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Speaker 5: You are now listening to true Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 5: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 5: written about them. Gasey Bundy Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK Every
Speaker 5: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 5: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 5: host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 2: Good evening. On a cold morning in December nineteen sixty,
Speaker 2: sixty year old Laura Munch was found strangled behind the
Speaker 2: house in downtown Erie, at a time when the gem
Speaker 2: city was at its peak, including a triumphant run for
Speaker 2: the coveted All American City Award. The murder created a pandemonium.
Speaker 2: As the investigation progressed, attacks on women in and around
Speaker 2: the city of Erie continued, sending citizens and seasoned investigators
Speaker 2: to the brink of total chaos. Infamous attacks such as
Speaker 2: the brutal stabbing of seventy two year old Clara Kerrigg,
Speaker 2: the attempted strangling and knifing of Helen Nost, and the
Speaker 2: strangling murders of Mary Lynn Crotty and Eleanor Free caused
Speaker 2: women to lock their doors and avoid the streets at night.
Speaker 2: The arrest of truck driver John Howard Willman in September
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty three. Was not the end of the story,
Speaker 2: as soon the case attracted nationwide attention, including a lawsuit
Speaker 2: by the ACLU. Just who was Erie's infamous backyard strangler
Speaker 2: with a technicality by police caused the suspected murderer to
Speaker 2: roam free again to kill more victims. Offer Justin Dombrowski
Speaker 2: charts the herowing, attacks, investigations, and mystery involving Erie's nineteen
Speaker 2: sixties reign of terror. The book they were feature in
Speaker 2: this evening is Eries Backyard Strangler Pair in the Sixties
Speaker 2: with my special guest, historian and author Justin Dombrowski. Welcome
Speaker 2: to the program, and thank you very much for this interview.
Speaker 2: Justin Dombrowski, thank you for having me, Thank you so much,
Speaker 2: and congratulations on this extraordinary book.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Now, immediately following your first book for History Press, Murder
Speaker 2: and Mayhem in Erie, Pennsylvania, you were in discussions with
Speaker 2: History Press about your next project.
Speaker 3: Well, first and foremost, I am a native of Erie, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3: I've studied local history, specializing more so, i'd say, in
Speaker 3: true crime and criminal records here in the Erie area.
Speaker 3: For just over fifteen years, I did obtain a degree
Speaker 3: from Merciers University and also worked as an interim the
Speaker 3: Erie County Detectives Unit, specializing in various different sorts of cases.
Speaker 3: So I would say that kind of background led me
Speaker 3: a little bit to creative explore the different areas of
Speaker 3: crime that have occurred in Eries history. Kind of brought
Speaker 3: me to the forefront of doing research, not only your
Speaker 3: research over the last few years, but also compiling what
Speaker 3: was my first book, Murder, Mayhem and Erie Pennsylvania, which
Speaker 3: is through History Press, and then once that was actually
Speaker 3: released last summer, received great feedback at somewell in sales,
Speaker 3: and following that, in speaking with my managing editor from
Speaker 3: my History Press, we decided the next story we would
Speaker 3: do would be a standalone through crime book, which kind
Speaker 3: of led us into Eerie's backyard. Strengthler coming into fruition.
Speaker 2: And you say that these are the crimes that included
Speaker 2: from Erie Pennsylvania from fall nineteen sixty to nineteen sixty four.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about Holland Street Horror. Your first chapter, you
Speaker 2: take us to December thirty first, nineteen sixty and George Musey,
Speaker 2: he's making a missing person's report to Detective Carl Kalinowski.
Speaker 2: And Carl Kalinowski, the detective seems odd and he recognizes
Speaker 2: him from the week before and asks him, weren't you
Speaker 2: here the week before? So tell us what he was
Speaker 2: there the week before regarding and tell us a little
Speaker 2: bit more about this report he's making on this date,
Speaker 2: December thirty first.
Speaker 3: So during the early morning hours a December thirty first,
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty, George Muscid went to the front desk of
Speaker 3: the Eria City Police Department at the time, which was
Speaker 3: in the basement of our local city hall when the
Speaker 3: old building stood. At the time, it was around four
Speaker 3: o'clock in the morning. The reason he was at the
Speaker 3: police department was because he was filing avesting person's report
Speaker 3: in regards to his mother, a six year old Laura Munch.
Speaker 3: His mother, actually George was one of the last individuals
Speaker 3: known to see her alive. He had dropped her off
Speaker 3: a church the night previous, and during the early morning
Speaker 3: hours had received a call from one of his siblings
Speaker 3: indicating that their mother had not come home. After a
Speaker 3: fruitful search of the neighborhood area there, they then were
Speaker 3: instructed by the pastor of that church that they should
Speaker 3: reach out to the police for file report. Now, the
Speaker 3: reason why Kalanowski had recognized Laura Which's son was because
Speaker 3: previously his brother Leonard, had disappeared was later found to
Speaker 3: see by a pair of young women after he had
Speaker 3: been found happened to die from exposure. And when that
Speaker 3: had happened, that family had also filed a missing person's report,
Speaker 3: So that kind of stuck fresh with Detective Kalamowski at
Speaker 3: the time, kind of made it interesting, i would say,
Speaker 3: for the most part, because here you have a family
Speaker 3: they're finiling their second missing person's report within a week.
Speaker 3: And as you touched on that fall of nineteen sixty,
Speaker 3: city of Ry had really seen an uptick in not
Speaker 3: only burglaries, but petty crime, juvenile crime including pers snashing
Speaker 3: and what we would you know, what we do come
Speaker 3: to recognize now as a tax off women.
Speaker 2: You're right that a few hours later, a woman named
Speaker 2: Charlotte Clue was inside her house but happened to look
Speaker 2: out the window and saw a body of an elderly
Speaker 2: woman on her back, her dress lifted around her waist. Anyway,
Speaker 2: there was something shoved in their mouth. She told her landlord,
Speaker 2: and the landlord called police and you say, Detective Sergeant
Speaker 2: Carl Melanewski and his partner Philip Loopo arrived at the scene.
Speaker 2: Tell us what they find.
Speaker 3: So when they arrived at the scene, which would have
Speaker 3: been at a duplex located at seven one seven Holland
Speaker 3: Street at the time, when you face the front of
Speaker 3: the duplex, to the north of the duplex, you would
Speaker 3: have a garage and there was a thin clearance between
Speaker 3: the garage and the home which would lead into an
Speaker 3: entrance into the backyard. So when both detectives arrive on scene,
Speaker 3: there are several officers there. There's a little bit of
Speaker 3: a crowd growing as the discovery of the body spread,
Speaker 3: people starting to moll around the front of the residents.
Speaker 3: As the detectives arrive on scene, they are advised that
Speaker 3: the deceased individual was in the backyard of the home,
Speaker 3: and they went back into the rear of seven one
Speaker 3: seven Hollow Street and began what we do come to
Speaker 3: see is the beginning of their cursory investigation, trying to
Speaker 3: get it just for the area, looking for any kind
Speaker 3: of evidence that was possible. At the scene, confirmed that
Speaker 3: the woman was in fact dead, and they know obviously
Speaker 3: the proper protocol was calling the county coroner, making sure.
Speaker 2: That they do what they can to preserve the scene,
Speaker 2: tell us about the condition of the body in regards
Speaker 2: to particulars in terms of the scarf.
