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Speaker 1: Noll Prig Necessary Dripod where everybody lost in terms of
Speaker 1: sting lab.
Speaker 2: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 2: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 2: written about them. Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every
Speaker 2: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 2: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 2: host journalist and author Dan Zufanski, Good Evening. It was
Speaker 2: the mid century murder that fascinated a nation and kept
Speaker 2: it glued for two years to radio, television and newspapers
Speaker 2: through three trials. The the handsome, wealthy doctor and his
Speaker 2: beautiful young paramour planned to kill his glamorous socialite wife,
Speaker 2: or did the gun accidentally discharged as he claimed. Early
Speaker 2: in the evening on July eighteenth, nineteen fifty nine, doctor
Speaker 2: Bernard Finch and his girlfriend Carol Anne Tregoff drove from
Speaker 2: their Las Vegas love nest to the Finch home in
Speaker 2: the Los Angeles suburb of West Cavina to speak to
Speaker 2: his wife, Barbara about obtaining a speedy divorce in Nevada.
Speaker 2: But the plan went awry and the conversation turned deadly,
Speaker 2: with Barbara's lifeless body ending up in her in law's
Speaker 2: backyard next door.
Speaker 5: After a high speed chase with police, Finch was arrested
Speaker 5: the next morning in Las Vegas and charged with Barbara's murder. Then,
Speaker 5: during his court hearing in West Cavina, Carol was arrested
Speaker 5: on the witness stand and charged as his accomplice. Soon
Speaker 5: others were named as part of a larger conspiracy. But
Speaker 5: who were they and what parts did they play in
Speaker 5: these deadly events set against the mid century CinemaScope glamour
Speaker 5: of Hollywood, Las Vegas and Palm Springs. Satin Pumps, The
Speaker 5: Moonlit Murder That Mesmerized the Nation is a true crime
Speaker 5: memoir written by former Finch patient, screenwriter and author Steve Koseref.
Speaker 5: The book that we're featuring this evening is Satin Pumps,
Speaker 5: The Moonlit Murders That Mesmerize the Nation, with my special guest,
Speaker 5: screenwriter and author Steve Kosaref. Welcome to the program, and
Speaker 5: thank you very much for this interview. Steve Koseref, Hi.
Speaker 4: Dan, thank you, it's my pleasure to be here.
Speaker 5: I hope that's the proper pronunciation of your name. I
Speaker 5: didn't check in your hands, so it's sponsor ref Ah. Okay,
Speaker 5: there we go by, thank you, thank you. Let's I
Speaker 5: want to ask you how you came to this story,
Speaker 5: what the how you came to want to write this
Speaker 5: story in your connection to this case and this story.
Speaker 4: Well, doctor Finch was our family doc, or he actually
Speaker 4: delivered me, and up until the time, well just about
Speaker 4: nine months before the murder, he remained our family doctor.
Speaker 4: And we'll talk about later why even prior to the
Speaker 4: murder he was no longer a family doctor. But for
Speaker 4: several years I had been thinking about writing a book.
Speaker 4: It popping out of my mind, and then I'd go
Speaker 4: on to other things. And the way this came about
Speaker 4: is I found out a friend was friends with one
Speaker 4: of the producers, former producers of Law and Order, and god,
Speaker 4: I thought, well, here's my break. You know, I'm going
Speaker 4: to be able to write something and get it died
Speaker 4: maybe it'll get made. And so I actually started writing.
Speaker 4: I found about three ideas, and I thought satin pumps
Speaker 4: would be the most commercial. So I started writing it
Speaker 4: as a treatment for ten to twelve episode limited series,
Speaker 4: and you know, got it together, gave it to my friend,
Speaker 4: he delivered it, and that's about as far as it
Speaker 4: got the producer had other parts of his own. He
Speaker 4: went on too, and I thought, you know, I spent
Speaker 4: all this time researching this and developing it. I said,
Speaker 4: I think there's a book in here. So I went
Speaker 4: back and started to shape it as a book to
Speaker 4: do a lot more in depth character study. I actually
Speaker 4: got into genealogical research, which was a gold mine because
Speaker 4: it actually gave me material and background as to why
Speaker 4: the characters did what they did. And it was very
Speaker 4: helpful going into that, and so I was able to
Speaker 4: cover areas in the book and get into detail that
Speaker 4: you never could in a limited television series.
Speaker 5: You also gained access to Los Angeles Police Department or
Speaker 5: apartment LA District Attorneys records. Maybe correct me about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I had. You know, I had a lot. I
Speaker 4: did a lot of research in newspaper archives. I actually
Speaker 4: there were four major newspaper archives that I went through.
Speaker 4: And yet I wanted to get into the District Attorney's
Speaker 4: records about this, and actually the trial transcripts, and I
Speaker 4: had been misled to think that, you know, the court,
Speaker 4: Los Angeles Superior Court actually had these, and I went
Speaker 4: there downtown and went into their sort of their Dungeon
Speaker 4: to find out where they were, and they they had
Speaker 4: no record of these. They couldn't find even a case
Speaker 4: file number, which is just really bizarre because this was
Speaker 4: a major criminal trial that lasted, you know, over eighteen months.
Speaker 4: So I started to do a little more research and
Speaker 4: I thought, I'm going to try the District Attorney's office.
Speaker 4: And I don't really have easy access even on the
Speaker 4: Internet to it. And I found some sort of back
Speaker 4: channel I don't even remember how on the internet, and
Speaker 4: this is you know, detective work, and I sent off
Speaker 4: a note and finally, after some doing, I got a
Speaker 4: response and they had to search for the files themselves,
Speaker 4: but they actually located them. They were in an archive
Speaker 4: holding storage facility somewhere in the San Fernando Valley, so
Speaker 4: they pulled them, but they gave me limited access to them.
Speaker 4: I had like and it was very specific, you know,
Speaker 4: I had like so many hours a day. They had
Speaker 4: somebody there, I guess to make sure that I wouldn't
Speaker 4: pocket the transcripts, and so I did have access, not
Speaker 4: as much as I wanted, but I was able to
Speaker 4: confirm some things by the access.
Speaker 5: Now let's start, as you do in the book, very
Speaker 5: exciting cinematic scene here West Covina, California, July nineteenth, nineteen
Speaker 5: fifty nine, in the San Gabriel Valley, Bernard Finch, doctor
Speaker 5: Bernard is running away from police. And you meanwhile saying,
Speaker 5: at that time, young boy, six and a half miles away,
Speaker 5: you were in Charter Oak. As you do described a scene,
Speaker 5: doctor Bernard Finch is running away from police.
Speaker 4: He's running down the hill from his home across the
Speaker 4: South Hills Country Club where he played tennis with his
Speaker 4: wife Barbara, and there were still some orange groves that
Speaker 4: were left at the time. And as he's running through
Speaker 4: that area, he ends up into the orange groves trying
Speaker 4: to escape, and he starts tripping and actually ends up
Speaker 4: on his back at one point, but he gathers himself
Speaker 4: finally and continues on this run. And he ends up
Speaker 4: across the street at a neighbor's home, and there spots
Speaker 4: a car, and as many people did in the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 4: they left their cars unlocked, and not only that, they
Speaker 4: left the keys in the ignition. So he gets the
Speaker 4: bar and he steals it and he starts driving and
Speaker 4: he ends up in lat twenty And I'm thinking that
Speaker 4: in his state of mind, he thought he was going
Speaker 4: to pick up Carol Tregoff, his girlfriend, at her home
Speaker 4: with her former husband, but she was no longer living
Speaker 4: there and she had actually moved to Las Vegas prior
Speaker 4: to this occurring. So he ends up in a lat
Speaker 4: pwenty neighborhood, ditches the one car and then steals another
Speaker 4: same case doors unlocked the keys in the ignition, and unfortunately,
Speaker 4: when he dumps the first car, he blocks the driveway
Speaker 4: of a policeman who is going to work morning, so
Speaker 4: he calls the police you know, give him the car
Speaker 4: and finds out the car has been stolen. So Finch
Speaker 4: at this point in the second car is headed to
Speaker 4: the West co Medical Clinic and as he's spend some
Speaker 4: time there, as he pulls out of the driveway, the
Speaker 4: police at this point have been notified about him and
Speaker 4: a patrol car spots him and they give chase and
Speaker 4: he jumps on the Sam Brandino Freeway headed towards Los Angeles,
Speaker 4: which is about twenty miles away, and at this point
Speaker 4: eventually there are twenty patrol cars that are speeding after him,
Speaker 4: and somehow he manages to elude them, gets off the
Speaker 4: freeway and switches back and heads back in the other direction,
Speaker 4: but the police don't know that. They come across what
Speaker 4: they think is the same nineteen fifty five cadillec they've
Speaker 4: been chasing. They run this car off the road. The
Speaker 4: car spins around in an the median gravel strip. They
Speaker 4: run towards the car, gun's drawn and one officer flings
Speaker 4: the door open and there's an elderly woman sitting in
Speaker 4: the driver's seat. So obviously they didn't catch Finch, who
Speaker 4: by now is halfway to Las Vegas. And that's how
Speaker 4: that scene ends in the book.
Speaker 5: Right now, you go to telling us about Barbara Finch
Speaker 5: that was thirty six years old at the time of
Speaker 5: her death. Tell us about the situation with their marriage
Speaker 5: and when they were married, and also just the situation
Speaker 5: throughout this marriage and where they were at that point
Speaker 5: in when Barbara was thirty six years old fifty.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Barbara was very beautiful, very bright, very smart, well liked.
Speaker 4: She had been a patient of Finches, and in fact
Speaker 4: he delivered her first child, her daughter, Patty Dee, and
Speaker 4: she ended up she was sort of in a marriage
Speaker 4: that wasn't going anywhere as far as she was concerned.
Speaker 4: She her family at one time had had some money
Speaker 4: and I think she missed, you know, all that came
Speaker 4: with being wealthy. She was married to an autumn mechanic
Speaker 4: and living in Baldwin Park, which was kind of a
Speaker 4: dead in town in the eastern San Gabriel Valley. And
Speaker 4: here she meets Finch. You know, he's wealthy, he's handsome,
Speaker 4: he's charming, and shortly after her baby's delivered, she ends
Speaker 4: up working for him as a medical assistant. And Finch
Speaker 4: had a habit at this point, but it's not so
Speaker 4: much known as it was later that you know, he
Speaker 4: was attracted to the ladies and he had no problem
Speaker 4: with having extramarital affairs. Finch was married at this time
Speaker 4: his first wife, Francs, and had three children by her.
