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Speaker 4: You are now listening to true Murder The most shocking
Speaker 4: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 4: written about them. Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK Every
Speaker 4: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 4: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 4: host journalist and author Dan Zufansky.
Speaker 5: Good Evening. In the Garden State Parkway Murders, True crime
Speaker 5: writer and attorney Christian Barth dives into the harrowing story
Speaker 5: of the unsolved murders of Elizabeth Perry and Susan Davis,
Speaker 5: college friends. The two women were brutally knife to death
Speaker 5: and their bodies left off the parkway in the early
Speaker 5: hours of May thirtieth, nineteen sixty nine. Among the numerous suspects,
Speaker 5: Barth identifies our infamous serial killers Ted Mundy and Gerald
Speaker 5: Eugene Stano, who were living within an hour's drive from
Speaker 5: where the murder scene at the time they occurred. The
Speaker 5: killers also resided next to one another on Florida's death
Speaker 5: Row and indirectly confessed to the double homicide, a culmination
Speaker 5: of more than nine years of research. Bart's book is
Speaker 5: compiled from multiple sources, including interviews with retired New Jersey
Speaker 5: State Police detectives, law enforcement officials from other jurisdictions, federal agents,
Speaker 5: possible witnesses, victim family members, as well as information gathered
Speaker 5: from FBI case files, letters, journals, libraries, newspaper articles, and
Speaker 5: university archives. In scintillating detail, Barth presents the case, including
Speaker 5: previously undisclosed information surrounding these brutal murders, as well as
Speaker 5: an examination of recent technological advances in crime scene analysis
Speaker 5: and FBI serial killer profiling that could help identify the killer.
Speaker 5: When all is said and done, the reader is asked
Speaker 5: to consider why hasn't this cold case been solved? The
Speaker 5: book that we're featuring this evening is The Garden State
Speaker 5: Parkway Murders. A cold case mystery with my special guest,
Speaker 5: attorney and author, Christian Barth. Welcome to the program, and
Speaker 5: thank you very much for agreeing to this interview. Christian Barth,
Speaker 5: thanks for having me again.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much. An incredible case. Let's get to
Speaker 5: right away. Tell us a little bit about your interest
Speaker 5: in this case and how you came about to be
Speaker 5: the author, and in that tell us about your book,
Speaker 5: The Origins of Infamy.
Speaker 3: Okay, so back it goes back to a childhood memory
Speaker 3: back in about I'd say I was twelve thirteen, maybe
Speaker 3: fourteen as a boy. Even leading up to that point,
Speaker 3: we had always traveled to the Jersey Shore. We had
Speaker 3: relatives down there, and we used to vacation every summer
Speaker 3: for about two weeks in a town called Stone Harbor,
Speaker 3: which is in Cape May County. To get to Stone Harbor,
Speaker 3: you would travel, obviously down the Garden State Parkway. On
Speaker 3: one of these trips north on the Parkway, or in
Speaker 3: several of these trips north, I would always, as a kid,
Speaker 3: look out into the woods as we drive past them.
Speaker 3: I grew up in a town called Cherry Ill, New Jersey,
Speaker 3: which is strictly suburban. You know, street lights, neighborhoods, things
Speaker 3: along those lines. There really weren't any woods, So on
Speaker 3: these trips north, I would always look into the woods.
Speaker 3: And I was interrupted from one of these reveries at
Speaker 3: one time from my mother saint my father who was
Speaker 3: driving I was in the backseat. She said they never
Speaker 3: found out who killed those girls? Did they? And it
Speaker 3: was just fascinating to me. Perhaps he was the mention
Speaker 3: of this case and the conjunction of me looking outside
Speaker 3: at the woods, and my bears perked up, and I said,
Speaker 3: what case? And I'd learned the briefest of details. And
Speaker 3: I remember my father saying, yeah, for a while, they
Speaker 3: had a trailer in the woods, because the killer always
Speaker 3: returned to the scene of the crime. Now that part
Speaker 3: of it being in the woods wasn't an accurate recollection
Speaker 3: of it, But nevertheless, that memory just stayed with me
Speaker 3: for a few minutes. I buried my subconscious until nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety three, when I had read on the front page
Speaker 3: of the Philadelphia Inquire a story by writer Larry Kelly
Speaker 3: that Ted Bundy had been in the area and his biographer,
Speaker 3: a guy named mister Larson, had in fact written The
Speaker 3: Deliberate Stranger, which became the movie starring Mark Harmon. He
Speaker 3: was of the opinion that Ted Bundy was in the
Speaker 3: area at the time and had in fact confessed to
Speaker 3: the murders, based upon several marks he had made to
Speaker 3: a psychologist named Art Norman in nineteen eighty six while
Speaker 3: on death row, and later on even his execution, excuse
Speaker 3: me to doctor Dorothy Lewis. So when about year two,
Speaker 3: two thousand and one, I had gotten in my mind
Speaker 3: to become a writer and had taken a class in
Speaker 3: at Rutgers University and a short story was a requirement,
Speaker 3: and I didn't have an idea, and for some reason,
Speaker 3: it just came into my head. Wow, that was an
Speaker 3: interesting story. So I fictionalized the story into a short
Speaker 3: story that was published soon thereafter. I think it was
Speaker 3: called A Smiling Knife, and it was a loosely based
Speaker 3: interpretation of the story. And from there I said, well,
Speaker 3: you know what, I'm really into this fiction writing. I
Speaker 3: was really really discovering it, and writers that influenced me,
Speaker 3: like William Styron and guys like that. I just decided
Speaker 3: to write a book fictionalizing that the Parkway murders told
Speaker 3: him entirely from Ted Bundy's perspective for beginning of Death
Speaker 3: Row and then going back to his time in Seattle. Obviously,
Speaker 3: all this taking place in nineteen sixty nine leading up
Speaker 3: to the murders. You know, he was Bundy was in
Speaker 3: New York City. He had lived in Philadelphia in the
Speaker 3: spring of sixty nine, staying with an aunt. So I
Speaker 3: really coalesced all these these this research that I did
Speaker 3: into a book called The Argues. Event from me, I
Speaker 3: went to New York City to the Public Library, when
Speaker 3: the archives just got a real feel for you know,
Speaker 3: the pornography and those things that Bundy attributed attributed as influences,
Speaker 3: you know, is his motive to kill I believe he
Speaker 3: called it, you know, the entity that was formed in
Speaker 3: New York City, that of course was referenced later by him,
Speaker 3: not only to you Ainsworth uh and Steve michaud in
Speaker 3: Conversations with a Killer, but at Ladder Times as well.
Speaker 3: So these are the in my say, Ladder Times. He
Speaker 3: had mentioned this to doctor Dorothy Lewis and Art Norman
Speaker 3: been discussing, you know, after he went to New York City,
Speaker 3: he went to the Jersey Shore. He ever mentioned the
Speaker 3: Jersey Shore component to Ainsworth or Michoudo, so that was fascinating,
Speaker 3: But he did mention it to these two other psychologiess
Speaker 3: so that's that's how it began. And I just I
Speaker 3: was just fascinated by the case from that point forward,
Speaker 3: and that's what gave rise to to the Argues of Infamy.
Speaker 5: Now with this book, you talk about the setting is
Speaker 5: Ocean City. So tell us about Ocean City, and tell
Speaker 5: us about Susan, Margaret Davis and Elizabeth Perry.
Speaker 3: Okay, So Ocean City began its beginnings were in the
Speaker 3: late eighteen hundreds. A trio of Methodist ministers had founded it,
Speaker 3: as they call it, like a seaside oasis, the very Christian, virtuous,
Speaker 3: virtuous place. There is no drinking there. The Blue Laws
Speaker 3: have been in effect since it's founding. There's a tabernacle there.
Speaker 3: It's always had a very Methodist influence. Toward the late
Speaker 3: nineteen sixties, the compositive started to change in a not
Speaker 3: so great way. You had it's funny what the writers
Speaker 3: of the Ocean City Sentinel, the newspaper down there and
Speaker 3: the other papers had called, quote unquote the undesirable element.
Speaker 3: But that that was a funny way of looking at it.
Speaker 3: Started to go there, and they would stay at the houses,
Speaker 3: the young people, the college kids, and they would leave
Speaker 3: from there and go to the bars at Summer's Point,
Speaker 3: which was right across the bridge, which is sort of
Speaker 3: the bacchanalia of the Jersey Shore. Then you had bars
Speaker 3: like Tony Mars Bay, shores and whatnot that were there. Actually,
Speaker 3: Tony Marx is where I don't know if you're familiar
Speaker 3: with the movie. It's a cult classic Eddie and the
Speaker 3: Cruisers with Tom Berenger. It was filmed there before it
Speaker 3: was torn down, so you had that real distinct difference
Speaker 3: between the two places. So Susan and Elizabeth were both
Speaker 3: nineteen and they had been just wanted to graduated from
Speaker 3: Monticello College, which is a girls school in Illinois, no
Speaker 3: longer there, and they were friends and they decided to
Speaker 3: take a trip down to the Jersey Shore and they
Speaker 3: wound up staying at one of the many rooming houses
Speaker 3: that were down there at the time, affordable rooming houses
Speaker 3: for kids who was staying go to the beach and
Speaker 3: again to go to summers Point at night. So they
Speaker 3: were there for three days. They stayed at a looming house. Susan,
Speaker 3: by the way, was from Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Elizabeth
Speaker 3: was from Minnesota. So they went and became president Monticella,
Speaker 3: went to the Jersey Shore, stayed there and by all accounts,
Speaker 3: you know, they didn't meet a lot of people. They
Speaker 3: were sun tan and these weren't real party girls, so
Speaker 3: to speak, their very nice, very nice girls from very
Speaker 3: fine families. They had gone there, stayed for three days,
Speaker 3: and on the morning of May thirtieth, at about four
Speaker 3: thirty a m. They had gotten up to leave, spoke
Speaker 3: with their landlord and elderly gentleman named Walter Side and
Speaker 3: told him they were leaving, and they took off. He
Speaker 3: saw them, you know, leaving their car. Susan was driving
Speaker 3: a nineteen sixty six Marina Blue Chevroy Lake convertible. They
Speaker 3: left there and then they were seen at the summers
Speaker 3: Point Diner about again a mile and a half way
Speaker 3: over the bridge in summers Point. Now to understand the
Speaker 3: the thing was summers Point Diner. All these bars that
Speaker 3: I referenced earlier would get out at two point thirty
Speaker 3: in the morning. There were two all night bars as
Speaker 3: well that would feed into every Every kid after the
Speaker 3: bars closed would just stagger on over to the Summer's
Speaker 3: Point Diner, which is the only place open all night
Speaker 3: back then twenty four seven, I talked to mister McGill,
Speaker 3: the owner of the establishment. Back then, he said, literally
Speaker 3: there was a standing line there all day long, all
Speaker 3: night long, with the kids going in, so that's that's
Speaker 3: how they wound up being in Susan and Elizabeth wound
Speaker 3: up getting to the point of from there, of course,
Speaker 3: they drove off and the murders occurred about two miles away.