Speaker 3: So the body when it was found, which obviously the
Speaker 3: woman would then become identified as Laura much she was
Speaker 3: there for quite some time when the body was removed,
Speaker 3: I believe earlier that morning around that which would have
Speaker 3: been the thirty first of December, around eleven o'clock is
Speaker 3: when they started the beginning process of examining photographs and
Speaker 3: removing the scarf that was found wrapped around her mouth
Speaker 3: in her throat. Now, the scarfs which would have been
Speaker 3: around her head prior to her being attacked and murdered,
Speaker 3: was intricately tied i'd say, around her mouth in a
Speaker 3: way that would have assisted in what the corner believed
Speaker 3: was obviously death by strangulation. Now, when she was found,
Speaker 3: there were some marks on her skin. She had some
Speaker 3: marks on her nose, heatbones, upper lips. There are some
Speaker 3: linear markings that were faintly observed. You know. These were
Speaker 3: more so red, slightly depressed parallel lines and more or
Speaker 3: less represented impressions or braces due to contact with clothing
Speaker 3: of that sort, which could have possibly been from the
Speaker 3: scarf for the individual that attacked her, you know, the
Speaker 3: pressure of the scarf created the pressure on his skin
Speaker 3: around her Adam's apple. All the evidence showed that the
Speaker 3: scarf was actually used pretty rudely, you know. Evidence showed
Speaker 3: that it was tightly looped around her neck. She also
Speaker 3: had additional marks on her body. There was a mark
Speaker 3: above I believe her right breast which was slightly discolored.
Speaker 3: There was a half inch laceration on her left knee.
Speaker 3: Police later believed that that was due to the fact
Speaker 3: at some point maybe she had during the attack fell
Speaker 3: onto the ground. Her knee had made contact with the ground,
Speaker 3: which was frozen and there was ice at the time.
Speaker 3: There was also evidence of sexual assault, no necessarily marks
Speaker 3: of defensive wounds. No blood was found at the scene.
Speaker 3: That was another interesting thing. They found no hairs. There
Speaker 3: was really nothing at least for the body besides the
Speaker 3: seven of fluid that was found that would indicate that
Speaker 3: a crime obviously had taken place.
Speaker 2: You chronicle at the same time, around the same time
Speaker 2: in December than the previous seventy In September seventy five
Speaker 2: year old woman was attacked. In December, women were attacked,
Speaker 2: some escaped, All of these were gave various descriptions of
Speaker 2: the perpetrator. Now you have Detective Melanowski and Detective Loopo
Speaker 2: on the case here. What is their strategy in terms
Speaker 2: of potential suspects, how do they go about finding those
Speaker 2: and what's the criteria.
Speaker 3: Well, the interesting thing was that when these numerous attacks
Speaker 3: had occurred prior to the death alre much that December,
Speaker 3: these attacks, which kind of resembled more blitz style attacks,
Speaker 3: were more similar in nature that some of the ones
Speaker 3: we'll see later in the book. Some of these attacks
Speaker 3: consisted of older or elderly women who were again they
Speaker 3: were attacked in a blitz style manner, and some of
Speaker 3: them were pulled into the back of the residence where
Speaker 3: there was either an assault that had taken a place
Speaker 3: or an attempted assault. Those individuals did flee the sea. Now,
Speaker 3: the detectives at the time had known about this, that
Speaker 3: was very fresh on their minds and it was definitely
Speaker 3: something that they were trying to combat. This type of
Speaker 3: murder from onset had all the earmarks of the similar
Speaker 3: type of attack. So the police were the opinion that
Speaker 3: those were not only connected, that the same individual was responsible,
Speaker 3: and fanning out through the neighborhood, they looked for additional clues.
Speaker 3: There was a value that ran behind seven to one
Speaker 3: seven Holland Street. It ran north bound before them, appropriately
Speaker 3: cutting i would say, eastbound behind some manufacturing buildings and
Speaker 3: other homes residences. Police also fanned out to try to
Speaker 3: find individuals who had criminal records of his sexual nature,
Speaker 3: sex offenders, individuals who were known to rape and cost women,
Speaker 3: something similar to what we see in today's society with
Speaker 3: investigating crimes. The detectives were pretty much on point back then.
Speaker 3: They knew the type of individual they were looking for
Speaker 3: with somebody and this was a sexually motivated crime. So
Speaker 3: they began pulling all these individuals in, individuals with past
Speaker 3: criminal records, Like I said, focusing on those who had
Speaker 3: a sexual nature and renown to rape women and sexually
Speaker 3: attack them.
Speaker 2: You talk about the fear that was spreading very very
Speaker 2: quickly in Erie, Pennsylvania, with a great example with the
Speaker 2: frantic Charlotte clue. The woman that had initially seen Laura
Speaker 2: Munch in the backyard called police frantic that there was
Speaker 2: a prowler in her basement, and police ran to that
Speaker 2: location immediately and found no prowler whatsoever. And soon Charlotte
Speaker 2: moved out of that location. And you talk about the
Speaker 2: fear that was spreading very very quickly while detectives were
Speaker 2: scrambling to find suspects.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was very apparent the effect that this had.
Speaker 3: And that shows two things. One that the attacks on
Speaker 3: women prior to the murder were fresh in the public's mine,
Speaker 3: at least in that area. In two, once that had
Speaker 3: escalated the murder, we saw numerous instances where husbands and
Speaker 3: boyfriends and might let their girlfriends and wives, even a
Speaker 3: sister's daughters, any kind of women, you know, we saw
Speaker 3: it uptick in them advising that you know, they would
Speaker 3: walk in groups or pairs, that women were not walking alone,
Speaker 3: would not venture out much after night. Had instances where
Speaker 3: I even had individuals tell me that they remember barricades
Speaker 3: being put up immediately afterwards, the check individuals who were
Speaker 3: leaving in and out of the city. There was the
Speaker 3: implication that maybe, you know, at the time year he
Speaker 3: was still an industrial city, maybe it was a transient
Speaker 3: passing through somebody who was a sexual offender in nature,
Speaker 3: you had women who would lock their doors. This was
Speaker 3: also evident with the local police switchboard, which was seeing
Speaker 3: a rise in phone calls from frantic housewives who were
Speaker 3: home alone and the women who claimed that there were
Speaker 3: prowlers on the residents. It definitely kept police on edge
Speaker 3: because the fact is where is this going to go next?
Speaker 3: How is it going to escalate? And that's very evident
Speaker 3: at least what we see with the local fear in
Speaker 3: the community. As you state, it keeps progressing.
Speaker 2: More and more. You're right about February twenty eighth, nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty one, and a young woman named Betty Quick is
Speaker 2: attack walking home. She gives a description. There are four
Speaker 2: more suspects picked up by police. Of course, in those
Speaker 2: days they relied on polygraph tests to basically clear people.
Speaker 2: You right, though, there was a maniac in our midst.
Speaker 2: The headline June second, nineteen sixty one and Clara Carrigg,
Speaker 2: a seventy two year old is with her mother who's
Speaker 2: ninety three. Tell us what happens when the man knocks
Speaker 2: out the door of their home.