Speaker 4: Barbara and her husband were living in Baldwin Park and
Speaker 4: somehow they Finch and Barbara orchestrated it. And I don't know,
Speaker 4: this is just really bizarre. Orchestrated Finch and his wife
Speaker 4: and children moving next door to Barbara and her husband
Speaker 4: involved in park. Right, so now they're literally physically close,
Speaker 4: if not you know, romantically involved, and eventually, you know,
Speaker 4: the hours that she works with Finch. They turned into
Speaker 4: late nights and you know, her husband in Finch's wife, Francis,
Speaker 4: had to be wondering, you know, what's going on, and
Speaker 4: they became involved, and eventually they wanted to get married,
Speaker 4: and so you know, I'm sure Barbara's husband, Lyle at
Speaker 4: the time, wanted to put a stop to it, and
Speaker 4: you know, his threat was that he was going to
Speaker 4: take their daughter away. And Barbara wanted out of this
Speaker 4: marriage so badly that she was willing to make that
Speaker 4: deal to give up her parental rights at that point
Speaker 4: to her two year old daughter. So she and Finch
Speaker 4: ended up getting married in Las Vegas, near close to
Speaker 4: Christmas Eve, and they at that point had no home together.
Speaker 4: They were living in their separate apartments. He was in
Speaker 4: the process of building a hilltop home in West Covina
Speaker 4: that he designed, and it took about close to a
Speaker 4: year for it to be finished before they moved in there.
Speaker 4: And you know, eventually Barbara's daughter, Patty, who was close
Speaker 4: to eleven at the time, he ended up moving in
Speaker 4: there with them, and shortly after that, Barbara gave birth
Speaker 4: to Finch's son, Raymie, and the first couple of years
Speaker 4: of their marriage, you know, in the home were great.
Speaker 4: They had quite a social life. They were members of
Speaker 4: the Los Angeles Tennis Club, where they played tennis with
Speaker 4: celebrities like Vera Allen and actor director Mark Stevens. The
Speaker 4: Los Angeles Tennis Club the president at the time was
Speaker 4: Cornwell Jackson, and Cornwell Jackson was Earl Stanley Gardner's literary agent,
Speaker 4: and Cornwell was also married to Gail Patrick Jackson, who
Speaker 4: had been an actress in the thirties and forties and
Speaker 4: she was sort of retired and she was looking for
Speaker 4: something to do, and through their association with Earl Stanley Gardner,
Speaker 4: the three of them decided to She pitched the idea
Speaker 4: for the Permy Mason TV series and basically Earl Stanley
Speaker 4: Gardner was on board and she ended up selling it.
Speaker 4: So this is sort of the circles of the Finches
Speaker 4: ran in. They were also members of the South Hills
Speaker 4: Country Club, which was literally down the hill and right
Speaker 4: across the street from their home. Golf course, tennis and so,
Speaker 4: as I said, they could slum with the doctors and
Speaker 4: the lawyers in the eastern San Gabriel Valley if they
Speaker 4: didn't happen to have a handy celebrity around so at
Speaker 4: the time of their divorce, which later occurred, the Finch's
Speaker 4: estate was estimated to be about six million dollars in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty one dollars. He not only owned the home,
Speaker 4: but he was partnered with his brother in law, Gordon
Speaker 4: Franklin in the West Cavena medical clinic, and also they
Speaker 4: were taking a line of credit. They were building a
Speaker 4: hospital that was right adjacent to it. They also owned
Speaker 4: the labs. They had a lot of properties together, and
Speaker 4: so he was a pretty wealthy son. Finch's family goes
Speaker 4: way back into the history of the area. His grandfather
Speaker 4: was one of the founding fathers of the city of Cavena.
Speaker 4: He helped drill one of the first water wells there.
Speaker 4: And Finch's father, also named Raymond, was a optometrist and
Speaker 4: a cowner of a jewelry store that was well known
Speaker 4: in the area. And the Finches were well like. They
Speaker 4: were very civic, very wealthy, very carrying people, very religious people.
Speaker 4: But something changed with Bernie as he was growing up
Speaker 4: and became a doctor and it just didn't seem to
Speaker 4: be enough for him, and so well, when he was
Speaker 4: married to Barbara, like I said, the first couple of
Speaker 4: years were pretty good and then he started to you know,
Speaker 4: the way they had met was through an affair. Well
Speaker 4: that didn't stop, you know, after he had married her,
Speaker 4: and a couple of years later he ended up meeting
Speaker 4: Carol Tregoff. She was about nineteen. She was looking for
Speaker 4: a job. She was in a loveless marriage and she
Speaker 4: was looking to do something. So she found an ad
Speaker 4: for a receptionist position that was coming a medical clinic
Speaker 4: and was hired. She worked in that for several months
Speaker 4: and then Finch needed a medical assistant his was retiring,
Speaker 4: so she applied for that job and was hired on
Speaker 4: a trial basis. And initially they weren't involved sexually romantically,
Speaker 4: if you know, she knew that Finch was even carrying
Speaker 4: on with his nurse at this time, so she you know,
Speaker 4: she had a pretty good idea what he was like.
Speaker 4: But eventually he started to ask her out for lunch
Speaker 4: and they ended up you know, being involved. And there
Speaker 4: was one interesting date that they had which she considers
Speaker 4: the first romantic date was at the Luel restaurant in
Speaker 4: Beverly Hills. And if anybody knows about that restaurant, it
Speaker 4: was a famous Polynesian restaurant that was owned by Stephen Crane,
Speaker 4: who was Lana Turner's husband, and it has quite a history.
Speaker 4: There's even a story about the time that Lena Horn
Speaker 4: was there and some races made a crewde remark about her,
Speaker 4: and she picked up a lamp and threw it at him,
Speaker 4: along with three other ashtrays and being the guy on
Speaker 4: the head. But Finch and Carol went to the Luell
Speaker 4: restaurant one night, they drinking scorpions. They probably were a
Speaker 4: little tipsy. They may have been even asked to leave
Speaker 4: the restaurant, and they ended up in his nineteen fifty
Speaker 4: seven Chrysler three hundred C convertible, beautiful expensive car. They
Speaker 4: ended up in the Hollywood Hills and she didn't get home.
Speaker 4: Finch didn't get her home till about four point thirty
Speaker 4: in the morning. And you know, she's still married to
Speaker 4: her husband, Jimmy Poppa at this point, who's been up
Speaker 4: all night wondering where she's been. And once she comes
Speaker 4: into the door, you know, he wants answers and she's
Speaker 4: not forthcoming and giving him anything. So he thinks Jimmy
Speaker 4: thinks he's going to get back at her, and he
Speaker 4: calls Finch, her employer, and tells him that she's been
Speaker 4: out all night. When little does Jimmy know the person
Speaker 4: that Churl's been out all night is with Finch. And
Speaker 4: in my retelling in the book, I'm thinking, how did
Speaker 4: Finch stifle the laughter? You know, it had to have
Speaker 4: been pretty funny, but it wasn't funny to Jimmy. And
Speaker 4: you know, he demanded, you know, he was telling Finch
Speaker 4: that she's not coming into work, she's been out all night,
Speaker 4: blah blah blah. And so she doesn't go in that night.
Speaker 4: And the next day or two is when Jimmy comes
Speaker 4: home from work, opens the front door and the place
Speaker 4: is completely empty to furniture, Carol her clothes and everything,
Speaker 4: and he makes a trip to the West Covina Medical
Speaker 4: Clinic to confront Finch and Carol about what's going on.
Speaker 4: And I'll give you a chance to get a question
Speaker 4: in here.
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Speaker 5: Now you talked about despite being married, Carol married to
Speaker 5: Jimmy Poppup and him having suspicions. Now they're confirmed. She's
Speaker 5: moved out, taking everything, the furniture and everything she owned
Speaker 5: and is out of that place. How does how does
Speaker 5: Finch deal with Barbara at the same time.
Speaker 4: Well, she's heard rumors, and I think she sort of
Speaker 4: wanted to look the other way. She loved her position
Speaker 4: as being a social lighte And Jimmy Papa decides that
Speaker 4: he's going to He has actually placed a couple of
Speaker 4: calls to Barbara about this, and she's, you know, sort
Speaker 4: of states, you know, she's heard the rumors. And finally,
Speaker 4: after this happens, when Barbara actually realizes that this is
Speaker 4: a serious affair that Finch is having, she calls Papa.
Speaker 4: She wants him to talk to Carol to break this up.
Speaker 4: And at that point, this was prior to when that
Speaker 4: first date with Finch and Carol, this is just when
Speaker 4: things are starting to happen. And Jimmy had heard the
Speaker 4: rumors at the time, but you know, they didn't believe him.
Speaker 4: You know, they had been Carol and Finch had been
Speaker 4: spotted in Palm Springs where she liked to water ski
Speaker 4: and he liked to play tennis. And you know, he is,
Speaker 4: you know, when he's talking to Barbie, he says, well,
Speaker 4: they had a legitimate reason there. You know, they could
Speaker 4: have been saying a patient and so on. And Barbara,
Speaker 4: you know, she's not buying that, you know, And then
Speaker 4: Jimmy finally says, well, you know, if you're afraid that
Speaker 4: there is adultery going on, why don't you just get
Speaker 4: a divorce? And she tells Jimmy she's already been through
Speaker 4: one marriage. She doesn't want another, and she's fearful of
Speaker 4: losing not only her status but her financial you know,
Speaker 4: access too. And at the time, California had no community
Speaker 4: property laws. If a wife could prove or a husband
Speaker 4: could prove adultery, that spouse could end up with just
Speaker 4: about everything. And this becomes it starts to be a
Speaker 4: problem that starts brewing for Finch because he realizes this,
Speaker 4: especially when Barbara finally has had enough and decides to
Speaker 4: file for divorce.
Speaker 5: Yeah, let's talk about let's talk about the West Covina
Speaker 5: Medical Clinic and this big home that he talks after
Speaker 5: they both left their prospective homes in their marriages. He
Speaker 5: talked about building this castle in West Covina, four miles
Speaker 5: from his state of the art labs and clinic. Tell
Speaker 5: us a little bit about this, and who eventually moves
Speaker 5: next door.