Speaker 5: Now they are expected by Susan is expected by the parents,
Speaker 5: Wesley Davis and his wife Marjorie. So this you say
Speaker 5: that there's this is uh tell us how how long
Speaker 5: this this ride is supposed to be and when do
Speaker 5: the parents get a sense of urgency and panic and
Speaker 5: what do they do as a result.
Speaker 3: Okay, so they with respect to the parents, they were
Speaker 3: Susan and Elizabeth were going that the plan was after
Speaker 3: they left the boarding house in Ocean City, that were
Speaker 3: going to go directly home to Susan's parents' house in
Speaker 3: camp Hill, Pennsylvania specifically, which is a suburb of Harrisburg,
Speaker 3: Pennsylvania state capital, and they were supposed to join Susan's
Speaker 3: parents for a trip down to Duke University in Durham,
Speaker 3: North Carolina to see Susan's older brother graduate that weekend.
Speaker 3: So by mid morning, when the kids didn't appear at
Speaker 3: the house immediately, mister Davis started to be broke concerned
Speaker 3: because it just wasn't Susan, she wasn't flighty. She always
Speaker 3: told them where she was going to be, And by
Speaker 3: about noon they still hadn't heard anything. And if the
Speaker 3: day went on, they grew more and more concerns they
Speaker 3: hadn't heard anything. They began contacting friends who hadn't heard
Speaker 3: from the two girls. They contacted Elizabeth's parents, No one
Speaker 3: heard anything, and by the next day they started to
Speaker 3: get a little more panicky, and mister Davis went ahead
Speaker 3: and contacted a man who was then the Attorney General
Speaker 3: in the state of Pennsylvania, who I interviewed in the book,
Speaker 3: and mister Sennett and mister Senaton. I'll try to do
Speaker 3: what I can, but at this point they were really
Speaker 3: just because in the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies,
Speaker 3: missing persons reports were rather common. Kids who both basically
Speaker 3: would go off for a few days, and there wasn't
Speaker 3: really noa Laura Bell's went off. But as time went
Speaker 3: on Dan over that week weekend, it became very apparent
Speaker 3: that something something had gone wrong. In fact, both both
Speaker 3: fathers had instinctly, instinctively something had gone wrong. So they
Speaker 3: wound up renting a helicopter and done a sleep over
Speaker 3: the woods to see if they could find any signs
Speaker 3: of wreckage. So that's how the Davis and mister Davis
Speaker 3: had some of the investigation began into their into their disappearance.
Speaker 5: You meanwhile, talk about two New Jersey State troopers that
Speaker 5: are assigned early morning patrol in the southern corner of
Speaker 5: Parkway on Memorial Day weekend nineteen sixty nine. This is
Speaker 5: troopers James Dunbar. He's twenty twenty four years old, and
Speaker 5: later John Stare tell us about this patrol on Memorial
Speaker 5: Day weekend.
Speaker 3: Okay, true, Dunbar and Trooper's Dunbar and Ster were both
Speaker 3: stationed out of the Avalon New Jersey State Police Barracks.
Speaker 3: Their route was a twenty four mile loop that started there,
Speaker 3: went down along the Parkway and back. So mister Dunbar
Speaker 3: had gone and had the first ship earlier in the
Speaker 3: morning and said he didn't see anything. The next person
Speaker 3: was Trooper Ster. Trooper Ster went along and saw the
Speaker 3: girl's car abandoned on the side of the road. Or
Speaker 3: what he didn't know is that their car at that
Speaker 3: time was actually Susan's convertible. He pulled over. It was
Speaker 3: near mile marker thirty one point nine on the Parkway
Speaker 3: mile plus thirty one point nine. He pulled over and
Speaker 3: he didn't see anything that would suggest that there was
Speaker 3: any foul play. Susan's straw purse was located downstairs, I'm
Speaker 3: saying down downstairs in the in the car itself, there
Speaker 3: was no indication again that the car had skidded off
Speaker 3: the side of the road and a mechanical breakdown. He
Speaker 3: presumed it was abandoned. He then called in uh to both,
Speaker 3: I guess it was because there was a Pennsylvania tag.
Speaker 3: He called into the Pennsylvania Division of Motor Vehicles the
Speaker 3: port of the tag number, and the person there mistakenly
Speaker 3: relayed back that it belonged to another person, So he
Speaker 3: presumed it was abandoned. He had no idea at the
Speaker 3: point at that point Dan that in fact the fathers
Speaker 3: you know, had there was the missing girls. So he
Speaker 3: went ahead and had it toad at a place called
Speaker 3: Blazer's garage, no longer in existence. They came along and
Speaker 3: they had the car towed and it remained there at
Speaker 3: this guy's garage Blazier's garage in Northfield not too far away,
Speaker 3: for three days and at this point, the parents had
Speaker 3: done the helicopter and it was you know, in the newspapers,
Speaker 3: The New York Times had reported that these these two
Speaker 3: girls were missing. So when uh super Stir was back
Speaker 3: from a fishing vacation that weekend, he sees, you know,
Speaker 3: the teletypes of the missing persons and he puts two
Speaker 3: and two together and that's when he says, oh, you know,
Speaker 3: I went over there and it was these girls and
Speaker 3: the fact too, it was and that's when the investigation.
Speaker 3: That's when the investigation began. But it was it was
Speaker 3: I don't want to say it was an oversight, but
Speaker 3: I don't know there was anything really Trooper STERI could
Speaker 3: have done. But maybe he should have investigated into the
Speaker 3: woods right there. But do we know that the girls
Speaker 3: were dead at the time that he came by. The
Speaker 3: corner had indicated that the times of death was about
Speaker 3: forty five minutes within the time they had left the diner,
Speaker 3: which was about six a m giver take. So he
Speaker 3: drove by and saw the car at about eight am,
Speaker 3: So the crime would have taken point at that place.
Speaker 3: But that's that's how they initially discovered Susan's car on
Speaker 3: the side of the road with.
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Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 5: Once they do that, what's the they undertake a search
Speaker 5: and what do they find in that search?
Speaker 3: Okay, So they immediately dispatched members of the Highway Authority,
Speaker 3: the Garden State Parkway, which is under the aegis of
Speaker 3: the New Jersey I think Turnpike Authority, and a bunch
Speaker 3: of local workers on hands and knees did a grid search.
Speaker 3: It wasn't they. Literally fifteen minutes into the search, a
Speaker 3: guy named Elwood Fonce literally stumbled across the bodies. They
Speaker 3: were covered in leaves. One of the women had been
Speaker 3: found completely nude, the other was dressed except for her shoes.
Speaker 3: And this is where they this is this is essentially
Speaker 3: how they how they found the bodies, and as far
Speaker 3: as you know, what was found there, there was no
Speaker 3: evidence really that it had taken place anywhere other than there.
Speaker 3: In other words, with the bodies dumped, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3: They simply found them there, and they were concealed and
Speaker 3: obviously had been stabbed at death.
Speaker 5: So, in terms of motive for this crime and evidence
Speaker 5: of robbery, what's the situation there that police find that fascinating?
Speaker 3: There there was no evidence of robbery. Susan's person again
Speaker 3: was left in the car. Elizabeth's was found nearby her
Speaker 3: and there were a few dollars bills in there. I
Speaker 3: had found again through research that Elizabeth actually had on
Speaker 3: her hands jewelry, some rather expensive heirlooms containing diamonds and
Speaker 3: so forth, and charm bracelets. So did think if the
Speaker 3: person's motive was robbery, why wouldn't they have taken those
Speaker 3: things that they weren't? They were left there. So as
Speaker 3: far as motive, this is difficult to discern from that
Speaker 3: what his motive was based upon him not taking anything
Speaker 3: and merely killing him, not robbing them, and basically fleeing
Speaker 3: the scene.
Speaker 5: What about the three day delay and basically being able
Speaker 5: to find those bodies, What did it do in terms
Speaker 5: of decomposition, in terms of the coroner's motive or mode
Speaker 5: of death?
Speaker 3: Basically, Well, the thing was I had spoken with a
Speaker 3: retired detective named John Devil. John had been to the
Speaker 3: crime scene. He didn't have jurisdiction. Jurisdiction resided with the
Speaker 3: New Jersey State Police because it was found alongside the parkway,
Speaker 3: and John had indicated to me that there was just
Speaker 3: because it was a very hot weekend. It was really
Speaker 3: an accelerated rate of decomposition with the bodies, so they
Speaker 3: were never able because of that to find whether or
Speaker 3: not either of the girls had been sexually assaulted. So
Speaker 3: you know that certainly that was the three day lag
Speaker 3: really contributed to sort of the mystery as to what
Speaker 3: exactly happened at the scene. So the also.
Speaker 5: Through their analysis investigation, they also saw that the nothing
Speaker 5: indicated to the vehicle then forced off the road, and
Speaker 5: the gas tank was three quarter full and the battery
Speaker 5: was charged. They hadn't pulled over due to a technical
Speaker 5: problem in terms of in terms of any signs of struggle,
Speaker 5: what did it seem like and what was their early
Speaker 5: hypothesis in terms of how they came to their demise
Speaker 5: on that roadside.