Speaker 3: Sure so on June second, nineteen sixty one, especially what
Speaker 3: it happened is Clara Carrag rented a resident of sixty
Speaker 3: eighty sixth Street here neary, Pennsylvania. She was at home
Speaker 3: with her elderly mother, who I believe was around using
Speaker 3: her her nineties early nineties, and that morning Clara Carrigg
Speaker 3: had received a bock at the front door from what
Speaker 3: she would later recall as a younger white male. At
Speaker 3: the time, the landlord was attempting to sublet rent out
Speaker 3: the second floor of the home, which was also used
Speaker 3: as a rental property as well. She left the key
Speaker 3: with Kara Clarig and said if anybody did come by
Speaker 3: that she did have permission to go ahead to show
Speaker 3: the residents. So on getting a knock at the front door,
Speaker 3: Clara Carig is introduced by a man who said he's
Speaker 3: responding to an advertisement about her room to rent. She
Speaker 3: takes some upstairs to the second floor and immediately she
Speaker 3: is attacked, this time again as we see with the
Speaker 3: previous instances, in a blitz style type of attack. She's
Speaker 3: sexually assaulted and she is stabbed in the stomach. Now
Speaker 3: at that point Clara wakes up she had been also
Speaker 3: you know, assaulted and beaten. She wakes up discovers that
Speaker 3: she stabbed, gains the attention of her husband downstairs, who
Speaker 3: assists her before contacting the fire department at police, who
Speaker 3: then immediately respond to the scene of the accident, and
Speaker 3: then she's rushed to the hospital with what would be
Speaker 3: at the time almost considered near fatal wounds, but luckily,
Speaker 3: with you know, blood transfusions and then getting her rushed
Speaker 3: into surgery, they were able to save her life.
Speaker 2: You say that police noticed similarities between this attack and
Speaker 2: Laura Mutch's murder, I don't think correct.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a and this kind of fits into
Speaker 3: that pattern, and the early woman was attacked, although this
Speaker 3: one woman was attacked in her home, but there was
Speaker 3: this sexual assault nature, the fact that there was an
Speaker 3: attempt at murder. You know, this is following the murder
Speaker 3: of Laura munsso police had every reason they feel and
Speaker 3: believed that this individual would would murder again, have the
Speaker 3: opportunity presented itself. With some of the specifics at least,
Speaker 3: like Clara Terrik had mentioned the way that the individual
Speaker 3: had attacked her, there were similarities at least with some
Speaker 3: of the detectives department that that was done by somebody
Speaker 3: of a similar nature who's responsible for those attacks.
Speaker 2: You write that the headline was madman on the loose,
Speaker 2: and also that you write that there were widespread changes
Speaker 2: in the police department in March nineteen sixty two, and
Speaker 2: somebody that was initially on this case, Fagotsky, was the
Speaker 2: motive to patrol officer, so he retired. But also another
Speaker 2: person involved. In July nineteen sixty two, Melanowski decided to
Speaker 2: paint his house outside. He had a heart attack and
Speaker 2: died at fifty nine. And you say several days after
Speaker 2: that another woman was attacked. And you have this chapter
Speaker 2: titled Downpour of Death. July twentieth, nineteen sixty two, and
Speaker 2: Helen Noss, who's twenty seven, is visits a department store
Speaker 2: in West Eriy Plaza and she gets back to her car.
Speaker 2: Tell us what happens to Helen Nost July twentieth.
Speaker 3: So what happens on July twenty, nineteen sixty two. Helen
Speaker 3: Oss had gone to West Aria Plaza, which at the
Speaker 3: time was a popular shopping location with stores. She had
Speaker 3: gone to pay some bills. A time when she was
Speaker 3: preparing to leave to go to her vehicle, there was
Speaker 3: a downpour. At the time, rain had been thundering through
Speaker 3: the area. As she approached her car and went to
Speaker 3: go sit inside the vehicle, A young white male sat
Speaker 3: in the passenger side seat at the same time. Soon
Speaker 3: he produced a knife and essentially abducted her from West
Speaker 3: Erie Plaza into his own vehicle. The vehicle then proceeds
Speaker 3: westbound outside of the Erie city limits into the countryside
Speaker 3: in the area where we know what we call water
Speaker 3: or I'm sorry, a fairview in Pennsylvania. Now, at some point,
Speaker 3: he turns off the road onto a road called Eaton Road,
Speaker 3: pulls over, begins to mercifully beat her, and she then
Speaker 3: she blocks out. She doesn't recall anything until several hours
Speaker 3: later she awakened in a ditch on the side of
Speaker 3: the road and with her throat slit tastes her several times,
Speaker 3: and you know, she was able to muster enough strength
Speaker 3: to make it to a nearby local mom and pop
Speaker 3: gas station as we call it, where police were contacted.
Speaker 3: Emergency personnel were able to rush her to the hospital.
Speaker 3: This kind of tack, even though helen Os was different
Speaker 3: from cleric carry gi much and the fact that she
Speaker 3: was a much younger woman, younger victim. But what bothered
Speaker 3: the police was the fact is that how she was attacked.
Speaker 3: There was some evidence that there was a possible assault
Speaker 3: on her, sexual assault, which also factored into it. So
Speaker 3: now you had the residence of the city ari who
Speaker 3: had been on fear for a year and a half,
Speaker 3: so on and so forth. Now as it was spreading
Speaker 3: into the count So that kind of escalates at that
Speaker 3: time the fear in that area. But it also sees
Speaker 3: the introduction of Pennsylvania State Police in that investigation.
Speaker 2: You also say that Helen was able to make a
Speaker 2: composite drawing which was released, and this was a unique
Speaker 2: sketch in many ways for the description that she had
Speaker 2: for that composite, didn't she.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was really And the thing is the police
Speaker 3: had worked with nos for some time on the composite
Speaker 3: sketch because of the individual. And the interesting thing is that,
Speaker 3: you know, as you'll see, as the audience will see
Speaker 3: in the book, there were numerous other attacks that were
Speaker 3: just like the abduction and attack on Hollanos that occurred
Speaker 3: even as far away as Buffalo, New York. So you know,
Speaker 3: with the State police being involved, you know, one of
Speaker 3: their thoughts was this as an individual who you know,
Speaker 3: he has means to an automobile, he has the ability
Speaker 3: to travel. So there was the hope that, you know,
Speaker 3: if this individual matched somebody, whether they were in Erie
Speaker 3: County or nearby state of Ohio or New York, that
Speaker 3: that could possibly lead to an arrest, and the composite
Speaker 3: itself was very detailed. Police also went ahead and released
Speaker 3: additional details of the inside of the individual's vehicle what
Speaker 3: that would have looked like as well. Unfortunately, those yielded
Speaker 3: no conclusive clues, but it definitely did provide an interesting
Speaker 3: description of the attacker himself. You know, the fact is
Speaker 3: in the paper started calling him the slasher, which also
Speaker 3: kind of plays into that fact that the press. One
Speaker 3: thing I remember being told and called as my professor says,
Speaker 3: if it bleeds, it leads, and that's certainly something that
Speaker 3: applied to these cases, because you know, not only do
Speaker 3: you have these attacks and murders occurring against women in
Speaker 3: the area creating the sphere, but you have the press
Speaker 3: with these sensational headlines that kind of takes in and
Speaker 3: then puts it into overdrive.
