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Speaker 3: Lupadian You are now listening to True Murder, the most
Speaker 3: shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that
Speaker 3: have written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer.
Speaker 1: The Nightstalker DTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about
Speaker 1: the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history.
Speaker 1: True Murder with your host journalist and author Dan Zupanski,
Speaker 1: Good Evening, the story of a woman whose ambition and
Speaker 1: accomplishments far exceeded the expectations of her time. Eighteen Tiny
Speaker 1: Deaths follows the transformation of a young, wealthy socialite into
Speaker 1: the mother of modern forensics. Francis Glessner Lee, born a
Speaker 1: socialite to a wealthy and influential Chicago family in the
Speaker 1: eighteen seventies, was never meant to have a career, let
Speaker 1: alone one steeped in death into pravity. Yet she developed
Speaker 1: the fascination with the investigation of violent crimes and made
Speaker 1: it her life's work. Best known for creating the nutshell
Speaker 1: Studies of Unexplained Death, a series of dollhouses that appear
Speaker 1: charming until you notice the micabrel little details, an overturned
Speaker 1: chair or a blood spattered comforter, And then, of course,
Speaker 1: there are the bodies splayed out on the floor, draped
Speaker 1: over chairs, clothed in garments that Lee lovingly knit with
Speaker 1: sowing pins. Eighteen Tiny Deaths, by official biographer Bruce Goldfarb,
Speaker 1: delves into Lee's journey from grandmother without a college degree
Speaker 1: to leading the scientific investigation of unexpected death out of
Speaker 1: the dark ear finds of centuries old techniques and into
Speaker 1: the light of the modern day.
Speaker 4: Lee developed a system that used the nutshells dioramas to
Speaker 4: train law enforcement officers to investigate milent crimes, and her
Speaker 4: methods are still used today. Eighteen Tiny Deaths transports the
Speaker 4: reader back in time and tells the story of how
Speaker 4: one woman who should never have been allowed into the
Speaker 4: classroom she ended up teaching in changed the face of
Speaker 4: science forever. The book they're featuring this evening is eighteen
Speaker 4: Tiny Deaths, The untold story of Francis Glessner Lee and
Speaker 4: the invention of modern forensics, with my special guest, journalist
Speaker 4: and author Bruce Goldfarb. Welcome to the program, and thank
Speaker 4: you very much for this interview.
Speaker 2: Bruce goldforbe Hi, Dan, thank you for having me. Thank
Speaker 2: you very much.
Speaker 4: This is an incredible story and I'm sure the audience
Speaker 4: is going to love it. Let's I know this isn't
Speaker 4: really the order, but let's go to twenty twelve, and
Speaker 4: there's twelve or more editors as you write, touring the
Speaker 4: State of Maryland's state of the art Forensic Medical Center
Speaker 4: in Baltimore, and you were all working at a organization
Speaker 4: of a bunch of news sites that were owned then
Speaker 4: by AOL Huffington Post. Tell us about the circumstances in
Speaker 4: which you came to experience in twenty and twelve the
Speaker 4: nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. Tell us about this whole
Speaker 4: experience and what it led to and how you came
Speaker 4: to be the author of eighteen Tiny Deaths.
Speaker 2: Well, as you say, I had been for many years
Speaker 2: committing journalism. I had actually written about the Nutshells many
Speaker 2: years ago, in nineteen ninety two, so I had a
Speaker 2: familiarity with the Medical Examiner's Office. I had visited several times,
Speaker 2: but it was in twenty twelve when I was writing
Speaker 2: for Patch, these hyperlocal news sites, and there was a
Speaker 2: gentleman in my community that I covered who worked at
Speaker 2: the Medical Examiner's Office. He was the director of it,
Speaker 2: named Mike Eagle, and he's a very interesting fellow and
Speaker 2: a firefighter ex military paramedic, and I just sort of,
Speaker 2: you know, had we sort of developed the Sprint relationship,
Speaker 2: and I asked Mike to the State of Maryland had
Speaker 2: just built, it was completed in twenty ten, this brand new,
Speaker 2: really state of the art, futuristic forensic medical center, and
Speaker 2: I asked Mike to arrange for a tour for us,
Speaker 2: and so we did, and we looked around and they
Speaker 2: had this gorgeous, brightly lit autime suites and the whole
Speaker 2: biosafety suite and the laboratories, and we saw the we
Speaker 2: were in the training facility for forensic investigators that was
Speaker 2: donated by Patricia Cornwall, the novelist, and it's just basically
Speaker 2: a studio apartment where death scenes are staged for training purposes.
Speaker 2: And he happened to mention, oh, by the way, we
Speaker 2: have this position that we're trying to fill looking for
Speaker 2: an executive assistant for the chief who would be a
Speaker 2: public information officer, and they're they're looking for somebody with
Speaker 2: a some medical experience, preferably media background, who you know,
Speaker 2: was comfortable dealing with the you know, law enforcement, government officials,
Speaker 2: the public and these sorts of things. And it honestly
Speaker 2: sounded written for me. I couldn't think of anybody else
Speaker 2: who is more we're suited for that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: And so I applied and it did take a while
Speaker 2: or the state has quite a hiring system, but I
Speaker 2: got the job, and so I it was just just
Speaker 2: having the opportunity to be in the building where the
Speaker 2: nutshells were located was an absolute thrill. But I became
Speaker 2: friends with Jerry D Jerry DJ Howitz, who is the
Speaker 2: fellow who keeps the keeper of the nutshell secrets, and
Speaker 2: he basically asked me to you know, you can take
Speaker 2: care of now, this is your problem. You can change
Speaker 2: the light bulbs, you can deal with it. That would
Speaker 2: be great. So I did, and I collected documents and photos.
Speaker 2: They're just it was extraordinary, and had the opportunity to
Speaker 2: really look at them very closely like I've never had
Speaker 2: before inside the cabinets and examined them and those sorts
Speaker 2: of things. So it really gave me an opportunity to
Speaker 2: gain a you know, deep appreciation form. And also through
Speaker 2: the job, I met Francis Glesler Lee's family, her descendants,
Speaker 2: great grandchildren, uh and great nieces and nephews, and these
Speaker 2: sorts of things. They'd come and visit, and I most importantly,
Speaker 2: I met William Tyer, who was the director and curator
Speaker 2: of the Glasner House in Chicago, which is now a museum.
Speaker 2: And you know, people would they visit, they're they're just
Speaker 2: fascinated by the nutshells and they'd ask, you know, well,
Speaker 2: you know, is there a biography? How can I learn
Speaker 2: about her? And and there wasn't one. And so, you know,
Speaker 2: Bill and I had talked about how unfortunate it was
Speaker 2: that there's so much misinformation about her online, in print,
Speaker 2: and so it became really obvious that somebody would have
Speaker 2: to write a biography. It hadn't been done. And I
Speaker 2: was in a position I sort of had a bigger picture.
Speaker 2: Not only you know, I had a sense of who
Speaker 2: she was, but how she fit into the whole issue
Speaker 2: of the Forrenzy death investigation. So that's how I got
Speaker 2: pushed in that direction.