Speaker 4: Well, he built. He actually bought a couple lots and
Speaker 4: he had added to them and he ends up designing
Speaker 4: this home that's very similar in style to the institutional
Speaker 4: layout of the West Cavanna Medical Clinic. So it's actually
Speaker 4: kind of a cold. People who had been in the
Speaker 4: home thought there was a lot of warmth in it,
Speaker 4: even though there was a swimming pool that the home
Speaker 4: was kind of u shaped and build around the swimming pool.
Speaker 4: His father, who ends up retiring from his life as optometrist,
Speaker 4: ends up buying the lot right on the other side
Speaker 4: of the driveway and builds a house there. So Barbara's
Speaker 4: in laws are literally living across the driveway. And Finch's
Speaker 4: father is really a nice man's very loving, very thoughtful.
Speaker 4: He adores his daughter in law and she does him.
Speaker 4: Finch's mother is an invalid. She's a wheelchair bound and
Speaker 4: not in very good health. And you know, during when
Speaker 4: Barbara realizes has had enough of his affairs, and particularly
Speaker 4: his affair with Carol, you know, the parent, his parents
Speaker 4: can hear the fighting that's going on up above and
Speaker 4: the screaming and everything, and some of this this verbal
Speaker 4: abuse actually starts to turn physical and Finch starts taking
Speaker 4: a couple of cracks at Barbara, and there are cases
Speaker 4: where she's reported this to the police. In her divorce proceeding.
Speaker 4: She actually has gone to the attorney, her divorce attorney,
Speaker 4: with a cut over her eye, and she claims that
Speaker 4: Finch is trying to kill her. And I think Finch
Speaker 4: is so frustrated that he sees that possibly as a
Speaker 4: way out. And this is when he and Carol start
Speaker 4: to plan what they're going to do with Barbara, and
Speaker 4: they decide, you know, at this point, when Barbara's filing
Speaker 4: divorce papers, Finch and Carol are worried that she's going
Speaker 4: to be named as a correspondent. So she quits her
Speaker 4: job as his medical assistant and she moves to Las Vegas,
Speaker 4: and she moves in with a childhood friend and his grandmother,
Speaker 4: and she gets a job at the Sands Hotel, the
Speaker 4: cocktail waitress, and she starts asking her friend, you know,
Speaker 4: do you know anybody? Do you know some bad dudes here?
Speaker 4: You know, you know some bad guys in town? And
Speaker 4: I'm not so sure that she was specific, but she
Speaker 4: wanted she was looking for basically a hit man to
Speaker 4: do in Barbara. And her friend Don doesn't know anybody,
Speaker 4: but he knows somebody who might. He's taking a class
Speaker 4: at the University of Las Vegas, and so he contacts
Speaker 4: this guy and then this guy apparently knows somebody. And
Speaker 4: this guy's name is Jack Cody. Jack Cody is a
Speaker 4: major character in the story and literally quite a character.
Speaker 4: He's a con artist, but he's not a murderer, but
Speaker 4: they don't know that. But he will present himself to
Speaker 4: you anyway he thinks he can get something out of you.
Speaker 4: So he basically is presenting himself as a bad dude
Speaker 4: to care Carl and Carol is in Street Smart. She's
Speaker 4: really not a criminal. So she's listening to him and
Speaker 4: she wants to believe, and so she's buying into what
Speaker 4: he's saying. So she talks to Finch and they decide
Speaker 4: to basically hire Jack Cody to do Barbara in and
Speaker 4: they pay him half of something that's just under two
Speaker 4: thousand dollars fee, which is really cheap. Now, the interesting
Speaker 4: thing I noted here is she's working at the Sands Hotel,
Speaker 4: which was mobbed up at the time. Why didn't she
Speaker 4: approach an employee there who might have had a connection
Speaker 4: to basically a real hit man, you know, a real assam.
Speaker 4: She didn't do that, And I think it's that they
Speaker 4: were just too cheap to pay. What would a doof
Speaker 4: cost to kill Barbara. So they decide to hire Jack Cody.
Speaker 4: You know, they pay him half the fee, and Cody,
Speaker 4: being a con man, he takes the money and you know,
Speaker 4: basically gambles it away, drinks it away. And they had
Speaker 4: set a July fourth weekend or the time for him
Speaker 4: to go to Los Angeles and kill Barbara. Well, they
Speaker 4: come back. Finch is back in Las Vegas with Carol,
Speaker 4: and Carol tells him. He calls Carroll and says, well,
Speaker 4: I did the job. And Carol's very enthused, you know
Speaker 4: that Barbera's out of the picture, and she calls Finch.
Speaker 4: Finch is just kind of a little doubting Thomas. He
Speaker 4: gets on the phone, he calls his home and Barbara
Speaker 4: answers it, so she's very much alive. So they get
Speaker 4: a hold of Cody and they want to know what
Speaker 4: went wrong, and Cody's got this wild story. You know, Hey,
Speaker 4: I killed a woman. I put her body in the
Speaker 4: trunk of a car. I used that shotgun. And then
Speaker 4: Finch all of a sudden says, well, you must have
Speaker 4: killed her friend by accident. Barbara has been staying with
Speaker 4: when she was running and trying to hide from Finch
Speaker 4: during the physical abuse. She stay with a friend in Hollywood,
Speaker 4: and so he said, you killed wrong woman, and Jack
Speaker 4: Cody says, well, I'll go back and do it right.
Speaker 4: And there is another attempt made. But what happens this
Speaker 4: time is basically Jack Cody takes the money, he goes
Speaker 4: to Los Angeles and he ends up having a friend
Speaker 4: drive him back to Las Vegas where he gathers his things,
Speaker 4: and he heads back to Minnesota where he's from, and
Speaker 4: never does the job. And at that point that's the
Speaker 4: last that Carol and finchsee of Jack Cody. But dowed
Speaker 4: there faced with having to take care of Barbara themselves,
Speaker 4: and they did have a plan B, and this involved
Speaker 4: neutralizing her, injecting her with second all and then a
Speaker 4: second injection which would put an air bubble in her
Speaker 4: bloodstream and kill her. They were going to place her
Speaker 4: body in the Chrysler, this beautiful car, placed her body
Speaker 4: in the car, and send it over the ravine which
Speaker 4: is next to the house. And their hope was that
Speaker 4: it would look like an accident, that she had died
Speaker 4: a natural death to the car crashing over the side
Speaker 4: of the Hill, and that's sort of where the plan
Speaker 4: is at this point. And I'll take a moment here
Speaker 4: before I get into what really happened after that.
Speaker 5: Okay, so now we're talking about they're trying to put
Speaker 5: this plan into motion. Let's talk about the night before
Speaker 5: and what their plan is to be able to do this.
Speaker 5: Carol and Bernard, what do they have to do? What
Speaker 5: do they have to get set to be able to
Speaker 5: put this into action? This plan to murder Carol.
Speaker 4: Well, they started doing some shopping. He obviously has access
Speaker 4: to syringes, second all and so on, and they end
Speaker 4: up buying some other items. They end up buying some
Speaker 4: fishing and that's not fishing line, I guess. It's actually
Speaker 4: some kind of cord that could be used to more
Speaker 4: a boat with, but it's very thin, and they were
Speaker 4: going to use this to tie her up. And they
Speaker 4: put all these things together into valise. And when Carol
Speaker 4: gets off of work about six o'clock the evening of
Speaker 4: the eighteenth, she picks up Finch, who had been staying
Speaker 4: at their apartment in Las Vegas. The cases in the
Speaker 4: back seat. She's in her just fifty five bronze and
Speaker 4: white DeSoto convertible, which is a beautiful car. And they're
Speaker 4: making this five hour drive from from Las Vegas to
Speaker 4: West Cavina under the pretense, you know, they're telling themselves
Speaker 4: basically that they're going to talk to her about a divorce,
Speaker 4: about Barbara moving to Las Vegas to get a speedy divorce.
Speaker 4: That's what they would later tell, you know, investigators and police.
Speaker 4: So they drive to Las Vegas, I mean, they drive
Speaker 4: to West Cavina. Barbara at this point had earlier in
Speaker 4: the day left the home in the Chrysler, and she's
Speaker 4: driven to the Los Angeles Tennis Club for a game
Speaker 4: of doubles and with a girlfriend of hers, the woman's fiance,
Speaker 4: and then another man who turns out to be her
Speaker 4: divorce attorney's investigator, and they play doubles. They have drinks
Speaker 4: at the country club, and then they go out to
Speaker 4: a local steakhouse for dinner. They come back to the
Speaker 4: country club, Barbara picks up her car and she drives back,
Speaker 4: and just about the time that Finch and Carol are
Speaker 4: arriving in West Cavina, parking the car at the South
Speaker 4: Hills Country parking lot, Barber is starting to drive back
Speaker 4: from the Los Angeles Tennis Club on the San Bernardino
Speaker 4: Freeway to her home in West Cavena. Once finching, Carol
Speaker 4: park the car, he gets out. He's going to surveil
Speaker 4: the property. First. He walks up the hill on the
Speaker 4: side of his father's property and then up his driveway
Speaker 4: to avoid being seen by anybody. But there's a major
Speaker 4: spotlight floodlight on the property, which he pulls the cord
Speaker 4: out of and he looks around. He doesn't see anybody.
Speaker 4: He realizes that she's gone, so he motions and waves
Speaker 4: at Carol down below the hill to come up. She
Speaker 4: brings this valise with these items a second, all these syringes,
Speaker 4: the rope, flashlight. There's gloves in there, surgical gloves. Everything
Speaker 4: that they need is in this case. And she walks
Speaker 4: up the hill with his case. Now they're waiting, sort
Speaker 4: of hidden on the lawn for Barbara to show up,
Speaker 4: and as she does is she drives into the car
Speaker 4: and stops the car. She turns off the engine but
Speaker 4: not the ignition, so that the radio and the headlights
Speaker 4: are still on in the car. And as she's starting
Speaker 4: to come up, Finch sneaks up behind her and with
Speaker 4: the butt of the gun. He strikes her on the head,
Speaker 4: which sort of knocks her senseless and causes a concussion.
