Speaker 1: Lucky Land Casino asking people what's the weirdest place you've
Speaker 1: gotten lucky?
Speaker 2: Lucky? In line at the Delhi I guess ah, in
Speaker 2: my dentist's office more than once.
Speaker 1: Actually do I have to say?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: You do?
Speaker 1: In the car before my kids pta meeting?
Speaker 4: Really?
Speaker 1: Yes? Excuse me? What's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky?
Speaker 2: I never win?
Speaker 5: And tell well, there you have it.
Speaker 1: You could get lucky anywhere playing at lucky landslots dot
Speaker 1: com play for free right now? Are you feeling lucky?
Speaker 4: Nobrig just necesaryfoid?
Speaker 2: We're gonna be my long eighteen plus terms conditions of
Speaker 2: pluck seems every details it.
Speaker 1: Is Ryan here and I have a question for you.
Speaker 1: What do you do when you win?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: Are you at fist pumper, A wooo, a handclapper, a
Speaker 1: high fiver? I kind of like the high five. But
Speaker 1: if you want to hone in on those winning moves,
Speaker 1: check out Chumbuck Casino at chumbacasino dot com choose some
Speaker 1: hundreds of social casino style games for your chance to
Speaker 1: redeem serious cash prizes. There are new game releases weekly,
Speaker 1: plus free daily bonuses, so don't wait start having the
Speaker 1: most fun ever at chumbuck Casino dot com.
Speaker 2: No just necessary VOI where everyb I lost E terms,
Speaker 2: conditions eating pluss.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, it is Ryan. I'm not sure if you
Speaker 1: know this about me, but I'm a bit of a
Speaker 1: fun fanatic when I can. I like to work, but
Speaker 1: I like fun too. It's a thing, and now the
Speaker 1: truth is out there, I can tell you about my
Speaker 1: favorite place to have fun, Chumba Casino. They have hundreds
Speaker 1: of social casino style games to choose from, with new
Speaker 1: games released each week. You can play for free anytime, anywhere,
Speaker 1: and each day brings a new chance to collect daily bonuses.
Speaker 1: So join me and the fun. Sign up now at
Speaker 1: chumbacasino dot com.
Speaker 2: No orcus has a very d I lost THET terms
Speaker 2: conditions eating. Plus.
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 Gacy Bundy, Dahmer, The Night Stalker DTK.
Speaker 5: Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking
Speaker 5: and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with
Speaker 5: your host journalist and author Dan Zufanski. Good Evening.
Speaker 4: It was a shattering deathbed confession by a heartbroken mother,
Speaker 4: but would it solved The oldest cold case murder case
Speaker 4: in American jurisprudence. In January nineteen ninety four, Eileen Tessey
Speaker 4: told Jack McCullough's half sister, Janet Tessier, that he her
Speaker 4: son kidnapped seven year old Maria Ridoff from their neighborhood
Speaker 4: in Sycamore, Illinois, and killed her in December nineteen fifty seven.
Speaker 4: It was a case that tore the child's family apart,
Speaker 4: as well as dividing and terrifying the town as the days,
Speaker 4: then the months, and finally the years passed with no arrest.
Speaker 4: In two thousand and eight, the Illinois State Police reopened
Speaker 4: the case against Jack after receiving an email from Janet
Speaker 4: Tessier about their mother's death poot deathbed confession. After the
Speaker 4: Illinois State Police interviewed Janet and learned that Jack had
Speaker 4: also been accused of raping their other sister, Jean Tessier,
Speaker 4: they reopened the case, but would reopen in the case
Speaker 4: solve the question of who killed Maria Ridoff and was
Speaker 4: McCullough the killer. In the Last Man's Standing, true crime
Speaker 4: author Alan Warren writes an exacting detail about the kidnapping, murder,
Speaker 4: and subsequent investigations both in nineteen fifty seven and two
Speaker 4: thousand and eight that eventually led to the murder conviction
Speaker 4: of Jack McCullough. But the story doesn't stop there, as
Speaker 4: it delves into the years mcculluugh spent in prison and
Speaker 4: the efforts to have his conviction overturned. Was McCullough the
Speaker 4: brutal killer of a little girl? Or was he the
Speaker 4: last man's standing when the justice system decided he needed
Speaker 4: to pay for the crime? You decide. The book they
Speaker 4: were featuring this evening is the Last Man Standing? Is
Speaker 4: Jack Daniel McCullough A true story? Alan Warren, Journalist and
Speaker 4: author Alan Warren, Welcome to the Back to the program,
Speaker 4: and thank you very much for agreeing to this interview.
Speaker 4: Alan R. Warren.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for
Speaker 3: asking me.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much. Let's jump right into this. I
Speaker 4: know that you and I both interviewed Charles Lochman about
Speaker 4: his book Footsteps in the Snow in twenty fourteen, at
Speaker 4: least I did. In twenty fourteen you had interviewed him
Speaker 4: as well, And now we're doing another story here, The
Speaker 4: Last Man standing about the same case, the murder and
Speaker 4: abduction of Maria Riddiff. Tell us a little bit about
Speaker 4: your interview with Charles Lockman and and your impression of
Speaker 4: the story. Despite Charles Lachman's contention that this case was finally,
Speaker 4: after fifty five years or fifty plus years, finally this
Speaker 4: oldest cold case in American history finally solved. Tell us
Speaker 4: about that interview that you had with Charles Lockman with
Speaker 4: Footsteps in the snow.
Speaker 3: Well. Charles was a nice guy to talk to. It
Speaker 3: seemed like it was going okay. I just couldn't get
Speaker 3: the feel that he had any evidence, that he had
Speaker 3: anything solid. It was just all feeling, you know, and
Speaker 3: and how people felt, and how he felt and what
Speaker 3: the people he talked to felt. And the evidence was
Speaker 3: really lacking, especially for putting someone away for their life,
Speaker 3: you know, taking away their freedom, making it so that
Speaker 3: you know, they're locked up forever. And I just didn't
Speaker 3: I just didn't see it in the evidence. And over
Speaker 3: an hour, he just couldn't supply it. And so I
Speaker 3: ended up having a follow up interview with him, and
Speaker 3: he had some new points counterpoints, but it was still
Speaker 3: the same. He just had nothing hard. Nothing hard.
Speaker 4: Now you say you remained unconvinced. You rightly remain unconvinced,
Speaker 4: and we know why. But you say an event happened
Speaker 4: about thirty days later involving someone involved with this case
Speaker 4: message on Facebook? What was that message? Who was that person?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's actually yeah, Casey Porter. He's the son in law.
Speaker 3: He married Jack's daughter. And he had heard that interview
Speaker 3: on because we are in K K and W Seattle,
Speaker 3: and that's actually where they're out of, just north of Seattle,
Speaker 3: and he heard that interview and he contacted me on
Speaker 3: Facebook and told me there was so much more to
Speaker 3: the case than I even would know about, and and
Speaker 3: that interested me, and we started talking back and forth,
Speaker 3: and he liked how I had that, you know, the
Speaker 3: conclusion of like, well, where's your evidence, Like what where's
Speaker 3: the hard evidence, where's the where's the blood, where's the
Speaker 3: like there has to be more than that to put
Speaker 3: away a man for life. And he liked that attitude,
Speaker 3: so he uh started contributing things to me and telling
Speaker 3: me things about the case that I didn't know, and
Speaker 3: I ended up meeting a lot of his family and
Speaker 3: uh and eventually Jack, of course, and yeah, I went
Speaker 3: from there. But that that convinced me even more about
Speaker 3: just how the whole family was around him and how
Speaker 3: they all supported him, and there wasn't a doubt in
Speaker 3: any of their minds.
Speaker 4: Right now, you talk about the you getting involved, I
Speaker 4: mean really one of the looking at Charles Lackman and
Speaker 4: his footsteps in the snow and just sensing that there
Speaker 4: was something wrong. That's not normally what you do or
Speaker 4: I do when we review people's books from when we're
Speaker 4: interviewing them about their books. So I thought that was
Speaker 4: quite profound that you would have that kind of God instinct.