Speaker 4: As you write in the book, and this is very important. Obviously,
Speaker 4: let's go back in history to the and explain the
Speaker 4: coroner system itself that was in its origins and it's
Speaker 4: a practical application in the United States.
Speaker 2: Take us back, well, the coroner system the coroner, the sheriff,
Speaker 2: the constable, and the justice of the peace. These are
Speaker 2: all officials that are actually a whole blovers from the
Speaker 2: Middle Ages. They date from the medieval England the twelve
Speaker 2: hundreds thirteen hundreds, and the coroner in particular was he
Speaker 2: was the royal, the judicial officer, judicial representative for the crown,
Speaker 2: the monarchy, and so his main responsibility was to collect
Speaker 2: things that were owed to the crown. He was first
Speaker 2: called a crowner, which ended up getting corrupted into corner,
Speaker 2: but that's what he was. He represented the crown, and
Speaker 2: so they did things like investigated shipwrecks and treasure troves,
Speaker 2: they seized royal fishes, and they also happened to investigate deaths,
Speaker 2: mainly to see if it were if it was a
Speaker 2: homicide or a suicide. Because there are a number of
Speaker 2: penalties and fines. There was, uh just a whole wacky
Speaker 2: system of penalties that were uh that they had to
Speaker 2: pay for various things such as when a body was found,
Speaker 2: it had to be accompanied at all times. If you
Speaker 2: if you didn't stay with the body, uh, there was
Speaker 2: a fine for that, and you couldn't move the body,
Speaker 2: you couldn't bury it. Now, back in these days, it
Speaker 2: wasn't uncommon for it to take days or maybe even
Speaker 2: weeks for a corner to actually show up. And that
Speaker 2: and the body had they had to view the body
Speaker 2: where it was. So it was you know, understandably quite
Speaker 2: tempting to perhaps bury it or you know, cover it
Speaker 2: with views and things. If you buried the body, there's
Speaker 2: a fine for that too. So if it turned out
Speaker 2: that the person had taken their own life, uh, suicide
Speaker 2: was a crime against the crown, and so you sacrifice,
Speaker 2: they would confiscate all your property and all your belongings
Speaker 2: and that and that's what they did. So it wasn't
Speaker 2: the corner doesn't have to have any medical training, doesn't
Speaker 2: have to have any background in law or anything like that.
Speaker 2: They would do things by impaneling a corner's inquest and
Speaker 2: having people vote on whether it was an accident, homicide,
Speaker 2: active god or whatever.
Speaker 4: You would also you also write that the jurors would
Speaker 4: be forced to be at that crime scene or at
Speaker 4: a crime scene to observe the body. And as you're right,
Speaker 4: there's that's problematic in and itself in terms of crime solving.
Speaker 2: It is and back in the day of course, the
Speaker 2: inquest jury were whoever was locally there at hand. Any
Speaker 2: adult male was eligible to sit on an inquess jury.
Speaker 2: Back in the day, an adult male is age twelve
Speaker 2: or older. So you know, many of these people they
Speaker 2: may have been neighbors, they could they could have been witnesses,
Speaker 2: they could have been related to the decedents and so uh.
Speaker 2: And of course these are for the most part illiterate
Speaker 2: farmers with no particular training, and so they were. There
Speaker 2: was a requirement it's called the uh supervisium couporus or corporus.
Speaker 5: UH.
Speaker 2: They were required to u pine view of the body.
Speaker 2: They were required to look at the body, really examine
Speaker 2: it and look for wounds and these sorts of things.
Speaker 2: But you know, absence any sort of medical training, there's
Speaker 2: really not too much that a person, you know, untrained
Speaker 2: person can tell just by looking at a at a
Speaker 2: dead body. So you know, it's it's not It leaves
Speaker 2: a lot to be desired.
Speaker 4: You write about nineteen forty four and you offer a
Speaker 4: statistic one point four Americans died in nineteen forty four,
Speaker 4: and you say one in five were unexpected in sudden deaths.
Speaker 4: And of these a small fraction one or two percent
Speaker 4: were investigated by qualified medical examiners doctors again, as you say,
Speaker 4: with specialized training to determine cause and manner of death.
Speaker 4: At the time, only a few places like Boston, New York, Baltimore,
Speaker 4: and Newark had competent medical examiners. Tell us what the
Speaker 4: state of the system, the coroner system meant in practical
Speaker 4: terms in nineteen forty four in most of the US.
Speaker 2: For most of the American history, the United States was
Speaker 2: on the coroner system. When the North America was colonized
Speaker 2: by the Europeans, they brought over English common law with them,
Speaker 2: so we are in the corner system since the colonial
Speaker 2: days and up until the first medical examiner was in
Speaker 2: Boston in eighteen seventy seven, there was very very little progress.
Speaker 2: From eighteen seventy seven up until you know, the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 2: so nineteen forty so you know, for a long long
Speaker 2: time progress was very, very painfully slow. And the coroner system,
Speaker 2: it really is unfortunately, you know, it's really set up
Speaker 2: for corruption, bribery, kickbacks, incompetence, indifference. The corners were often there.
Speaker 2: In some places. They still are elected to office, the politicians,
Speaker 2: and they run for office or the appointed by political people,
Speaker 2: So the qualifications for the job really had more to
Speaker 2: do with your political loyalties and affiliations rather than competence
Speaker 2: or dedication to the job, or proficiency or those sorts
Speaker 2: of things. So that was true for most of the country. Now,
Speaker 2: you know, there were no doubt, very good, well intended,
Speaker 2: decent men of good intentions serving as coigners, doing the
Speaker 2: best they could. But they didn't have any particular training
Speaker 2: in what we would consider forensic science. So you know,
Speaker 2: but it's still was a fun, scientific, less than satisfactory
Speaker 2: way of something as serious as determining the cause of
Speaker 2: somebody's death really merits Hello.
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Speaker 4: As you write, let's talk about Francis Glessner Lee, her parents,
Speaker 4: the influence of her parents, her father and her mother,
Speaker 4: and the unusual or non typical childhood that she had
Speaker 4: and when she first thought she had a passion for medicine.
Speaker 2: She was. Francis was her parents, John Jacob Gleisner and
Speaker 2: her mother, Francis Macbeth Glessner. John Jacob owned a piece
Speaker 2: of He was in the agricultural machinery business, owned a
Speaker 2: company that was a part that became part of International Harvester,
Speaker 2: and really pretty fabulously wealthy by any standard. And so
Speaker 2: they they had two children. Francis was born in eighteen
Speaker 2: seventy seven. Her older brother, George, was seven years older.