Speaker 4: She's laying on the floor, and just prior to this,
Speaker 4: she had been struggling with she had called out or
Speaker 4: no no, I guess it was actually right at that point,
Speaker 4: she comes to and she calls out to Marie Anne,
Speaker 4: who is the nineteen year old nanny that takes care
Speaker 4: of the two children in the house. Marianne with Bill up,
Speaker 4: the kids were asleep. She was curling her hair in
Speaker 4: the bathroom, so she hears barber screaming and she runs
Speaker 4: out into the garage and as Finch is struggling with Barbara,
Speaker 4: Marie Anne comes in and turns on the lights. Finch
Speaker 4: runs for Marie Anne. Barbera's now laying on the garage
Speaker 4: floor again, Finch's hit her a second time. Finch runs
Speaker 4: over to Marie Anne, shoves her head into the garage wall,
Speaker 4: causing an invitation, and actually hangs her head a couple
Speaker 4: of times trying to neutralize her. She collapses. She's momentarily stunned,
Speaker 4: and the next thing she realizes when she comes to,
Speaker 4: Finch's pulled a gun and he's motioning her into the
Speaker 4: back seat of the car, and he's dragging Barbara, who
Speaker 4: has revived, into the front seat of the car, and
Speaker 4: to scare Marie Anne, he actually fires the gun. Now Carol,
Speaker 4: who had not actually come into the garage, is waiting nearby,
Speaker 4: and once she hears that first shot, she reportedly told
Speaker 4: people she hid for hours in the bogain via boogem
Speaker 4: Villa bush that was on the property, but in reality
Speaker 4: she told the reporter early on in the case that
Speaker 4: she actually took off when she heard that first gun shot,
Speaker 4: which is the warning shot Finch fired in the garage.
Speaker 4: So she starts running and Finch now has to deal
Speaker 4: with Carol and Marie, or with Barbara and Marie on
Speaker 4: his own. So he gets into the car and he's
Speaker 4: looking for the keys to the car because he's going
Speaker 4: to drive this car. Now. Instead of one passenger, there's
Speaker 4: going to be two. They're going to go over the
Speaker 4: side of the cliff. His thought process, he'd taken Barbara's purse,
Speaker 4: he dumped the contents on the floor of the garage
Speaker 4: looking for the keys, and then he realized that the
Speaker 4: keys are in ignition because the lights and the radio
Speaker 4: are on right, So As he does that, Barbara bolts
Speaker 4: she's come to. She bolts out of the car and
Speaker 4: starts running down the hill and he comes around the
Speaker 4: side of the car and gives chase. And at that point,
Speaker 4: Marianne gets out of the car and runs in the
Speaker 4: house to call police. As Barbara's running down the driveway
Speaker 4: finishes after her. She crosses the driveway and starts to
Speaker 4: it's broken one of her high heels. She's running literally
Speaker 4: one foot in one high heel, and she's trying to
Speaker 4: go down the seven dirt steps into her to seek
Speaker 4: a silence at her in laws, and she had told
Speaker 4: their divorce attorney before that's what she would do. So
Speaker 4: as she starts to run down these stemp steps, Finch
Speaker 4: actually fires a gun and shoots her in the back.
Speaker 4: She collapses in the backyard and dies in the backyard.
Speaker 4: And that's where we are at this point.
Speaker 5: So now we have where he obviously steals the vehicle
Speaker 5: and then a subsequent another vehicle. The police officer where
Speaker 5: the first vehicle gets blocked in in his driveway, he
Speaker 5: calls police. So now police an alert police officer remembers
Speaker 5: details about Carol Tregoff, and so he ascertains that she's
Speaker 5: in Vegas and they go to or remembers that she
Speaker 5: works at the Sands. So they go to the Sands
Speaker 5: and talk to her, tell us what they ask her
Speaker 5: to do and what happens as a result.
Speaker 4: But it's actually there's two stute police officers. One that
Speaker 4: works to the West Communita Police. He remembered that because
Speaker 4: Finch and Carol and her ex husband had once lived
Speaker 4: near him, and he knew that she had moved to
Speaker 4: Las Vegas. So now the Las Vegas sheriffs have heard
Speaker 4: about this and they believe that Finch is on his
Speaker 4: way there, and they know that Carol works at another
Speaker 4: Las Vegas sheriff knows that Carol he had stopped her
Speaker 4: for in infraction with her car. I think she had
Speaker 4: a busted tail light, so he knows that she works
Speaker 4: at the Sands Hotel. So to detective, well, first one
Speaker 4: detectives goes to the Sands Hotel and this is about
Speaker 4: early in the morning. She had actually driven back to
Speaker 4: Las Vegas. So they're talking to her and he's asking
Speaker 4: her about Finch and she says, well, yeah, he's slept
Speaker 4: at my apartment overnight, and so they go there and
Speaker 4: he gets a backup and the two detectives go over
Speaker 4: there and pick up Finch and bring them in for
Speaker 4: questioning at the Las Vegas Sheriff's department. Then about ninety
Speaker 4: minutes later they go back there. At this time, Carol
Speaker 4: has already gotten off of where she's gone home and
Speaker 4: now she's sleeping in the same bed that Finch was,
Speaker 4: and they roused her and they haul her in for questioning.
Speaker 4: They're not so sure that she's directly involved, but they
Speaker 4: also think that there may be a link, so she's
Speaker 4: not being held. She's not under entertainment, though. They managed
Speaker 4: to kind of convince her, and this would prove problematic
Speaker 4: later on because they because it forced her to do
Speaker 4: things that she might not have. She actually made a statement.
Speaker 4: The police were detaining Finch until the Las Vegas Sheriff
Speaker 4: was detaining Finch until the West Covina Police Department could
Speaker 4: send a couple of detectives up who were flying in
Speaker 4: to pick him up, and she made a statement. She
Speaker 4: promised to go back to West Cavina to be interviewed,
Speaker 4: to be a witness, and so that happened, and then
Speaker 4: eventually the detective did come and pick up Finch and
Speaker 4: bring him back. They took a plane to Ontario Airport
Speaker 4: and then they drove in and they brought him to
Speaker 4: the property to walk around, and that's where he met
Speaker 4: his criminal attorney, Grant Cooper, who became famous later on
Speaker 4: for the defending Sirhan Sirhan among other notables. And so
Speaker 4: Finch the police are looking for. The one thing that
Speaker 4: happened is that just prior to Finch taking being on
Speaker 4: the run the previous night, he had gone back to
Speaker 4: the garage and picked up Barbara's purse and the contents.
Speaker 4: He went back and where she died, he actually found
Speaker 4: the bullet and the shell case, and he gathered all
Speaker 4: these items plus a gun. And so when he was
Speaker 4: on the run from police initially when he stole the
Speaker 4: two cars, he actually had her purse, the bullet, the shellcasing,
Speaker 4: and all the contents in it. The police were not
Speaker 4: obviously able to find them in the properties of Finch
Speaker 4: and his father, but they had been searching, and they
Speaker 4: had even used a metal detector and were coming up
Speaker 4: indy hat indy empty handed to find anything. So Finch
Speaker 4: agrees to take them on a tour of the property
Speaker 4: and he toys with them at this point. It's really
Speaker 4: kind of bizarre. He's leading him on to believe that
Speaker 4: he knows where the gun and the bullet and the
Speaker 4: shellcasing are and he's taking around the property. The reporters
Speaker 4: are following along. Everybody's excited. They think Finch is going
Speaker 4: to take him to the gun. And finally he works
Speaker 4: them up into this frenzy. He gets them down. They
Speaker 4: walk down to the Lark Allen, which borders on the
Speaker 4: Finch home above the Hilltop and the South Hills Country Club,
Speaker 4: and he comes in. He goes, you know, I just
Speaker 4: don't know, and he drops some cold and I'm sure
Speaker 4: if there wasn't a physical sigh collective sigh among the
Speaker 4: police and the reporters, there was at least a mental one.
Speaker 5: Police also talked to Bernie's father, who of course was
Speaker 5: next door, and what does he tell them about He
Speaker 5: about something he heard the night before and his reaction
Speaker 5: to those sounds, what he did the next day.
Speaker 4: You know, he was in denial, and I think he
Speaker 4: was afraid if he paid too much attention that his
Speaker 4: worst fears would come true. He heard the two gunshots,
Speaker 4: but he initially wanted to believe that it was the
Speaker 4: cars backfiring and didn't really do anything. He'd gone to bed,
Speaker 4: and the next morning he was an early riser. At
Speaker 4: about six am, he looks out his window and there
Speaker 4: he notices a police presence on his son's property, and
Speaker 4: you know, he's still thinking that, well, maybe the place
Speaker 4: was robbed, you know, So he decides he's going to
Speaker 4: invest the game. And he walks up and the police
Speaker 4: really don't spot him. They don't stop him, you know,
Speaker 4: it's one of the problems with being an older person.
Speaker 4: They just don't care. And he walks literally onto the property.
Speaker 4: He finds what would later be termed the murder kit,
Speaker 4: the volice with all the second all the syringes and everything,
Speaker 4: which is basically in plain view. It's to the side
Speaker 4: of the house, but he finds him. He finds his
Speaker 4: alpine hat that Finch was wearing. He picks those up
Speaker 4: and he walks into the house and because he still
Speaker 4: thinks it might be possibly a robbery, he starts looking
Speaker 4: around the home and he goes to a hiding place
Speaker 4: where he knows the Finches hit their value there and
Speaker 4: he finds a silverware tray inside are Barber's wedding rings,
Speaker 4: so he pockets those, he puts the silverweight tray back
Speaker 4: and he walks back into his house with the murder
Speaker 4: kit and the alpine hat and nobody, you know, he
Speaker 4: holds on to him for a couple of days, and
Speaker 4: this would later prove problematic during the trials. The police
Speaker 4: would actually lie about how they acquired the alpine, the
Speaker 4: alpine hat, and the murder kit. But it was several
Speaker 4: days later when they were still looking, you know, searching
Speaker 4: the property for evidence, that he actually offered them to detectives.