Speaker 4: I guess when do you get involved in what year
Speaker 4: do you get involved in this case? Getting that information
Speaker 4: from Casey Porter? But also when does he get released?
Speaker 4: And so it verifies your I guess idea that this
Speaker 4: person was innocent. Tell us about that timeline.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, because in twenty fourteen where the interviews and
Speaker 3: so with Charles Lockman, and that's when Casey caught a
Speaker 3: hold of me and started telling me things. And and
Speaker 3: I'll tell you, at first, the first five six months
Speaker 3: I would talk with him, but it would be it
Speaker 3: would be more like humoring. I wasn't really buying into it.
Speaker 3: It was kind of like, yeah, okay, because he wasn't
Speaker 3: presenting me with anything anymore than what Charles Lachman did.
Speaker 3: I just thought it was just about whose side you're
Speaker 3: on and who you believe in and who you love
Speaker 3: or who you don't. I wasn't getting any anything solid,
Speaker 3: So that one it just kind of kept on going
Speaker 3: for a while, and it took until about a year later,
Speaker 3: and I ended up I'm talking to a couple of
Speaker 3: the research people I know in Chicago, and it sounded
Speaker 3: like Jack was going to get he was going to
Speaker 3: come up for a stay or an overturn of his
Speaker 3: of his conviction again. And from the rumor I had
Speaker 3: heard was that the state attorney was behind it hundred
Speaker 3: percent and was supporting it. So this was more than
Speaker 3: likely going to happen. And then that made me realize that, Wow,
Speaker 3: there's there's there's somebody in the justice system on the
Speaker 3: other side that feels he was convict victed wrongly. And
Speaker 3: so that that put me right back on into the
Speaker 3: case again and dealing with Jack's family and and kind
Speaker 3: of going through the motions of him getting out and
Speaker 3: what he was going to do, and he was going
Speaker 3: to come back to Seattle and just the whole scenario,
Speaker 3: so that kind of I got involved in more in
Speaker 3: that part at that stage. And this is before and
Speaker 3: then when he finally got out in the spring of
Speaker 3: I guess it must have been sixteen yea and went
Speaker 3: back to Seattle. North of Seattle, I had talked to him.
Speaker 3: I had talked to Casey and a few other family members,
Speaker 3: and they were quite comfortable with me if I wanted
Speaker 3: to write the story about Jack and the story about
Speaker 3: what had happened, and I was kind of so so
Speaker 3: on it. I really wanted to, but I wanted to
Speaker 3: know the truth. I had to know everything as it was.
Speaker 4: What was the one stipulation he had for you? I mean,
Speaker 4: we're running a little bit ahead, but in connection to this,
Speaker 4: what was the one stipulation he had for you on
Speaker 4: condition of writing this book?
Speaker 3: Well, he was really it was no dirt. I want
Speaker 3: no dirt. I want nothing but the truth and no dirt.
Speaker 3: He said that to me so many times. He didn't
Speaker 3: want any of the Uh. Because you've read the book,
Speaker 3: it's very complex and it's very there's a lot of
Speaker 3: parts to the story that are not not pretty. And
Speaker 3: at this point. I wasn't. I wasn't sure exactly why.
Speaker 3: At first, I was thinking, well, that's because you're guilty
Speaker 3: of some of these things that you're accused of, and
Speaker 3: and that's what you mean by no dirt. But after
Speaker 3: a while I realized he was still protecting his sister.
Speaker 3: He was still protecting his little sister right till the
Speaker 3: day she died, which was just recently. And so, you know,
Speaker 3: I learned a lot this case. I learned so much
Speaker 3: about people, how they behave, how they interact to each other,
Speaker 3: and how a family that's really disconnected and going through
Speaker 3: a lot of trouble, how these things get taken way
Speaker 3: out of proportion and it you know, everybody, everybody suffers,
Speaker 3: and it just it ruins the whole, the whole family,
Speaker 3: and you know, you know, so he really did not
Speaker 3: want things about his sister primarily, and other things not
Speaker 3: talked about. He did not want dirt or you know, basically,
Speaker 3: he didn't want trashy sort of journalism coming out of it.
Speaker 3: He wanted what happened, and his primary concern was not
Speaker 3: about him. His primary concern was people have to know
Speaker 3: that this can happen to you, anybody in the country
Speaker 3: can be doing nothing and you can end up in
Speaker 3: jail and go through a whole life like what he
Speaker 3: did and his family did for nothing. It can happen.
Speaker 3: There's just don't think it can't happen to you. And
Speaker 3: that was something he talked about every single time I
Speaker 3: talked to him. He mentioned the no dirt and how
Speaker 3: this can happen to anybody over and over again.
Speaker 4: Well, let's get to this incredible story, how it could
Speaker 4: happen to anyone. But this is not a story that
Speaker 4: happens to everyone at all because of the twists and
Speaker 4: turns in this. I know that's a cliche, but there
Speaker 4: are some incredible ones in this to have the coldest
Speaker 4: case in American history. And here's why. Let's go back
Speaker 4: for those people that don't know this or can't remember
Speaker 4: the interview from twenty fourteen, in particulars, which would be
Speaker 4: most everyone, Let's talk about the particulars in winter for
Speaker 4: Snowfall nineteen fifty seven, and first introduce a little bit
Speaker 4: about sycamore set the stage for what happens with Kathy
Speaker 4: and her young friend eight years old. Personal take us
Speaker 4: back to nineteen fifty seven.
Speaker 3: You know it was, it was very It was very family, family,
Speaker 3: prime America. You know, at nineteen fifty seven, things were
Speaker 3: fairly peaceful. People were in a pretty festive mood, of course,
Speaker 3: being December, and society was really organized. After the war.
Speaker 3: Things were settling down. People were starting to develop families, jobs, lifestyles,
Speaker 3: you know, just a better way of life after the war.
Speaker 3: And Sycamore is a small town on the outside of
Speaker 3: Chicago quite a ways actually, but it's a small town,
Speaker 3: fifteen hundred it was to start. By the time they
Speaker 3: were there, I believe there was about seven thousand population,
Speaker 3: so pretty small town. And it started. It all started
Speaker 3: in the December of fifty seven. Two girlfriends, Maria Riddle
Speaker 3: and her best friend who was a year older than
Speaker 3: her that lived down the road. Her name was Kathy Siegmund.
Speaker 3: They were so excited because this was going to be
Speaker 3: the first day of snow and they wanted to go
Speaker 3: outside and play. So they ran all the way home
Speaker 3: and wolfed down their dinner basically to get out of
Speaker 3: the house as soon as they could and get out
Speaker 3: in the snow and play. And you know, it was
Speaker 3: an innocent time, so you wouldn't think anything of it.
Speaker 3: We all did it. I'm not quite that old, but
Speaker 3: just ten years later, and that would not be an
Speaker 3: unusual thing for me to have done. You know. It's
Speaker 3: just what people did. And you didn't have to have
Speaker 3: people watch, you know, your parents didn't have to come
Speaker 3: with you or anything. You could just run up and
Speaker 3: down the road or go to your neighbors and it
Speaker 3: was fairly free. We weren't in the same mental condition
Speaker 3: as we are now. So they went out and they
Speaker 3: were having a good time. In general. They were playing
Speaker 3: different games. One of them was to avoid being hit
Speaker 3: by this by the spotlight the car light, the headlights
Speaker 3: i should say, of a car when they were jumping
Speaker 3: in between the roads and just just silly little kid
Speaker 3: games and having a good time. So then a long
Speaker 3: come a man and it was around six thirty. There's
Speaker 3: different times in there, and it's very I'm just gonna
Speaker 3: throw it out at six thirty pm, and he introduced
Speaker 3: himself as Johnny, and he was a really nice guy.