Speaker 2: I wanted to mention the incredible photos that are that
Speaker 2: are part of this extraordinary book, and you provide that
Speaker 2: composite drawing in your book as well, along with an
Speaker 2: incredible array of photos from that time right to say
Speaker 2: the slasher is has surfaced. But from that it seems
Speaker 2: that the police think they have their first real break,
Speaker 2: don't they.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The thing is with this, you have not only
Speaker 3: and this is kind of where we see not only
Speaker 3: the difference in the different jurisdictions of police departments that
Speaker 3: operated and investigating these crimes, but we start to see,
Speaker 3: you know, the area city police detect us believe one thing,
Speaker 3: state police believe another thing. You kind of see that
Speaker 3: little bit of the fraying at the edge there between
Speaker 3: its departments. And that's something that we see even today
Speaker 3: with different crimes that at Sometimes you'll have jurisdictions that
Speaker 3: don't necessarily cooperate or share information because they don't think
Speaker 3: it's relevant. First and foremost. Now with that, it also
Speaker 3: was interesting because they think, oh, well, we finally got somebody.
Speaker 3: Erie City police said, say police off the bat did
Speaker 3: not feel was connected to the crimes that have occurred
Speaker 3: in the city of Erie. Clara Kerrig, although she survived,
Speaker 3: her descriptions of her attack, we were not really consistent
Speaker 3: and being what we know now by witness identification, it's
Speaker 3: kind of easy to see, you know, especially when you
Speaker 3: have victims who survived trauma, how much they can compartmentalize
Speaker 3: the attacks themselves, how much that can actually hinder actually
Speaker 3: what really occurred. So the fact that they had already
Speaker 3: had a woman that survived this, This was you know,
Speaker 3: a younger woman who you know, state police would come
Speaker 3: to find. She was pretty consistent with her description of
Speaker 3: her attack, and the police certainly wanted to get it right.
Speaker 3: When they did that, they felt that, hey, it was
Speaker 3: a matter of time released this composite, sketchy released, you know,
Speaker 3: an extremely detailed background, nobody was wearing, what he looks like,
Speaker 3: what the inside was vehicle. Is that they felt it
Speaker 3: was a matter of time before he was arrested.
Speaker 2: You have a chapter called Silk Stockings and Dangerous Desires.
Speaker 2: There is a friend, Margaret Wren's, and she hasn't seen
Speaker 2: her friend, Eleanor Free, forty one year old, for a week.
Speaker 2: So she's very concerned, and so she calls Eleanor's daughter.
Speaker 2: Then a locksmith is called. What did they find and
Speaker 2: how do police proceed with this latest murder?
Speaker 3: So with that that actually involves a murder that occurred
Speaker 3: here in hearing. The body of Eleanor Free was found
Speaker 3: on December seventeenth, nineteen sixty two. Investigators believe, obviously it
Speaker 3: occurred prior to that, that was a murder that was
Speaker 3: coined here infamously as the silk Stocking Sling. So Margaret
Speaker 3: Rentz and her husband and a local locksmith who was
Speaker 3: in the area, had gained access to Eleanor Free's home,
Speaker 3: went upstairs to the second floor and found Eleanor Free
Speaker 3: decease in the upstairs bedroom. Police were contacted, probably arrived
Speaker 3: on scene and ultimately find this Free, who was a
Speaker 3: woman who was separated from her husband at the time.
Speaker 3: You see the cease on the second floor tied up
Speaker 3: with stalking essentially around her throat, which was then in
Speaker 3: some way tied elaborately to her door. This kind of
Speaker 3: murder itself. Any I think seasoned detective will look at
Speaker 3: it and say, hey, you know, there's obviously similarities between
Speaker 3: this and the murder of Laura Much the attacker and
Speaker 3: cleric Krrig and Helenos. But the police, at least back
Speaker 3: then that their due diligence, and that was one of
Speaker 3: the the interesting thing was investigated all these attacks and
Speaker 3: crimes as if they were investigated by it, as if
Speaker 3: they were perpetrated by the same individual, right, you know
Speaker 3: my method of elimination. Gradually, with the Free murder, they
Speaker 3: came to suspect a acquaintance of first who was known
Speaker 3: as mister X due to the fact of how he
Speaker 3: signed some greeting cards, and he eventually became the prime suspect,
Speaker 3: which with police eventually not believing it was related to
Speaker 3: the much murder.
Speaker 2: Right, and they always believed he was responsible, but could
Speaker 2: never prosecute him for the murder.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is correct. Eventually the gentleman came close to
Speaker 3: supposedly confessing to the murder itself. But even up until
Speaker 3: they re opened the case in early two thousands, of
Speaker 3: police we're pretty confident in the evidence of support that
Speaker 3: that was more of a personal murder in nature. You know,
Speaker 3: the evidence confirmed that the stocking actually wasn't used to
Speaker 3: actually strangle her. That was in But the thing is,
Speaker 3: at time when Elner Free's body is found, a tectives
Speaker 3: noted that the way it was wrapped around here kind
Speaker 3: of reminded them, at least with the knots and all
Speaker 3: that it was similar to lore much so, like I said,
Speaker 3: police were definitely on top of at least doing your diligence,
Speaker 3: at least looking at everything as if it was done
Speaker 3: by the same individual, gradually saying okay, well, the evidence
Speaker 3: kind of moves us in the direction that this individual
Speaker 3: known as mister X, who is the gentleman who eventually
Speaker 3: was identified as Clifford Salo as a male acquaintance of hers,
Speaker 3: is actually responsible for it. We don't believe much as
Speaker 3: murderer is responsible. So it definitely, you know, they're kind
Speaker 3: of filtering out what's possibly related and what's not.
Speaker 2: Let's use this justin as an opportunity to stop for
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Speaker 2: Logistics dot ca use promo code true murder in the
Speaker 2: subject line of your email. So today I know your
Speaker 2: friend Dan sent you main Street Logistics front of the
Speaker 2: line anywhere anytime now, justin we were just about to
Speaker 2: talk about your chapter. A corpse in Axe Murder Hollow
Speaker 2: And a person named Dan Scala gets a call from
Speaker 2: his sister in law's husband, David Kratey, and there's something
Speaker 2: seriously wrong. He bequested Scala, come but not tell anyone.
Speaker 2: Tell us what happens here with Lynn Kroatey and this story.
Speaker 3: So Dan Scaler goes to the residence of David and
Speaker 3: Martha Krotty on January twentieth, nineteen sixty three. It is
Speaker 3: at the residence that mister Scala is advised by his
Speaker 3: brother in law that his niece Mary Lynn Crotty, known
Speaker 3: by the family effectually as Lynn, was missing the night prior.
Speaker 3: She had supposedly gone out with a friend had never
Speaker 3: returned home. And you know that kind of created a
Speaker 3: little bit of panemonium amongst the family because it was
Speaker 3: out of the Ordinary Floord. Lynn Crotty at the time
Speaker 3: was a student at Edinburgh College. She when she was missing,
Speaker 3: set off a series of events in which Scala and
Speaker 3: Karate then reached out to the young woman who was
Speaker 3: with Lynn Krotti the night before, Paul Atte Sewinski, and
Speaker 3: they learned that they were out with two gentlemen, Daniel
Speaker 3: baby Kauser and John Harvey. And eventually what they would
Speaker 3: come to find out is that, you know, they went
Speaker 3: out to several places, indulged in a few alcoholic beverages,
Speaker 3: and then at some point baby Guser drove Lynn Krotate home,
Speaker 3: or so he claimed. He claimed that she was feeling sick.