Speaker 4: And one of the detectives had a key to the
Speaker 4: case that they had found in Finch's personal belongings in
Speaker 4: Las Vegas when he was picked up by the Las
Speaker 4: Vegas sheriffs. So they tried the keys and one of
Speaker 4: the key opens the alpine or opens the murder kit,
Speaker 4: and inside they find all this damning evidence. A second
Speaker 4: all there's a liquid form of it, there's a viral
Speaker 4: of it, there's pill form, there's syringes in there. I mean,
Speaker 4: this is stuff a doctor wouldn't normally carry to help somebody.
Speaker 4: It would be something that a person would kill, you
Speaker 4: would carry around to murder somebody. So they had this
Speaker 4: damning evidence now and when Finch was brought back after
Speaker 4: the search of the property, he was housed in the
Speaker 4: Cavena jail because West Covina did not have holding facilities
Speaker 4: and he was booked, fingerprinted and everything. Carol had driven
Speaker 4: down the morning of his hearing and they had some
Speaker 4: alone time together. And my thought is that when they
Speaker 4: were alone, he promised Carol that he would keep her
Speaker 4: out of any involvement with his case, that he would
Speaker 4: not give her up. And she reporters noticed that when
Speaker 4: she exited the car she was smiling. And the next
Speaker 4: thing is the Finch hearing WOHID was quite dramatic and
Speaker 4: quite the show.
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Speaker 5: start your ritual today. We last left off, we did
Speaker 5: not mention what police found at the hilltop home of
Speaker 5: Carol and then the state that police found her body?
Speaker 5: What was that state? What did the police find in
Speaker 5: terms of evidence at the crime scene.
Speaker 4: There wasn't a whole lot. They found her broken heel,
Speaker 4: so they knew she had been running, and then they
Speaker 4: found her other heel, which was intact a few yards
Speaker 4: from her body. She had been shot in the back.
Speaker 4: The bullet had severed an artery and basically she bled
Speaker 4: internally and very quickly. The bullet did like exit her
Speaker 4: body because Finch found it. They were never able to
Speaker 4: find that bullet or even the showcasing, So that was
Speaker 4: about that they When Finch was initially arrested, he didn't
Speaker 4: He claimed that he had been in Las Vegas the
Speaker 4: whole time, and then eventually he said, well, yeah, he
Speaker 4: was there. And this is when they started to formulate
Speaker 4: their story about that they had gone to see Barbara
Speaker 4: that night, that they were going to talk to her
Speaker 4: about a divorce, and that she pulled a gun on
Speaker 4: them and she had it in the chrysler, and that
Speaker 4: there was a struggle over the gun. There were actually
Speaker 4: two struggles over the gun. The second struggle is Finch
Speaker 4: claims that he had disarmed her and in the process
Speaker 4: he threw the gun down and the discharged and shot
Speaker 4: her in the back. And that was his story as
Speaker 4: to how he ended up she ended up dying by
Speaker 4: being shot, and how he was there, but he didn't
Speaker 4: do it.
Speaker 5: When Carol was questioned and you you say that they
Speaker 5: wanted to question them concurrently. At first I questioned them
Speaker 5: so that they couldn't get any more of the story
Speaker 5: straight if they hadn't even had any opportunity to speak
Speaker 5: to it. Did did Carol corroborate that account that Barbara
Speaker 5: had pulled the gun on them?
Speaker 4: She claims, yeah, that that had happened. But later on
Speaker 4: she claimed that she had run into the bugain Via
Speaker 4: bush and hid there for four or five hours before
Speaker 4: she drove off. That the police came, they didn't find her,
Speaker 4: that she was hidden in this and she stuck to
Speaker 4: this through the whole case. But there was an interesting
Speaker 4: thing I came across, and I don't know how the
Speaker 4: police missed this, I said. Early on in the case,
Speaker 4: she spoke to a reporter and you would have had
Speaker 4: to really do some dating to find this. She actually
Speaker 4: told the reporter that she had left and was on
Speaker 4: the run when she heard the first or she ran
Speaker 4: when she heard the first shot, which was a warning
Speaker 4: shot he fired, and that she was actually a block
Speaker 4: away when the second shot was fired that killed Barbara.
Speaker 4: And I believe at that point she was just pure fright.
Speaker 4: She just jumped in that car and she took off.
Speaker 4: She did not stay around. She did not actually see
Speaker 4: Finch shoot Barbara, and she didn't see much of what
Speaker 4: was going in the garage. She disappeared as when she
Speaker 4: heard Marie Anne coming into the garage. She had been,
Speaker 4: you know, hiding sort of in the back of the
Speaker 4: entrance to the garage while Finch was fighting with Barbara,
Speaker 4: and when Marie Anne came in the nanny came to
Speaker 4: the garage, is when Carol exited, and she claims she
Speaker 4: hit in the booga via bush. I think she stayed
Speaker 4: to the side of the property where she couldn't be seen,
Speaker 4: but there wasn't much time between when Marie Anne came
Speaker 4: in and Finch fired that warning shot, so she might
Speaker 4: have even started running just as soon as Marie Anne
Speaker 4: came in, but she definitely was on the run when
Speaker 4: she heard that first warning shot because Marie Anne claims
Speaker 4: she never saw her, which I believe was true, and
Speaker 4: she was not physically involved in the actual murder, you know,
Speaker 4: killing Barbara, even though she had plotted and she conspired
Speaker 4: to do her in.
Speaker 5: Now let's fast forward to these people being charged, both
Speaker 5: of them, but Barbara's pardon me. Carrol's situation is a
Speaker 5: little bit different in the beginning, and we talked that
Speaker 5: we alluded in the introduction about her being arrested after testifying.
Speaker 5: This for the conditions in which Carol eventually is arrested
Speaker 5: and charged for murder.
Speaker 4: Well over the weekend there was quite a bit of
Speaker 4: media play. You know, Finch was a well known doctor
Speaker 4: in the eastern sing Gabro Valley and the press, television
Speaker 4: radio got ahold of it, so that by the Monday
Speaker 4: of the hearing in West Cavina, a lot of people
Speaker 4: knew about it, and people in the area who knew
Speaker 4: the Finch name or where their patients, a lot of them,
Speaker 4: mostly women who didn't work, came to the hearing in
Speaker 4: the small courtroom Citrus Court in West Cavina and there
Speaker 4: was a folksy judge, Albert Miller, who was quite a character, presiding,
Speaker 4: and Finch had been charged. He was at the hearing,
Speaker 4: but he did not testify, and one of the witnesses
Speaker 4: they put on the stand was Carol, and at this
Speaker 4: point police thought she had some all of them, but
Speaker 4: they weren't sure. And Carol arrives into at the hearing
Speaker 4: wearing one of Barbara's maink trim suits and sunglasses. She
Speaker 4: looks like a movie star going to a premier and
Speaker 4: she's accompanied by her stepmother, Gladys, who are she's very
Speaker 4: much a great relationship. It couldn't have been closer if
Speaker 4: they had been actual biological mother and daughter, And so
Speaker 4: she sits down. She's called as a witness. She gets
Speaker 4: upon the stand and she's questioned by the assistant district Attorney,
Speaker 4: and during the line of questioning it seems to be
Speaker 4: that she's got been more involved than what they thought,
Speaker 4: and she actually confirms that she's had a sexual relationship
Speaker 4: with Finch, and it creates Charite a furor at this
Speaker 4: point because she breaks down on the stand and starts crying,
Speaker 4: and the judge calls for a recess and allows Carol
Speaker 4: and her stepmother, Gladys to go in new chambers and
Speaker 4: he talks to them and I don't think he realized
Speaker 4: what he was doing at the time, but it's almost
Speaker 4: like coaching, and this would prove really problematic through the
Speaker 4: following trials. What he did. He was himself called as
Speaker 4: a witness. But she gets back on the stand and
Speaker 4: when it looks like the testimony is over, the judge,
Speaker 4: Albert Miller, turns to this assistant District attorney says, well,
Speaker 4: I guess she can be excused now, and the ADA
Speaker 4: turns to him and he says, you're on her. As
Speaker 4: soon as she steps off that stand, we're going to
Speaker 4: arrest her. And they did, and she was as surprised
Speaker 4: as anybody, and I think she, in her mind thought
Speaker 4: she was being arrested more for stating she had a
Speaker 4: sexual affair with Finch than actually shooting Barbara. And the
Speaker 4: court is in an uproar. She's hauled out. Report are following.
Speaker 4: There's a famous photo of her being let out by
Speaker 4: one of the West Covina detectives to a holding sale
Speaker 4: and they asked her, They asked, Carol, did you think
Speaker 4: you were going to be arrested? And she was I
Speaker 4: certainly did not. And her mother is kind of a
Speaker 4: drama queen, and she can't believe what's happened. She is
Speaker 4: trying to, you know, implore the reporters as though they
Speaker 4: could do something about it, excuse me. And so she
Speaker 4: and Finch are hauled off to Los Angeles County Jail
Speaker 4: on a bus with other people who have been arrested
Speaker 4: for other crimes in the area.
Speaker 5: What about attorneys for both of them? Who did they get?
Speaker 5: I know, Carol hired Robert Neebe and he was famous
Speaker 5: for defending Charlie Chaplin, Errol Flynn, Bugsy Siegel, Robert Mitchum.
Speaker 5: Tell about representatives for doctor Finch.
Speaker 4: And nib was a partner Jerry Geisler, who was a
Speaker 4: very famous criminal attorney, and like you said, he defended
Speaker 4: Charlie Chaplin. At this point, he had also been hired
Speaker 4: by Helen Besseolo, who was George Reeves's mother. And as
Speaker 4: you probably know, George Reeves played Superman on television. Died
Speaker 4: in a very mysterious way, being shot in the back.
Speaker 4: And you know, obviously the coroner was quick to wrap
Speaker 4: that up and call it a suicide. But even to
Speaker 4: this day. It's still questionable as how he really died.
Speaker 4: But Helen Beslow had hired Jerry Geisler to investigate her
Speaker 4: son's murder, and this had happened just about a month
Speaker 4: prior to the Finch Tragoff murder. So Jerry Geisler's office,
Speaker 4: Robert Neibe is going to represent Carol. Finch has hired
Speaker 4: his attorney, who Need Nelson, who was not a criminal attorney,
Speaker 4: and he may have referred Finch to Grant Cooper. And
Speaker 4: so Grant Cooper was not at the hearing. He had
Speaker 4: sent an associate of his because he was. He might
Speaker 4: have been out of town or on another case I
Speaker 4: can't recall at this point, but he was not at
Speaker 4: the original hearing. And let's say ask me another question.