Speaker 3: What are you girls doing, and blah blah blah and
Speaker 3: all that. She guys want to go for a piggyback ride,
Speaker 3: and so they were lock all excited, and Kathy didn't
Speaker 3: want to go, so you know, little Maria did. And
Speaker 3: they went up and down and it was a lot
Speaker 3: of fun and come back and exciting. And then Kathy
Speaker 3: still wouldn't go, and they were talking away, and then
Speaker 3: the guy he wanted he wanted to know if they
Speaker 3: liked dolls, and so Kathy piped up and said, yeah,
Speaker 3: I have my favorite doll. I'll go get him, get
Speaker 3: her for you. And she ran to her house, got
Speaker 3: the doll, come back and both Maria and this Johnny
Speaker 3: were gone. So that's you know, she went back to
Speaker 3: Maria's house and there was nobody there. She went back
Speaker 3: home and she looked around and she couldn't find Maria anywhere.
Speaker 3: So then back to Maria's house and then eventually the
Speaker 3: Riddolphs got up and started searching and and everyone started looking.
Speaker 3: Now it was a bit of a slow start at
Speaker 3: people looking. Maria had a reputation. She did run away
Speaker 3: a few other times before, and not run away to
Speaker 3: get away from the home, but she would go wondering
Speaker 3: and just do things and you know, go to different
Speaker 3: parks and wander and play by herself and then come home.
Speaker 3: And so there was kind of a mixed feeling about
Speaker 3: is she being kidnapped or is she just wandering around?
Speaker 3: So that's what took them a little bit of time
Speaker 3: before they actually decided to get the cops involved. So
Speaker 3: that was kind of the setup of what happened that night.
Speaker 4: Now talk about the description, because of course right away
Speaker 4: they begin a search, but obviously they know that Kathy
Speaker 4: is the person, even though she's nine years old. She's
Speaker 4: the person that got a really good look at this guy.
Speaker 4: So what is the description of this young man that
Speaker 4: police have from that and how else do they proceed
Speaker 4: in terms of other than the search and the canvas.
Speaker 4: What else do they do? Initially?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, their main at first was canvassing and talking
Speaker 3: to the neighbors and then getting people out hunting and
Speaker 3: and trying to get a a witness. And that was
Speaker 3: a bit slow as well, because it was almost like
Speaker 3: they didn't really believe anything happened evil. I think a
Speaker 3: lot of their minds is she just took off and
Speaker 3: it wasn't. Really The first real good identification that Kathy
Speaker 3: the Friend gave was really to the FBI, which was
Speaker 3: set up the next night, not that night, but the
Speaker 3: ones she give to the police were way different with
Speaker 3: the part of teeth and the and the hair and
Speaker 3: the size of them, and the age of of who
Speaker 3: she said did it was complete opposite of you know, Jack,
Speaker 3: Jack McCulloch, who was later tried for the case. So
Speaker 3: but then it changed three times, and I included the
Speaker 3: whole FBI report because then you can see actually how
Speaker 3: she described him even differently, and different people that I
Speaker 3: had talked to in and around the family of the
Speaker 3: group said that Kathy was trying to find the person
Speaker 3: so badly that she was taking information from all of
Speaker 3: her friends, cops, everybody around her would be saying, are
Speaker 3: you sure he wasn't like this? Didn't he have this?
Speaker 3: But he couldn't have been this if he didn't have that.
Speaker 3: Like they all had ideas, and they were all throwing
Speaker 3: it at her. And she would keep on adding and
Speaker 3: minusing parts of her identification to different police groups. Because
Speaker 3: she was dealing with the Sycamore Police, the Illinois State Police,
Speaker 3: as well as the Sheriff's office and the FBI.
Speaker 4: There was no drawing, sorry, there was no composite drawing
Speaker 4: mate at that time.
Speaker 3: No I had. Yeah, the FBI did make one. They
Speaker 3: were the only ones that did. And and we do
Speaker 3: have a copy of it. Now. The problem with that
Speaker 3: is it was sealed in the FBI files when they
Speaker 3: found Maria's body later, and it was within the state
Speaker 3: of Illinois. So what happens is they close out their
Speaker 3: investigation and walk away. They didn't share any of that
Speaker 3: information with the other three police departments that we're dealing
Speaker 3: with the case. So your your city, your state, and
Speaker 3: your sheriff's group that had all had part you know,
Speaker 3: in the investigation didn't get any access to this file.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, it is a Ryan. I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: you know this about me, but I'm a bit of
Speaker 1: a fun fanatic when I can. I like to work,
Speaker 1: but I like fun too.
Speaker 5: It's a thing.
Speaker 1: And now the truth is out there, I can tell
Speaker 1: you about my favorite place to have fun, Chumba Casino.
Speaker 1: They have hundreds of so social casino style games to
Speaker 1: choose from, with new games released each week. You can
Speaker 1: play for free, anytime, anywhere, and each day brings a
Speaker 1: new chance to collect daily bonuses. So join me and
Speaker 1: the bun. Sign up now at Chumba casino dot com.
Speaker 2: No, we're just necessary dad. Where everybody lost the terms
Speaker 2: conditions eighteen plus.
Speaker 4: Now let's go back to footsteps in the snow, because
Speaker 4: there's a reason why Lachmann titled it footsteps in the snow.
Speaker 4: So part of this investigation is with the people were
Speaker 4: searching for her that very night and then onwards in
Speaker 4: the following couple of days. So let's talk about the
Speaker 4: footsteps in the snow and what if anything people in
Speaker 4: that search and police found in that search.
Speaker 1: You know, I.
Speaker 3: You know, the footsteps in the snow when when they
Speaker 3: were out you mean, when they were out investigating kind
Speaker 3: of like everybody was searching all the neighbors, and it
Speaker 3: there been traces of snow and in some locations, like
Speaker 3: on that garage, on the back of the garage, it
Speaker 3: looked like there was prince of a small girl and
Speaker 3: a man and going one way and then coming back
Speaker 3: there was no more small footprints as if someone was
Speaker 3: carrying someone right and and so that was one indication,
Speaker 3: and then and then her doll and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: I think that everything, well, I'm not sure. I think
Speaker 3: everything in that case, as far as what Lachman wrote
Speaker 3: was very circumstantial. Like I'm not sure if there's something
Speaker 3: that stuck out to you when you interviewed them that
Speaker 3: made you think there was something important in that.
Speaker 4: I don't think so. I think that it's just mysterious,
Speaker 4: and I just chalked it up to, you know, unknown
Speaker 4: and a lot of a lot of books have facts
Speaker 4: that you know, you could speculate all you want, but
Speaker 4: sometimes there's no connection between those things that what you
Speaker 4: write in the book and what has been written before
Speaker 4: is that there was the footsteps that could indicate, but
Speaker 4: again there was no I understand what you're saying. There
Speaker 4: was no verification. He didn't take it any step further,
Speaker 4: just said, well it looked like, well, it look like
Speaker 4: but did you check the footprint of this perpetrator, did
Speaker 4: you check the perpetrator that even the shoe size of
Speaker 4: the young girl? And then they found the doll in
Speaker 4: same almost the same area, but afterwards, but without any
Speaker 4: conclusions and without any follow up. Then that's what it
Speaker 4: sounds like to me. It's just the separate facts that
Speaker 4: you could put together. But I don't know how you
Speaker 4: do necessarily well.
Speaker 3: I think I think we had a very disorganized setup here.
Speaker 3: I think we had someone that went missing, and at
Speaker 3: first it was kind of nonchalantly dealt with, and as
Speaker 3: the momentum picked up. You're dealing with a lot of amateurs.
Speaker 3: You got neighbors and friends and family running around, and
Speaker 3: then you get one cop that comes out, and then
Speaker 3: a second one, and in all of their minds, their
Speaker 3: mindset was right away, well nothing have her had It's
Speaker 3: it's fine, she's been run away, she was down. They
Speaker 3: even went down to that park where she went away
Speaker 3: ran away to before they went all over it. So
Speaker 3: they were thinking they were going to solve it and
Speaker 3: find herself. So all of these little things that happened,
Speaker 3: and no organization amongst any of it. And as you
Speaker 3: read through, all of a sudden, this brother runs into
Speaker 3: this one and they're just they start searching here, and
Speaker 3: there was just no There was nothing organized, there was
Speaker 3: nothing sealed, There was no direction in any of those searches.