Speaker 2: He was born just days before the Chicago fire. And
Speaker 2: so they were homeschooled, and the Glassners had the means
Speaker 2: to afford the finest instructors that they could fine, and
Speaker 2: their children were trained in music and art and dance
Speaker 2: and the classics and languages and literature and you know,
Speaker 2: the natural sciences. And they both played instruments and horseback
Speaker 2: writing lessons and dance lessons and all these things. And
Speaker 2: so by the time that they reached the age majority,
Speaker 2: by the time they reached adulthood, they had been provided
Speaker 2: in education at fire or fire seated anything and any
Speaker 2: that would be provided in the house school. Francis didn't
Speaker 2: go beyond that. She ended up getting married at age
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty years old, and you know, was headed towards
Speaker 2: the life of a of a you know, an upper
Speaker 2: middle class, a wealthy wife. Her brother went to Harvard
Speaker 2: Medical School, and I'm sorry he didn't go to Harvard
Speaker 2: Medical School. He was actually in the business school. But
Speaker 2: he went to Harvard and he met this a friend
Speaker 2: who was a medical student, George purchasman Grave, And she
Speaker 2: had had even as a child, she'd had an interest
Speaker 2: in medicine. She had a really rather harrowing experience having
Speaker 2: her cansels removed when she was a young child, and
Speaker 2: that sort of peaked her interest in medical care. She
Speaker 2: went with her doctor, the country doctor up in New
Speaker 2: Hampshire and his rounds tending to people and those sorts
Speaker 2: of things, and so she really didn't have an opportunity
Speaker 2: to act on these things until much later in life.
Speaker 2: There is a story that you read online that she
Speaker 2: was forbidden from going to college by her parents and
Speaker 2: these sorts of things, which is absolutely not true. There
Speaker 2: was only one place that she wanted to go to school,
Speaker 2: and that was Harvard Medical School. That she would have
Speaker 2: it was Harvard or nothing. They were a Harvard family,
Speaker 2: and her husband went there. Blewet Lee and her brother
Speaker 2: went to Harvard, and George McGrath went to Harvard, and
Speaker 2: even HH Richardson, who was the architect of the Chicago home.
Speaker 2: He was a Harvard guy, so they were a Harvard family,
Speaker 2: and Harvard did not admit women until nineteen forty five,
Speaker 2: so that was out of the question. So she mister changes.
Speaker 4: She was married, as you say to this blew at Lee,
Speaker 4: but she tired of the marriage or it didn't work
Speaker 4: out in her mind and was unfulfilling, as you write,
Speaker 4: and so that led her to indulge, we'll say, or
Speaker 4: explore her artistic passions and interests. The family was very
Speaker 4: interested in art, but especially interested in music and the
Speaker 4: symphony in Chicago. Tell us what she does in terms
Speaker 4: of the interest in those regards.
Speaker 2: Well, her mother, Francis macbeth, was an amazing, remarkable woman.
Speaker 2: She was a silver smith. She was a very talented seamstress,
Speaker 2: and she taught Francis from the earliest childhood in all
Speaker 2: sorts of needle work, sewing, knitting, crochet, and these sorts
Speaker 2: of things, and so it was like second nature to
Speaker 2: her the whole family. Francis what she's what she was,
Speaker 2: you know, she made her own clothes and these sorts
Speaker 2: of things. As an adult, she made her choke clothes
Speaker 2: for her children, and they were very uh uh. They
Speaker 2: were uh doleinated to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. They were
Speaker 2: big fans of the of the cultural arts, in particular,
Speaker 2: particularly the symphonic music, and so they they went to
Speaker 2: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra a lot, and they had personal
Speaker 2: relationships with the conductor and many musicians, and they often
Speaker 2: had the entire orchestra to their home for dinner and
Speaker 2: these sorts of things, and so sort of on a whim,
Speaker 2: her her mother had remarked, how wonderful would it be
Speaker 2: just to have the orchestra here, you know, all the time,
Speaker 2: in the house. And so that got Francis to thinking
Speaker 2: to recreate the entire Chicago Symphony orchestra. Inure she did.
Speaker 2: There were ninety figures, all in the scale of one
Speaker 2: inch to one foot, and she made the clothing evening
Speaker 2: evening dress with a little carnation in the lapel, and
Speaker 2: the musical instruments some were fabricated, some were acquired. A
Speaker 2: little small harp was made for her by a harp company,
Speaker 2: along with a little k sport and everything, and this
Speaker 2: thing ended up being eight feet long. She had a
Speaker 2: carpenter create a raised podium stairstep podium like that, and
Speaker 2: She did this entire thing, the ninety pieces in ninety days.
Speaker 2: That was three months of work. So a year or
Speaker 2: so later she did a quartet, the Flanseelee Quartet, which
Speaker 2: was a huge deal. They're sort of the food fighters
Speaker 2: of string quartets of the day, and she did those
Speaker 2: four pieces in the same scale. And so this was,
Speaker 2: you know, this was part of her background. This is
Speaker 2: what people did miniatures with much more of a thing.
Speaker 2: Her neighbors. She had a neighbor and a friend.
Speaker 4: You were.
Speaker 2: Our listeners may be familiar with Narcissa Thorn the Thorn Rooms.
Speaker 2: That are these well known miniatures that are on exhibit
Speaker 2: at the Artistitute of Chicago and Francis Plesner Lee and
Speaker 2: Narcissa Thorn were friends and neighbors and contemporaries, but dalhouses
Speaker 2: and miniatures were much more within They're quite popular today,
Speaker 2: but it was much more common back then.
Speaker 4: Now you write about her obsession to detail, and that's
Speaker 4: going to be important to everything that she does, is
Speaker 4: that a need to have incredible detail and control. And
Speaker 4: she's very very persistent and very very energetic in her pursuits.
Speaker 4: Tell us how she comes to know our brother meets
Speaker 4: George McGrath, as you her brother George Well tell us
Speaker 4: how she comes to find out more about what McGrath
Speaker 4: is all about and what he's interested in, and what
Speaker 4: their relationship develops into from that point.
Speaker 2: It's really very quite interesting because she had, as you said,
Speaker 2: she had been married for a while. It didn't stick.
Speaker 2: It was not a happy marriage, and they separated or
Speaker 2: the divorced, and she was sort of looking for something
Speaker 2: to do. In World War One, she volunteered with a
Speaker 2: home in a settlement home in Boston for a soldiers
Speaker 2: returning from World War One, and she had the sense of,
Speaker 2: you know, public public service. She said that she felt
Speaker 2: that she had been born with a silver spoon in
Speaker 2: her mouth, and she'd never had to work a day
Speaker 2: in her life for what she had, and she felt
Speaker 2: some a need to do something for others to justify
Speaker 2: her existence. And through the nineteen twenties she operated an
Speaker 2: antique shop with her daughter, But by nineteen twenty nine
Speaker 2: she's really at a deep point in her life. Her daughter,
Speaker 2: she closed up the antique shop. Her daughter got married
Speaker 2: and weren't doing that any longer. She had her some
Speaker 2: health problems, and her brother had died. Her only sibling,
Speaker 2: and summer of nineteen twenty nine, she was just really
Speaker 2: in a funk, and she was in the hospital recuperating
Speaker 2: from a surgical procedure at Phillip's house in Boston, and
Speaker 2: who should be there at the same time, hospitalized recuperating
Speaker 2: with George Burgess McGrath, who unfortunately had siulitis in both
Speaker 2: of his hands, a very very serious condition, and he
Speaker 2: was being treated to that. And so they they're old friends.