Speaker 3: He dropped her off close to her her residence. Hadn't
Speaker 3: seen her since now. At the time, Lynn Krotti's father
Speaker 3: enlists the assistant of a gentleman by the name of
Speaker 3: Lewis Penman, who was an investigator from the Pennsylvania State
Speaker 3: Police lived the block away. Mister Penman arrives at the
Speaker 3: Karate residence speaks with the parties, and at that time
Speaker 3: John Harvey and Daniel Babykuser had arrived at the Karate home.
Speaker 3: Penman speaks with both of them separately and then together.
Speaker 3: At the time, Penwin did not notice any inconsistencies in
Speaker 3: their statements anything that would give him any kind of alarm,
Speaker 3: But at the end of the conversation he did tell
Speaker 3: the both men that, you know, they needed to provide
Speaker 3: lin Krotti's whereabouts. By the end of the day, you know,
Speaker 3: there's no essians or about it. Eventually, the trail leads
Speaker 3: back to Daniel Biby Kauser and once they meet up
Speaker 3: with him the following day, Louis Penman had asked byby
Speaker 3: Kauser permission to search his vehicle. Upon searching the vehicle,
Speaker 3: he locates a crew drawing of a woman essentially in
Speaker 3: bondage and some other things that they kind of trouble him.
Speaker 3: They take baby Kauser back to not necessarily the station,
Speaker 3: but they took him back to at least Lawrence Park
Speaker 3: questioned him there further. Bibe Kauser eventually had would go
Speaker 3: on to admit that lin Kartti was in fact deceased,
Speaker 3: and at that point, from the Lawrence Park Police Department,
Speaker 3: you have Lewis Penman and additional investigators traveled to the
Speaker 3: spot where biby Gauser claimed that he killed her. At
Speaker 3: the time, he was still trying to claim that he
Speaker 3: blacked out didn't fully remember what happened. He then placed
Speaker 3: her in the back of his trunk. And then this
Speaker 3: was the most I would say heartbreaking part of it
Speaker 3: is that while while Lynn's family was looking for her outside,
Speaker 3: essentially a police would come to realize Lynn was just
Speaker 3: nearby in the back of this trunk and they didn't
Speaker 3: know it. Later that night, at some point, the Kauser
Speaker 3: admits to then taking the body and driving out to
Speaker 3: an area of Mill Creek Township here down Thomas Road.
Speaker 3: Locals call it exe Murder Hollow, and it is a
Speaker 3: known lover's lane even when I was a high school student,
Speaker 3: you know, that was someplace kids went to indulged underage
Speaker 3: drinking and other means. And it was an area where
Speaker 3: he then conveniently dumped the body. He took police to
Speaker 3: the body of which they were able to locate, and
Speaker 3: afterwards John Dan Biby Kauser was charged with murder. Now
Speaker 3: again this is sort of a little bit different. You know,
Speaker 3: this is Daniel Biby Kauser's an individual who murdered somebody
Speaker 3: who he knew that wasn't a complete stranger to him.
Speaker 3: So there's a little bit different victimology than Laura much
Speaker 3: and Clara Carrick, Ala Moss and nom are free. But again,
Speaker 3: the fact that she was strangled, the fact of how
Speaker 3: he attacked, and they would also come to speak with
Speaker 3: a miner who is sexually assaulted by Bibig Kausler. There's
Speaker 3: that sexual element to the crime. There's a strangulation, you know,
Speaker 3: two key things that occurred with Laura Much. So police
Speaker 3: again doing their due diligence and saying, hey, you know,
Speaker 3: we need to rule this guy out, we need to
Speaker 3: question him about the murders. Obviously, Baby Causer is later
Speaker 3: cleared in any kind of involvement. But as audiences will
Speaker 3: see later on Bibig Kauser's mentality, his victimology, the way
Speaker 3: he went about things, red flags all over the place.
Speaker 3: He was an individual and then as a young child,
Speaker 3: set fire to a garage, indulged in sexual fantasies, young
Speaker 3: in life, pretty much all the earmarks you have of
Speaker 3: a modern day serial killer. So police, definitely, I would
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say they got lucky, but they did an
Speaker 3: excellent job in being able to apprehend him because it's
Speaker 3: most certainly he used another dangerous individual that operated in
Speaker 3: this area that had the potential to continue to do that.
Speaker 2: And what about the connection with Laura Much's death.
Speaker 3: So eventually police came to the conclusion that there was
Speaker 3: no real connection. They did give him a light of
Speaker 3: TECH test. BBA Kauser denied any kind of responsibility for that.
Speaker 3: But there is the fact is is the police still
Speaker 3: did come back to the notion of we have this individual.
Speaker 3: He attacks women in a sexual manner, he strangulates them.
Speaker 3: While he was in a military he did come back
Speaker 3: home on lea several times in the erie. We haven't
Speaker 3: been able to place those dates, you know, if he
Speaker 3: was here around at any time of those attacks. So they
Speaker 3: questioned him at length. Felt pretty comfortable that with how
Speaker 3: BBA counsel admitted to murdering Lynn Crotty and his other
Speaker 3: crimes and stuff like that, they felt that the evidence
Speaker 3: did not support him as being responsible for that homicide.
Speaker 2: You read about the abduction from the tally Ho Bar
Speaker 2: July fifth, nineteen sixty three and Davida Boyer, fifty two
Speaker 2: year old, and what this leads to. John Howard Wilman
Speaker 2: tell us about that.
Speaker 3: So that part of the story is actually the big break
Speaker 3: that the police were hoping for. It the big break
Speaker 3: in this whole case. And this is also kind of
Speaker 3: where it gets stranger is with the induction and assault
Speaker 3: of Davida boy Or, a woman in July nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 3: She's at a local boyer called the Tally Home. Later
Speaker 3: that night, at closing time, she leaves with an individual
Speaker 3: who offers to take her home in his pickup. As
Speaker 3: he's driving her home, she realizes he's not taking a home.
Speaker 3: Something's up. Eventually, this individual takes her to the Bayfront
Speaker 3: here in Erie nexus to the vehicle and begins to
Speaker 3: assault her. And it's pretty brutal, and the information we
Speaker 3: have is actually from Davida Boyer's testimony itself. It's pretty graphic.
Speaker 3: Her attacker attempts to shove his hand down her throat
Speaker 3: and strangulate her, remove her underwear, essentially try to sectually
Speaker 3: assault her and kill her. During this attack, he tells
Speaker 3: her that he murdered somebody similar who would not give
Speaker 3: into his demands essentially, so to speak. The testimony itself
Speaker 3: has a little bit more colorful language, of course, But
Speaker 3: after that, Davida Warrior does make an opportunity to be
Speaker 3: able to break free from the attack, which he does.
Speaker 3: At the time, she is intoxicated, so you know, as
Speaker 3: she's you know, trying to get away from this individual.
Speaker 3: There are several witnesses would later testify at the trial.
Speaker 3: Did they chalk it up to just a woman and
Speaker 3: a man having a disagreement, you know that alcohol was involved.
Speaker 3: Police eventually are called the individual in the truck please
Speaker 3: the scene. Police arrive speak with the Vita Boyer and
Speaker 3: they take her down to the station. They attempted to
Speaker 3: take her first back to the Taliahoe bar to try
Speaker 3: to speak with any potential witnesses who could verify what
Speaker 3: this individual look like, but the bar was closed at
Speaker 3: that time. Detective that responded to the scene took her
Speaker 3: back to the headquarters to try to get a statement,
Speaker 3: but because she was still intoxicated, let her sleep it
Speaker 3: off for the night. So she provides the information and
Speaker 3: then detectives who are a science at the case, eventually,
Speaker 3: you know, they go to the Talioho bar speak with individuals,
Speaker 3: try to get a little bit more of a feeling
Speaker 3: as to what had transpired. Essentially, detectives who were working
Speaker 3: as a team, which were Charles McCurdy and Melvin Swanson.