Speaker 3: Well, that's that's the sixty four thousand dollars question. Damn,
Speaker 3: we just don't know because there were no signs, I mean,
Speaker 3: there was the Initially police considered, well, you know, was
Speaker 3: it a hitchhiker that they had that pulled them over,
Speaker 3: you know, was the car abandoned? Obviously, the police determined
Speaker 3: that there was no mechanical problems that had run out
Speaker 3: of gas, So we really don't know what exactly caused
Speaker 3: them to pull over in the first place, nor do
Speaker 3: we know what caused this person to go ahead and
Speaker 3: kill them in the manner that they did at that
Speaker 3: time of the day. Now, sunrise, according to my research,
Speaker 3: was at five twenty nine am. So what you have
Speaker 3: to recognize is because this occurred at peak sunlight, you know,
Speaker 3: not peak sunlight hours, but when there was light at
Speaker 3: that time of the day. That sort of adds to
Speaker 3: the whole mystery of it. Why would a person, if
Speaker 3: in fact they were pulled over to the side of
Speaker 3: the road, why would he do this in pure daylight
Speaker 3: and commit this act so close to the side of
Speaker 3: the road with these people is presumably the guy was
Speaker 3: a stranger. There were no reports if they had met anyone,
Speaker 3: you know, anyone that was seen, you know, with whom
Speaker 3: they may have had some sort of conflict. There was
Speaker 3: nothing like that. So all these factors contribute to the
Speaker 3: to the mystery of the case and fascination that I
Speaker 3: had with it.
Speaker 5: This case, as you write, this makes national attention. You
Speaker 5: got the likes of Walter Concrete reporting on CBS Evening News,
Speaker 5: So this is big. How do the state police proceed
Speaker 5: with this investigation?
Speaker 3: Well, they initially appoint obviously several detectives. They decide that
Speaker 3: the Absecon State Police Barracks, which has since that time
Speaker 3: shut down and become an office building of sorts, that's
Speaker 3: going to be the nerve center, the troop headquarters for
Speaker 3: the where this troop was in Hamilton, not too far
Speaker 3: from the murder location as well, but because a lot
Speaker 3: of the troopers lived near Absecon and that's where it
Speaker 3: took place, that was decided to be the nerve center.
Speaker 3: And what they did was completely dismantle, got the interior
Speaker 3: of the place and put in bunks and so forth,
Speaker 3: and that's what everyone reported to and it became a
Speaker 3: twenty four to seven investigation. In the first days, the
Speaker 3: steep police had interviewed, you know, hundreds of hundreds this
Speaker 3: crew to you know, a few thousands of every young
Speaker 3: man could. They worked around the clock to find out
Speaker 3: anything they could. They visited the bars Summer's point, they
Speaker 3: interviewed people that had stayed at the boarding house with
Speaker 3: the girls. They did everything they possibly could to try
Speaker 3: to find out who did this. But it always comes
Speaker 3: back to that three day lag between the time of
Speaker 3: the discovery of their bodies and when they had broken
Speaker 3: down on the side Roadhich really contributed to the delay
Speaker 3: and the problems with the investigation by the time that
Speaker 3: police loan and finding anything.
Speaker 5: Tell us about Albert Hickey Junior and what does he
Speaker 5: have to say the security guard.
Speaker 3: The Albert Hickey was a part time security guard with
Speaker 3: the Summer's Point Police Department back then. Because of the
Speaker 3: number of young people that were there that I discussed earlier,
Speaker 3: the proximity to the Bay Avenue bars like Tony Martz
Speaker 3: and Bay Shores and the Anchorage Tavern and from Dunes
Speaker 3: till Dawn, which was another place out in Longdort. Because
Speaker 3: of that, they had to hire all these part time
Speaker 3: security guards, so Albert Hickey was one of them. Albert
Speaker 3: Hickey was working at the diner and he said that
Speaker 3: on that morning, around the time of the murders, he
Speaker 3: saw a blue convertible stop at the circle and pick
Speaker 3: up a hitchhiker he said was about five nine, carrying
Speaker 3: a wo looked like a flight bag. Apparently a long
Speaker 3: time ago, t w A used to give you a
Speaker 3: flight bag as for whatever reasons when when you took
Speaker 3: a flight, and he said that's what it reminded him of,
Speaker 3: sort of a satchel. He was wearing a yellow turtleneck
Speaker 3: or shirt, got into the car and sped, uh, you know,
Speaker 3: left thereafter. I did interview Albert at length. He was
Speaker 3: also in addition to being a partich security, he was
Speaker 3: an Associated Press photographer and he was actually at the
Speaker 3: I think it was an absecon and covering the matter
Speaker 3: for the Associated Press when he had learned of the
Speaker 3: lag in time or something along those lines. But he
Speaker 3: then told the police what what he had remembered of
Speaker 3: what happened, and he was actually brought in to be
Speaker 3: questioned as well as to what he knew. But he
Speaker 3: was the first person, Albert, to identify a person who
Speaker 3: appeared to be getting into a car, the two girls
Speaker 3: that fit the description of Susan and Elizabeth, and he
Speaker 3: identified the person who's wearing a yellow shirt. From that
Speaker 3: point forward, the media just really attached themselves to his
Speaker 3: testimony and what he saw, and from that point forward
Speaker 3: they began their search for anyone who was wearing a
Speaker 3: yellow shirt. So that was Albert's real contribution to it.
Speaker 3: Early on, What.
Speaker 5: Did police find in their search around the crime scene
Speaker 5: and what did they hold back from the media and
Speaker 5: the public in terms of information regarding that evidence.
Speaker 3: What they found at the crime scene was a watch
Speaker 3: that was the most important thing, a watch. It was
Speaker 3: called a Belfort Sea Diver, which was a model manufactured
Speaker 3: by the Entlus Company out of Ridgefield, Connecticut. It was
Speaker 3: a diver's watch. They initially held back the existence of
Speaker 3: this dive watch from the newspapers. They was that and
Speaker 3: Susan sunglasses, and and and tried to find out, uh,
Speaker 3: you know who, you know, I think if anyone wearing
Speaker 3: your dive watch. In fact, that that comprised a lot
Speaker 3: of their questioning as to you know, the people. They
Speaker 3: didn't put in the paper yet at this point, you
Speaker 3: know who had to dive watches, anyone wearing to watch,
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera. Another thing they had withheld was
Speaker 3: the jewelry that Elizabeth had been wearing. And there was another,
Speaker 3: you know, method of restraint that they had. You'd really
Speaker 3: probably keep that for the book the readers of the
Speaker 3: book that they had withheld as well, which obviously I
Speaker 3: indicate so forth in the book that was was found
Speaker 3: as well, and that they had held back from the press.
Speaker 3: The reason they do these things oftentimes read the holebacks
Speaker 3: is because when once it gets out into the papers
Speaker 3: that there are these murders, you get a lot of
Speaker 3: publicity seekers and psychologically unbalanced individuals who will go to
Speaker 3: police and give false confessions, and they use these holdbacks
Speaker 3: to sort of ferret out the truth tellers from the
Speaker 3: people that are seeking publicity and want to be known
Speaker 3: as a killer and so forth. It's pretty pretty twisted,
Speaker 3: but that's why.
Speaker 5: Sure, of course they go through and talk to the landlord.
Speaker 5: They talked to borders at this place on the ocean City.
Speaker 5: They talked to the boys came forward that had that
Speaker 5: had the diner lunch with the or the breakfast with
Speaker 5: the with the girls. All of these people came forward,
Speaker 5: were cooperative. The state police really liked polygraphing, and they
Speaker 5: did investigate and ask for polygraphs from numerous people in
Speaker 5: this investigation, didn't they That's correct.
Speaker 3: Everyone you know who willingly submitted to polygraphs, you know
Speaker 3: that they would. And I actually got a call from
Speaker 3: a guy who was a college professor nowadays, and he said,
Speaker 3: you know, just because he was wearing a watch, someone
Speaker 3: called the police and said he had this watch. They
Speaker 3: showed up. I think he was at an r OTC
Speaker 3: gathering of sorts, and the police literally showed up and
Speaker 3: pulled them out of the line and you know, made
Speaker 3: him take the test and so forth. So they didn't
Speaker 3: mess around. Back then, they would show up and there,
Speaker 3: because of the intense pressure to find these girls and
Speaker 3: the time component, they would show up and just interview
Speaker 3: several several several young men, as I said, into the thousands,
Speaker 3: to try to find out if they knew anything about
Speaker 3: the case.
Speaker 5: Now, you're right that the state police really only have
Speaker 5: this description from Hickey, this five foot nine, shaggy hair,
Speaker 5: shaggy hair, yellow top may have been wearing a diver
Speaker 5: wrist watch, because they did release that eventually, didn't they
Speaker 5: That public information became public? Yes, and uh and but
Speaker 5: he was uncertain of the color of the convertible. What
Speaker 5: else was what? What? What other information were the police
Speaker 5: conflicted with in terms of timeline for this story here
Speaker 5: for them to be certain about Albert Hickey's testimony.
Speaker 3: Well, there there was some some a few articles, a
Speaker 3: few should say, I witnesses, but some people did come
Speaker 3: forth after what was publicly disposed about Hickeys. Accountants said
Speaker 3: there there was another car at the time that basically
Speaker 3: whatever Albert said he saw, the police said there may
Speaker 3: have been another convertible uh at the same time. Essentially,
Speaker 3: although they obviously gave great way to what he said,
Speaker 3: they were able to exclude in their opinion what they
Speaker 3: saw at least at the time as being the same
Speaker 3: convertible driven by Susan Elizabeth due to the timeline. I
Speaker 3: think he said he saw it at around four point thirty,
Speaker 3: but they were seen eating at the diner at about
Speaker 3: five thirty, so that the time didn't really jibe with
Speaker 3: what he had seen. But the yellow shirt would obviously,
Speaker 3: you know, come you know, come to fruition as a
Speaker 3: substantial piece of evidence later on down the road as
Speaker 3: far as identifying someone else.
Speaker 5: You talk about the state police stopping people they think
Speaker 5: that frequently used the parkways see if they've seen anything,
Speaker 5: And they stopped eight people who said they saw the
Speaker 5: light blue convertible near the scene at six thirty. One
Speaker 5: witness said something another car model, and the police see
Speaker 5: to believe this account, what was this vehicle and what
Speaker 5: was its color and what do they think what was
Speaker 5: its significance to this story?