Speaker 3: The first couple of nights were really a mess. It's
Speaker 3: really a for all. And so the different pieces of
Speaker 3: evidence and the different things that came up, I think
Speaker 3: you take them and you write them down and you
Speaker 3: keep track of them, but none of them in themselves
Speaker 3: mean anything unless you can start connecting them. And the
Speaker 3: problem is the police didn't get on it in the
Speaker 3: framework to connect it. They didn't start thinking, oh, what
Speaker 3: about this? Are testing different people's shoes and feet, and
Speaker 3: they just sort of they didn't go far enough.
Speaker 4: They also talk about the I think it's the police chief. Wow,
Speaker 4: there's the police chief at that time saying, well, this
Speaker 4: couldn't be a person from Sycamore, the population seven thousand,
Speaker 4: there's just no way. Must have been a you know,
Speaker 4: a trucker or somebody from out of town. So their
Speaker 4: mindset goes in like that, and they knew very little
Speaker 4: and thought nonimaginatively about motive for these kinds of things
Speaker 4: like abduction meaning sexual predator killer. I didn't assume that
Speaker 4: right away. Let's get to how Jack Daniel mccullaugh is
Speaker 4: not his real name. His given name, well that's a
Speaker 4: little complicated, but his given name is John Tessier. And
Speaker 4: so we introduced Allen Tessier, Jack McCullough's mother, and his sister,
Speaker 4: Janet Tessier, and we will talk about how those women
Speaker 4: become an important part, of course, the most important part
Speaker 4: in having Jack Daniel McCullough imprisoned. But at first his
Speaker 4: name is John Tessier. Now police do an investigation, and
Speaker 4: of course they're talking to many suspects and getting many tips.
Speaker 4: Of course, they check out people close by, and that
Speaker 4: includes John Tessier right away. What did the police ask
Speaker 4: of the family and what is his alibi that eliminates him?
Speaker 4: And by this time the fb I were involved because
Speaker 4: I think maybe the child was abducted across state lines.
Speaker 4: So the FBI gets involved, and abduction and kidnapping is
Speaker 4: their thing. So tell us a little bit about what
Speaker 4: happens with John tess why and what is the response
Speaker 4: and why is he eliminated as a suspect.
Speaker 3: Well, there's a couple of different reasons why he came up.
Speaker 3: He got to remember that, first of all, he was
Speaker 3: a neighbor. They were just around the corner, so there
Speaker 3: are six houses difference. There isn't a big distance here,
Speaker 3: and so we're not talking about the other side of
Speaker 3: the neighborhood or anything like this. It was their intention
Speaker 3: to speak to everybody in all those districts, all the blocks.
Speaker 3: So he wasn't just like picked out suddenly. How that's
Speaker 3: I say that because so many of the reports made
Speaker 3: it sound like he was. And the biggest problem with
Speaker 3: him was he also had a smart, smart alec attitude.
Speaker 3: He had a fight with a teacher in school, he
Speaker 3: was caught shoplifting, he had stole the car, he had
Speaker 3: been caught drunk. He was a you know, a disturbance
Speaker 3: of a teenager at sixteen seventeen. So that was the
Speaker 3: other thing, and that fact is true. But at that time,
Speaker 3: on that night, he had actually decided to join the army,
Speaker 3: and so he went to the at the base to
Speaker 3: get in to do his application, and then he had
Speaker 3: to do a physical and he also had to do
Speaker 3: the intake the entakement tests or whatever they give him.
Speaker 3: So he was doing that and this was in a
Speaker 3: about an hour away in a suburb. And the biggest
Speaker 3: fact that the FBI had was Kathy Sigmund, Maria's friend,
Speaker 3: said the man named Johnny came up and started talking
Speaker 3: to them around six point fifteen six thirty, and when
Speaker 3: she went inside to get her doll and come back,
Speaker 3: it was between six forty five and seven. According to Kathy,
Speaker 3: the times kind of vary depending on who he talked to,
Speaker 3: but in general, between six thirty and seven pm, some
Speaker 3: man named Johnny took Maria riddoff from where they were
Speaker 3: playing in front of their home. So the problem was
Speaker 3: at three minutes to seven, Jack McCullough made the phone
Speaker 3: call collect phone call to his mother saying that he
Speaker 3: was finny and wanted to see if she would give
Speaker 3: him a ride home so that he wouldn't have to
Speaker 3: take the bus. And so we know this and it's
Speaker 3: been checked on. So at six point fifty seven, he
Speaker 3: made that phone call from an hour away. So if
Speaker 3: the timeframe was correct, with the girls and the few
Speaker 3: witnesses they had between six point thirty and seven, there's
Speaker 3: no possible way Jack could have been an hour and
Speaker 3: away in nineteen fifty seven and done it. You know,
Speaker 3: we didn't have that type of transportation. So the FBI
Speaker 3: himself then they interviewed him and between the combination of
Speaker 3: that they took him off. He was also given a
Speaker 3: lie detector test and he passed. So that's not yeah, sorry,
Speaker 3: go ahead. I was gonna say, but that you know
Speaker 3: that that's only used for you. It never helps you.
Speaker 3: It seems like you know, you take those yeah, you
Speaker 3: take those light detector tests and if you fail or
Speaker 3: if you're on the edge and the police say that,
Speaker 3: see that shows you something to hide. And if they
Speaker 3: and if you'll pass it, then they turn around and say, well,
Speaker 3: it's not used in court, it doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 4: Well, it's a tool I think to progress further, I think,
Speaker 4: but if it's not accurate, then that's why it's not admissible,
Speaker 4: because it's not accurate. So I obviously can go astray
Speaker 4: if somebody could fool that, and there are examples of
Speaker 4: people fooling that light detector test. So the other thing
Speaker 4: that's important to state is that at that time, their
Speaker 4: best eyewitness, their only real eyewitness to this Johnny, which
Speaker 4: I found very interesting too. She had said that he
Speaker 4: had blonde hair and we'll see that. Look, it doesn't
Speaker 4: look like Jack as blonde hair in his head. But
Speaker 4: at the same time, she was not shown a photo
Speaker 4: of him because the FBI did not consider him a
Speaker 4: serious suspect based on their lie detective test and their
Speaker 4: investigation and questioning of him.
Speaker 3: Is that correct, Yeah, that is right. But I have
Speaker 3: to counter the point that they lived five houses away
Speaker 3: and around the corner, and there was quite a few
Speaker 3: times that Jack had interaction with both of the girls,
Speaker 3: speaking to them on the road and saying things. They
Speaker 3: did know who each other were. So you know, like,
Speaker 3: you cannot excuse the fact or you can't. I cannot
Speaker 3: be a nine year old at home knowing I've lived
Speaker 3: here all my nine life years, gone to school, and
Speaker 3: I know all my neighbors small town, and I know
Speaker 3: who they are are. And and if I saw them,
Speaker 3: I would say, oh, hey, Jack, I would know them,
Speaker 3: or I would, you know, at least know who they were.
Speaker 3: So if this is someone I recognized, if this was
Speaker 3: Jack or John of the neighborhood, and he came up
Speaker 3: and said, you want rides, and you want to do
Speaker 3: this and all that stuff, I would know, Oh, well,
Speaker 3: you know it was Jack. Jack came and asked us
Speaker 3: for piggyback rides. It was just too inconvenient that she
Speaker 3: did not know who that Jack was. And two years
Speaker 3: later say, oh, I didn't get shown, you know, a
Speaker 3: picture in a lineup. I don't quite buy that.
Speaker 4: So easy, let's keep this not so confusing for the audience.
Speaker 4: So Jack changes. He changes his name later from Johnny.
Speaker 4: And that's the part of the reason why he's a
Speaker 4: suspect persistently, is that Johnny because his name is John
Speaker 4: even though it's a common name, it's a Johnny connection.
Speaker 4: Right after this, he's at this recruitment, he wants to
Speaker 4: get into the army. He's he's been up and down
Speaker 4: in terms of his private life. And we will get
Speaker 4: into some of the things that happened before in the
Speaker 4: sort of his family life. But what does Johnny Tessier
Speaker 4: do right after this recruitment? Where does he go and
Speaker 4: how does his life for the better? Well?