Speaker 3: They come across a waitress at the tally Ho a
Speaker 3: name of Irene Fogel. If Fogel was able to give
Speaker 3: them a pretty accurate description of the man who left
Speaker 3: with the Vieta boyer because he had attempted to get
Speaker 3: her to go with him or have drinks with him,
Speaker 3: something along that nature, so he was fresh in her mind.
Speaker 3: So that kind of you know, led to police believing, hey,
Speaker 3: you know that this sounds promising. But at the time
Speaker 3: police also did not announce the details that the Vieter
Speaker 3: boyer told him about this man, admitting that he murdered
Speaker 3: a woman who refuses essentially have sex with him, which
Speaker 3: you know, again that leads back to the murder of
Speaker 3: war much. But at this time we see the same
Speaker 3: kind of essential victimology. We see a elderly, older woman
Speaker 3: where her attacker is able to take advantage of her,
Speaker 3: an attacker in a blitz silent attack and you know,
Speaker 3: attempt to essentially murder her. So at that point what
Speaker 3: happens is police tell Irene Fogel, they say, well, are
Speaker 3: you able to splot this man again? She you know,
Speaker 3: she's pretty confident that if she saw him again, she
Speaker 3: would let them know, and he was a rate. He
Speaker 3: had been in that bar before, but he also frequent
Speaker 3: in many bars and downtown Erie police would later find out.
Speaker 3: So in July thirteenth, well, Irene Fogel is downtown with
Speaker 3: a friend of hers. She spots the same individual. She
Speaker 3: contacts police, please send out Swanson and McCurdy again. They
Speaker 3: do a cursor research in the area through several different
Speaker 3: bars there. At one point they regroup at a bar
Speaker 3: plot their next step, and as they are leaving this establishment,
Speaker 3: spot a gentleman who's confirmed by Irene Fogel walking towards
Speaker 3: him as the individual she saw leading with the Vita
Speaker 3: boy Or the night she was attacked. They approached the individual,
Speaker 3: tell me he's under arrest. He does not fight arrest,
Speaker 3: he does not He goes willingly in the station. He's
Speaker 3: identified as John Howard Woman, a local truck driver. Later
Speaker 3: that night they have Irene Fogel identify him. They also
Speaker 3: bring into Vida Boyer, and at first, interestingly enough, she's
Speaker 3: not able to identify him. She had a little bit
Speaker 3: of difficulty with it, but after some time, John Howard
Speaker 3: Woman admits to attacking da Vida Boyer. He gives a
Speaker 3: statement which he kind of deflects, you know, the blame
Speaker 3: onto his victim, which she is pretty common in these situations.
Speaker 3: And then afterwards he admits to detectives that he did
Speaker 3: something bad, and when he's pushed further, he admits to
Speaker 3: murdering law and which now at that time this is
Speaker 3: something that is kept under wraps, and this just creates
Speaker 3: a huge portion of the case where we see the
Speaker 3: involvement in the ACLU, and it really really kind of
Speaker 3: escalates things I would say, once they have women in.
Speaker 2: Custody, let's use this as an opportunity to stop for
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Speaker 2: So you say that they have him in custody, and
Speaker 2: there is the issue that comes up later, and it's
Speaker 2: an important issue, is that at the time when you
Speaker 2: were arrested, you were not afforded in an attorney until
Speaker 2: you were charged. So there was a period of time
Speaker 2: between the arrest and when you might be or when
Speaker 2: they were in custody and then you would be charged.
Speaker 2: This became an issue in this particular case, didn't it.
Speaker 3: It most certainly did because after John Howard Woman is
Speaker 3: arrested and held, he's held primarily for the attack on
Speaker 3: Davida Bowyer, not the murder of Laura much detectives would
Speaker 3: get a confession out of him in that murder, but
Speaker 3: it lacked any kind of main details as to what happened. Also,
Speaker 3: it created difficulty in this situation is, as we discussed,
Speaker 3: there's no evidence at the crime scene of Laura Mush. Eventually,
Speaker 3: what happens is the only thing that ties John Howard
Speaker 3: Woman's dest scene or his own words. Now, eventually police
Speaker 3: are able to quickly recognize John Howard Woman is a
Speaker 3: little mentally, he's slow, he's got a low IQ. You know,
Speaker 3: he doesn't have that much of an education. I believe
Speaker 3: you only went up to school to middle school before
Speaker 3: he dropped out. He police would learn he did serve
Speaker 3: with National Guard. He was stationed overseas in Germany. And
Speaker 3: the interesting thing but that is, at the whole time
Speaker 3: detectives are telling him, hey, look, you do realize that
Speaker 3: you know, we're trying to get to the bottom of
Speaker 3: what happened. We want you to be truthful. Did this happen.
Speaker 3: At no point does he deny any responsibility for the
Speaker 3: murder of war much. But the difficulty in that is that,
Speaker 3: you know, this is pre what we call miranda, before
Speaker 3: police had to, at least here in America, had to
Speaker 3: read your miranda rights. You know, you have the right
Speaker 3: to remain silent. You know, anything he's saying, can we'll
Speaker 3: be used against you in an attorney, so on and
Speaker 3: so forth. You know, we'll be afforded if you cannot
Speaker 3: afford one. So at that point, although they were advising
Speaker 3: Wollman that he didn't have to speak with him, they
Speaker 3: were not legally required to say do you want an attorney?
Speaker 3: And the argument they would use is that woman didn't
Speaker 3: ask for an attorney, He was not allowed to see
Speaker 3: his family right away. They fed him, they took him
Speaker 3: back to the scene where Much was murdered. That didn't
Speaker 3: offer any additional information or any kind of clues. And
Speaker 3: then eventually John Howard Willman is transferred to the Erie
Speaker 3: County Jail here, which at the time was behind the
Speaker 3: At County Courthouse. His family starts to visit him, and
Speaker 3: one of his sisters, who actually works at a law office,
Speaker 3: starts to kind of connect the dots to say, you're
Speaker 3: not going to hold John for a simple sexual assault
Speaker 3: for this long someho else. Eventually, police detectives informed John
Speaker 3: Wilman's siblings and their spouses that he is being investigated
Speaker 3: for the murder of Laura Much And essentially what happens
Speaker 3: is they then take a second statement, and after the
Speaker 3: second statement in September of nineteen sixty three, the district
Speaker 3: attorney at the time reviews all the so called evidence
Speaker 3: they have against women, which again consists primarily of just
Speaker 3: this two statements with us, and they then decide to
Speaker 3: press charges against John Howard Woman for the murder of
Speaker 3: Laura Much. Now this creates an immediate issue because the
Speaker 3: ACLU catches wind of it, and for the amount of
Speaker 3: time that Willman was incarcerated, they claim that he was
Speaker 3: he was not afforded his constitutional rights to counsel. So
Speaker 3: this sets off of public legal battle between ACLU and
Speaker 3: the Erie County District Attorney. And you have some individuals
Speaker 3: who are worried because this isn't the individual that attacked,
Speaker 3: you know, and killed Laura, butch might have been responsible
Speaker 3: for other ones. What if he gets free at the technicality,
Speaker 3: you know, So there's that thing that's going on in
Speaker 3: the back of the mind that the locals who live
Speaker 3: here in Erie. But it also sets a precedent because
Speaker 3: it takes the police investigation, puts it in front center
Speaker 3: with those that live here in Erie about what was
Speaker 3: going on, what happened. Eventually, you know, it's ruled that
Speaker 3: John Howard Willman, according to the judges here, that his
Speaker 3: confessions were obtained legally and despite the fact that he
Speaker 3: had a low IQ where they were allowed it in his
Speaker 3: evidence essentially, which would then culminate in his trial in
Speaker 3: February nineteen sixty four.