Speaker 3: Okay, so, following Albert Hickey's account, what next became a
Speaker 3: parent is that there were a number of witnesses that
Speaker 3: did drive by and saw Susan's abandoned convertible on the
Speaker 3: side of the road around, you know, within a few
Speaker 3: hours spent at the time of the murders. They also
Speaker 3: mentioned seeing what was first reported as a maroon Mustang,
Speaker 3: which was corrected later on to reflect it was actually
Speaker 3: a tan Mustang parked. I want to get this, about
Speaker 3: one hundred yards give or take you behind Susan's convertible
Speaker 3: and that was the car. So that again, once this
Speaker 3: became a public you know, there's a maroon convertible. Three
Speaker 3: boys came down there from Pennsylvania. They actually travel down
Speaker 3: to obsecon Absequon where the barracks was, and one of
Speaker 3: the boys voluntarily gave a statement with his father and said,
Speaker 3: you know it was us. We were actually driving north
Speaker 3: from Wildwood, had run out of gas and decided to
Speaker 3: park on the side of the road and go to
Speaker 3: sleep for a few hours. And then you know, they
Speaker 3: would The plan was they would wake up and go
Speaker 3: and get gas or hitchhike, whoever, whatever the case may be.
Speaker 3: I actually what's fascinating is when they woke up, they
Speaker 3: saw the car there, but they said that when they
Speaker 3: originally pulled over the side of the road, Susan and
Speaker 3: Elizabeth's car wasn't there. And it was determined that the
Speaker 3: girls were murdered at the time these three young men
Speaker 3: were sleeping, which I found just incredible because how did
Speaker 3: two girls had violently murdered about fifty yards away in
Speaker 3: the woods from where these boys were without hearing anything.
Speaker 3: I mean, several years ago, a friend of mine and
Speaker 3: I decided to conduct a test and I he was
Speaker 3: standing about one hundred yards away, and I said, you know,
Speaker 3: just just scream for me and tell me if you
Speaker 3: can hear this. And I did. Granted I hadn't been
Speaker 3: drinking at the time, but it just, you know, you
Speaker 3: think about the times in your youth when you've had
Speaker 3: a few too many beers and you'd fallen asleep wherever
Speaker 3: the case may be. You think there's something in you,
Speaker 3: in your in your makeup that alerts you, or a
Speaker 3: sixth sense, something so tragic as that, but that that
Speaker 3: always amazed me and does so to this day.
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Speaker 3: Tails of those three guys were able to sleep through this,
Speaker 3: and that lends itself, of course, to various series as
Speaker 3: to how these girls are brought into the woods in
Speaker 3: the first place, you know, where they was a gun
Speaker 3: raised upon him. Obviously they didn't scream. Initially, they would
Speaker 3: have gone in. One of the detectives that I spoke
Speaker 3: with years later said he was of the opinion that
Speaker 3: they are kind to use the term compliant in going
Speaker 3: into the woods. And obviously, you know, and I researched
Speaker 3: other things, Dan, you know about does a person get
Speaker 3: can he be frozen here? She'd be frozen into submission,
Speaker 3: be so scared that you can't scream, and that is
Speaker 3: that that's a condition. There's definitely, you know that that
Speaker 3: can happen, and maybe that's what happened here. But it's
Speaker 3: always struck me as odd that these three boys didn't
Speaker 3: hear anything. However, the other two boys were interviewed and
Speaker 3: the one submitted to a second round of questioning, the
Speaker 3: one that initially went down from Pennsylvania to the Absecon station.
Speaker 3: All three, even past lie detector tests, aren't considered suspects
Speaker 3: and were released.
Speaker 5: Now you talk about the trooper finally finding a yellow turtleneck, there.
Speaker 3: Wasn't that troopers found. It was maybe one of the
Speaker 3: searchers had found a yellow turtleneck in a girdle. Haven't
Speaker 3: heard that termine in forever? And yeah, they were brought, Yeah,
Speaker 3: they were brought to the station. It was analyzed and
Speaker 3: it was determined not to you know, not to be
Speaker 3: connected to Astorictory. The area where these where these girls
Speaker 3: were found is quite interesting. It's known to be by
Speaker 3: what's called the Cove. So on the surface, as you're
Speaker 3: driving past it, it's very rural. The particular section. Okay,
Speaker 3: there are no homes back. There are now way back,
Speaker 3: but there weren't at the time. It was adjacent to
Speaker 3: a pig farm, so you know, there were There was
Speaker 3: called a trysting place as well, a lot of kids
Speaker 3: from local Mainland high school would party there and nearby
Speaker 3: was a beach along the pat Coon Creek called the Cove.
Speaker 3: Where locals would would party. So it was definitely an
Speaker 3: area that was known to locals, but there weren't any
Speaker 3: entrances along the side of the road like trail mass
Speaker 3: or anything like that. It wasn't a public park, so
Speaker 3: there were people that had been back there. But as
Speaker 3: far as that turtleneck is concerned, they did initially find that,
Speaker 3: and in doing so and in tasking that obviously didn't
Speaker 3: discount Albert Hicky's theory, which lend itself to the fact
Speaker 3: that they were taking anything. And considering that point of it,
Speaker 3: it's a little evidence.
Speaker 5: You for the writer have the well, the fact of
Speaker 5: Susan's funeral and very dramatic in that witness says that
Speaker 5: you could never forget the mother screaming at the front
Speaker 5: of the church. Davis family. So, also after this, shortly
Speaker 5: after this or somewhat after this, the Philadelphia Police Department
Speaker 5: received a tip from a store clerk in a clothing store.
Speaker 5: What does this clerk say he overheard and saw and
Speaker 5: what do police do?
Speaker 3: So the clerk in a clothing store on Fourteenth Street
Speaker 3: north of Market. So you have to understand about this area.
Speaker 3: It's long since been gentrified. It's a sort of an
Speaker 3: interesting one area. I want want to say it was
Speaker 3: seed It was very funky, sort of a Greenwich village,
Speaker 3: late sixties. Speel to it a couple of they could
Speaker 3: a red Lake district, but it wasn't. It wasn't like
Speaker 3: Times Square in other words, So the these two women
Speaker 3: at this point, you have to remember, this is five
Speaker 3: days after the bodies were found, and it's in in
Speaker 3: just the really the the heady days of the investigation.
Speaker 3: So these two girls are in a clothing store on
Speaker 3: Market Street and they say that they overhear or they're
Speaker 3: talking to some guy who comes in there wearing a
Speaker 3: yellow t shirt with a yellow shirt who is wearing
Speaker 3: a yellow turtleneck. Now, the clerk of the store overhears
Speaker 3: the man saying to them now words to the effect of,
Speaker 3: I was down Oh yeah, I was down there, down
Speaker 3: at the beach when that happens. I guess the girls
Speaker 3: were talking about the ocean city, the case, the murders,
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera. Now, the clerk overhearing this remembers
Speaker 3: that he had read in the paper of Albert Hickey's
Speaker 3: account of being allegedly a guy in a yellow turtle
Speaker 3: net getting into the car with the flight bag with
Speaker 3: two girls driving Convertbile. On the morning of the murders,
Speaker 3: he contacts the Philadelphia Police Department, who thereafter proceeded to
Speaker 3: find this particular what they called as eighteen year old
Speaker 3: hippie type at the bus station nearby and brought him
Speaker 3: in for a round of questioning.
Speaker 5: What was Thomas's history and and what happens? In the polygraph.
Speaker 3: The Telegraph, according to again, they referenced him as the
Speaker 3: quote eighteen year old hippie type. The polygraph was conducted
Speaker 3: by the Philadelphia Police Department. I guess their their homicide apartment.
Speaker 3: They had him in there without a lawyer for a
Speaker 3: about a couple of hours, and they, according to the
Speaker 3: newspaper and an unpublished memo that I had discovered, he
Speaker 3: gave what be called quote unquote fuzzy answers. In other words,
Speaker 3: my understanding of that that they weren't able to really
Speaker 3: discern that he was telling the truth of nor could
Speaker 3: they say he had any knowledge. There's always been a
Speaker 3: vast gray area as to you know, what those tests revealed.
Speaker 3: But obviously there was enough there and their interpretation to
Speaker 3: immediately contact and I guess they would have done it
Speaker 3: anyway because they didn't have jurisdiction the New Jersey State Police.
Speaker 3: So at about midnight, the tech is George Dix, who
Speaker 3: I interviewed several times. He got a call while he
Speaker 3: was eating dinner at his home in Atlantic County, New Jersey,
Speaker 3: from I think it was Mario Petera, who was the
Speaker 3: captain of the state Police the Times, saying, look, you
Speaker 3: got to get over to you know, Philadelphia, we may
Speaker 3: have the guy, and I want to correct what I
Speaker 3: just said. He may have been He was either at
Speaker 3: home or he was at the Turners On New Jersey
Speaker 3: Barracks interviewing the three boys found in the tan mustang.
Speaker 3: It was I think right after them. When he did
Speaker 3: he went over. They actually drove Mario Paterra's car. He
Speaker 3: and mister Patterson, Detective Patterson went over and met with
Speaker 3: the eighteen year old suspect and he consented to be interviewed.
Speaker 3: And it went all night long, all night long. It
Speaker 3: was just a crazy, crazy, you know time. They interviewed
Speaker 3: him at length. Yeah, about and they just obviously weren't
Speaker 3: They were really pushing to get that you're able to
Speaker 3: he was obviously did he know that at the time
Speaker 3: free to leave any time, but he did not. He
Speaker 3: chose to, you know, agree to the question and so forth.
Speaker 3: And the fascinating aspect of this is he was I
Speaker 3: guess there was a twenty four hour or twelve hour hold.
Speaker 3: But under Pennsylvania law, you either had to charge a
Speaker 3: suspector or let him go. So there was another detective
Speaker 3: there named Donald Patterson, who coincidentally he was the head
Speaker 3: of the Philadelphia Major Crimes at the time. He later
Speaker 3: became Pennsylvania Inspector General. He approached the other Donald Patterson.
Speaker 3: By the way, the Philadelphia Donald Patterson Patterson excusing was
Speaker 3: African American, and mister Patterson at the news real State
Speaker 3: Police was Caucasian, so infective. Patterson and George Dix were
Speaker 3: informed by this mister Patterson, look, you have to let
Speaker 3: these guys go, or let this kid go or charge him.