Speaker 3: Actually, actually as things settled down and he went on,
Speaker 3: he actually went along. He went with the army, and
Speaker 3: he actually did some tours in Vietnam Vietnam War. He
Speaker 3: also switched to the Air Force. He became a captain
Speaker 3: in the Air Force and was very successful with the
Speaker 3: Armed services and lived and did quite well in the
Speaker 3: whole war lifestyle, I guess you want to call it.
Speaker 3: And had a successful run in the army, and that happened.
Speaker 3: That was for quite a few years, and then he
Speaker 3: returned to the States and he decided to return to
Speaker 3: just north of Seattle. And when I had met him first,
Speaker 3: we had met at this beach north of Seattle, Edmunds,
Speaker 3: and he said, do you see that out there? Like
Speaker 3: looking at the ocean? And that was the first thing
Speaker 3: he said, was I saw this the very first time,
Speaker 3: and I knew this is where I wanted to live
Speaker 3: nowhere else. So when he came back from from his
Speaker 3: his service military service, he came right there because that's
Speaker 3: where he wanted to be. So, you know, so that
Speaker 3: was all fairly good. He ended up getting a job
Speaker 3: as a police officer in self, just south of Seattle,
Speaker 3: a little bit north of Tacoma. I can't remember the
Speaker 3: little like Pewalla.
Speaker 4: There's Milton and Lacey. If he first worked at Lacey Washington.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Lacey was the Yeah, Lacey was right outside of
Speaker 3: Olympia and the puall up with the other one and yeah,
Speaker 3: so he was he was a police officer.
Speaker 4: And his life changes too, and that he gets to
Speaker 4: acquire as a stepdaughter named Jeanie, and she's comes into
Speaker 4: his life at twelve years old, and a couple of
Speaker 4: years later Jack and her mom, Sue, I believe, in
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety four, they get married and he changes his
Speaker 4: name from John Tesseer to Jack McCullough. And that's because
Speaker 4: it's his grandpa's nickname for him and his mother's maiden name.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, actually his mother. You see, the it was
Speaker 3: he was he was when he was born in England
Speaker 3: to his father and mother. His father was in the war,
Speaker 3: and his mother used to keep him hidden up in
Speaker 3: the uh in the fields, away from the bombings. His
Speaker 3: father was killed and his mother worked as a nurse.
Speaker 3: She met an American and fell in love and took
Speaker 3: Jack and they moved to Sycamore outside of Chicago together.
Speaker 3: So and then his name was changed then to Testia
Speaker 3: on the marriage. And so after all of these things
Speaker 3: we describe, and all of the happenings with his family
Speaker 3: and his mother dying, being very sick at the time,
Speaker 3: he wanted to honor her. So he wanted to go
Speaker 3: back to the name he would have had if none
Speaker 3: of this other stuff had come along since his English
Speaker 3: days when he was born to his original father and
Speaker 3: lived with jen At his mother Jeanie. Yeah, So in
Speaker 3: his mind he wanted to go back to the person
Speaker 3: he was.
Speaker 4: Yes. And what happens as well is that she gets
Speaker 4: a call. Sue and Janie get a call, or at
Speaker 4: least they get a call from Jean Tessier calling her
Speaker 4: to tell her what an evil man her husband Jack,
Speaker 4: her brother John really is, or used as an opportunity
Speaker 4: to stop for a second to talk about Ring. Ring's
Speaker 4: mission is to make neighborhoods safer. You might already know
Speaker 4: about their smart video doorbells and cameras that protect millions
Speaker 4: of people everywhere. Ring helps you stay connected to your
Speaker 4: home anywhere in the world, so if there's a package
Speaker 4: delivery or surprise visitor, you'll get an alert and be
Speaker 4: able to see, hear, and speak to them all from
Speaker 4: one all from your phone. That's thanks to the HD
Speaker 4: video and the two way audio features on Ring devices.
Speaker 4: I receive my spotlight cam battery, a battery powered security
Speaker 4: camera with LED spotlights and siren, a motion activated security
Speaker 4: light with a high defth camera and automated recording, and
Speaker 4: two way talk bright enough to light up our backyard
Speaker 4: two hundred seventy degrees in motion detection, easy to follow instructions.
Speaker 4: I installed it easily and pretty quickly. Like I say,
Speaker 4: lit up the whole backyard. My wife and I feel
Speaker 4: very secure with a Ring spotlight cam. As a listener,
Speaker 4: you have a special offer on a Ring starter kit
Speaker 4: available right now with a video doorbell and motion activated
Speaker 4: flood like cam. The starter kit has everything you need
Speaker 4: to start building a ring of security around your home.
Speaker 4: To Ring dot com slash murder, that's Ring dot com
Speaker 4: slash murder. Now, Allen, we were talking about a call
Speaker 4: that the newly married Jack McCullough newly newly named from
Speaker 4: John tests to Jack Daniel McCullough and his wife gets
Speaker 4: a call from Gene tests A saying what an evil
Speaker 4: man Jack was? What kind of evil is she referring to?
Speaker 3: Well, the sister was referring to him for a lot
Speaker 3: of things, but the main thing was he was accused
Speaker 3: of raping his sister. And yeah, and that that's and
Speaker 3: and actually not just by himself. He would he picked
Speaker 3: up his sister and took her to a friend's house,
Speaker 3: and all of his friends took turns with her, and
Speaker 3: they all would abuse and and and rape her. And
Speaker 3: he had actually done this a few times according to
Speaker 3: the original phone call, the first time that they started
Speaker 3: coming out with it. So I think that that's what
Speaker 3: you're referring to absolutely.
Speaker 4: And there are six sisters of them, not correct, and
Speaker 4: they are stepsisters. So he came into the family and
Speaker 4: then these are the stepsisters, and they always had issues
Speaker 4: with them. Our other sisters supportive of what she says,
Speaker 4: tell us about that support or lack of support within
Speaker 4: those sisters and what's consistent or inconsistent in your mind
Speaker 4: with what they're saying about their brother.
Speaker 3: Well, well, look, I think that the family split on it.
Speaker 3: I think that the two sisters that eventually went to
Speaker 3: the police with it, of course obviously believe he did it.
Speaker 3: Or yeah, they believe he did it. The younger brother no,
Speaker 3: then the other sister, I would say, no, stays out
Speaker 3: of it and doesn't agree with it. The thing is
Speaker 3: that what really strikes me is, you know, she was
Speaker 3: describing these events happening when she was fourteen and thirteen,
Speaker 3: and Jack being sixteen and seventeen, and him picking her
Speaker 3: up in his car, driving her to an apartment and
Speaker 3: all of his friends were there drinking, and then they
Speaker 3: all raped her, and they all did it several times,
Speaker 3: and then they finished, and he told her get dressed
Speaker 3: real roughly, and she put her clothes back on, and
Speaker 3: he drove her back home, and then they had dinner.
Speaker 3: And you know, nineteen fifty seven, the family dinner, father,
Speaker 3: mother and all the kids sit around the table that
Speaker 3: was dinner table in America. This is how things were
Speaker 3: in fifty seven. Yeah, And if you didn't live that way,
Speaker 3: you were unusual. And I just could not imagine a
Speaker 3: fourteen year old girl. And you know, we were really
Speaker 3: naive back then, in the fifties and sixties. I didn't
Speaker 3: know the kids today know so much more than we
Speaker 3: ever would have about any sexual issues, and so I
Speaker 3: couldn't imagine being raped from four or five guys over
Speaker 3: and over again all afternoon, and then coming home and
Speaker 3: being able to sit and have breakfast and or at dinner,
Speaker 3: and to have your mother and father, how is your
Speaker 3: day at school? How is your day? And having that
Speaker 3: kind of conversation, and her to be able to sit
Speaker 3: there and to have the the strength, the moral strength
Speaker 3: for her to be able to pretend nothing happened. I
Speaker 3: really found that suspect. I you know, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know how you feel about that, but I
Speaker 3: find it hard to believe that that kind of scenario happened.
