had a
lot. I've had a lot of things, but I haven't had that.
It might be fun I don't know. What William actually said is in dispute
as the original transcripts disappeared. We shouldn't laugh. It's not funny. If
it wasn't true, it'd be funny. Yeah. Right, on his fifth
day and custody, William was given a lumbar puncture. Oh without anesthesia.
Oh no, it's like a spinal tap. Oh, this is making me
like moments later, I don't I don't even know why. He was driven
to police headquarters for a polygraph test. They tried for a few minutes to
administer the test, but he was in such obvious pain that the test had
to be rescheduled. Why would they give him a lumber it's a spinal tap.
I don't know. I don't know either. Well, it was nineteen
forty six. They were doing all kinds where they were just making sure he
was healthy, giving him a physical. Sure, we'll go with that.
Eventually, the polygraph was administered and authorities announced that the results were inconclusive.
On July second, nineteen forty six, he was transferred to the Cook County
Jail, where he was placed in the infirmary to recover from his injuries.
His various injuries. Police things seems so wrong about william claims that he was
taking the rap for George. Psychologist explained that it's a time that William made
up his duo personality like normal children make up imaginary friends. He did it
to keep his diabolical deeds separate from the person he is, you know,
like was me, it was George. It was the evil too, yeah,
Sullia. He tried to portray himself as the average son student. He
dated nice girls, and he went to church. But then authorities were skeptical
of William's claims and suspected that he was laying the groundwork for an insanity But
the confession earned widespread publicity with the press transforming Merman to murder man, George
Merman, George to murder murder man. Oh that's clever. So handwriting analysis
did not definitively link William's handwriting to the lipstick message really lipsticks, I remember,
right with lipstick? I don't know if it is in my handwriting,
right, I don't know. Please claim that the fingerprints, though matched a
print discovered in the scene of Francis Brown's murder. It was first reported as
a bloody smudge, remember, but now it's a last fingerprint match. Furthermore,
a fingerprint of the small left finger was allegedly connected to William on the
ransom note. There were nine points of comparison at the time. Williams supporters
pointed out the FBI handbook regarding fingerprint identification and it required twelve points of comparison
to have a positive match, but nine's close enough. Later, Chief of
Detectives Walter Storms confirmed that the bloody smudge left on the door jam as I
said, was Williams. Police did searches of William's home without a warrant,
and he lived in the college dorms too, and they found other items that
got a lot of publicity. They found a scrap book containing pictures of Nazi
officials that belonged to a war veteran named Harry Gold. And he got it
when he burglarized Harry Gold, which was the same night Suzanne Dagnim was killed.
Gold lived by the dagnanms. Oh, so that puts William in the
area. Yeah. In addition, the police found in William's possession a stolen
copy of Psychopathia Sexual Sexualists. I'm not sure how to say it. Yeah,
I yep, okay, And it was stolen. The press focused on
it and started to depict this young burglar as a real life mister Hyde.
The police also found a stolen medical kit among his possessions. They announced that
the medical instruments couldn't be linked to the murders because there was no trace of
biological material like blood, skin, and hair. But it was a big
sensation that they found some medical kind. He probably just stole them. There
was no biological material of anybody found on William well, of course, and
on any of his clothes. The medical tools were too small to really be
used for any real dissection. Please believe that William actually used the medical tools
because they were tiny to alter war bonds he stole. I I don't know
how you do that, but okay, apparently he could do that. Back
then, a gun was found in his possession and they linked that to the
shooting. A cult police positive revolver had been stolen in a burglary at the
apartment of some guy named Guy on December third, nineteen forty five. Two
nights later, bullet went through the closed eighth floor apartment where Marian Caldwell lived
and it wounded her. William had that gun in his possession, so now
we know he has a god and he is shot somebody. According to the
Chicago Police Department, the bullet that injured Marian was linked through ballistics. A
man named George I can't pronounce his last name, so I'm not going to
He was an active soldier made a statement the day after the murder of Suzanne
that he saw this figure walking in the direction of the Degnan's residence with a
shopping bag. Remember I mentioned that He said he was about five feet five
nine inches, saw way to hunt him, seventy pounds, about thirty five
years old, and he was wearing a fedora and a dark overcoat. But
it was too dark for George to make out the facial features. When the
police showed him a photo of William on July eleventh, he couldn't identify him.
Okay, so we don't really have anything linking him to the murder.
Just days later, on July sixteenth, during a hearing, George, who
couldn't identify him on the eleventh, pointed at William and said, quote,
that's the man I saw, okay, and he made a positive identification.
This sounds a little shady to me. No, no, no. The
Chicago press stated that this solidified the case against William. I mean, now
we have an eye, which right, and that helped him get his indictment.
A little spoiler alert That testimony was later discredited. Oh all right,
so my shadiness alert. Yes, it's true. It was later discredited.
A radio newscast reported on the Chicago Tribune scoop of the confession which William heard
in his cell. A radio newscast reported on the Chicago Tribune scoop of the
confession which William heard in his cell. He was incredulous, stating quote,
I didn't confess to anybody, Honestly, my god, what are they going
to pin on me next Williams lawyers pressured him to take a plea bargain.