Speaker 2: But as you write that, there is people like the
Speaker 2: ACLU that get on board and other people, and of
Speaker 2: course the appeals process, and you chronicle all that from
Speaker 2: the initial trial in nineteen sixty four to the eventual retrial.
Speaker 2: Let's get to talking about another individual that you cover
Speaker 2: in here named Ralph William Rogers and how he enters
Speaker 2: this story.
Speaker 3: So, Ralph William Rodgers is an interesting individual, and this
Speaker 3: case itself is interesting because this crime occurred when John
Speaker 3: Howard woman was already incarcerated waiting for his day in court. So,
Speaker 3: but that case it involves is the death of Marian Graham,
Speaker 3: and that essentially occurred, I would say so on January
Speaker 3: twenty ninth, nineteen sixty four, a truck driver spotted up
Speaker 3: something outside the road that looked like a body. He
Speaker 3: excess a semi and serves what he appears to see
Speaker 3: what it actually is a body. It's of a nude
Speaker 3: woman partially obscured behind a tree. Police are contacted involved,
Speaker 3: including some of the individuals from the Pennsylvania State Police
Speaker 3: who are involved in the abduction and attempted murder of
Speaker 3: Helen Oss. They investigate the crime itself and Rogers is
Speaker 3: eventually charged with that murder. Now that one is interesting
Speaker 3: because they believe that Graham was either strangled or she
Speaker 3: was suffocated as eventually and then Rogers over time would
Speaker 3: change his confession, you know, in front of law enforcement,
Speaker 3: and that one was included merely because because of the
Speaker 3: Rogers was known as a prowler, he was known to
Speaker 3: attack women. And that's one of the fascinating thing with
Speaker 3: this case is that, you know, you have all these
Speaker 3: different attacks on women. Not all of them are connected.
Speaker 3: It's pretty clear that we can separate which ones are
Speaker 3: related which ones aren't. But some individuals can necessarily be
Speaker 3: excluded from some of the crimes, some of them can.
Speaker 3: So Rogers fits into that profile. The fact that there
Speaker 3: is a sexual element to it. You know, you're not
Speaker 3: gonna just murder a woman, take all her clothes off
Speaker 3: and throw her out in the cold, you know, for
Speaker 3: just if you're gonna robb her or something like that.
Speaker 3: We know that, So that occurs, you know obviously well afterwards,
Speaker 3: but there's still that kind of a hesitating factor of
Speaker 3: some people who believe. You know, at the time, you
Speaker 3: had members of the public who didn't think women was responsible.
Speaker 3: So that kind of fed into that fear narrative that
Speaker 3: maybe the police have the wrong guy, and that kind
Speaker 3: of culminates in the trial itself, especially when the prosecution
Speaker 3: and the reason why the prosecution had fought so hard
Speaker 3: to keep those confessions in because without the confession, John
Speaker 3: Howard Wolman is not incarcerated for the murder of war much.
Speaker 3: He essentially only serves for the attack on Davida Boyer
Speaker 3: and he's just another dangerous individual in the streets. Some people.
Speaker 2: You're right that the fact that John Howard Willman, Daniel
Speaker 2: Roy big big Hauser, and Ralph William Rodgers were all
Speaker 2: convicted for similar crimes during a period when more than
Speaker 2: fifteen known women were attacked or assaulted, with those responsible
Speaker 2: unknown is truly frightening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and it definitely sets a precedent, at
Speaker 3: least here in Erie area at the time, is that
Speaker 3: similar crimes, especially with three different individuals, was very rare.
Speaker 3: You know. The only other time I think we've ever
Speaker 3: seen something like that is LA when you had the
Speaker 3: Hillside Strangler, you know, running around the same time is
Speaker 3: Roddney Alkalo and all these other killers at the same time.
Speaker 3: This is really interesting because also with these three individuals,
Speaker 3: and the most important of this is John Howard Wolman
Speaker 3: is a middle aged man or even a young man
Speaker 3: like that, doesn't just wake up one day and say
Speaker 3: I'm going to go kill somebody and I'm going to
Speaker 3: go strangle them, and there's going to be the sexual elegment.
Speaker 3: There's a build up to that, you know. We see
Speaker 3: that with Daniel biebick Hawser with his past history. We
Speaker 3: see the red flags, you know, with with you know,
Speaker 3: setting fires, killing your animals, we see the sexual element.
Speaker 3: There's the element with Ralph Rodgers where you see, you know,
Speaker 3: he's an unprowler. There's a sexual element with how he
Speaker 3: killed Mary and Graham, which to this day there's still
Speaker 3: some unanswered questions. That's also evident when he is able
Speaker 3: to get out of prison later in life, what does
Speaker 3: he do He attempts to rape and rape an assault
Speaker 3: a woman before he commits suicide. John Howard woman doesn't
Speaker 3: really fit that mold essentially to some extent. Now, the
Speaker 3: difficult thing is that, you know, there are some inconsistencies
Speaker 3: with the Vida Boyers statement that she gives the police.
Speaker 3: We know that. But the thing is is evidence obviously
Speaker 3: supports there's evidence, at least at least conclusively supports that
Speaker 3: John Howard Woman did attack to Vida Boyer, he attempted
Speaker 3: to commit a sexual assault on her. But there are
Speaker 3: the inconsistencies and concerns with him as an individual. For example,
Speaker 3: the police claim that John Howard Woman tied in front
Speaker 3: of them, how he tied the scarf around Laura Much
Speaker 3: and strangled her. But then you have people who served
Speaker 3: with him in the National Guard said he couldn't even
Speaker 3: tie his shoes, he couldn't tie a tie. That was
Speaker 3: also by his family members. And then but then again
Speaker 3: you kind of switch back with John Howard Woman that
Speaker 3: in the fifties he was found sitting in a parked
Speaker 3: vehicle wearing women's clothing. So there's that kind of there's
Speaker 3: still that kind of sexual element there where, even if
Speaker 3: you have a little bit of doubt, was John Howard
Speaker 3: Woman capable of doing it? Absolutely, he presented all the
Speaker 3: different homemarks for it. But the thing is is that
Speaker 3: we also you know again, you know, if John Howard
Speaker 3: Woman murdered Laura Much and he attempted to almost murder
Speaker 3: to beat a bowyer, that's a pattern, you know, these individuals,
Speaker 3: especially you know in the early thirties You don't just
Speaker 3: wake up and start doing that. There has to be
Speaker 3: you know, there's somebody that precludes that. You know, there's
Speaker 3: a record that you know follows that, and there was
Speaker 3: nothing of that at least when he was stationed in Germany.