Speaker 3: And they're outside in front of the barracks, and mister
Speaker 3: Patterson was saying. He actually had an argument with Dix
Speaker 3: because Dix was convinced, look, you know, we got to
Speaker 3: keep this going, and Patterson's like, look, we have nothing
Speaker 3: on this kid. You know, I'm not buying it that
Speaker 3: this kid knows anything about the cakes, so they say
Speaker 3: he's free to go, but they ask him, look, would
Speaker 3: you be willing to accompany us down to New Jersey,
Speaker 3: you know, to submit to another light et sector test
Speaker 3: and more questioning, and he agrees. So he gets into
Speaker 3: a car with these two and they're driving across it
Speaker 3: was either the Dell or mo or I think was
Speaker 3: the Ben Franklin Bridge to go into New Jersey and
Speaker 3: then proceed from there to a barracks. And they don't
Speaker 3: have the money to get over the bridges, like a
Speaker 3: fifty charge told whatever it was. So the kid, the
Speaker 3: eighteen year old, proceeded to take fifty cents out of
Speaker 3: his pocket, gives and gives them the money to do it.
Speaker 3: So they then go from there after to the Berlin
Speaker 3: State Barracks, which is another road station, and you know,
Speaker 3: to proceed to question him further, et cetera, et cetera.
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Speaker 5: we have this Mark Thomas. And as you write, despite
Speaker 5: one of the officers, one of the detectives, thinking that
Speaker 5: they got their man, that they were close to a confession,
Speaker 5: this Mark Thomas has serious mental issues and problems. Tell
Speaker 5: us how police finally get in touch with a woman
Speaker 5: named Francine Latkin.
Speaker 3: Okay, so again a few weeks about a week, I
Speaker 3: hope I get the time time correct here. Once this
Speaker 3: story dropped, it was all over the local the local papers,
Speaker 3: et cetera. You know that the girls are missing and
Speaker 3: that they had been found, and at some point, as
Speaker 3: I recall, they mentioned the existence of a watch that
Speaker 3: had been found. Now, Francine uh was working in Atlantic
Speaker 3: City at the time, and when she had heard over
Speaker 3: the radio that the girls had been found and one
Speaker 3: of the girls had blonde hair, you know, she set
Speaker 3: her blood ran cold because she had met a guy
Speaker 3: a couple of months earlier. I think it was in March,
Speaker 3: while she was on spring break in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Speaker 3: So Francine proceeded to go to the police station and say, look,
Speaker 3: I know one of the girls had blonde hair. I
Speaker 3: was when I was in Florida. I met this guy
Speaker 3: who had the blonde hair. I'm sorry he had bond.
Speaker 3: I had blonde hair, and he was obsessed over my hair.
Speaker 3: One of my friends was interested in him. We went
Speaker 3: over to this house where he lived with a bunch
Speaker 3: of guys, the group Hippy House, and they had dinner
Speaker 3: and the guy kept just fawning over her hair. And
Speaker 3: she had also noticed at the time that he had
Speaker 3: a watch. And the watch was interesting because it was
Speaker 3: in case within a leather what they call a mod
Speaker 3: band again, a sixties fashioned staple on those thick bands
Speaker 3: into which the watch space itself is put. So she
Speaker 3: goes to the police and the place for asking her questions,
Speaker 3: and the police say to her, what you was there
Speaker 3: anything about him? Was he wearing any jewelry? And she said, noah, no,
Speaker 3: and I wasn't wearing a jewelry. Are you sure he
Speaker 3: wasn't wearing any jewelry? And she's thinking gold chains, et cetera.
Speaker 3: And they said, was he wearing a watch? She said, yes,
Speaker 3: he was wearing a watch. Well, she winds up identifying
Speaker 3: the same They show him a picture of the watch.
Speaker 3: It wasn't this watch, says, it was that watch, and
Speaker 3: she remembered the watch specifically because it said that had
Speaker 3: the word seventeen jewels on it, which was apparently somebody
Speaker 3: if you understand watches, and I don't one hundred percent,
Speaker 3: but that was sort of some sort of notation that
Speaker 3: was put on the watch basis for her depth or
Speaker 3: chronological something along those lines. But she matches the watch.
Speaker 3: That they go and with this evidence, they thank you,
Speaker 3: and they go to they put out an APD on
Speaker 3: this guy. His name is Ronnie Walden. This is the
Speaker 3: same guy if she said she saw the watch wearing
Speaker 3: a watch and she had you know, she had the
Speaker 3: blonde hair, and she had also seen I should add
Speaker 3: that when he was down in Florida, she saw an
Speaker 3: unprovoked outburst of anger. The guy that really set her
Speaker 3: set her off. I mean, he just he flipped out
Speaker 3: for no apparent reason. So when she told the police
Speaker 3: gave her the information, they said they sent down an
Speaker 3: ATD for this guy, and he he turns out being Colorado.
Speaker 3: But before we get to Colorado, Francine tells me several
Speaker 3: years ago that she had talked to a detective and
Speaker 3: the detective told her, you know, that they had evidence
Speaker 3: and this is in fact the guy that they may
Speaker 3: have found a half a fingerprint on Susan's car that
Speaker 3: matched Ronnie Walden. So we go out to Ronnie Walden
Speaker 3: and visit him in Colorado at the Garfield County Jail,
Speaker 3: which is where he was being held on auto theft charges.
Speaker 3: Ronnie was a drifter. I mean by the time this
Speaker 3: fancy that had met him, he was all over the
Speaker 3: country car theft rapshet long long rap sheet, no violent acts,
Speaker 3: but a rap sheet. So the Garfield County Police, in
Speaker 3: response to the ATV, notified to the journey state please
Speaker 3: they have and the two detectives fly out to interview him.
Speaker 3: One of them was Detective William Hunter or the other
Speaker 3: was James Tod who was head of the polygraph unit.
Speaker 3: So before they go out there, unbeknownst to them, one
Speaker 3: of the jailers at the time, a guy named Les Ecker,
Speaker 3: who I interviewed at length the day before the police
Speaker 3: come where it was made in the early morning, and
Speaker 3: they came later in the day. Was a real, real
Speaker 3: tight proximity. He says, he's driving into work and he
Speaker 3: learns that one of the apparently in jail, if someone
Speaker 3: there's if there's an alarm. Someone is trying to kill themselves.
Speaker 3: Something bad is happening. That the prisoners will wrap their
Speaker 3: tin cups against the jail bars. And he said that
Speaker 3: was happening, and he and the other sheriff Ecker was
Speaker 3: the under sheriff, I'm forgetting off in the name of
Speaker 3: the sheriff himself, go in and cut down Ronnie, who
Speaker 3: had attempted to kill himself by fashioning a noose made
Speaker 3: out of bedsheets. He had done it on the top
Speaker 3: and mister Ecker said, look, this guy was blue lining.
Speaker 3: He said he was about dead when we got him down.
Speaker 3: This wasn't a joke. So they got him down. And
Speaker 3: you know the strange part is he Ecker said, the
Speaker 3: next thing he knows, the police come in and Ronnie
Speaker 3: is there in a neck brace, proceeds to pass the
Speaker 3: polygraph test, and then you know, is left or leaves obviously,
Speaker 3: or I guess he was in custody for some other reason.
Speaker 3: He was transported off for federal charges least and Garfield
Speaker 3: County Jail. But it happened to me, and this is
Speaker 3: what I found stunning.
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Speaker 3: The same jail cell where he had stayed and tried
Speaker 3: to hang himself was where Ted Bundy had escaped several
Speaker 3: years later, I think in nineteen seventy seven, on that
Speaker 3: snowy night before going to Florida's Pate University and killing.
Speaker 5: Your four college incredible. You also mentioned that Latkin told
Speaker 5: the police at some point about an incident involving a
Speaker 5: knife in the car, which police sound interesting, they yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: So one of the other things she remembered about Ronnie
Speaker 3: was a couple of weeks earlier, I guess, like a
Speaker 3: week or so after spring break. She was working Atlantic
Speaker 3: City at the Social Security Office, and I think Texas
Speaker 3: and Pacific Avenues and her friend, you know, apparently had
Speaker 3: you know, had at an involvement of sorts with with Ronnie,
Speaker 3: and Ronnie was coming up and this friend had gotten
Speaker 3: Ronnie a job at a store along the boardwalk in
Speaker 3: Atlantic City called A Man and a Woman. So but
Speaker 3: you know, when Ronnie comes up and comes to Social
Speaker 3: Security office and asks Francina where her friend is, and
Speaker 3: Francine comes out of the offices, I have to show
Speaker 3: you where to park so you don't get towed. He's
Speaker 3: driving a yellow Dodge muscle car of some sorts and
Speaker 3: she gets in the car them and literally something happened
Speaker 3: to trigger Ronnie, just as some you know, some crazy
Speaker 3: thing triggered him in in date in in Fort Lauderdale.
Speaker 3: And she says, a six inch about knife. When he
Speaker 3: slams the brakes, flies out from underneath the seat, and
Speaker 3: she asks him about it, and he just says it's
Speaker 3: nothing or something along those lines, tucks it back under.
Speaker 3: So that was that was another piece of thought, interesting
Speaker 3: circumstantial evidence. And the girls were obviously killed with they
Speaker 3: said a paring knife or a pen knife, and the
Speaker 3: knife that she described wouldn't be inconsistent. Again, I'm not
Speaker 3: a pathologist or anything along those lines, and consistently with
Speaker 3: the knife that was used to kill the girl. So
Speaker 3: that was another piece of incriminating evidence in addition to
Speaker 3: the watch that you really lends itself to Ronnie Walden
Speaker 3: being a person of interest.
Speaker 5: What does Walden? Where does Walden go? Where does he
Speaker 5: move to? And what's his life like? And how does
Speaker 5: he try to reinvent himself?
Speaker 3: Okay, so Walen he really tries to invent himself because
Speaker 3: he just after he is released, he leaves the Guardfield
Speaker 3: County jail. He does, I guess he's transferred to Denver
Speaker 3: for a federal rap for auto theft, and from there
Speaker 3: he proceeds to go on to a life of crime
Speaker 3: really no different than what he had done before. Now
Speaker 3: he was Grannie was a grifter. I taught to several people.
Speaker 3: One guy has a great story. He was working as
Speaker 3: a real estate agent in Colorado when one day this
Speaker 3: guy appears and says he's a writer for the Atlanta
Speaker 3: Constitution newspaper. He's looking to buy property, you know. And
Speaker 3: the guy says, oh, well, you know, why don't you know?
Speaker 3: Why don't you come over and he can stay with me.
Speaker 3: Then again it's the seventies, so he does, and the
Speaker 3: next day, you know, half of his apartment has been stolen,
Speaker 3: his fishing rolls and you know, fishing poles, et cetera.