That's probably a smart because at this point they're just there to the deal,
which was a topic behind closed door meetings. As we know, stated that
william would serve one life sentence if he confessed to the murders of Josephine Ross,
Francis Brown, and Suzanne Tegnan. And let's not forget that he did
shoot somebody else, but that's just a footnote except to her. Yeah,
right. With the help of his lawyers, they began drafting a confession using
the Chicago Tribune article as a guide quote. As it turned out, the
Tribune article was very helpful as it provided me with a lot of details I
didn't know. My attorneys rarely changed anything out right, but I couldn't tell
by their faces if I had made a mistake, or they would say,
now, Bill, is that what really happened that way? Then I would
change my story because obviously it went against what was known in the Tribune.
So he had to do a confession. And then this article. Yes,
because he made a confession and it went against what the Tribune said, So
he changed his confession to match the newspaper, this all sounds really, really
shady. Both William and his parents signed a confession. The parties agreed to
the date of July thirtieth for William to make his official court confession. On
that date, the defense went to the prosecutor's office, where there were several
reporters. They were gathered around to ask William questions, and the prosecutor himself
made a speech. William looked bewildered and gave a noncommittal answer to report his
questions. He later blamed the prosecutor, saying, quote, it was the
prosecutor himself. After assembling all the officials, including attorneys and policemen, he
began a preamble about how long everyone had waited to get a confession from me,
but at last the truth was going to be told. He kept emphasizing
the word truth, and I asked him if he really wanted the truth.
He assured me that he did. Now the prosecutor made a big deal about
hearing the truth. Now I was forced to lie to save myself. It
made me angry, so I told him the truth and everyone got really upset.
Yeah, because I feel like what he told them isn't what they wanted
to hear, so the prosket withdrew the previous agreement sentence of one life term
with a few minor charges, and changed to three terms to run consecutively and
threaten William with the death penalty. You want to go to trial. Yeah,
you want to go to a trial because if you do and you loose,
I'm gonna kill you. Yeah. They threatened to charge him with a
murder of someone named a Stealcaree, even though William was attending the Gobalt School
for Wayward Boys in Indiana at the time. William's own attorneys were really angry
at their client for the plea bargain. The Chicago Tribunes headline ride quote mute
heron's faces trial killer spurns mother's fervent plea to talk. Prosecutor announced that he
would press ahead to try William with the deaths of Susanne and Francis. William
agreed with a new plea agreement. So William publicly confessed in the prosecutor's office,
and he talked, answered questions. He even re enacted parts of the
murderer. He did. Yes that he confessed too. One of the police
officers that was really nice. To him before changed his opinion on William and
believed he was culpable when he heard how familiar William was with victim Francis Brown's
apartment the way he described it and re enacted the murderer. William says he
just confessed to save his life. I don't know, I don't know.
In his confession, William stated that he disposed of the hunting knife, which
he had used to cut up Susanne, on an elevated subway track near the
scene of the murder. The police never searched the track, so he could
have it's probably still sitting there. When the reporters heard about this, they
inquired to the trek crew if they'd found a knife. They had found a
knife on the tracks, and they kept it in a storage room, So
these reporters were like, fuck, yeah, we got a story here.
The reporters determined that the knife belonged to Guy Roderick, which I told you
he'd stolen from a guy named Guy. Oh yeah, yeah. What he
had stolen before was the Colt police twenty two caliber gun, which was found
in William's possession on July thirty first. He positively identified the knife as his
William acknowledged that he threw the knife there from the train, claiming he didn't
want his mother to see it. Okay, okay. He took full responsibility
for the three murders. In August seventh of nineteen forty six, as I
said, the prosecution had him reenact the crime previously if some of the victims.
He re enacted the crime of Suzanne's in public again in front of the
press. So that's two he re enacted, because one was Francis's murder.
On September fourth, William's parents and the victims families attending the Chief Justice,
Justice Ward presided and William admitted his guilt on burglary and murder charges. That
night, William tried to hang himself and his south. He timed it to
coincide with the shift change of the prison guards, but he was discovered before
he died. Apparently he was just realized he's so fucked. Yeah. Regarding
the murders, he said, quote, everyone plead I was guilty. If
I weren't alive, I thought I could avoid being a judge guilty by the
law and thereby gained some victory. But I wasn't successful even at that.
