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Speaker 6: You are now listening to True Murder, The most Shocking
Speaker 6: Killers in True crime History and the authors that have
Speaker 6: written about him Gaesy Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker, Dck. Every
Speaker 6: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 6: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 6: host journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 3: Good Evening. Shortly after NYPD Chief of Detectives Thomas Burns
Speaker 3: publicly criticized the London police for failing to capture Jack
Speaker 3: the Ripper, he received a letter purportedly from Jack himself
Speaker 3: saying New York was his next target. Not long after,
Speaker 3: Burns was confronted by his own Ripper style murder case,
Speaker 3: in the death of Kerry Brown, a k a. Old Shakespeare,
Speaker 3: a colorful character who worked as a prostitute and had
Speaker 3: a pension for quoting Shakespeare. Given the near hysteria surrounding
Speaker 3: the vicious murder, soon after the Jack the Ripper murders
Speaker 3: in London, people were worried that Jack might have actually
Speaker 3: come to America. The Detective Bureau finally arrested Emir ben Ali,
Speaker 3: an Algerian immigrant. The newspapers, however, immediately criticized Burns for
Speaker 3: moving too quickly, suggesting that he had tried to save
Speaker 3: face by pinning the crime on an easy target. When
Speaker 3: the verdict of murder in the second degree was announced,
Speaker 3: the papers erupted in anger and disbelief. With the aid
Speaker 3: of the French Consulate, they embarked on a ten year
Speaker 3: campaign to have ben Ali pardoned, and finally won his
Speaker 3: release by producing new evidence. Immediately upon ben Elie's departure
Speaker 3: for France, fresh evidence of his guilt surfaced. Was ben
Speaker 3: Eli falsely convicted or falsely exonerated? And if he did
Speaker 3: not commit the murder, then who did? Issues of false convictions,
Speaker 3: fake news, illegal immigration, police corruption, and racial prejudice are
Speaker 3: common tropes in today's news cycles. The Ripper demonstrates that
Speaker 3: these are not simply matters of recent vintage, and seeks
Speaker 3: to answer such questions in trying to determine whether and
Speaker 3: in what way justice miscarried. The book that we're featuring
Speaker 3: this evening is The East River Ripper, The mysterious eighteen
Speaker 3: ninety one murder of Old Shakespeare. With my special guest
Speaker 3: prosecutor and author George R. Veekal Senor. Welcome to the program,
Speaker 3: and thank you very much for this interview. George Deacal,
Speaker 3: thank you very much. This is an extraordinary book due
Speaker 3: out the end of this month August thirty first, so
Speaker 3: so glad to have you here before anybody else got
Speaker 3: the chance to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. You will be the first person that
Speaker 2: has interviewed me about but.
Speaker 3: Incredible. Before we start this extraordinary book, you talk about
Speaker 3: your thirty years as a prosecutor. Give us your background
Speaker 3: before we start talking about the East Ripper.
Speaker 2: Well, I was. I'm a fifth generation North Meridian, lived
Speaker 2: in a small town all my life, went to the
Speaker 2: University of Florida, went to law school there, came back
Speaker 2: to the hometown and started practicing law as a public defender.
Speaker 2: Practiced public defender about two years, and then went with
Speaker 2: his State Attorney's office for thirty years and prosecuted just
Speaker 2: beout every kind of crime you can imagine, from criminal
Speaker 2: mischief to capital murder. Wow, including let's stay gentleman that
Speaker 2: you've mentioned in your lead in Ted Bondy.