Speaker 5: Yes, so now they have Grant Cooper, a very qualified
Speaker 5: attorney to represent doctor Finch. There is some I guess,
Speaker 5: a challenge to change the venue because they don't think
Speaker 5: they're going to be able to get a fair trial
Speaker 5: given all the publicity. And there is also the one
Speaker 5: legal issue that's is was Carol. Did Carol give evidence
Speaker 5: in violation of her constitutional rights?
Speaker 4: Yes, that's what they were talking about with her on
Speaker 4: the stand and this would be something that would uh
Speaker 4: be a major sticking point in the case, in the
Speaker 4: prosecution case when it actually did come to trial. I
Speaker 4: might also mention that at the hearing in Wescovina, Gail
Speaker 4: Patrick Jackson and her husband, Cornwell Jackson were at, you know,
Speaker 4: because they were president of the tennis club and friends
Speaker 4: of the Finches. They were also at the hearing, and
Speaker 4: I think she might also been looking for material for
Speaker 4: the Perry Mason TV series. You know, she wasn't going
Speaker 4: to pass up unity. So there were you know, some
Speaker 4: celebrities at the at that hearing, and also.
Speaker 5: A famous media queen that you you mentioned as well
Speaker 5: that she made also a grand entrance when you talk
Speaker 5: a little later about Carol making an entrance, but this
Speaker 5: media queen, this journalist was treated like a queen by
Speaker 5: the judge and made quite the entrance herself and was
Speaker 5: of major importance herself at that time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, when the trial actually took off on January fifth,
Speaker 4: nineteen sixty, and they had moved it to a larger
Speaker 4: venue which was called the Circus Room at Metropolitan Courthouse
Speaker 4: and downtown Los Angeles, the trial initially had been moved
Speaker 4: was going to be in Los Angeles or promoter Superior Court.
Speaker 4: But Grand Cooper, I think, really didn't want to drive
Speaker 4: it far. He lived in Hancock Park, so he managed
Speaker 4: to move the trial downtown and they actually had to
Speaker 4: move it to a larger It was going to be
Speaker 4: in the Hall of Justice, but only sat about ninety
Speaker 4: nine people, so they moved it to the new Metropolitan Courthouse.
Speaker 4: There was this huge venue called what was referred to
Speaker 4: as the Hippodrome or the circuits Room. It sat over
Speaker 4: two hundred people. And so come January fifth, you know,
Speaker 4: a couple months have passed. There's been a lot of
Speaker 4: media interest, a lot of photos taken of Carol. This
Speaker 4: looks to be a major trial. So British author Eric
Speaker 4: Ambler is there and Dorothy Kilgellen has been sent by
Speaker 4: the Hearst Syndicate to cover the paper. Excuse me, And
Speaker 4: she shows up through the front doors with two copy
Speaker 4: boys on either side, carrying her type right and makes
Speaker 4: his grand entrance, and she's brought a couple of friends
Speaker 4: with her too, Clifton Webb and Sonia Henny and Kobina
Speaker 4: Wright who was a society maven. And she enters and
Speaker 4: the judge pins her with an orchid, and she took
Speaker 4: had almost as much attention as Carol and Finch did,
Speaker 4: and she had a lot of access to them for interviews,
Speaker 4: and there were a lot of photos taken of her there,
Speaker 4: and she was still appearing on What's My Line, So
Speaker 4: on the weekend she would fly back to New York
Speaker 4: to appear on What's My Line on Sunday night and
Speaker 4: then probably take a red eye back the following day
Speaker 4: to be you know in court in Monday morning in
Speaker 4: Los Angeles. And she covered the first trial you know,
Speaker 4: which lasted for weeks I think a couple of months,
Speaker 4: and her columns were syndicated in all the Hearst newspapers.
Speaker 4: And she had a penchant for younger men. She was
Speaker 4: involved with Johnny Ray, the singer, and she took a
Speaker 4: liking to the to court bailiffs during the finish trial,
Speaker 4: and she wrote about them in her columns and apparently
Speaker 4: talked about getting them screen tests, and I think she
Speaker 4: actually got a screen test for one of them. I
Speaker 4: don't think anything happened, but she loved younger guys.
Speaker 5: Now the prosecutions to prove their theory that and they
Speaker 5: have about that. There was a plan to murder Carol,
Speaker 5: and it included the second all and many of the
Speaker 5: things that were in that release that you say the
Speaker 5: attached a case the murder kit. So they have to
Speaker 5: prove that in court. But they also use witnesses, and
Speaker 5: Marie Anne is one of the witnesses that they used
Speaker 5: to prove this case. But also there are friends of
Speaker 5: Barbara and tell us about some of these witnesses and
Speaker 5: their testimony that helped the prosecution mount their case.
Speaker 4: Key witnesses here eventually, though they didn't not so much.
Speaker 4: You know, during this trial there was Marie Anne who
Speaker 4: was a Swedish au pair and she had a key
Speaker 4: piece of evidence that everyone was surprised about. She had
Speaker 4: written her mother a letter to Sweden the previous May
Speaker 4: and she talked about Finch and Barbara fighting, and Barbara
Speaker 4: who confided in her and said that her husband tried
Speaker 4: to kill her, that he would either try and drive
Speaker 4: her up into the mountains and do it or out
Speaker 4: to the desert where nobody would ever find her body.
Speaker 4: So it not only confirmed that there was a plot
Speaker 4: in the works, but how it would have been done,
Speaker 4: and the murder kit played into that, and Marie Anne
Speaker 4: was very believable. She initially fumbled a little bit because
Speaker 4: it was the first time on the stand, but as
Speaker 4: she became, you know, the longer she spent as a witness,
Speaker 4: she Grant Cooper could not disarm her, no matter what
Speaker 4: he tried to do. She stuck to her guns. She
Speaker 4: was very believable. Now, the other witness who was not
Speaker 4: initially believed by everybody because he was a man, was
Speaker 4: Jack Cody, who had been involved in this initial conspiracy.
Speaker 4: And the thing is that Jack Cody, you know, he
Speaker 4: had a life of crime here. He couldn't be scared
Speaker 4: or you know, by the prosecution I'm not I mean
Speaker 4: the prosecution by the defense attorneys, and Grant Cooper tried
Speaker 4: to destroy him, as did Carroll's attorneys, and he would
Speaker 4: just start a backdock to them and say these kind
Speaker 4: of wild, funny things. But whatever he said was honest
Speaker 4: and they could not ruffle him. And he eventually proved
Speaker 4: to be one of the other the main reason that
Speaker 4: they were eventually convicted. And he presented this story and
Speaker 4: as wild as it seemed about this murder conspiracy, it
Speaker 4: made sense. But his life as a con artist had
Speaker 4: did work against him. But ultimately he was telling the truth.
Speaker 4: There were a couple other people that were involved a
Speaker 4: lesser degree. Barbara's friends were also put on the stand.
Speaker 4: She had a friend who lived in Palm Springs where
Speaker 4: finches would go to play tennis and then drive to
Speaker 4: Salt and Sea to go water skiing, and she called
Speaker 4: one instance actually about a day before Barbara was murdered,
Speaker 4: and Barbara was looking for another place to hide out,
Speaker 4: and she called her and her name was Manette Haber,
Speaker 4: and she asked her about staying with her for a
Speaker 4: few days in Palm Springs to escape burning. And Manette says, well,
Speaker 4: it's one hundred and twenty degrees here and the air
Speaker 4: conditioning isn't working in the guest room, and so that
Speaker 4: sort of dissuaated Barbara, and she said she'd think about
Speaker 4: it and get back to her, but Barbara never called
Speaker 4: her back. And then the following night is when she
Speaker 4: was murdered. There was a that she a young school
Speaker 4: teacher that she had met playing tennis who lived in
Speaker 4: a Hollywood apartment, was engaged and she had a female
Speaker 4: roommate and Barbara would stay with them occasionally, and that's
Speaker 4: where Jack Cody claimed that he had killed Barbara and
Speaker 4: stuffed her body in the trunk, but hadn't. And she
Speaker 4: was quite a character. When she was up on the
Speaker 4: stand giving her testimony, she'd sigh and sometimes she didn't
Speaker 4: get the questions. I mean, she sort of seemed to
Speaker 4: be somewhat naive, and she generated a lot of laughter
Speaker 4: when she was giving testimony. But she told the truth,
Speaker 4: and those were sort of the key witnesses.
Speaker 5: Let's use this as an opportunity to stop for these messages.
Speaker 5: Now we talked about these two the trial itself. Let's
Speaker 5: talk about Carol's testimony at this first trial.
Speaker 4: She didn't she wasn't a lot forthcoming, uh, you know,
Speaker 4: she obviously was there with Finch, but she didn't. She
Speaker 4: often said she didn't know things or wasn't aware. And
Speaker 4: the district attorney, the the partner, the second attorney, lead
Speaker 4: attorney on this was able to, you know, get underneath
Speaker 4: her skin. But they didn't get a whole lot out
Speaker 4: of her like they should have. She just wouldn't answer
Speaker 4: a lot of the questions. They did read her trial transcript,
Speaker 4: not a trial transcript, but they did read her statement
Speaker 4: to Las Vegas police. She was actually out on bail.
Speaker 4: She managed to make bail, and she was living with
Speaker 4: her family in Pasadena, and so she had a lot
Speaker 4: of freedom that obviously Finch being locked up, didn't.
Speaker 5: You talked about the media's response to this and the
Speaker 5: reporting on this sensationalist case. You also talk about the
Speaker 5: reporting specifically about Carol, not only about her performance on
Speaker 5: the stand and whether that was effective or not and
Speaker 5: her reaction on the stand, but also other things about
Speaker 5: her personally.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she living with her parents.
Speaker 5: She they she had certainly gained some weight, and they
Speaker 5: were commenting on that like that was an important issue.