Speaker 2: They hadn't seemed really hung out like that in decades,
Speaker 2: but they knew each other when she was a teenager,
Speaker 2: and there she was in middle age and it's pretty much,
Speaker 2: you know, her dearest friend at that point that she'd
Speaker 2: no longer than anybody else. And McGrath really seemed to
Speaker 2: accept Francis in a way that nobody else did, really
Speaker 2: sort of got her and appreciated that how smart she
Speaker 2: was and well read she was, and they had all
Speaker 2: these common interests in music and arts and culture and
Speaker 2: these sorts of things. So no doubt they had some
Speaker 2: fascinating conversations. But they're recuperating their Phillips house. And now
Speaker 2: McGrath was a pathologist, and near as I can tell,
Speaker 2: he was the first pathologist to be appointed as a
Speaker 2: medical examiner. So he was actually the first firmns a
Speaker 2: pathologist in Boston nineteen oh seven. And he had this
Speaker 2: reputation as a crime doctor. And he was the medical
Speaker 2: examiner on that the nineteen nineteen Boston molasses disaster, that
Speaker 2: horrible thing when the tank ruptured and all these people
Speaker 2: were killed. He was the medical examiner Asacho and Vanzetti
Speaker 2: case he investigated by Bruce's first wife, she died on
Speaker 2: the mysterious circumstances and a few really high profile cases
Speaker 2: Florence Small and those sorts of things, and so you know,
Speaker 2: she was absolutely fascinated. You know, these were conversations of
Speaker 2: things of substance, you know, I mean she had been
Speaker 2: for years going to you know, social events and decorative
Speaker 2: arts society and talking about engraving and these sorts of things.
Speaker 2: But this was, you know, things that really mattered. And
Speaker 2: she came to realize that nobody was doing this. There
Speaker 2: was this yawning need for a modern medical model of
Speaker 2: death investigation and nobody was doing it. Nobody was filling
Speaker 2: that need. And it really did turn her mind that
Speaker 2: McGrath really planted the seed in her mind that eventually
Speaker 2: grew into supporting what was then called legal medicine, now
Speaker 2: called forensic medicine and forensic science, and she spent the
Speaker 2: rest of her life towards that purpose to modernize how
Speaker 2: dests are a sudden and unexpected or investigated in the
Speaker 2: United States.
Speaker 4: Now she decides that this George McGrath is far ahead
Speaker 4: of his time, and she's very interested. They have these mutual,
Speaker 4: respectful conversations with her ideas being expressed, and even though
Speaker 4: she's not had a high school diploma, he's taking her
Speaker 4: very very seriously. What do they What does she decide
Speaker 4: to do with her wealth and her tenacity, What does
Speaker 4: she endeavor to do on behalf of George McGrath and
Speaker 4: this new idea about instituting a department of legal medicine.
Speaker 2: Well, one thing that that got her going. One thing
Speaker 2: she did was she could She started reading everything she
Speaker 2: could get her hands on, and she started reading the
Speaker 2: literature what there was, and criminal justice, uh and forensic science,
Speaker 2: those sorts of things sort of getting up to speed.
Speaker 2: She was a voracious reader. I mean, this woman was amazing.
Speaker 2: She was fluence in German, French, Latin, you know, so
Speaker 2: she was reading uh texts in their original you know,
Speaker 2: these European texts in their original language. And she started
Speaker 2: out by simply giving a money to Harvard to underwrite
Speaker 2: a profession of professorship that she had intended to be
Speaker 2: for doctor McGrath, a professor of legal medicine. And so
Speaker 2: she donated some money to to Hrvard and McGrath, by
Speaker 2: that point was in the sixties, he unfortunately had health
Speaker 2: issues and his health was declining.
Speaker 4: And so.
Speaker 2: She then in sitting down with doctor McGrath, and a
Speaker 2: lot of it was from Francis's own mind. She she
Speaker 2: had a real grasp, she had an ability to really
Speaker 2: integrate this information, and she really understood what was what
Speaker 2: was needed and that you know, in order to in
Speaker 2: order to move away from the corner system to a
Speaker 2: medical examiner system, you really need. It depends on three
Speaker 2: fundamental things. And the one you need to have You
Speaker 2: need to have the manpower. You need to have doctors
Speaker 2: who are qualified and trained who are there to serve
Speaker 2: as medical examiners. You also need laws reformed and changed
Speaker 2: to abolish the corner system, abolish corner inquests, implement medical
Speaker 2: examiner system, and places that had the medical examiner system,
Speaker 2: to reform the laws, to give them more autonomy, more authority,
Speaker 2: get them involved earlier in the process, and these sorts
Speaker 2: of things. And then the third component was that you
Speaker 2: need to address the first responders, which in this case
Speaker 2: are the police officers. They're the ones who go to
Speaker 2: death scenes. Sometimes they're the only people who are at
Speaker 2: death scenes, and so the things that happen at the
Speaker 2: scene can influence everything else that happens. They don't know,
Speaker 2: you know, don't move the body, don't pick up the weapon,
Speaker 2: don't walk through blood, you know, these sorts of things.
Speaker 2: But there was no training, and so they're sort of
Speaker 2: clumsy and untrained, and so that was very important to
Speaker 2: teach police officers and other people who were involved in
Speaker 2: death investigation these tools of forensic science. So she, you know,
Speaker 2: wrote down a multiple page I believe it was like
Speaker 2: nine pages long, an outline of what a Department of
Speaker 2: Legal Medicine would do, and really in those pages encapsulated
Speaker 2: an entire medical specialty area of medical practice forensic medicine
Speaker 2: and with training uh a training program undergrads, a series
Speaker 2: of lectures for undergraduates students to do medical students more
Speaker 2: familiar with post warding changes and these sorts of things
Speaker 2: and perhaps interest them in the field to work as
Speaker 2: a medical examiner, a fellowship program to train people in
Speaker 2: forensic medicine, to work medical exembers, to do research. You
Speaker 2: need to have a laboratory. You need to have a
Speaker 2: reference library, which she was working on. You need to
Speaker 2: have a photography collection or to study from, and these
Speaker 2: sorts of things. So she had this whole vision of
Speaker 2: what this academic medical department should be. And what did
Speaker 2: she do? And then she put her money over her
Speaker 2: mouth is and she gave the equivalent of around three
Speaker 2: point eight million dollars if you were to adjusted for inflation,
Speaker 2: to do just that and to start this whole program,
Speaker 2: and to start the national search to find somebody to
Speaker 2: replace George Broduce mcgrant and get the whole ball rolling.
Speaker 2: And so that's what she did, and she spent a
Speaker 2: great deal of her fortune towards those ends.