Speaker 4: I think, I think when I listened well and not
Speaker 4: listen when I read it at first. Do I want
Speaker 4: to believe a victim? And I do, And I want
Speaker 4: to believe them and I do, and I have to
Speaker 4: give them the benefit of the doubt, But would like
Speaker 4: with the I think, because you know, you did ask
Speaker 4: and he was asked Jack McCollough was asked, did you
Speaker 4: touch your sister? Did you Is there any you know?
Speaker 4: Is there any veracity to this claim? And what did
Speaker 4: he have to say? So, Yeah, yes they did. He
Speaker 4: did fool around with them. And again we're not so
Speaker 4: naive to think that this doesn't happen in families. That
Speaker 4: never happened in families, not in five to fifty seven
Speaker 4: or twenty eighteen. But the thing is, I think when
Speaker 4: I read her account in your book, sounded like exaggeration.
Speaker 4: It sounded like unlikely, unlikely scenarios to say that you
Speaker 4: could most of it could be verified. So I think
Speaker 4: that certainly something may have happened, but her account suffers
Speaker 4: from exaggeration and implausibility. So is it all untrue? Some
Speaker 4: of it is?
Speaker 3: Well, I'll tell you I left thinking that dealing with
Speaker 3: the family and dealing with the way he answered things,
Speaker 3: I think that they were very close, and I think
Speaker 3: some things did happen, but it wasn't like what she
Speaker 3: explained it. I think that they had a relationship where
Speaker 3: they did fool around. I think things happened, and I
Speaker 3: think it happened over a period of years, like four
Speaker 3: or five years. There was never any complaints or problems,
Speaker 3: and it wasn't until years later, all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: when there was issues she came out and lashed out
Speaker 3: at him with this story. And I think, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm not a psychiatrist, but I think there was. Like
Speaker 3: I said, it's a very complex story, and I think
Speaker 3: something snapped in her and all of a sudden, he
Speaker 3: became the rapist instead of their benefits that they had together.
Speaker 3: And I say that for a lot of different reasons.
Speaker 3: You know, she changed her story so many times, said
Speaker 3: where it was said, who the other guys were, and
Speaker 3: when it went to court, eventually it was just dismissed.
Speaker 3: There was just no evidence that made sense, nothing that
Speaker 3: lined up. And this is the kind of this is
Speaker 3: the part that Jack wanted to stay away from. He
Speaker 3: wanted to protect his sister because I think in his mind,
Speaker 3: I think Jack thinks that his sister was there was
Speaker 3: something wrong with her mentally, there was an issue, And
Speaker 3: to this day, he's still trying to protect her, or
Speaker 3: was still trying to protect her. She died back in
Speaker 3: January of breast cancer. But he didn't want this out.
Speaker 3: He didn't want people talking about this because he said
Speaker 3: that's all that they would focus on. It's all that
Speaker 3: we would be thinking about, and not about what's really
Speaker 3: wrong with the justice system and all that. So he
Speaker 3: was really anti getting into the conversation. But I will
Speaker 3: do add one thing for the people on the edge
Speaker 3: not sure what to think. She went through five other
Speaker 3: cases of being group raped and had brought them to
Speaker 3: the police and charged people with being raped, and every
Speaker 3: single one of them was dismissed. So, yeah, no, she's
Speaker 3: not alive, and we have to be completely fair. And
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that they weren't. Maybe they were all true,
Speaker 3: and that's a terrible thing to happen. I don't know,
Speaker 3: but being from the fifties and sixties, it seems like
Speaker 3: I have I had very little access to find out
Speaker 3: what was true and what wasn't, but I'll do. But
Speaker 3: I will tell you it just seemed really there was
Speaker 3: something very not real about how she talked about it.
Speaker 3: And that's the only way I can leave it.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about this because he comes to some of this.
Speaker 4: We'll say, honestly, for lack of a better word, in
Speaker 4: that when the mother Francis was questioned about John's whereabouts
Speaker 4: that night, she said he was home all night. So
Speaker 4: the sisters conferred later spoke amongst themselves and said, we
Speaker 4: were so paranoid, the family was so paramoid to Dad
Speaker 4: and Mom put up the two by fours on the
Speaker 4: door and barricaded so they said he wasn't home. We
Speaker 4: didn't see him for a couple of days. So Mom
Speaker 4: lied to the police. So this complicates the story. When
Speaker 4: one of the girls says on the deathbed and two
Speaker 4: of them say it on the deathbed, Mom said, one
Speaker 4: says she heard him say he did it, and the
Speaker 4: other one says he gave more detail as to he
Speaker 4: killed those two girls. He kidnapped the one he killed her.
Speaker 4: So as a result of that deathbed confession allegedly, what
Speaker 4: did the sisters do. And as much as the police
Speaker 4: have had a hard time believing this woman before with
Speaker 4: the rape allegations, what happens as a result of these allegations.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, eventually the Illinois State Police decided to
Speaker 3: take on and open up the case. After the confession,
Speaker 3: the one sister did approach several different departments FBI, and
Speaker 3: a lot of them were not interested and there was
Speaker 3: different reasons why. So anyway, they eventually got the one
Speaker 3: police department to search into it further, and uh, after
Speaker 3: a short little while, they decided that they would actually
Speaker 3: charge him with raping the sister, and they did that
Speaker 3: first just to see. I think they wanted to get
Speaker 3: him convicted of that before they went to the next case,
Speaker 3: because with Maria Ridolf, I don't think they felt like
Speaker 3: they had enough evidence and they weren't secure. They weren't
Speaker 3: feeling comfortable enough going for you know, a death penalty case,
Speaker 3: I think, so they decided to go it with it
Speaker 3: with the sister and the rape, which really disappointed the
Speaker 3: sister because they had promised her that they never would
Speaker 3: so and when they did go to court, they lost,
Speaker 3: they didn't win, so so that didn't work for them.
Speaker 3: But they did eventually take him to court and try
Speaker 3: to prosecute him and charge him for the kidnap of
Speaker 3: Maria Ridolf and that was successful down the road. But
Speaker 3: you know, the uh, the confession is pretty it's another
Speaker 3: one of those complicated things. You know, the girls are
Speaker 3: not telling the exact truth in the sense that Jack
Speaker 3: was getting his his military checkup and his and his
Speaker 3: he was at the intake center. We know this for
Speaker 3: a fact. We have the evidence from the phone call,
Speaker 3: and we have the evidence from the guy they'd interviewed
Speaker 3: him and was sitting with him. So no matter what,
Speaker 3: take away everything else, there's no way he can be
Speaker 3: at two places at the same time. So you know
Speaker 3: that that's a need your problem. And the other thing
Speaker 3: is his mother made him take the bus home. So
Speaker 3: when he got home, according to Jack, he met his
Speaker 3: friend and another child's brother and they looked. They went
Speaker 3: out hunting and searching for the girl, like with so
Speaker 3: many other people were out doing it. That night, the
Speaker 3: parents both went out and what they had done was
Speaker 3: they boarded up all the back doors and made it
Speaker 3: so that nobody could get inside unless someone inside would
Speaker 3: let them in. So the girls were home all night
Speaker 3: alone in that house. And so when they testified, they said, yeah,
Speaker 3: he never came home, but the mother didn't lie. He
Speaker 3: did come home, but he wasn't at home, but he
Speaker 3: was out looking with friends. So it was kind of
Speaker 3: like one of those it's the way you say it
Speaker 3: and it's not being exactly honest because none of them
Speaker 3: were being fully truthful. And plus, you know, you got
Speaker 3: the mother was sick with cancer, real bad and was
Speaker 3: dying for quite a while and was on heroin and
Speaker 3: would not know what she was saying. She was always dazed.
Speaker 3: She didn't recognize any of her family for weeks. Wow,
Speaker 3: she didn't even recognize didn't even recognize the daughters. She
Speaker 3: didn't know who anybody was for weeks. I don't know
Speaker 3: how reliable that is.
Speaker 4: Sure, Sure, you talk about the first and this is
Speaker 4: where Jack McCullough in your talks with him, he has
Speaker 4: certain people that he will single out for his criticism,
Speaker 4: and one of those people is this prosecutor, Clay Campbell.
Speaker 4: And Clay Campbell, when we talked about the FBI coming
Speaker 4: into that case and then leaving that casey, that affects
Speaker 4: this trial dramatically. And part of it is that the FBI.