Speaker 3: And tells the police and again they're on the lookout
Speaker 3: for Ronnie again. And he goes in and out of jail,
Speaker 3: in and out of jail, and ultimately he has a
Speaker 3: very very dark fate because in nineteen eighty nine, coincidentally,
Speaker 3: within a few months of Bundy's execution, Ronnie is in
Speaker 3: jail for murdering a man in South Carolina in very
Speaker 3: strangely coincident a way to how he approached this other
Speaker 3: guy in Colorado. He was in South Carolina, say, he's
Speaker 3: looking for real estate, and a broker takes him out
Speaker 3: to a secluded area where Ronnie proceeds to shoot him
Speaker 3: in the head during an alleged botch robbery. That's what
Speaker 3: he said at his trial. But he kills the guy
Speaker 3: point blank, range goes to jail, and while in jail,
Speaker 3: he's just not happy with his conditions. He winds up
Speaker 3: taking a security guard in the jail. Hostage comes part
Speaker 3: of a long drawn on overnight hostage standoff, brings some
Speaker 3: brethren as brothers, is what's going on Ronnie? And Ronnie
Speaker 3: basically is having a breakdown at this point, not even
Speaker 3: consistent with these other strange mental episodes. I should also
Speaker 3: say that Francie had indicated to me, pursued to her
Speaker 3: conversation with the state police, that Ronnie did a stint
Speaker 3: at the Millageville, Georgia Mental Hospital. It was apparently schizophrenic.
Speaker 3: So he apparently he was having an episode and winds
Speaker 3: up he had smuggled a gun into the prison and
Speaker 3: that's what he's using the hold the guard hostage, and
Speaker 3: he takes the gun and winds up blowing his brains out.
Speaker 3: In nineteen eighty nine. And that's what happens to Ronnie.
Speaker 5: Now as a result of his death. And how does
Speaker 5: the investigation proceed? And what's the task force that originally
Speaker 5: was thirty what's its situation now?
Speaker 3: So the task force is now whittled down to just
Speaker 3: a few people. Jack Crept legendary, very dirty, Harry Fish,
Speaker 3: just a six foot four inch giant of a man.
Speaker 3: This guy is just you talk to the police officers,
Speaker 3: the detectives that knew him, and they all just laughed
Speaker 3: because they said the guy was bigger than life. You know,
Speaker 3: one guy referred to him as just being His words
Speaker 3: were stone cold fucking nuts. I mean, they say this
Speaker 3: guy was just really he was just to do whatever
Speaker 3: he could do, and it was down to him and
Speaker 3: another guy, Harvey Burns, even George Dixon, Detective Patterson's that
Speaker 3: they were. You know, they went on to work other
Speaker 3: cases when when Coles was down to Creps and this
Speaker 3: other guy, and they really proceeded to sort of circle
Speaker 3: back and look at what they had, and they went,
Speaker 3: you know, they went back to Mark Thomas. The crazy
Speaker 3: thing about about Ronnie Walden is that, you know, even
Speaker 3: when I brought even when Francine had brought up the
Speaker 3: comma about him and what she had learned back in
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty nine to the New Jersey State Police later
Speaker 3: and said, look, do you guys remember him, This Ronnie Walden,
Speaker 3: the detective with whom she spoke, So they didn't have
Speaker 3: any information on the guy. And what struck me as
Speaker 3: odd as that Ronnie was dead by the time they
Speaker 3: had this conversation, and he apparently didn't know that. So
Speaker 3: I don't know how after Ronnie was free, I guess
Speaker 3: is for lack of a better term, or no longer
Speaker 3: became a person of interested the police after he passed
Speaker 3: the polygraph test in Colorado. How they didn't know that
Speaker 3: is sort of interesting, But getting back to your point, Yeah,
Speaker 3: so it became these two guys who then went back
Speaker 3: to Pennsylvania and started to reinvestigate this kid over there
Speaker 3: to see what they could find, basically because I don't
Speaker 3: really think they had anyone else to pursue. They did
Speaker 3: travel across the country, They went to San Francisco, you know,
Speaker 3: and did all sorts of investigation in the country. Any
Speaker 3: remote connection The police really did investigate. They just didn't
Speaker 3: have anything then, and that was the problem.
Speaker 5: In nineteen eighty two, in October, you talk about representatives
Speaker 5: of the major Crime Unit heard from an author or
Speaker 5: heard from a part of me from authorities in Florida.
Speaker 5: Then a notorious criminal, a young man that they had
Speaker 5: wanted to question two years earlier, had made a stunning revelation.
Speaker 5: Tell us about Gerald Eugene Stanho and what does that.
Speaker 3: Gerald Eugene Stannel was one of the most notorious serial
Speaker 3: killers in history the United States the world. He had
Speaker 3: killed about thirty women down there. He was actually from
Speaker 3: the Philadelphia area, although he had spent a lot of
Speaker 3: his time growing up in Florida from the point he
Speaker 3: was born. He was adopted. His parents he adopted in
Speaker 3: New York, and his father was a tobacco company executive,
Speaker 3: bought his family to Bluebell, Pennsylvania in Montgomery County at
Speaker 3: the time. Later he went to Florida and he killed
Speaker 3: all these women, and he started making these confessions to
Speaker 3: Detective Crow at the Daytona Beach Police Department where he
Speaker 3: was already been arrested for murder of someone down there.
Speaker 3: And then Crow started getting all these confessions from him,
Speaker 3: and one of the things he alluded to was an
Speaker 3: involvement in these killings. So that's how he came about.
Speaker 3: And it turned out, well, you know, the state police
Speaker 3: did go down there, I guess, to try to question
Speaker 3: him back in nineteen eighty and he wouldn't cooperate, and
Speaker 3: they then went again in eighty two after more of
Speaker 3: these confessions started coming out and Detective Crow a learned
Speaker 3: them lest so you know, this guy's talking, and they
Speaker 3: sent two detectives down there to interrogate him about the
Speaker 3: Garden State Parkway murders and his admissions to them and
Speaker 3: so forth, and you know, they were never able. I
Speaker 3: was understanding to, according to Detective Tom Kinser, to ultimately
Speaker 3: clear him, but nevertheless, they weren't really persuaded by what
Speaker 3: they learned during their trip down there to believe that
Speaker 3: he was responsible for the murders. But you know, that's
Speaker 3: what I find interesting, Dan, This is one of the
Speaker 3: things that always circles back to you know, it's it's
Speaker 3: now twenty twenty. These took place in nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 3: Gerald Stano, who for a time, this is again one
Speaker 3: of the strange coincidences, lived next to Ted Bundy on
Speaker 3: death Row. You know, why did the police or have
Speaker 3: the police? Again? These are the These are the answers
Speaker 3: I'd like to see as a result of this book.
Speaker 3: Was he one of the thousands that were interviewed back
Speaker 3: in nineteen sixty nine. We don't know that. All we
Speaker 3: know is that obviously did police know that he was
Speaker 3: here in nineteen sixty nine? Okay, But you know, was
Speaker 3: he one of the kids investigated and questioned by the
Speaker 3: state beliefs? Because I think you'd have to agree that
Speaker 3: would go a long way towards solving this thing. Stano
Speaker 3: was in fact questioned back then by state police and
Speaker 3: then you know, later went on to become a serial killer.
Speaker 3: He was living in Philadelphia the time is close to it,
Speaker 3: he admitted to the murders, and he was known to
Speaker 3: be a serial cullator. I would think he is worth
Speaker 3: further investigation as far as as the dated files are concerned.
Speaker 5: Yes, certainly. You also write about the controversy with Sergeant
Speaker 5: Crow or as what a couple detectives thought, and they
Speaker 5: really believed and even tested him. Uh, they in their
Speaker 5: minds to prove that he had an extraordinary bias in
Speaker 5: this questioning. Tell us about whether it was about the
Speaker 5: specifics of what Stano said regarding these parkway murders.
Speaker 3: Apparently he the confession you know that that's in my
Speaker 3: book The Garden State Parkway Murders, was read to me
Speaker 3: over the phone by Detective Crow of what Stano had
Speaker 3: told him. He was off in time in place. As
Speaker 3: far as that it wasn't quite that specific, but there
Speaker 3: was that when when the two detectors from the Jersey
Speaker 3: went to interview him, one of the detectives told me
Speaker 3: that one of the reasons he didn't believe Stano's confession
Speaker 3: was he was interviewing. He just didn't know enough about
Speaker 3: what had happened that I guess they had apprized me
Speaker 3: at the hullbacks. He was all over the place, and
Speaker 3: they just didn't feel that he had did it. And
Speaker 3: one of the detectives, again this is his version of events,
Speaker 3: said that he had told the detective crow down there
Speaker 3: that you know, one of the girls was wearing a
Speaker 3: blue shirt or whatever the case may be. And he
Speaker 3: said when they returned from lunch and began interviewing reinterviewing
Speaker 3: Stano about the Darden State Parker murders, he indicated that, well,
Speaker 3: you know, they said, well, she wearing a blue shirt.
Speaker 3: He said, yes. So see, he determined that, you know,
Speaker 3: maybe that Stano was being fed danswers, and that a
Speaker 3: lot of these confessions. Now Stano, who was executed I
Speaker 3: think in nineteen ninety four, I may have that day wrong,
Speaker 3: had always said that a lot of his confessions were
Speaker 3: you know, as a result of undue pressure by the
Speaker 3: detectives and so forth. So he had always held steadfast
Speaker 3: to the fact that he didn't kill all these girls
Speaker 3: and whatnot. But I had talked to an interview for
Speaker 3: the book, others detectives down there, and one guy told me, look,
Speaker 3: this guy killed every single girl, but he was ever
Speaker 3: accused of killing. So don't don't think for a second
Speaker 3: that that these confessions, whoever they were obtained, were somehow falshed.
Speaker 3: This guy was guilty. Assent.
Speaker 5: What consistencies or inconsistencies in terms of the signature regarding
Speaker 5: the woods and the roadside abduction? Uh? Tell us if
Speaker 5: there was any consistencies or inconsistencies Uh, with Stano's m
Speaker 5: O and signature.
Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely so. So Stano would typically select women, uh
Speaker 3: you know, in there. In there he although he also
Speaker 3: had had prostitutes that he had had slaved. Sadly, there
Speaker 3: were also a couple of young women who fit the
Speaker 3: profile of the blonde hair and so forth college girls
Speaker 3: he had who were wearing blue dresses. But he would
Speaker 3: consistently conceal the bodies under leaves and sticks, and he
Speaker 3: would also sometimes pile the clothing near by them, almost methodically.