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Speaker 4: we were talking about this Legal Medicine Department, Department of
Speaker 4: Legal Medicine at Harvard, her money being influential some of
Speaker 4: the many of the ideas that she wants to institute
Speaker 4: are being adopted. As a result, she doesn't like taking
Speaker 4: no for an answer. She employs as many people on
Speaker 4: her behalf to be able to get this done. This
Speaker 4: is her passion to get this done. Now, you talked
Speaker 4: about McGrath being in poor health and there needed to
Speaker 4: be a replacement. Who does she find and what is
Speaker 4: this person's qualifications? In her mind to be able.
Speaker 2: To do this, she convinced Harvard to put together a
Speaker 2: committee to do a search nationwide search for a candidate.
Speaker 2: And the problem was that there was, well, for one thing,
Speaker 2: there was nobody else qualified in the United States, and
Speaker 2: there was no medical school doing that kind of training
Speaker 2: to produce a person of another forensic pathologist. And so
Speaker 2: what they thought to do is to find some very
Speaker 2: very bright young pathologists who then they could then send
Speaker 2: to Europe for a fellowship for a two year fellowship
Speaker 2: at the capitals of forensic science in Europe. And they
Speaker 2: settled on a young doctor at the Pathology Institute in Cleveland, Ohio,
Speaker 2: affiliated with the Case Western University, and by the name
Speaker 2: of Alan Moritz. And he was third third in line
Speaker 2: at the Pathology Institute, which had been established by the
Speaker 2: Rockefeller Foundation is as a as a model of a
Speaker 2: of a pathology institute that provided all the hospitals in
Speaker 2: Cleveland and really served as a model throughout the country
Speaker 2: as a European model of an institute. And so he
Speaker 2: had sort of hit a wall with his career there
Speaker 2: at the at the institute, and was rather intrigued by
Speaker 2: the prospect of doing something entirely new in pathology, although
Speaker 2: he wasn't really familiar with the area that you know,
Speaker 2: the the legal medicine aspects of pathology. They through some negotiations,
Speaker 2: were able to persuade him to uproot his family from
Speaker 2: Cleveland and come to Boston, and he immediately set off
Speaker 2: on a fellowship in Europe, went to Edinburgh, all throughout
Speaker 2: you went to Paris and Egypt, Cairo, all over, and
Speaker 2: just on the on the brink of World War two,
Speaker 2: they had to sort of make a hasty retreat when
Speaker 2: when war broke out. Uh And then he returned and
Speaker 2: implemented these these concepts and mcgrat's concepts and sort of
Speaker 2: you know, put together this curriculum at Harvard and built
Speaker 2: the program from the ground up and and began doing
Speaker 2: these things and training training young doctors in forensic medicine
Speaker 2: and and those sorts of things. So Mart's got the
Speaker 2: whole ball rolling and got it going.
Speaker 4: Now the other ways that that brand Glessener Leith believed
Speaker 4: that to further the interest and the cause itself of
Speaker 4: this Department of Legal Medicine, she tried and met with
Speaker 4: all kinds of people to try to forward her ideas.
Speaker 4: You talk about meeting the Perry Mason author, you talk
Speaker 4: about filmmakers. Maybe we're jumping ahead a little bit, but
Speaker 4: tell us some of the pursuits that she did endeavor
Speaker 4: to try to further this cause.
Speaker 2: We in the nineteen thirties, she visited jaeg Or Hoover,
Speaker 2: barged her way in, charmed her way in, but she
Speaker 2: got a meeting with Hoover. Hoover is notoriously unkind to
Speaker 2: the opinion of women, fired all the female special agents
Speaker 2: and forbid them from serving in that capacity, and didn't
Speaker 2: hold them in particularly high regard. But yet, you know,
Speaker 2: the this elderly wealthy woman came calling and he gave her,
Speaker 2: you know, had a meeting with her, and and she
Speaker 2: was trying to convince him. And she thought that the
Speaker 2: FBI was in a position to be. She wanted, she
Speaker 2: wanted the FBI to do for forensic medicine what it
Speaker 2: was doing with fingerprints, to have to be a national
Speaker 2: resource sort of like the way the crime Lab is now,
Speaker 2: that it would you know, be able to serve police
Speaker 2: departments throughout the country and consulting cases and those sorts
Speaker 2: of things. Uh. And and you know, she pointed out
Speaker 2: to to whoever at the time that the FBI really
Speaker 2: didn't have a lot of strength and legal medicine, forensic medicine,
Speaker 2: and and it's true today it's never really not where
Speaker 2: their strength is. And so he really had he at
Speaker 2: the time was developing this was just after the Lindberg
Speaker 2: baby kidnapping, So he was working in uh getting the
Speaker 2: CRAME lab off the ground, and was developing the training center.
Speaker 2: And I just don't think that he had any interest
Speaker 2: at all in forensic medicine, and for whatever reason didn't.
Speaker 2: But she, you know, she really had. And this is
Speaker 2: what she wanted to develop at Harvard was to make
Speaker 2: a you know, a real national institute with a nationwide
Speaker 2: capability and help the police departments all throughout the country.
Speaker 2: And and that sort of thing never ever has yet
Speaker 2: to come to be but she was. It was very
Speaker 2: very important to raise public awareness. You know, people knew
Speaker 2: and McGrath had told her this, and people knew the
Speaker 2: sorts of horrible things that went on after somebody dies,
Speaker 2: that people would be outraged and shocked and they would
Speaker 2: demand change. So that was a really a big part
Speaker 2: of her mission was to she would you know, she
Speaker 2: was an elderly woman with health problems, but she was
Speaker 2: a relentless speaker at club all throughout New England and
Speaker 2: hitting the road and the small clubs and societies and
Speaker 2: trying to convince people and approaching newspaper people to write
Speaker 2: about it. And she thought the Earl Sandy Gardner, you know,
Speaker 2: he was at the time the top selling author in
Speaker 2: the United States, and you know what better person to
Speaker 2: bring this to the American public if you could, if
Speaker 2: you could convince Earl Sandy Gardner and you know present
Speaker 2: that in one of his books, what that would do
Speaker 2: for the profession would just be measurable. So, you know,
Speaker 2: that was part of her mission was to reach ultimately,
Speaker 2: to reach the public.
Speaker 4: There was a numerous conversations between doctor Morrits and and Lee,
Speaker 4: and there is talk about the difficulties that and even
Speaker 4: Doc McGrath, George McGrath had had said the same things,
Speaker 4: spells the same sentiment that there was difficulties. The one
Speaker 4: major difficulty that he discussed with francis what was that
Speaker 4: and what light bulb? What idea was set off in
Speaker 4: her mind at that time?
Speaker 2: At that time, are you asking about how to practice
Speaker 2: observing a crime scene the scenes? Yes? And what that
Speaker 2: led to? Yes? Yeah, you know it's she had she
Speaker 2: had brought this up with McGrath, that the idea had
Speaker 2: been brought up earlier. Uh when she and Maritz Uh
Speaker 2: they at first considered doing like a two year program,
Speaker 2: doing some sort of program and police science kind of thing.