Speaker 4: What normally, I guess the defense would see is what
Speaker 4: the FBI had said and confirmed of this phone call
Speaker 4: at six forty seven, basically saying he couldn't be in
Speaker 4: Rockford forty miles away. And at the same time, so
Speaker 4: what does Clay Campbell do in terms of that timeline
Speaker 4: that seems to be established by the FBI and all
Speaker 4: the other evidence we just talked about, what do they
Speaker 4: do in that trial? To get that convictions.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, first of all, you know they had
Speaker 3: the FBI files sealed so that they wouldn't be allowed
Speaker 3: in the trial. And so you have to realize Clay
Speaker 3: Campbell as well as the judge, as well as the
Speaker 3: defense all have to read the file, all have to
Speaker 3: you know, talk about it, and then the judge has
Speaker 3: to make the decision. He decided that it would be
Speaker 3: hearsay and he could not allow any of it in
Speaker 3: for evidence. So you've just wiped out that whole FBI
Speaker 3: filed their timeline everything, so Clay changes the time zone
Speaker 3: by two hours, so he made everything offset so that
Speaker 3: it could be possible that Jack did it. And then
Speaker 3: he also tried to produce a witness saying that he
Speaker 3: saw that they saw Jack in town driving his car
Speaker 3: around that he had bought the one that apparently he
Speaker 3: had raped his sister in. But the problem with that
Speaker 3: one was that he had actually sold the car, and
Speaker 3: we know he sold the car two days earlier from
Speaker 3: the paperwork, so he did not have a car, so
Speaker 3: so you know, anyway, but he changed the The other
Speaker 3: thing is, what's an interesting fact is how we know
Speaker 3: it couldn't have been two hours earlier, an hour earlier,
Speaker 3: or anytime earlier, just to confirm that. Kathy Segman, the
Speaker 3: other girl that was out with Maria Ridolph Plane, decided
Speaker 3: to go in and get her doll. So she ran home,
Speaker 3: opened the door and went in and she was going
Speaker 3: through her dolls, and her mother asked what she's doing,
Speaker 3: and she had picked up a brand new doll that
Speaker 3: she had just got. Mother said, you're not going to
Speaker 3: go out and play with that. Take something older, like
Speaker 3: a raggiar doll. You just got that. So when the
Speaker 3: mother left, she took the good doll anyway, and she
Speaker 3: went out the back door. But because she went out
Speaker 3: the back door to avoid her mother, who did she
Speaker 3: go through her father? Her father was sitting watching a
Speaker 3: Western television show. This television show airs six to seven
Speaker 3: pm in Chicago in nineteen fifty seven in December, so
Speaker 3: they only had two television channels, and so that confirms
Speaker 3: that between six and seven she got the doll, and
Speaker 3: that's when Maria went missing. So you can change it
Speaker 3: on it, but they see none of this gets given
Speaker 3: to the jury and you get rid of the FBI file.
Speaker 3: All of a sudden, it's just Clay Campbell saying, we're
Speaker 3: estimating that she went missing between five and five and six.
Speaker 3: That's the problem, and that's that's you know, consider it corruption,
Speaker 3: consider it inefficiency, consider it police just trying to convict
Speaker 3: who they think did it, who in their hearts really
Speaker 3: believed did it, so they just push it along. I
Speaker 3: don't know. I can't give those answers, but factually they
Speaker 3: changed the time, they eliminated the FBI file, and and
Speaker 3: then they even the even they did, they even avoided
Speaker 3: having the father testify. There there goes, there goes any
Speaker 3: sort of reasonable evidence. M hm.
Speaker 4: You talk about too that it's interesting when a person
Speaker 4: goes to jail he was an ex police officer and
Speaker 4: a convicted child killer, So you're not you're going into
Speaker 4: jail under the worst of conditions, never mind innocent, but
Speaker 4: also you're going into a very dangerous place and with
Speaker 4: people that might want to kill you. You talk about
Speaker 4: an incident there that involving his eye.
Speaker 3: Tell us about this, Yeah, you know, the very first
Speaker 3: day he's in prison and knowing that he's child killer
Speaker 3: and possibly rapist and he is an ex cop, what
Speaker 3: do they do? They put him in a general population
Speaker 3: and then the guards put him in with a guy
Speaker 3: who they knew would attack him, and this is in
Speaker 3: his suggestions. He's like, this is the games they play.
Speaker 3: The guards will do things to people inmates on purpose.
Speaker 3: So they threw him in with the guy. And the
Speaker 3: guy the very first thing he said is I'm going
Speaker 3: to kill you. So of course doesn't matter laying awake
Speaker 3: all night or not. This guy had cleaned off the
Speaker 3: end of a toothbrush and when he was sleeping he
Speaker 3: jumped Jack and stabbed him right in the eye with it.
Speaker 3: And UH, and to make it worse, there was there
Speaker 3: was another another case too, where another inmate did the
Speaker 3: same thing and UH chased him down the stairs and
Speaker 3: stabbed him in the ear. You know, he gave me. UH.
Speaker 3: We had a day of all of the things that
Speaker 3: they had done to him on purpose, and I kind
Speaker 3: of put in the kind of the major few. But
Speaker 3: he was he was under terror the whole time. And
Speaker 3: even when they stuck him in there and they would back,
Speaker 3: then they would stick you in the nut ward. You know,
Speaker 3: people that were unbalanced and stuff, and so at best
Speaker 3: his h cellmate would be someone that's not very balanced.
Speaker 3: Are they're in there for a problem. And there are
Speaker 3: there very violent, so he had a lot of problems.
Speaker 3: It was not a it was not a good good
Speaker 3: time for him.
Speaker 4: At the same time, though, he has some hope in
Speaker 4: that he gets a sort of an assistant that he
Speaker 4: doesn't become a jail house lawyer, but he gets somebody
Speaker 4: that that is assisting him to follow these appeals, and
Speaker 4: there is at because he doesn't have a lawyer and
Speaker 4: doesn't have the means. He writes finally, this handwritten note.
Speaker 4: This is while well, tell us about the handwritten note,
Speaker 4: but also I just wanted to mention for audience too
Speaker 4: that his wife Sue and the stepdaughter Jane are behind
Speaker 4: him despite this incarceration. They are supportive and behind him,
Speaker 4: and he writes this handwritten letter. What happens with this
Speaker 4: letter as.
Speaker 3: A result, well, you know the thing that, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: it is important to mention that his wife right behind him,
Speaker 3: stayed with him through the whole thing, and even now
Speaker 3: she's on death bed and in the hospital. Quite often
Speaker 3: he spends most of his time just being with her.
Speaker 3: And you know, you know, you picture this seventy eight
Speaker 3: year old guy that's you know, so much has happened
Speaker 3: and so much time's passed now and you're you're, you know,
Speaker 3: nearing the end of your life and you just, you know,
Speaker 3: from your trailer home to you take the bus to
Speaker 3: the hospital to spend time with the wife that waited
Speaker 3: for you while you're in there. I can't I can't
Speaker 3: tell you how important that is, you know, for for
Speaker 3: people to realize that. And and the daughter in law.
Speaker 3: I've also included her testimony to her note her letter
Speaker 3: to the Core and about how if he was a molester,
Speaker 3: she would have never known it. She's been with him
Speaker 3: since she was twelve, and there's just no way that
Speaker 3: that happened. And so I think that people have to
Speaker 3: realize that there's so much more to it.
Speaker 1: And with.
Speaker 3: Your family support, that helps so much.
Speaker 4: To just complicate this. And I apologize for this, but
Speaker 4: that's why these stories are very complicated, and police suspicions
Speaker 4: are very complicated too. But there was an incident in
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty two while he was still a police officer.
Speaker 4: This is why he was fired, but apparently he was
Speaker 4: rehired after that. But some inappropriate behavior, to say the least.