Speaker 4: She was treated kind of like a celetty. They loved
Speaker 4: photographing her, and yet they would treat her like they
Speaker 4: did a lot of women and still do it. The
Speaker 4: taunt today about her weight gains, which generally happened while
Speaker 4: she was incarcerated, when she wasn't out on bail and
Speaker 4: she had less access to clothing and hair, makeup and
Speaker 4: so on. There is an interesting point where she is
Speaker 4: allowed to take a pair of shoes in that she's
Speaker 4: wearing when she's arrested finally and held in La County jail,
Speaker 4: and one of the things they would not allow women
Speaker 4: to do. You could not bring in shoes for somebody
Speaker 4: through a third party. They were afraid that, like with
Speaker 4: high heels, that somebody could be stashing narcotics in them,
Speaker 4: which is just really kind of bizarre, but that was
Speaker 4: their thoughts. So she ended up wearing these red high heels,
Speaker 4: which she became known for and a lot of her
Speaker 4: court appearances and she was pretty much wearing those the
Speaker 4: whole time.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about what happens when they finally rest their
Speaker 5: cases and the jury gets to deliberate, and what are
Speaker 5: they facing. What are they facing two potentially in terms
Speaker 5: of sentences.
Speaker 4: Interesting for a trial at the time, and even for
Speaker 4: Los Angeles in nineteen sixty, is that the jury was mixed.
Speaker 4: There was an African American man and a Latino man
Speaker 4: on it, and I don't remember coming across or seeing
Speaker 4: a lot of cases of that happening at the time.
Speaker 4: Generally the juries are all white. And also, unfortunately, there
Speaker 4: was also a woman who was a racist on it,
Speaker 4: and she locked heads with the African American man and
Speaker 4: a Latino man and they decided to The two men
Speaker 4: decided they were going it was going to be them
Speaker 4: against the other people. And this actually caused. What happened
Speaker 4: is they could not reach an agreement due to the
Speaker 4: racism that was going on. There was actually alleged altercations,
Speaker 4: a physical threats made of one of the men allegedly
Speaker 4: picking up a chair and saying he was going to
Speaker 4: break the window and throw the woman out through it.
Speaker 4: But what was interesting is that the window couldn't even
Speaker 4: be opened, and apparently the couple of the women on
Speaker 4: the jury ran to get the bailiffs. I mean, there
Speaker 4: was pandemonium in the jury room when this was going on.
Speaker 4: That was unbeknownst to Carol and Finch. While this was happening,
Speaker 4: they could not come to an agreement. There was a
Speaker 4: mistrial called and it was actually due to racism that
Speaker 4: they were spared the gas chamber. Were being convicted at
Speaker 4: that point, even though they would have to go through
Speaker 4: it all over again. Dorothy Kilgallon apparently had somebody was
Speaker 4: leaking some information to her out of the jury. There
Speaker 4: was a mole in the jury, and after the jury
Speaker 4: was excused and they were leaving the courthouse, she was
Speaker 4: out front and she spotted the African American man, a
Speaker 4: Latino man, and she motioned him over. Obviously, they recognized her,
Speaker 4: and she said, let's have some drinks and talk about this.
Speaker 4: So she earlier knew about a secret taxi phone. In
Speaker 4: those days, a lot of hotels or buildings had a
Speaker 4: little box that had a direct line to a taxi company,
Speaker 4: so you could get a cab just by picking up
Speaker 4: the phone. It'd be there in moments. And she had
Speaker 4: been tipped off by a newspaper vendor on the street
Speaker 4: that this phone existed behind a bush, so she ran
Speaker 4: over there, picked up the phone, called a cab, and
Speaker 4: she whked these guys off to her hotel room at
Speaker 4: the Ambassador and was able to interview them and lone behold,
Speaker 4: one of the men pulls out a journal that he
Speaker 4: had been kept that he kept during the trial. So
Speaker 4: she had a lot of actist information about this, though
Speaker 4: she never really revealed that the trial was called a
Speaker 4: mistrial due to the racism. Because of the times, it
Speaker 4: was just generally accepted that was the case, and she
Speaker 4: was never found out exactly who was her mole and
Speaker 4: the jury and how she was getting tipped off to
Speaker 4: so much information. But the trial was going to be
Speaker 4: it was rescheduled by the district attorney and they were finching, Carol,
Speaker 4: now we're going to have to go through a second trial.
Speaker 5: What was any difference in the trial, at least in
Speaker 5: the approach by the prosecution, was there? I mean, obviously
Speaker 5: they had not got a conviction. What was their strategy,
Speaker 5: if anything, to do differently with the second trial.
Speaker 4: They thought they would run it chronologically. They thought that
Speaker 4: people that the jurors lost track of the case because
Speaker 4: they had people out of sequence, and so they were
Speaker 4: going to do it in a chronological order the next time.
Speaker 4: But even then when that happened, it didn't wasn't much better.
Speaker 4: All the juries ended up going to the Finch home
Speaker 4: to They did field trips to the Finch home and
Speaker 4: surveilled the property, and it was conducted just like they
Speaker 4: were in court. The judge was the only one who
Speaker 4: could speak. There was silence. Otherwise. Finch managed to escape
Speaker 4: a couple minutes and see his mother. He was able
Speaker 4: to get away and do that. But they did make
Speaker 4: a couple They did make visits to the Finch home
Speaker 4: during the first and the second trials, and still the
Speaker 4: second trial resulted in a mistrial. After all that, now
Speaker 4: they were faced with a third trial, which also went
Speaker 4: to the Finch home. At this point, though, you know
Speaker 4: you're into this over a year and everybody is tired.
Speaker 4: They're looking to get to the finish line. And the
Speaker 4: third trial was much speedier. By then, a lot of
Speaker 4: the media hoopla died down. Dorothy Kilgallen was long gone.
Speaker 4: She lasted through just the first trial. Eric Gambler was gone.
Speaker 4: It was still being reported, but not quite the circus
Speaker 4: that it had been up to that point, and so
Speaker 4: it was a little speedier. Grant Cooper was gone, his
Speaker 4: assistant was now in charge of Finch. And like I said,
Speaker 4: the third trial, the third jury had gone to the
Speaker 4: Finch home to look at the property. And during the
Speaker 4: course of the trial there was something that just didn't
Speaker 4: makes sense. They just didn't quite buy Finch's story about
Speaker 4: how his wife did. During the first trial, there were
Speaker 4: female jurors that were crying when Finch was on the
Speaker 4: stand giving his testimony. And he was quite a great actor.
Speaker 4: It was like a soap opera, as the district attorney
Speaker 4: would later say, and the women are crying as he's
Speaker 4: telling this melodramatic story how after the struggle with the
Speaker 4: gun and Barbara's shot, he ran down the steps to
Speaker 4: his dying wife held her in his arms and she said, Bernie,
Speaker 4: I should have listened to you. Take care of the children.
Speaker 4: And the women are crying. And you know, the jury,
Speaker 4: most of them pretty much bought that at the time.
Speaker 4: By the time of the third trial, though, people were
Speaker 4: having their doubts as to what the way that Bernie
Speaker 4: said that his wife died. So they actually asked the judge.
Speaker 4: They were the only jury they went back for a
Speaker 4: second visit to the property and something must have kicked
Speaker 4: in then, is to just the being on the physical
Speaker 4: place again. And then the key thing is that they
Speaker 4: re enacted the way amongst themselves. The jurors reenacted the
Speaker 4: way that Finch claimed his wife died, and they came
Speaker 4: to the inclusion it's physically impossible that this could have happened.
Speaker 4: And the other key thing is that this jury also
Speaker 4: believed Jack Cody where the others didn't. And so those
Speaker 4: two things, the fact that Barbara couldn't have died the
Speaker 4: way Finch said and Jack Cody is what ultimately convicted him.
Speaker 4: And Finch, who had been a golden boy of Singhabro
Speaker 4: Valley for decades, was just dumbfounded that he was convicted.
Speaker 4: He just couldn't believe it the first time. I mean,
Speaker 4: he had gotten off drunk driving charges as a doctor,
Speaker 4: driving the Chrysler around speeding and you know, you get
Speaker 4: stopped by the police and they just let him go,
Speaker 4: and you know, you talk about your white male privilege,
Speaker 4: he definitely had it, and you know, he was just
Speaker 4: dumbstruck that he was convicted, as was Carroll, and they
Speaker 4: were both convicted for conspiracy. And even though Carol did
Speaker 4: not touch the gun, did not shoot Barbara, she well,
Speaker 4: she and Finch at this point could be facing the
Speaker 4: death penalty. They could have died in the gas chamber.
Speaker 4: So now they had to wait I think it was
Speaker 4: a week until the sentencing hearing as to what was
Speaker 4: actually going to happen to them.
Speaker 5: You also, what we didn't mention is that there's so
Speaker 5: much that we can't talk about. We don't have time.
Speaker 5: But in the second trial, it was very interesting that
Speaker 5: the judge Dawson urged the jurors to come to a conclusion,
Speaker 5: to settle this and not have a mistrial again, and
Speaker 5: to believe Cody. So there was impropriety in terms of
Speaker 5: what he was doing at that trial. So It must
Speaker 5: have gave attorneys for Finch and maybe even doctor Finchen
Speaker 5: in his mind that it looked pretty good if he
Speaker 5: could survive a couple trials and have mistrials for this,
Speaker 5: that the prospects wouldn't be so bad for the third trial.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Judge Dawson was an interesting case. As soon as
Speaker 4: he was announced that he would be heading the second trial,
Speaker 4: Finch and Carroll's attorneys tried to get rid of him.
Speaker 4: And I can't tell. He had a great record as
Speaker 4: far as convictions, but I couldn't tell. It was almost
Speaker 4: like it was something personal that they wanted not to
Speaker 4: have to deal with him. They made every effort to
Speaker 4: have to prevent him from conducting that second trial, and
Speaker 4: I think, you know, there's no actual record of it,
Speaker 4: but I think he was so mad about what they
Speaker 4: tried to do that he was going to make sure
Speaker 4: they were convinc and I think they didn't get a
Speaker 4: fair trial, as you said, because once the juries, the
Speaker 4: jury was sort of deadlocked, and he talked to the jurors.
Speaker 4: He told them that he thought they were guilty and
Speaker 4: that they should, you know, come to a majority conclusion
Speaker 4: on here. And you know, Grant Cooper is just dumbstruck.
Speaker 4: You know, he's objecting and he's held in contempt. He
Speaker 4: cited I think contempt twice by Dawson, and this actually
Speaker 4: carried on, you know, through the court after this trial
Speaker 4: was over, and it was just it. It's an amazing
Speaker 4: part of the book about this Dawson as to what went.