Speaker 2: It didn't get a whole lot of interest in that
Speaker 2: the police officers didn't have their requisites for that. But
Speaker 2: they divided. They really really intense week long seminar in
Speaker 2: homicide investigation and in developing the curriculum, which has changed
Speaker 2: very little to this day. It covers all varieties of
Speaker 2: types of death and suffocation and sharp force injuries and
Speaker 2: blunt force injuries and suffocation and all these things, and drowning,
Speaker 2: observing evidence and all these things. But you know, one
Speaker 2: of the most census for police officers. One of the
Speaker 2: most important pieces of it is the scene itself, because
Speaker 2: you don't want to tamper anything, you don't want to
Speaker 2: change anything. And you know, Morris sort of kind of
Speaker 2: you know, he said, well, you know, there's there's never
Speaker 2: a crime there's never a crime scene when you need one.
Speaker 2: And that's also an issue they just learned. You know,
Speaker 2: it would be great to take everybody to a real
Speaker 2: crime scene and use that as a practice. You can't
Speaker 2: do that for a variety of reasons. They don't happen
Speaker 2: when you need them. You can't just trumple a group
Speaker 2: of people through a crime scene. So it's just logistically
Speaker 2: it wouldn't work. So it was a sort of an
Speaker 2: obvious answer, Well, yeah, I can make a little crime scenes,
Speaker 2: sure that you know I do that. And so, you know,
Speaker 2: she got this idea of making these little dioramas and
Speaker 2: it's basically a set of facts. She made these scenes,
Speaker 2: and the way she described it, they're sort of capturing
Speaker 2: a moment. It's like you still frame from a motion picture.
Speaker 2: Something happened in this space, and it's captured at the
Speaker 2: moment that you, as the investigating officer, arrives at the scene.
Speaker 2: You open the door. Here's what you see, and so
Speaker 2: it creates a and it really does something that can't
Speaker 2: be done by any other medium. You really could not
Speaker 2: do that by film, by still photo. I mean, you
Speaker 2: can show a blood stain, but that's different. I mean,
Speaker 2: you can photograph a bloodstain and see here there's a bloodstain,
Speaker 2: but that's different than looking at a room and finding
Speaker 2: it with your own eyes.
Speaker 4: You look for it. And so.
Speaker 2: I've talked to many, many, many homicide detectives who have
Speaker 2: been to many crime scenes, and they say that these
Speaker 2: dioramas are they're just about as good as going to
Speaker 2: a real crime scene. They're so vivified, so detailed, and
Speaker 2: so realistic, and they do something that you can't do
Speaker 2: with a real crime scene. You can't go back to
Speaker 2: a real crime scene and check something. Or you have
Speaker 2: an idea and you've been thinking about it and you
Speaker 2: want to go see if that was right, and these
Speaker 2: sorts of things. So these are permanent facts, set of
Speaker 2: facts that can be observed from any angle for as
Speaker 2: long as you want. You're not told what to look at,
Speaker 2: you have to look at everything. It's overwhelming because you
Speaker 2: don't know what you're supposed to look at, so you
Speaker 2: have to examine every little thing. And so it really
Speaker 2: was a brilliant inspired solution to this question of how
Speaker 2: you practice observing. And so she created these dioramas, spent
Speaker 2: a fortune on them. Literally, each one of them cost
Speaker 2: roughly what a cost to build a real house. There
Speaker 2: were anywhere between three and six thousand dollars each, which
Speaker 2: in the nineteen forties you could easily buy a house
Speaker 2: for that kind of money. And so she built, She
Speaker 2: finished around twenty of them, or so, was working against
Speaker 2: some others, and the eighteen of them now survive and
Speaker 2: are at the Medical Examiner's office and they're used for
Speaker 2: the homicide seminar. As she designed them, and as they
Speaker 2: were intended there as as valuable today and as instructive
Speaker 2: today as they were when they were made in the
Speaker 2: mid nineteen fourties.
Speaker 4: Incredible. You talked that Francis Glessner Lee develops real affinity
Speaker 4: for police officers, for state patrol officers especially. She gets
Speaker 4: even a police radio and starts listening to the conversations.
Speaker 4: The communications tell us a little bit about what this,
Speaker 4: how she got this affinity, what she does with it,
Speaker 4: and how it applies to this legal medicine department pursuit
Speaker 4: and training.
Speaker 2: She did. She did. Indeed, she was when she was
Speaker 2: in her later years, she was losing her sight. She
Speaker 2: had glaucoma. She was rather isolated up in her state,
Speaker 2: up in New Hampshire, but she had her radio and
Speaker 2: she really lived through that police radio and she listened
Speaker 2: all the time, so much so that she was able
Speaker 2: to discern different personalities. She and she she got to
Speaker 2: know the different precincts UH and divisions and and and
Speaker 2: she really developed in her mind who these people were,
Speaker 2: and she called them my boys. She she befriended police officers,
Speaker 2: you know, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, all throughout New England,
Speaker 2: Virginia and Maryland. She was very good friends and with
Speaker 2: folks in Virginia, UH and UH Massachusetts and New Hampshire
Speaker 2: and all throughout New England. And she would lavish them
Speaker 2: with gifts. She would send baskets of fruit and Christmas
Speaker 2: and smoke turkeys, and you know, she called them my boys.
Speaker 2: And they would correspond with her and tell them the news,
Speaker 2: the things that are going on and who had a
Speaker 2: baby and these sorts of things. And they really, you know,
Speaker 2: was they were almost family. I mean, she had such
Speaker 2: affection for these for these people and treated them so
Speaker 2: well and treated them with respect. And that was really
Speaker 2: important to her, that that that police officers and the
Speaker 2: modern police officers no longer this uneducated brute who got
Speaker 2: the coerced confessions with the third degree, but they were
Speaker 2: they were educated every gentlemen, and that they should be
Speaker 2: treated accordingly. And she had great regard, particularly for UH
Speaker 2: state police. She felt the state police they were very
Speaker 2: well trained, very well disciplined. She didn't care too much
Speaker 2: for FBI special agents, they were a little stuffy and aloof.
Speaker 2: She had very little regard for county sheriffs, who she
Speaker 2: felt were tended to be a little less educated, UH
Speaker 2: and and less interested in improving their professional skills and
Speaker 2: those sorts of things. But state police were her. She
Speaker 2: just loved the state police, and they loved her too.
Speaker 2: I mean she was really she was practically motherly to him.
Speaker 2: She was always Captain Lee, but was always with respect.
Speaker 2: I mean, they just they adored her and she treated
Speaker 2: her The police officers very very nicely.
Speaker 4: She wanted them to have specific training, but realized that
Speaker 4: that they didn't have they weren't going to be turning
Speaker 4: into a science majors or get a science degree as
Speaker 4: a result. So what did she have them specifically prepared
Speaker 4: for with this training? And it's interesting that she had
Speaker 4: enough respect that she basically forced Harvard to accept the
Speaker 4: state police, which was beneath them to have these uneducated
Speaker 4: people in their facility, wasn't it.
Speaker 2: There was a lot of objection to having cops on campus,
Speaker 2: and in fact, they drew the line at city police officers,
Speaker 2: state police. It was one thing, but she did not.