Speaker 4: He let a young Runway stay in his home with
Speaker 4: their friend, and there was contact. He was convicted. It
Speaker 4: was a plea bargain. But again, if we talk about dirt,
Speaker 4: this is some dirt. I would say to mar this
Speaker 4: guy's reputation, you know, a fourteen year old runaway. So anyway,
Speaker 4: let's get back to he's incarcerated, his family's waiting for him,
Speaker 4: his wife and stepdaughter waiting for him, and someone named
Speaker 4: a prosecutor, state attorney actually from Decab County gets involved
Speaker 4: with this note. Because the result of the note there
Speaker 4: is a domino effect. And then this state attorney named
Speaker 4: Shmack is advocating for his release. Tell us about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Richard Smack, independent, you know, the state attorney and
Speaker 3: for Illinois. Just after all of that, he decided to
Speaker 3: study through the case and study through all the parts
Speaker 3: and the conviction, and he used the FBI reports a
Speaker 3: lot and reinvestigated everything with all the evidence he could,
Speaker 3: and he you know, with it. It was within six
Speaker 3: months he had decided that there's absolutely no way that
Speaker 3: the right man was in jail, the right man was
Speaker 3: not convicted, and that they had to do something about it.
Speaker 3: So he took it to the court to have his
Speaker 3: case overturned, and he sort of really led the he
Speaker 3: led the group and the whole thing to get to
Speaker 3: get this case resolved, and and it worked. It took
Speaker 3: a while, but by by January seventeen, it was just
Speaker 3: about over. When I said, you don't get a state
Speaker 3: attorney coming forward saying yeah, this guy's been put in wrong.
Speaker 3: This guy didn't belong here. You know, that just doesn't happen.
Speaker 3: And we knew it wasn't going to be long once
Speaker 3: that happened.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And of course his wife was waiting and his stepdaughter,
Speaker 4: and you talk about the lawsuit about wrongful conviction, and
Speaker 4: he has a bunch of fifteen defendants, but you did
Speaker 4: extensive interviews, and we haven't spoken so much about that.
Speaker 4: What was his goal with those lawsuits? What is he
Speaker 4: his life been like since he's been out. We've just
Speaker 4: talked a little bit about it. Who does he want
Speaker 4: to thank? What does demeanor?
Speaker 3: You know, I have a lot of that in there,
Speaker 3: so people can kind of grasp. I didn't want to,
Speaker 3: you know what. I didn't want to sway it either way.
Speaker 3: Jack is who he is and I can't make him
Speaker 3: more presentable or less presentable. I just I kind of
Speaker 3: tried to put exactly how and who he was across
Speaker 3: the table. He's he's kind of a rough character. I
Speaker 3: think he's he seems very happy character. He's very smart.
Speaker 3: During the time in prison, he learned four languages to
Speaker 3: read and write, studied a lot of history. He did
Speaker 3: a lot of things that a normal person wouldn't have
Speaker 3: that was put away for life. He didn't stop living,
Speaker 3: and I think that was his his his mentality. That
Speaker 3: was when when you asked him, you know, when were
Speaker 3: you planning on getting out? And he said, well, the
Speaker 3: last my last breath is when I'm free. It's when
Speaker 3: I'll get out. Then why would you study? And it's like, well,
Speaker 3: why wouldn't I. Why wouldn't I make myself better? Why
Speaker 3: wouldn't I exercise my mind? Why wouldn't I. There's so
Speaker 3: much to learn and read. So he had that attitude
Speaker 3: that was very positive. It was very different than than
Speaker 3: when you meet him, because he is so kind of gruff,
Speaker 3: you know, you know some of the state. One of
Speaker 3: the first statements he made was the problem with America
Speaker 3: is they let a woman go to work.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and.
Speaker 3: There's things like that. But as you get to know him,
Speaker 3: you start to realize that he was more concerned with
Speaker 3: the American family, having nobody at home to be with
Speaker 3: the kids and to raise the kids. It wasn't so
Speaker 3: much toward woman, So it just sort of he come
Speaker 3: from a different time. But I didn't want to soften
Speaker 3: all that up. I just wanted to put it all
Speaker 3: out there as is, and my first day meeting, I
Speaker 3: just did a whole chapter with that, just like this
Speaker 3: is what it was like, this is kind of how
Speaker 3: we talked, and what's become of it. As far as
Speaker 3: the lawsuits, it's all for his kids. He's not interested
Speaker 3: in any of them. He doesn't think about them, and
Speaker 3: he's not involved other than I guess when they need
Speaker 3: him to talk or write something or testify. The only
Speaker 3: thing that he is interested in is getting the law fixed,
Speaker 3: getting the law changed, or getting some sort of cause,
Speaker 3: some sort of an effect of this not being able
Speaker 3: to happen to other people. And with that comes the corruption.
Speaker 3: Clay Campally, Yeah, there's a lot of corruption in the system.
Speaker 3: The way it happened to him, the way it was manipulated,
Speaker 3: and the way that the evidence was you know, the
Speaker 3: FBI evidence was taken out and at the same time
Speaker 3: they altered the evidence that they had to make it,
Speaker 3: make a conviction. It's corruption. And to top it off,
Speaker 3: the three year statue of limitation in Chicago. In Illinois,
Speaker 3: nothing can happen to those police officers. So you've got
Speaker 3: this system made up where basically they wanted to put
Speaker 3: away someone they didn't like. It was almost like the
Speaker 3: Steve Avery case in a sense, someone that you just
Speaker 3: get rid of that you really hate and don't like,
Speaker 3: not popular in the neighborhood. Put him away. Oh, just
Speaker 3: change a few documents here, put him away, and he's gone.
Speaker 3: And maybe you know, I can't speak for the mind
Speaker 3: of the cops. You know, I'm always supportive cops, So
Speaker 3: this is not a easy thing for me to say.
Speaker 3: I'm not coming out bashing him. I think there's just
Speaker 3: people that have corruption, or there's people that have perhaps
Speaker 3: though that they really believed he did it, and they
Speaker 3: were just just making a few pushes to make sure
Speaker 3: he got put away. I can't you know, there's no way.
Speaker 3: You know, I can't say either way. But his main
Speaker 3: concern is to get the system fixed, that's all he wants.
Speaker 4: Well, it's a good start when you can expose this
Speaker 4: and get the information from Jack Daniel mccullu and also
Speaker 4: his family to be able to help you put this
Speaker 4: incredible story together, especially given very interesting that Charles Lachman
Speaker 4: was on footsteps in the Snow, very popular book made
Speaker 4: into a movie. And again, like you say, a kind
Speaker 4: of short on connective tissue in terms of support of
Speaker 4: the evidence. And of course a state attorney thought no
Speaker 4: way and fought against another prosecutor. I mean they upheld
Speaker 4: that conviction. He still persevered. So it's an interesting story
Speaker 4: of justice prevailing. But again it looks like somebody at
Speaker 4: least took information and had cooperation in making that evidence fit.
Speaker 4: If you're withholding information, it's the same as fabricating information.
Speaker 4: If you do both, then you really have a case
Speaker 4: for conspiracy. And I hope and I wish him the
Speaker 4: best in his lawsuit. With this, I want to thank
Speaker 4: you very much Alan for coming on and talking about
Speaker 4: the last man standing. Is Jack Daniel McCullough a true story?
Speaker 4: This is a wild blue press release. Tell us a
Speaker 4: little bit how they might find more of your work
Speaker 4: and is there a website or Facebook page they might
Speaker 4: refer to?
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, I have a website somethingweirdmedia dot com and
Speaker 3: that deals with me and everyone I work with. So
Speaker 3: if you want books or podcast radio shows anything like that,
Speaker 3: any of the hosts or guests we've had, and my
Speaker 3: Facebook of course, Alan R. Warren and I have an
Speaker 3: author page on Facebook as well and Twitter, and that's it.
Speaker 4: And also you're the the True Crime program as well
Speaker 4: House of Mystery every week co host fantastic podcast radio program,
Speaker 4: and so thank you very much Alan for coming on
Speaker 4: and talking about this. You're quite a prolific writer as
Speaker 4: of late, and I appreciate you coming on and bringing
Speaker 4: these consistently very very interesting stories. Thank you very much, Alan,
Speaker 4: You have a great evening and hope it. Talk to
Speaker 4: you again soon.
Speaker 3: Thank you, good night.