Speaker 3: Wow. Interesting, let's talk about in your introduction you talk
Speaker 3: about Eugene Borschan's that that's a proper denunciation of his
Speaker 3: nineteen thirty one book, Convicting the Innocent, An Account of
Speaker 3: the wrongful conviction of a mere Ben Ali, tell us
Speaker 3: about your how you came to be the author of
Speaker 3: this book, and tell us a little bit more about
Speaker 3: Eugene Borshin's book. And you say that very much that
Speaker 3: almost every treatment of this case has been Tookorshon's book
Speaker 3: and accepted those findings at face value. So tell us
Speaker 3: a little bit about Eugene Borschan's book.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, the first time I ever heard about his
Speaker 2: book was in a voor dire of a jury back
Speaker 2: in the early seventies, a defense attorney mentioned it, asking
Speaker 2: the jurors ever read the book. Of course, he was
Speaker 2: trying to poison the minds of the jury by putting
Speaker 2: that sort of a name in front of him, and
Speaker 2: because he got very angry with him, and I never
Speaker 2: thought anything about reading the book. But until I started
Speaker 2: to research his case. I came across the case researching
Speaker 2: the last book that I wrote, which was a book
Speaker 2: about another murder in New York City that was prosecuted
Speaker 2: by the same man who prosecuted the the East River
Speaker 2: Ripper case. And in research in that book, I read
Speaker 2: his biography, and he had a chapter on his on
Speaker 2: his murder, and uh, I got interested in it because
Speaker 2: it it seemed like a a rather interesting case. And
Speaker 2: there's some things he said in the in them in
Speaker 2: the book about the case. It just didn't quite make sense.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: And I looked around and found some other references and
Speaker 2: found Porcher's book and read it was just a chapter
Speaker 2: in his book that was only a lead case. There
Speaker 2: were a number of other Each chapter to vote was
Speaker 2: devoted to another case about some some man who supposedly
Speaker 2: convicted in innocent.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 2: I found the transcript of the trial and the transcript
Speaker 2: of the of the inquest that was held before the trial. Ruh,
Speaker 2: I could not reconcile Borchard's intimation that this particular prosecutor
Speaker 2: was corrupt with my knowledge of the prosecutor. It just
Speaker 2: didn't make sense to me that the prosecutor would knowingly
Speaker 2: prosecute an innocent man. And I wanted to try to
Speaker 2: resolve the you know, the friction between those two those twupositions.
Speaker 2: Plus I had learned about the chief detectives Thomas Burns,
Speaker 2: who was a giant figure in the in the Ilden
Speaker 2: Age New Yorker, a tremendously gifted detective, and H I
Speaker 2: again had some difficulty seeing him framing an innocent man,
Speaker 2: so I dug into it.
Speaker 5: UH.
Speaker 2: I read the trial transcript, I read the UH, all
Speaker 2: of the newspaper accounts I could find. I read the UH,
Speaker 2: the the the memoirs of of a couple of men
Speaker 2: who were involved in the case. Other men who were
Speaker 2: involved in the case. One of the doctors had written
Speaker 2: UH rather extensively about it and trying to figure out,
Speaker 2: you know, what happened. Was this man really innocent? Or
Speaker 2: was he guilty? UH?
Speaker 3: Was he.
Speaker 2: Properly convicted?
Speaker 6: UH?
Speaker 2: Or was he uh? Or was he railroaded? And at
Speaker 2: the end of the book, I give three possible scenarios
Speaker 2: as to what happened in the case. Because you know
Speaker 2: this happened over one hundred years ago. You can't say
Speaker 2: with certainty what happened. All you do is say what
Speaker 2: probably happened, and the UH there were there are three
Speaker 2: scenarios that fit the facts. I give the three scenarios UH,
Speaker 2: and then I away which is those three I think
Speaker 2: is most likely? And you know, if if a reader
Speaker 2: wants to choose one of the other two scenarios. Uh,
Speaker 2: they're welcome to do it, won't hurt my feelings at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But but the I think that one of those three
Speaker 2: is what happened, and a lot of the things that
Speaker 2: the traditional story about the case say don't are untrue
Speaker 2: under any of those three scenarios. Under no scenario did
Speaker 2: the police try to frame Ventalle. Under no scenario was
Speaker 2: there any prosecutorial misconduct to amount to to intentionally framing
Speaker 2: the man, you know, if if he if he was innocent.