Speaker 2: They did not want Boston cops being on on the
Speaker 2: Harvard campus. And and there other faculty members thought it
Speaker 2: was inappropriate because they were not degree seeking students, and
Speaker 2: they openly said, they said, memos, why are we doing this?
Speaker 2: But you know, she really one of her brilliant one
Speaker 2: of one of her brilliant insights is understanding that, you know,
Speaker 2: if I'm a police officer, I don't need to know
Speaker 2: how a guess chromatography instrument. I'm talking about in the
Speaker 2: modern age, I don't really need to know how that
Speaker 2: instrument works. I need to know what that instrument does.
Speaker 2: That instrument can tell me a level of of a
Speaker 2: substance in the bloodstream and that's what I need to
Speaker 2: know that as a result, it's been validated and that
Speaker 2: is a true result. You know, I don't need to
Speaker 2: know know how DNA. I don't need to know how
Speaker 2: palm raise chain reaction works and how DNA had the
Speaker 2: magic that they're do in the test tube. But what
Speaker 2: I need to know is, you know, this is the
Speaker 2: here's what a match means, and that's the significance of it.
Speaker 2: This is what they're capable of doing. So it's teaching
Speaker 2: them the right things what they need to know. And
Speaker 2: even before you teach the police officers, you need to
Speaker 2: teach their bosses. You need to teach the chief of
Speaker 2: police what a homicide investigator can do so they would
Speaker 2: be deployed. It was important to her that if they
Speaker 2: have this training and homicide seminar, that they not be
Speaker 2: assigned to a desk. So she always interviewed the chief
Speaker 2: of police first, and they had to buy into the
Speaker 2: concept that they're going to dedicate this person to be
Speaker 2: specially trained in homicide investigation and be used. Once they
Speaker 2: went through the training, they had a dude, they had
Speaker 2: an obligation to apply this knowledge. So there are no
Speaker 2: no lackers, no slackers allowed. But you know, she really
Speaker 2: focused in and what does this person need to know
Speaker 2: in order to do their job better. You're not making
Speaker 2: them scientists, it's not the purpose of it. They don't
Speaker 2: need to be, but it's knowing what they need to know.
Speaker 2: And that was really you know how she focused then,
Speaker 2: because doctors, you knows, one overwhelming with facts and these
Speaker 2: sorts of things that you don't need to know all
Speaker 2: that stuff. So that's what she did, was to prepare
Speaker 2: them with the skills that they needed to do their
Speaker 2: jobs better.
Speaker 4: Now, this looks incredible and super promising, and of course
Speaker 4: they make inroads in other states with this idea of
Speaker 4: overturning the coroner system and replacing with a medical examiner system.
Speaker 4: But there is trouble at Harvard. Moritz has an opportunity
Speaker 4: to go back to where he wants to go ideally,
Speaker 4: and then there's a replacement, a doctor. Ford tell us
Speaker 4: what happens and what direction her dream goes towards.
Speaker 2: Eventually, Morris left in nineteen forty nine, and you know
Speaker 2: they're they're thrown in a quandary again and more. It's
Speaker 2: actually recommended Ford for the job Ford had been. He
Speaker 2: was the medical examiner in the southern district of Suffolk County,
Speaker 2: not a grasshold job, but the one next door and
Speaker 2: sort of a known quantity. And initially, I mean his
Speaker 2: qualifications were beyond question. He was a very good pathologist.
Speaker 2: He served in the war and had considerable experience with
Speaker 2: trauma and these sorts of things, which is a large
Speaker 2: part of forensic pathology. And uh, you know, initially things
Speaker 2: were promising, but you know, Ford and and Francis Plesner
Speaker 2: Lee were on totally different pages in terms of what
Speaker 2: they should be doing. Ford apparently didn't have much interest
Speaker 2: in the day to day administration research, you know, the
Speaker 2: training parts. He wanted to do autopsies and these sorts
Speaker 2: of things, and but not really you know, she felt
Speaker 2: in short order that you know, it's sort of she
Speaker 2: said it was Morbon, you know, it just they're not
Speaker 2: doing anything. But what's more, Ford seemed to I guess
Speaker 2: you might say, you know, sort of a PTSD. He
Speaker 2: had some pretty horrible experiences in World War Two and
Speaker 2: was known to have a really sharp temper. And she
Speaker 2: she finally got sick of it, and you know that
Speaker 2: she wrote them off and she can't work with them,
Speaker 2: and it was just the you know, she said the
Speaker 2: department was dying on the vine. It was just dying
Speaker 2: and there's nothing she could do about it. And ultimately,
Speaker 2: you know, she pretty much withdrew from the department except
Speaker 2: for the police homicide seminar. She limited to her support
Speaker 2: to that, and ultimately, in the end, when she died
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty two, she cut Herbert out of her will.
Speaker 2: So there was that, and Richard Ford unfortunately ended up
Speaker 2: taking his own life, and so that was the end
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 4: There were things that angered her along the way, but
Speaker 4: she made compromises, but at some point the orders to
Speaker 4: not incorporate the McGrath Library into a general library was disobeyed.
Speaker 4: This was a island incredible collection of documents and rare
Speaker 4: books and from a thousand books to three thousand books,
Speaker 4: and so she felt and wanted to pull her her funding,
Speaker 4: but still maintained those seminars, those homicide seminars, right till
Speaker 4: right till the end, didn't she It's right, yes, she.
Speaker 2: Did, yep, until the right up right up till months
Speaker 2: to months before death's ring. And I don't know the
Speaker 2: status of the books at her I don't know whether
Speaker 2: they are as she requested, all together in one, one
Speaker 2: section together. She wanted to look kept together as a library.
Speaker 2: She she she spent a fortune, but she got some
Speaker 2: extraordinarily rare documents and she felt very very strongly that
Speaker 2: even if they were subsumed into the medical school library,
Speaker 2: that they should be together as a collection, as a library.
Speaker 4: So MGM wanted to focus make a film, but have
Speaker 4: Francis as part of the focus of the film, and
Speaker 4: she did not want that. She just wanted to further
Speaker 4: the cause. MGM brought in a screenwriter and it's interesting
Speaker 4: for people my age, I guess, and we talk about
Speaker 4: the one of the stars was Ricardo Montalban in this movie.
Speaker 4: Tell us a little bit about this movie.
Speaker 2: She had an opportunity. She really sees on it. And
Speaker 2: this was pure Francis Glessingly. I mean, this is all her.
Speaker 2: She took the initiative. She had a contact with the
Speaker 2: publishing industry in New York who introduced her to the
Speaker 2: head writer at the MGM in Hollywood and sort of
Speaker 2: pitched the idea and they were intrigued. This is just
Speaker 2: after World War Two. The taste in entertainment were changing.