Speaker 3: He wasn't reprimanded. He there was no disciplinary actions during
Speaker 3: his record there. He didn't attack women that was known of.
Speaker 3: And that's not to say it didn't happen, but he
Speaker 3: out of the three individuals who was convicted for these
Speaker 3: crimes in this time, he's probably the lone wolf of
Speaker 3: the bunch that there's still some unanswered questions about.
Speaker 2: What about the claim by the family. You don't really
Speaker 2: explore it except you show it in terms of that
Speaker 2: they in the winter time used to put plastic and
Speaker 2: nail up the windows just because of the weather. So
Speaker 2: they said he couldn't have got out of that home
Speaker 2: without them knowing, right, And.
Speaker 3: That's also one of the other difficult things. And this
Speaker 3: is something that we see cases. At least, I think
Speaker 3: it's pretty clear that had this case on the trial
Speaker 3: the way it did them now, he wouldn't have been convicted.
Speaker 3: There's no evidence that essentially ties to it. Besides the profession,
Speaker 3: but his family brought up that the only way that
Speaker 3: John would have been able to leave that night to
Speaker 3: murder or which to go to a bar and drink
Speaker 3: and meet her on his way home, was he would
Speaker 3: have either had to leave the house in front of them,
Speaker 3: in which everybody was up later that night, or he
Speaker 3: would have had to have gone through the window in
Speaker 3: the back of the house where his room was, which
Speaker 3: was untouched. When police came and searched the property there,
Speaker 3: they looked at it, and of course, you know, we're
Speaker 3: talking about something that occurred almost three years before, so
Speaker 3: you know, things can change, people can replace things, you know.
Speaker 3: But that coupled with the fact that even the bartender
Speaker 3: who worked at Huck's Cafe, where John Howard woman claims
Speaker 3: he was at drinking the night that he left and
Speaker 3: then met Laura Mush on the way home, couldn't conclusively
Speaker 3: put him there. He remembered him as a frequent visitor
Speaker 3: there and a frequent patron, but you know, there's no
Speaker 3: evidence putting him there at that establishment. So that creates
Speaker 3: some of that reasonable doubt. But then again it also
Speaker 3: goes back to the prosecution's case relying solely on these
Speaker 3: two confessions where he puts himself there.
Speaker 2: Essentially, you're right that Willman was released and returned to Erie,
Speaker 2: resided with his siblings, and died at eighty six years
Speaker 2: old in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he eventually, he did the rest of his time.
Speaker 3: He does not appear in any criminal records, anything in
Speaker 3: a newspaper, and that appears who lives a quiet life
Speaker 3: when he returned home, lived with his siblings. I did
Speaker 3: reach out to some of his family members. Has one
Speaker 3: sibling left. He has a sister who lives in Florida.
Speaker 3: But after some time he did enter a nursing home
Speaker 3: and passed away there. And this kind of goes back
Speaker 3: to that troubling thing is well, you have an individual
Speaker 3: who supposedly has a history of a tax on women.
Speaker 3: You know, and again this is not to doubt the
Speaker 3: investigations that happened. I mean know, we're essentially also going
Speaker 3: based off of what the police had at the time,
Speaker 3: you know, without forensics, right, you know, we're looking at
Speaker 3: the fact is this as an individual who if he
Speaker 3: attacked Laura Mush, he attacked to be a bowyer, if
Speaker 3: he has that history of sexual assault, we all know
Speaker 3: those types of individuals, you know, they don't get out
Speaker 3: of prison and they're not cure. There's there's usually a
Speaker 3: high recommittal rate for that for those individuals, because they'll
Speaker 3: get back out again and they recommit after doing the
Speaker 3: same offensive. There's none of that, at least what we
Speaker 3: can see with John hard Woman. When he comes back
Speaker 3: to Eerie, he doesn't you know, he's not arrested by police.
Speaker 3: There's no further incidents with him. Ironically, when he's buried,
Speaker 3: he's buried less than one hundred yards from where Laura
Speaker 3: Musch is buried in the same cemetery.
Speaker 2: You talk about that this reign of terror existed in
Speaker 2: the same sixties, but at the dawn of the seventies,
Speaker 2: you say the attacks ended and seemed like things got
Speaker 2: somewhat back to normal.
Speaker 3: And here Pennsylvania, yeah, I mean there was definitely afterwards.
Speaker 3: I mean there was additional attacks on women. There was
Speaker 3: a woman I believe it was around sixty five. Her
Speaker 3: name was Myrtle Ball. She was was was beaten to
Speaker 3: death by it by a local man after a night
Speaker 3: of drinking. That case resulted in a conviction for that individual.
Speaker 3: But you know, after that, they hit the attacks themselves
Speaker 3: kind of died down at least, so specific types of
Speaker 3: attacks and we don't really see them occurring again. You know,
Speaker 3: we see all these other different types of attacks, you know,
Speaker 3: muggings against women, petty juvenile thievery and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: but not to the nature of what happened at least
Speaker 3: during the beginning of this book. So leads you to believe,
Speaker 3: you know, was the individual truly apprehended, who was responsible
Speaker 3: for all that did day up and leave and go
Speaker 3: somewhere else and continue it elsewhere. You know, those are
Speaker 3: you know, lingering questions that you know we'll probably never know.
Speaker 3: But police tried to be subjective to the fact that
Speaker 3: I wanted to present everything more with an unbiased point
Speaker 3: of view and then leave you, the viewer or the audience,
Speaker 3: to make up your own assumption, ask your own questions.
Speaker 3: I think that's the best way for us to revisit
Speaker 3: some of these cases. And I think there's clear there's
Speaker 3: a lot of red flies with a lot of these
Speaker 3: you know, you can draw numerous parallels. If these individuals
Speaker 3: can be placed in the area all at the same
Speaker 3: time is very likely if they're still responsible for some
Speaker 3: of them, at least that's just going to be that
Speaker 3: enduring mystery that lives on.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I want to thank you very much, Justin dem
Speaker 2: Breski for coming on and talking about Erie's backyard strangler
Speaker 2: terror in the sixties. Can you tell us about any
Speaker 2: social media you do and tell us a little bit
Speaker 2: about Pickwick Entertainment?
Speaker 3: Sure. So, I do run a Facebook page called Shadows
Speaker 3: from the Boulevard, which focuses on local Erie history more
Speaker 3: primarily on local true crime, historical true crime here in
Speaker 3: the Erie area. I've run that for just over a
Speaker 3: year and a half. It allows me to pretty much
Speaker 3: be able to share all the research I've done upcoming projects,
Speaker 3: including some upcoming books that I'll be working on in
Speaker 3: regards to Pickwick and entertainment. That is a company that
Speaker 3: I co founded with two good film friends of mine,
Speaker 3: Gavin Pritti and Ed Mantel, independent film production company. We've
Speaker 3: worked on some projects for.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: It also is part of a background of my work
Speaker 3: in the film industry, which has been since twenty eleven,
Speaker 3: done some screenplays, worked unofficially on some films and so yeah,
Speaker 3: so I mean there's definitely that film moment with the
Speaker 3: background of what I've done, which essentially, could we've been
Speaker 3: exporting the possibility of doing at least docu dramas or
Speaker 3: so on and so forth.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Justin Dombrowski Aries, Backyard Strangler tear
Speaker 2: in the sixties, Thank you so much. You have a
Speaker 2: great nig name.
Speaker 3: And good night, thank you too,