Speaker 5: On, you talk about the sentencing, tell us what they
Speaker 5: were sentenced to and and what happened in practical well
Speaker 5: in actual terms considering parole.
Speaker 4: They were convicted of conspiracy to murder, so Carol could
Speaker 4: basically be facing the same sentence as Finch, even though
Speaker 4: she did not hold a gun and she did not
Speaker 4: kill Barbara. And so they were went back to county
Speaker 4: jail and that very night that they were convicted. But
Speaker 4: before the sentencing, Finch likely heard that famous Western swing
Speaker 4: musician Spade Cooley, who had his own variety show that
Speaker 4: was popular across the country, had killed his wife, had
Speaker 4: beaten her to death, and had been arrested. So that
Speaker 4: couldn't have been too good of an omen you know,
Speaker 4: and he must have been wondering what likely he might
Speaker 4: be facing. And also in the midst of all this,
Speaker 4: Carol Chessman, who had fought i think twelve years on
Speaker 4: death row to avoid the death penalty for rape, was
Speaker 4: finally executed. So the fact that if they would convict,
Speaker 4: you know, they would execute Carol Chessman for rape, what
Speaker 4: would they think of doing for Finch who had actually
Speaker 4: murdered his wife, which was much worse. So it must
Speaker 4: have weighed heavily on him that they could have well
Speaker 4: gotten the gas chamber. But at the sentencing hearing, they
Speaker 4: were actually sentenced to life in prison, you know, And
Speaker 4: there's two different things that happened. Finch breathed a sigh
Speaker 4: of relief because he thought he was going to die.
Speaker 4: But Carol realized she was going to be in prison
Speaker 4: for a long time, and she actually told Finch, she goes,
Speaker 4: I'm going to be an old lady by the time
Speaker 4: I get out. And she was very upset, and there
Speaker 4: was sort of a break in their relationship at that point,
Speaker 4: and she sort of got out of there as soon
Speaker 4: as she could, And you know, Finch was happy. Grant
Speaker 4: Cooper was happy because Grand Cooper, when he saw the
Speaker 4: juris faces, he was pretty sure that they were going
Speaker 4: to give Finch the death penalty, and so you could
Speaker 4: talk about what happened after they were sentenced and spent
Speaker 4: time in prison.
Speaker 5: Yeah, let's talk about that. But what you do answer
Speaker 5: for everyone wondering what happened to that weapon that they
Speaker 5: never found, what happened to the shell casings, what happened
Speaker 5: to other evidence. You take us back to the high, high,
Speaker 5: high speed pursuit and doctor Finch going back to his clinic,
Speaker 5: and you tell us what happened.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it would seem very odd for him. Why would
Speaker 4: somebody run on the run for murder rive to their
Speaker 4: medical clinic and be there such a short period of time.
Speaker 4: And I believe that he actually because we know he
Speaker 4: had at some point he had the purse, the gun,
Speaker 4: the shellcasing, and the shell in his possession, and he
Speaker 4: never admitted to what happened to them. The police never
Speaker 4: found it, and he claimed, you know that he was
Speaker 4: in sort of a hypnotic state when he drove back
Speaker 4: to Las Vegas. He didn't really even remember what he did.
Speaker 4: He just remembered he sort of snapped out of it
Speaker 4: on his way when he was near Las Vegas. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, but he never did tell what happened to that.
Speaker 4: I believe that when he went to the medical clinic,
Speaker 4: he took the purse, the shellcasing the gun in the shell.
Speaker 4: He ran into the medical clinic and he went to
Speaker 4: like a hasmat receptacle and put them in the trash
Speaker 4: at this has matt receptacle the very bottom, knowing that
Speaker 4: it's unlikely anybody would be going through it and that
Speaker 4: it would be picked up, you know, because it's dangerous
Speaker 4: trash and disposed of. And I think that's what happened
Speaker 4: with those. What I don't understand is how the police
Speaker 4: never thought about that, never investigated it. As far as
Speaker 4: I could, I could not find any evidence that they
Speaker 4: ever went to the medical clinic searching for evidence. And
Speaker 4: I think it's something as simple as that, as really
Speaker 4: how he disposed of the gun, the showcasing in the purse.
Speaker 5: Yeah, sure, it makes a lot of sense. So let's
Speaker 5: talk about their stay in prison, both of these two characters.
Speaker 5: What happens.
Speaker 4: He's kind of a model prisoner. The warden reports that
Speaker 4: he has a great singing voice. He plays tennis. I
Speaker 4: believe he worked in the prison library. He initially spends
Speaker 4: time in San Quentin and then he's transferred to Chino
Speaker 4: Men's State where Carol is the women's version of that
Speaker 4: prison nearby. She gets out about seven or eight years
Speaker 4: after I believe she was released in nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 4: She did a name change, and yet she never left
Speaker 4: the area. She ended up working at an inner community
Speaker 4: hospital in the medical records department, and even with the
Speaker 4: name change, all the employees knew who she was, and
Speaker 4: you know, once she was on vacation, they'd be chattering
Speaker 4: amongst themselves about her. And she worked there for decades.
Speaker 4: She was promoted to the head of the records department
Speaker 4: and then eventually retired. She over the up to the present.
Speaker 4: She's still alive. She's in the early eighties. She would
Speaker 4: be occasionally spotted in the Cavina area. She was spotted
Speaker 4: by Jimmy Poppa's sister at a supermarket in Covina a
Speaker 4: few years ago, and she told the sister. She says,
Speaker 4: I eroned every gray hair in my head, and I'm
Speaker 4: sure she did. And you know, she was a young
Speaker 4: woman at the time. You know, when we think back
Speaker 4: to what we did in our teens in early twenties,
Speaker 4: you know, it's hard to believe that we pulled those
Speaker 4: stunts or whatever bad behavior, you know, and she you know,
Speaker 4: she was a young woman. She wanted something and she
Speaker 4: was going to do anything to get it. And I'm
Speaker 4: sure as the years went on that she matured and
Speaker 4: would not be that person that she was when she
Speaker 4: was young. People had nice things to say about her.
Speaker 4: Her co workers, They said she was very fair, she
Speaker 4: was understanding. They enjoyed working with her. And even when
Speaker 4: she was at West Covina Medical Clinic, I remember when
Speaker 4: I had, you know, when I went to see doctor
Speaker 4: Finch's a patient, I would see her standing in the
Speaker 4: back writing furiously in her in my record file, and
Speaker 4: she had a great memory and she was a very
Speaker 4: good medical assistant. We ended up losing doctor Finch as
Speaker 4: a doctor. His brother in law became our family doctor
Speaker 4: and delivered my third sister, who was the first baby
Speaker 4: born at the new West Covino Hospital. And I think
Speaker 4: what happened is that that day that Jimmy Poppas showed
Speaker 4: up to confront Finch and Carol, there was such a
Speaker 4: bruhaha about it that doctor Gordon at that point, who
Speaker 4: co owned the medical clinic and hospital with Finch, realized
Speaker 4: he had to do something the hospital hadn't opened yet
Speaker 4: they had outstanding loans on it. But they had to
Speaker 4: do something about Finch, but they couldn't get rid of him.
Speaker 4: And I think they had a board meeting and decided
Speaker 4: to remove Finch from his day to day practice, but
Speaker 4: allow him to perform surgeries there where he wouldn't come
Speaker 4: in contact so much with his female patients. There wouldn't
Speaker 4: be the affairs, because they were afraid what would happen if,
Speaker 4: you know, spouse came in of some woman he was
Speaker 4: having an affair with and created a big, you know,
Speaker 4: a big problem, or what if he performed malpractice while
Speaker 4: he's in the midst of the affair. He had was
Speaker 4: involved in some malpractice suits and so they could be liable,
Speaker 4: you know, financially. So they decided to put him in
Speaker 4: as a surgical remove from made to patients. And I
Speaker 4: think what they did, I don't have proof. I think
Speaker 4: they likely sent a letter to all of his patients saying,
Speaker 4: doctor Finch is cutting back his his you know, seeing patients,
Speaker 4: he's remaining as a surgeon. You need to find another
Speaker 4: doctor here at the medical clinic and offered the names.
Speaker 4: And I think that's how we ended up with doctor
Speaker 4: Gordon and before about eight to nine months before he
Speaker 4: actually killed Barbara. That's sort of the timeline for that
Speaker 4: Finch did. He released in the early seventies from prison.
Speaker 4: He initially went to Missouri to work as an X
Speaker 4: ray technician. He was offered a job there and tried
Speaker 4: to get his medical license there but couldn't even though
Speaker 4: he took the board examine passed. He ended up coming
Speaker 4: back to California, I believe in around nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 4: and managed to get his medical license back. In nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty four, he moved to Rancham Mirage near Palm Springs
Speaker 4: and for the last eleven years of his life practiced
Speaker 4: medicine until he died in nineteen ninety five from natural causes.
Speaker 4: And it's interesting to note that all these people, including
Speaker 4: my parents, are buried in the same cemetery, Oakwood in Glendora, California.
Speaker 5: Wow. I want to thank you so much Steve for
Speaker 5: coming on and talking about your book, Satin Pumps, the
Speaker 5: Moonlit murders that mesmerized the nation. For those people that
Speaker 5: don't would like to know more about this, this is
Speaker 5: a wild Blue Press release. Do you have an Amazon
Speaker 5: page or somewhere where they might take a look at
Speaker 5: this book.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if they actually go to Amazon and type in
Speaker 4: Satin Pump's book, it should appear there are if they
Speaker 4: follow me or the book on Twitter. If you go
Speaker 4: to at Satin Pumps on Twitter or Facebook dot com
Speaker 4: slash Satin Pumps, you'll be able to find the pages
Speaker 4: for the book and you can get all kind of information.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of photographs. We have a lot of
Speaker 4: things that we couldn't put into the book to entertain you.
Speaker 5: Yes, and fantastic photos selection in your book as well.
Speaker 5: I just wanted to note that thank you so much,
Speaker 5: Satin Pumps, the moonlit murders that mesmerize the nation. Steve Coosserrif,
Speaker 5: thank you so much. You have a great evening. Thank
Speaker 5: you so so much.
Speaker 4: Good night, by pleasure,