Speaker 2: People didn't want these sort of idealized fantasy films. They
Speaker 2: were looking for something it was a little more realistic,
Speaker 2: and they're looking for they wanted to do the sort
Speaker 2: of semi documentary style of filmmaking. They're looking for subjects,
Speaker 2: and she pitched this idea of the you know, focusing
Speaker 2: on the medical examiner. Uh, and it had never been
Speaker 2: done before. And you know, they as I already read
Speaker 2: these internal memos that you know, the crime stories of
Speaker 2: the tective stories, those are as old as dirt had
Speaker 2: been done every kind of variation of crime stories, but
Speaker 2: there had not to date had been a movie that
Speaker 2: focused on the medical examiner and a forensic death investigation.
Speaker 2: And so they drafted up a story that actually began
Speaker 2: the first draft the treatment or the story of the
Speaker 2: what was then called Murder at Harvard focused on uh,
Speaker 2: Francis Glesner Lee. And there's one of the dioramas and uh,
Speaker 2: during one of the homicide seminars and the and the
Speaker 2: cameras sort of zooms in on the burn cab and
Speaker 2: then it would flash back to the Frederick Small murder
Speaker 2: that George Burgas McGrath was investigating, and then you know,
Speaker 2: tell you sort of flashback and tell the story of
Speaker 2: the legal medicine. Uh. And she said, you know, literally,
Speaker 2: she said, write me out. I don't want to be
Speaker 2: it's not about me, it's about legal medicine. Focus on
Speaker 2: legal medicine. There had been other stories, there had been
Speaker 2: she felt, you know, that she was being used. She
Speaker 2: was willing to be used, but there were like Saturday
Speaker 2: evening posts like magazine, a bunch of you know, newspapers,
Speaker 2: and then they just they pick up on this the
Speaker 2: story of this kind of quirky grandma who makes these
Speaker 2: morbid dollhouses kind of thing. And so she was willing
Speaker 2: to be used that way if it brought if it
Speaker 2: was a hook that got some of these interests to
Speaker 2: do a story by legal medicine. But she really, you know,
Speaker 2: that's enough. It's not about me. Do a story about
Speaker 2: legal medicine. And so she was written out and they
Speaker 2: actually did take a an actual case. The victim's name
Speaker 2: was Irene Perry and it was one of the Georgia
Speaker 2: of Alan Morritz's cases, and they they used they fictionalized that,
Speaker 2: they changed some names to protect the innocents. And they
Speaker 2: worked in forensic anthropology, ballistics, and what was brand new
Speaker 2: at the time was forensic photography, and Alan Morts had
Speaker 2: some familiarity with that, but it was these ripped from
Speaker 2: the headlines technology, cutting edge stuff. It was the first
Speaker 2: procedural forensic drama. And so they ended up Harvard's objection.
Speaker 2: They didn't want the title being murdered Harvard, who was
Speaker 2: in Savory and anyone I made them to do with
Speaker 2: that in the title said, they renamed it Mystery Stream
Speaker 2: and so that I don't know why. They cast Ricardo
Speaker 2: Lunchiblon as a as a cape cod sheriff and he
Speaker 2: does actually explain his accent and in the movie they
Speaker 2: had to. But it's it's really it's really pretty cool.
Speaker 4: Absolutely Now with all this hard work, with all of
Speaker 4: her inroads into all kinds of areas that would encompass
Speaker 4: criminal justice with the police and having this crime scene
Speaker 4: death investigation as the focus, what were at the time
Speaker 4: her death, what were the inroads in what states? How
Speaker 4: many states? And overall her huge goal of transforming the
Speaker 4: US completely from the coroner system to the medical examiner system.
Speaker 4: How far from that goal did she achieve?
Speaker 2: Well, the first medical examiner was in Boston in eighteen
Speaker 2: seventy seven. She started getting involved in nineteen twenty nine
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty. By then, if I'm not mistaken, there are
Speaker 2: really only three metropolitan areas, Boston, New York, and Newark,
Speaker 2: New Jersey. I believe there may have been in some
Speaker 2: other places. Maryland came along in nineteen thirty nine, so
Speaker 2: by nineteen forty five, I believe New Hampshire had By
Speaker 2: then it was what then around ten it was a
Speaker 2: brand ten. It was not a huge number. Today there's
Speaker 2: something like I believe it's fourteen states that are medical
Speaker 2: examiner states. Roughly half the country as of today, half
Speaker 2: the country is on the coroner system. Most of the
Speaker 2: major metropolitan areas, the big cities tend to have medical examiners,
Speaker 2: but as parts of the country, half the population is
Speaker 2: still on the coroner system. Very very little has changed
Speaker 2: in many places now. You know, some of the qualifications
Speaker 2: in many places, some are they do require some training.
Speaker 2: It can be done, you know, depending on how closely
Speaker 2: one works with a forensic pathologist. You have to wonder
Speaker 2: about what sort of facilities they have access to and
Speaker 2: those sorts of things. But you know, it really does
Speaker 2: not come as far as as it really should. I
Speaker 2: don't know what to tell you it's really shocking. People
Speaker 2: think they watch a TV show like CSI, and people
Speaker 2: think that that's what happens when something when somebody dies
Speaker 2: under suspicious, sudden circumstances. They come to expect that. And
Speaker 2: the fact is that doesn't happen. It doesn't happen in
Speaker 2: most cases, and it doesn't you know, that sort of
Speaker 2: thing does not exist in a lot of the country.
Speaker 4: This legacy, though, I have to applaud you in eighteen
Speaker 4: Tiny Deaths. Her entire life, her passion, the goals that
Speaker 4: she had, the ambitious goals, and her fascinating life. Her
Speaker 4: fascinating life has been captured in eighteen Tiny Deaths. I
Speaker 4: know she had all kinds of honorary positions when she
Speaker 4: did die. She was friends with many many people, treated
Speaker 4: many many people in law enforcement very well, and people
Speaker 4: that went to these seminars were treated incredibly. It is
Speaker 4: a fascinating story, eighteen Tiny Deaths, the untold story of
Speaker 4: Francis Glessner Lee and the invention of modern forensics. For
Speaker 4: those people that might want to look at more information,
Speaker 4: do you have a website or is there a Facebook
Speaker 4: page for eighteen Tiny Deaths?
Speaker 2: There is, in fact a Facebook page for eighteen Tiny Deaths.
Speaker 2: That can follow me on Facebook. I'm on Instagram as
Speaker 2: eighteen Tiny Deaths. I do have my own website, Bruce
Speaker 2: goldfreb dot com, and I have a calendar of events.
Speaker 2: I'll be doing some traveling around and hearing here and there.
Speaker 2: People are welcome to come out and see me if
Speaker 2: you'd like to. I've been a lot of interest I've
Speaker 2: gotten from forensic science, criminal justice classes, those sorts of
Speaker 2: things college universities. If they're interested in, you know, I'd
Speaker 2: be glad to do presentations and talk with them about that,
Speaker 2: about Francis or the history of the forensic science. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm around.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. Thank you so much. It's been an incredible talk
Speaker 4: with you about eighteen Tiny Deaths and the life of
Speaker 4: Francis g listener Lee, thank you very much. You have
Speaker 4: a great evening. Good night.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure talking with you.
Speaker 4: Thank you, good night, good nice