Before I walked out into the courtroom. My counsel told me to just enter
the plea of guilty and keep my mouth shot. Afterwards, I didn't even
have a trial. Well, that's what happens because you took and took a
deal out. I'm just staying, don't cry about not having a trial and
when you're taking a plea deal. On September fifth, after further evidence was
written into the record and the prosecution and defense made some closing statements for the
sentencing, he was sentenced to three life terms. He was transferred to Statesville
Prison from the Cook County Jail. Sheriff Michael McAuley asked William if Susanne suffered
when she was killed, and William answered, quote, I can't tell you
if she suffered. I didn't kill her. Tell mister Dagnan to please look
after his other daughter because whoever killed Susanne is still out there. Stop it,
dude. Soon after all this arrest and stuff, his parents and younger
brother changed their last names to Hell. His parents divorced. Can you blame
him? No? So he was housed at Stateville Prison and Julia, Illinois,
where he learned several trades, including television and radio repair. He became
the first prisoner in Illinois history to earn a four year college degree. On
February six, nineteen seventy two, got a Bachelor's of Arts. He also
aided other prisoners educational progress by helping them earn their GEDs, and he became
what is commonly known as a jailhouse lawyer. In nineteen seventy five, he
was transferred to a minimum security correctional center in Vienna, Illinois, and then
he was transferred to another minimum security in nineteen ninety eight. He resided in
the hospital work because he suffered from diabetes and I left him with some swollen
legs and limited eyesight. He ended up being confined to a wheelchair. He
tried really hard to get clemency, but he died in twenty twelve with the
age of eighty three. Oh damn, he spent all that time. So
let me tell you what's happened as far as the case goes and the things
of his innocence. The first person that really supported his innocence besides his family
or friends was Josephine Ross's daughter Mary Jane. She just didn't believe he did
it. Really, there were twenty nine inconsistencies with William's confession and the facts
of the crime. Oh, that's not good. Twenty nine. He actually
had two polygraph exams. Both were declared inconclusive. However, in looking back
at them now, it seems as if most people believe that he passed them.
Really, as far as handwriting evidence goes, that's been examined even by
the FBI, and they concluded that the two messages, one was in lipstick
and one was at ransom note didn't match each other with the handwriting and they
didn't match williams. Oh damn that fingerprint evidence the door jam that's with a
smudge. Now, no, doesn't really remember the only nine out of twelve
points. Yeah, that's not enough they've decided. And I was talking about
the confession, like the twenty nine and consistencies. We know, we know
that a lot of people are wrongly convicted on false confession. And as I
said, some of the details they didn't match right. And since they beat
up Hector the janitor, and they did that to him, he was only
like seventeen year old boy. He may have caved and just confessed so they
would stop doing what they were doing. I don't know, there's a lot
of people that believe he's innocent because he was just a thief. Yeah,
but then there's a gun he shot at that woman and it matched. So
I don't know. But there were other suspects, yeah, and you know
about them. Yeah. One was Richard Russell Thomas. He was a male
nurse. He sometimes posed as a surgeon. Oh. He wasn't from Chicago,
though he lived in Phoenix, Arizona. However, he was in Chicago
when Suzanne was murdered, and he had been imprisoned for Arizona for molesting one
of his daughters. So yeah, he had previously been convicted of extortion,
so that kind of goes with the ransom note, right, and his handwriting
was said to be quote very similar to that of the ransom note. He
and he also even confessed to killing Susanne. He confessed, but then he
recanted it after William was arrested. He's like, oh wait, never was
signed. Yeah, He's like, I didn't William did, Yeah, so
maybe someone else did it. I don't know for Susanne at least, right,
because he just said they said that the lipstick didn't match. I don't
know, But then what are the odds of all that happening, because I
was thinking too when you were telling me about these victims. It seems kind
of strange that he kills a six year old and then he kills like two
grown women, right right, Like killers don't usually vary up their victims and
going through like the window and kidnapping. That's taking her and kidnapping and remembering
versus. Yeah, exactly right. The other one's like, oh, slit
her throat and whatever. So I don't know. This is making me feel
kind of uneasy. There might have been two killers. Yeah, it might
have been. I don't know. I don't know, but we'll never know.
I'll never know because William got convicted of it and he served till he
was eighty three years old. Yeah that's a long ass time. Maybe he
killed some of them, Yeah, maybe he did. Who knows? I
don't. I don't either, But that's the story of William Harrons. Harrons.
So I want to thank you guys all take the time, listen to
us, reach out to us by email, contact at crumbs Consequence dot com,
and let us know did he do it? Yeah? What do you
think? I don't know. I don't know. Either. I'd like to.
I'd like to say, oh, yeah, I'm glad the asshole's burning
in hid but I don't know. Sure, I mean, I can't.
I can't say that. I know, right, I don't like that.
I don't either. I'd like to be able to say some of the horrible
human being. Yeah, I don't know if he was, I don't know.
Okay, all right, and you want to do the close, sure
I can do that. You can find us on social media at Facebook and
Instagram and at Hardcore True Crime. Sorry fucked that all up, but you
get what I mean. And then if you would like to join our Patreon
where you get an extra weekly episode and you can get this episode early release
and add free, go to Patreon dot com slash TNT Crimes. You can
also find it information about it on our website, Crimes and Consequences dot com.
Or you can subscribe through your Apple podcast app if that's the way you
listen, and you will have access to so many episodes. So if you
can't get enough of us, do what you can't tell? We've done so
many, so many, so many, so any time to go home?
It is until our next episode. Don't kill each other by