Speaker 3: And I guess one of the reasons the police in
Speaker 3: New Jersey went down to visits down to begin with,
Speaker 3: notwithstanding his confessions, was because of the consistency of the
Speaker 3: crime scenes. I mean, you know that there's a whole
Speaker 3: other vein of serial killers, but as far as signatures concerned,
Speaker 3: signatures are concerned and the like, there's always a consistency,
Speaker 3: not always most of the timic consistency to their body
Speaker 3: of work. They'll do certain things like leave sticks or
Speaker 3: bury them in sticks and leaves and everything. His pasmers
Speaker 3: were very consistent with how these two girls, Susan Elizabeth
Speaker 3: found the parker. He would also use his car to
Speaker 3: apprehend victims. So there was always that possibility, with the
Speaker 3: circumstances of the parking murders and girls found on the
Speaker 3: side of the road, that that Stano could in fact
Speaker 3: have done these, given his history of covering them with sticks,
Speaker 3: getting college aged girls using a car, and of course
Speaker 3: his his proximity to the crime scene.
Speaker 5: We talked about it in the introduction. The most infamous
Speaker 5: and most fascinating serial killer Ted Bundy uh As we mentioned,
Speaker 5: he had agent ad Jason Sells in Florida State Penitentiary
Speaker 5: with Stano. Tell us what Bundy had said and to
Speaker 5: who and what specifically the authorities thought that Bundy might
Speaker 5: be of ins in this and your investigation on Bundy's
Speaker 5: whereabouts and potential as a suspect.
Speaker 3: So and again, as I may have mentioned earlier, in
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty six, Bundy had spoken to a gentleman who
Speaker 3: has since passed away named Art Norman. He was a
Speaker 3: psychologist for the defense team. Was I think Halloween nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty six. Bill Kelly, an Ocean City historian, had interviewed
Speaker 3: Art Norman just after Bunny was educated nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 3: asking him his recollection of the nineteen eighty six a
Speaker 3: conversation with Bundy. Art Norman had withheld what Bundy told
Speaker 3: him because if he didn't want to violate whatever the
Speaker 3: hipocratic oath was at the time. But right after Bunny
Speaker 3: was executed, Art Norman comes forth and says, in nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty six, Bundy told me again Bundy speaking the third person,
Speaker 3: out of nowhere, He said, well, it was you know,
Speaker 3: in spring of nineteen sixteen nine, he naming Bunny, didn't
Speaker 3: have a lot to do. He wound up going down
Speaker 3: to a place they called the Jersey Shore. He wound
Speaker 3: up picking up a couple of girls on the beach,
Speaker 3: and it wound up being the first time that he
Speaker 3: did it. It was something he was never able to
Speaker 3: go back from. It was just a traumatic event that
Speaker 3: shocked him for years. Now he or Norman cannot confess,
Speaker 3: but it certainly admitted after this became public that Bunny
Speaker 3: never specifically stated in the first person I killed Susan
Speaker 3: Davis and Elizabeth Perry. But what he had indicated is
Speaker 3: just so striking coincidental. Now, when he called the Atlanta
Speaker 3: County Prosecutor's office in the state Police and told them
Speaker 3: what Bundy had said to him in eighty six, Look,
Speaker 3: two girls were killed a Memorial Day weekend. Okay, they
Speaker 3: were at the Jersey Shore. Bundy is here saying I was,
Speaker 3: you know, he went to Ocean City, it was late spring,
Speaker 3: and all these factors were checked off. Bundy was in
Speaker 3: fact staying with an ant in the spring of nineteen
Speaker 3: sixty nine. He was enrolled at the School of General
Speaker 3: Studies at Temple University. He was living with an ant.
Speaker 3: So all these things added up. I also found out
Speaker 3: that Bundy had a far greater history, and this has
Speaker 3: never been reported before, to Ocean City, New Jersey. He
Speaker 3: had according to the relative relative excuse me, I interviewed
Speaker 3: at length. He was the same person with whom he
Speaker 3: lived in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania, nineteen sixty nine while attending
Speaker 3: Temple University, that he had made several trips of his
Speaker 3: family to Ocean City, New Jersey, in fact, that there
Speaker 3: was a family there who had a house down there.
Speaker 3: So he had speaks to the serial killers and strike
Speaker 3: in a familiar area with which they are comfortable. He
Speaker 3: certainly had ant law opportunity over the years if he
Speaker 3: in fact did this to scope out where he would
Speaker 3: kill these two women.
Speaker 5: Was there again m O signature consistencies with this crime
Speaker 5: and Bundy's crimes.
Speaker 3: Not overly Bundy would typically his whole ema was he
Speaker 3: would find a woman and as certainly you know this
Speaker 3: has been you know, portrayed again and again, he would
Speaker 3: use the aren't a fake arm cast. He would portray
Speaker 3: himself as a needy person and needed help to distress,
Speaker 3: you know, walk to a car. He'd want to be
Speaker 3: seen by someone as needing help. They'd come, and then
Speaker 3: he would typically club them over the head, put them
Speaker 3: in the car, take them and then murder them, decapitate them,
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera. So the ms did not match up. However,
Speaker 3: deliberate stranger or Arthur mister author, excuse me, mister Larson believe,
Speaker 3: and this is what he said to Larry Kelly in
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety three, that this would has been Ted Bundy's.
Speaker 3: He believed, as one of Bundy's first biographers, that Jersey
Speaker 3: Shore murders were Bundy's first unplanned crime and that he
Speaker 3: sharpened hismos later. But he believed that the Garden State
Speaker 3: Park where murders were in fact, you know, something that
Speaker 3: Bundy in fact had done. That was his opinion. He
Speaker 3: passed away a few years ago, as I was never
Speaker 3: able to interview him, but he last went on record
Speaker 3: at believing that Bundy had killed Susan Davison. Wasn't at
Speaker 3: Perry Memorial Day nineteen sixty.
Speaker 5: Nine interesting it went against his mo later unless he
Speaker 5: totally revised it in terms of attacking two women at
Speaker 5: one time. Let's get to as I mentioned before to you,
Speaker 5: I looked at this Walden character and the interesting thing
Speaker 5: that we maybe glossed over a little bit was that
Speaker 5: there was a partial print on the vehicle and that
Speaker 5: was a match, but not enough to say that that
Speaker 5: was a conclusive thing in court. But a partial print
Speaker 5: match is very important. He used say that some people
Speaker 5: would and would look at this as well. He was
Speaker 5: a thief for them. Why wouldn't he steal? How about
Speaker 5: the idea that this could have been a confrontation over
Speaker 5: the vehicle itself, just very much or similar to the
Speaker 5: other struggle he had which led to murder.
Speaker 3: Well, it could have been. Here's a thing that is
Speaker 3: again this lends itself to the fascination each time you
Speaker 3: think you have a particular suspect, you have the circumstantial evidence.
Speaker 3: You've got the Ronnie Walden, You've got the Bundy admitting
Speaker 3: and he was at the beach, You've got Gerald Stano, okay,
Speaker 3: admitting to the murders. You always have these strange things
Speaker 3: that go against it. And what happened with Ronnie was
Speaker 3: one of the things that Francine had told me, and
Speaker 3: then she had also told the police, and this also
Speaker 3: made the press in nineteen sixty nine. Is one in
Speaker 3: addition to him being down there, and she told it
Speaker 3: police he had a watch he was he had left
Speaker 3: Atlantic City, according to franc Scene, immediately after the murders
Speaker 3: had occurred. And that's one of the things, in addition
Speaker 3: to the watch that had prompted her to notify the
Speaker 3: police he had left immediately thereafter. He was driving, they said,
Speaker 3: when they found him in Colorado with a car that
Speaker 3: he had stolen from New Jersey, which was I think
Speaker 3: a yellow Dodge with a trailer with a motorcycle attached
Speaker 3: to it. So if he had a car Dan again,
Speaker 3: you start to think, what would he be doing. He
Speaker 3: wouldn't be hitchhiking. He had left town in a car
Speaker 3: that he had stolen, and why would he be pulling
Speaker 3: two girls over to the side of the road. And
Speaker 3: if he was going doing that to rob him, why
Speaker 3: wouldn't he have robbed them after killing him? If this
Speaker 3: was consistent with his murder of a guy named George
Speaker 3: Wells in South Carolina in nineteen eighty four, why wouldn't
Speaker 3: he have robbed Susan Elizabeth? And when you think of
Speaker 3: these girls being stabbed at that one of them, you know, stripped,
Speaker 3: these things are consistent. And this is what I've attempted
Speaker 3: to do in the book as well with with the
Speaker 3: makings of a serial killer. So my uh. You know,
Speaker 3: although Ronnie is a very viable suspect, again, you have
Speaker 3: to ask yourself what he has is mo o consistent
Speaker 3: with how these girls were found, and given the fact
Speaker 3: that he had left town allegedly in a trailer, you know,
Speaker 3: with a motorcycle attention he had stolen from the owner
Speaker 3: of a man and a woman by the way right
Speaker 3: as he left hand after the merge. That those things
Speaker 3: don't match, but everything else does. So I really think
Speaker 3: it comes back to Ronnie Walden needing to be further
Speaker 3: investigated at this point, at least his file by the
Speaker 3: state police.
Speaker 5: How significant is that partial print match though regardless of admissibility.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, when again, Francine had sent me her
Speaker 3: notes that she kept from nineteen sixty nine, her handwritten notes, okay,
Speaker 3: and the guy had told her that she was never
Speaker 3: able to specifically identify the officer with whom she spoke
Speaker 3: with everything else she had written down and I saw,
Speaker 3: so they had half of print, and they said that
Speaker 3: they were quote ninety nine and I think one quarter
Speaker 3: percent certain that he was the guy. And she remembered
Speaker 3: that phrase because that's what Ivory Soap used to use
Speaker 3: as their jingle, that were ninety nine and everyone they're
Speaker 3: sent pure. So that's you know, that's how she remembered
Speaker 3: as far as the print. I don't know, because again
Speaker 3: when she told again this detective of the state Police
Speaker 3: years later, in like two thousand and three, four or
Speaker 3: five six something, loans is before she had sent her
Speaker 3: notes to me in my office, she had talked to
Speaker 3: the guy and the guy said, well, I don't even know.
Speaker 3: Apparently said I don't know anything about this Ronnie Walden
Speaker 3: or anything along those lines. So I don't know if
Speaker 3: he was. You know what the extent of is with
Speaker 3: the with their state police style the investigative reports, was
Speaker 3: he just not considered a person of interest after he
Speaker 3: had passed a light et sector test. I just don't know.
Speaker 3: But I again, to this day, given the fact that
Speaker 3: we have the watch identified as belonging to him, we
Speaker 3: have his past mental health, we have the fact that
Speaker 3: he murdered someone in South Carolina. All these things. We
Speaker 3: have the ledge fingerprints, we've got the ninety nine and
Speaker 3: a half percent year. So many of these things add
Speaker 3: up to being Ronnie Walden being a viable person of interest. Fascinating.
Speaker 5: Did Walden fit the description from Albert Hickey in any way?
Speaker 5: The five foot seven to five foot nine.
Speaker 3: No, No, Ronnie was interesting. He was a six foot
Speaker 3: two inch former high school athlete. I interviewed several people
Speaker 3: from his hometown of k Row, Georgia, which also produced
Speaker 3: Jackie Robinson. A number of people, quiet southern Gothic type place,
Speaker 3: and they all, you know, all the women I spoke
Speaker 3: with that he was, you know, a dangerous guy. There
Speaker 3: was only something that women, I think are born with
Speaker 3: this intuitive sense of evil and people. And they all
Speaker 3: said there was something about him, and you know, et cetera,
Speaker 3: et cetera, and you know, they said that the one
Speaker 3: of the reasons he went down the wrong path is
Speaker 3: because he always wanted a scholarship to Florida State University
Speaker 3: to play football, and I never got it. He got
Speaker 3: a you know, financial grant and aide and one of
Speaker 3: his former girlfriends told me that she believed him not
Speaker 3: getting that scholarship. And he had also, uh, I think
Speaker 3: he had had a kid that at a team that
Speaker 3: died in Childer said a couple of these fact I
Speaker 3: sent him down the wrong the wrong path. But physically,
Speaker 3: the answer to your question is no, he was not
Speaker 3: seen wearing a turtleneck. Again, it wasn't but Francine the
Speaker 3: only one who and she had done it after the fact.
Speaker 3: You know, so Ronnie sort of name arose after the
Speaker 3: Albert Hickie thing was mentioned, but now he's never seen
Speaker 3: Marnie Yeltrack. And physically the guy that was seen at
Speaker 3: the circle Summer's Point traffic Circle was like five nine,
Speaker 3: shaggy hair, dark hair, not not tall, six' two and
Speaker 3: blonde Like ronnie.
Speaker 5: Was there was a legion of detectives that retired and
Speaker 5: other took. Up the other detectives took up the mantle
Speaker 5: in this. Investigation and you write of some detectives wedded
Speaker 5: to their earlier decisions as to who Killed elizabeth And
Speaker 5: susan that day that.
Speaker 3: Weekend, yeah the detectives are pretty much all over the.
Speaker 3: Place they were never never really able to decide who did.
Speaker 3: IT i don't know there was ever any collective consensus
Speaker 3: on who they believe did. It and that's the frustrating.
Speaker 3: Part you talk to these, gentlemen at least the retired,
Speaker 3: ones you, know the present day ones weren't very disclosive
Speaker 3: for for legal. Concerns do you talk to the other
Speaker 3: ones and you ask, them, all who do you think did? It,
Speaker 3: well you know it could have Been. Bondie they're very
Speaker 3: you can just hear the anguish in their, voice as
Speaker 3: though they are haunted because this is the one that got.
Speaker 3: Away and in, fact one of the state police detectives
Speaker 3: THAT i, interviewed he had a very interesting. Quote he,
Speaker 3: said you, know so many of these guys would have
Speaker 3: given a piece of their, pension you, know to find
Speaker 3: out who did. This and if you know anything about
Speaker 3: state police pensions In New, jersey they're pretty. Substantial so
Speaker 3: it's fascinating how and even when you talk you, Know Detective,
Speaker 3: dix WHO i interviewed at, Length Detective creps before he passed,
Speaker 3: away these guys are so you could just just resonated
Speaker 3: sincerity and how much they wanted to see this thing get.
Speaker 3: Resolved but it all came back, to at least they
Speaker 3: said the three, days and one guy said to, me
Speaker 3: if we could just have those three days back, again
Speaker 3: the three days being between the time the girls were
Speaker 3: found and the carr was.
Speaker 5: Reported so it's very tragic too THAT i think, anyway
Speaker 5: at the coming from reading this that the scapegoating of
Speaker 5: detective or Patrolman, steer this tell us briefly about, that, well,
Speaker 5: yeah he.
Speaker 3: Was he was brought up ON i guess the state.
Speaker 3: Police police have a sort of military esque hierarchical structure
Speaker 3: as far as disciplining and in addition to you, know annoying, People, captain,
Speaker 3: lieutenant what have. You so he was court, martialed brought
Speaker 3: in court martial. Proceeding ironically or, coincidentally his his attorney
Speaker 3: Was patrick. McGahn patrick McGann IS i believe the uncle
Speaker 3: of for more former excuse, Me White house Counsel don,
Speaker 3: McGann which is pretty interesting connection. There but, Yeah patrick
Speaker 3: McGahn got, basically you, know tried the case and. STIR
Speaker 3: i think str was a scapegoat because they wanted to
Speaker 3: have someone to pin this, on and he was the.
Speaker 3: Guy but ultimately his rank was restored and he did
Speaker 3: have his, knee his good knee brought, back you. Know years,
Speaker 3: later after this all all went, out he got a.
Speaker 3: PROMOTION i never had a chance interview he. Did he
Speaker 3: did pass away some long time. Ago but it's a
Speaker 3: shame that this happened to him because my point About
Speaker 3: looster has always been. This and let's say he pulls
Speaker 3: over on to the side of the, road in the
Speaker 3: side of the road and he sees the, car you,
Speaker 3: know pretty much according to The carner's, report the girls
Speaker 3: were dead by this. Time so let's say he goes
Speaker 3: in and he finds the, body or rather, bodies you,
Speaker 3: know rather than the highway. Worker it wouldn't have brought them.
Speaker 3: Back it still. Happened the people were long you, know
Speaker 3: whoever did this long since you. Disappeared SO i Always
Speaker 3: pelbitz chair was a little bit unfairly blamed in, it
Speaker 3: but again it is what it. Is it was an unfortunate,
Speaker 3: mark a, blemish if you, will on his. Career it
Speaker 3: just seemed very.
Speaker 5: Interesting we always talk about the pressure for these police
Speaker 5: to be able to solve, this but there really is a,
Speaker 5: pressure and these guys take it upon their. Shoulders like you,
Speaker 5: say these guys can't let these cases. Go it stays with.
Speaker 5: Them and so it's tragic to see a patrolman that
Speaker 5: looks like he was an innocent mistake or, oversight whatever
Speaker 5: you want to call, it but certainly not negligence and
Speaker 5: certainly wouldn't have changed the outcome of the investigation. Seemingly
Speaker 5: so it is just the overall extent of the brunt
Speaker 5: that the police take and, prosecutors but especially detectives in
Speaker 5: these cold case mysteries like, THIS i.
Speaker 3: Mean and the thing IS i can identify with the
Speaker 3: with the. Obsession you, Know i've been Although i've been
Speaker 3: expensively researching the case in the past ten, years which
Speaker 3: comprises The Garden State Park Great. Murders don't FORGET i
Speaker 3: have been interested in the case since about you, know
Speaker 3: two thousand as far as really doing a deep dive into.
Speaker 3: It you, know the first book took several years to,
Speaker 3: write and that was The urges Of. Infamy SO i
Speaker 3: identify there's not a day that goes by THAT i
Speaker 3: don't think about this case and what. HAPPENED i mean
Speaker 3: think SO i, can And i'm not a, detective BUT
Speaker 3: i can completely identify with the passion they have and
Speaker 3: that that that obsession to see some sort of closure with,
Speaker 3: this and that's just what we don't have at this.
Speaker 3: Point you, know AS i, SAID i keep returning to you,
Speaker 3: know we really need to do a read review of the.
Speaker 3: Case given What i've disclosed in this. Book you know
Speaker 3: that many of the present day detectives THAT i SPOKE
Speaker 3: i shouldn't say present, day the detectives That i've spoken
Speaker 3: with that worked on the. Case you, know WHEN i
Speaker 3: begin to tell them WHAT i know about, it you,
Speaker 3: know in a preface to my attempt to, interview and they, say,
Speaker 3: wow you know more about the case THAN i. Do you,
Speaker 3: KNOW i can definitely. IDENTIFY i say that just really
Speaker 3: to eliminate the point THAT i can identify with the
Speaker 3: passion and the accession that the people like you, Know
Speaker 3: Jack krepps And George, dixon these guys had with the
Speaker 3: case and it really haunted them for the rest of their. Lives.
Speaker 5: Yes, ABSOLUTELY i want to thank You christian for coming
Speaker 5: on and talking about The Garden State parkway murders of
Speaker 5: cold case. Mystery this is A Wild Blue press release
Speaker 5: Of if people want to find out more information or
Speaker 5: take a look at you have A facebook, page, website
Speaker 5: tell us how they might take a look at.
Speaker 3: Us they can order the book On. AMAZON i believe
Speaker 3: that it's also for sale at Sun Rose words And
Speaker 3: music On Berry avenue In Ocean. City again on The
Speaker 3: Wild Blue press site wild bluepress dot, com you can
Speaker 3: find my biography WHERE i go into a little bit
Speaker 3: of the book HOW i came to get interested in
Speaker 3: this case so. Fervently you could order it from there
Speaker 3: and learn more ABOUT i also blogged about a little
Speaker 3: bit About Ted bundy as, well some some interesting and
Speaker 3: here too for unknown facts about him WHICH i think
Speaker 3: were sort of opposite of some of the things that
Speaker 3: are that are commonly understood about. Him so you can
Speaker 3: go To Wild Blue press website my biography on their
Speaker 3: order through there Or, amazon or at Sunt Rose words And.
Speaker 3: Music it's been.
Speaker 5: An absolute, Pleasure thank you very. Much Christian bart for
Speaker 5: The Garden State parkway, murders thank you so.
Speaker 3: Much