Speaker 2: Under one scenario, he got himself convicted by lying like
Speaker 2: a cheap clock. Under another scenario, uh, he got himself
Speaker 2: convicted because a man not affiliated with the police withheld
Speaker 2: crucial evidence of his innocence for in years and then
Speaker 2: didn't reveal it until it.
Speaker 5: Was his.
Speaker 2: It was to his advantage to do it. And under
Speaker 2: the third area, he's guilty.
Speaker 3: Let's start with the connection that interested the press, frightened
Speaker 3: the populace, and would interest every true crime reader obviously,
Speaker 3: the connection to Jack the Ripper. So in your book
Speaker 3: you talk about August thirty first, eighteen eighty eight, Marianne Nichols,
Speaker 3: London's Whitechapel District. People here hurt her cries, but no
Speaker 3: one came to her, aid her throat was cut, nearly
Speaker 3: severing her head, and he repeatedly slashed her Torso, so
Speaker 3: you continue to chronicle the Emma Ellis Smith died on
Speaker 3: April fourth, eighteen eighty eight. Later, Martha Turner suffered thirty
Speaker 3: nine wounds. So you go through that Jack the Rippers,
Speaker 3: a fault of women in Whitechapel, and the horror and
Speaker 3: all of the story that that emanated from the newspaper
Speaker 3: frenzy as a result. But but tell us about the
Speaker 3: connection why this bill Jack the Rippers connected to this story?
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, a tremendous amount of of uproar in London.
Speaker 2: Uh over these over these killings.
Speaker 3: H and.
Speaker 2: Anybody who got any prostitute who got stabbed with a
Speaker 2: knife after the first one of these murders was immediately
Speaker 2: jack the Ripper was the person who did it. And
Speaker 2: the twelve I think murders that I chronicled in the
Speaker 2: first chapter only five or reliably attributed to Jackie Ripper.
Speaker 2: But at that time, right everybody thought that Jackie Ripper
Speaker 2: did all of them. And uh so, uh, I wrote
Speaker 2: I wrote that chapter f through the eyes of someone
Speaker 2: in the nineteenth century, not not a a Jack the
Speaker 2: Ripper ologist looking back on it as to as to
Speaker 2: what it was called JACKI Ripper. Uh, just a kind
Speaker 2: of sidelight on uh on the story. But anyhow, Thomas
Speaker 2: Burns was uh. He was world renowned as uh as
Speaker 2: one of the greatest to take ers of the age.
Speaker 2: And he said some rather unkind things about.
Speaker 3: Uh the the.
Speaker 2: Uh London police's ability to uh to make an arrest,
Speaker 2: and uh they got published in the London papers. And
Speaker 2: and then we've got this letter supposedly from Jackie Rippers
Speaker 2: and batten down the hatches here I come.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: And not long after that a prostitute in the slums,
Speaker 2: just like White Chapel was a slum area, and there
Speaker 2: were all prostitutes that were killed by Jack the Ripper.
Speaker 2: And a prostitute in the slum is butchered uh in
Speaker 2: very much the same fashion as the traditional typical Jack
Speaker 2: the Ripper murders. She is uh, her her genital area
Speaker 2: is is butchered, her stomach is rod ripped open, her
Speaker 2: or her and her intestines are pulled out. The only
Speaker 2: difference between her death and the death of most of
Speaker 2: the Jack the Ripper victims. Is that Jack the Ripper
Speaker 2: victims had their throats cut and the New York City victim,
Speaker 2: Kerry Brown was strangled. So you know, the first first
Speaker 2: people coming in and looking at the scene, the first
Speaker 2: thought that came to their mind was Jack the Ripper,
Speaker 2: And so they went round and round all kinds of
Speaker 2: speculation in the press that was this Jack the Ripper.
Speaker 2: Is Jack the Ripper come And right after the conviction
Speaker 2: of of a Lee, the Burns hinted that he had
Speaker 2: evidence that ben a Lee was in London during the
Speaker 2: time that the Ripper murders were being committed over there, right,
Speaker 2: So you know, uh not doubt very seriously whether being
Speaker 2: a lead with Jack the Ripper. Uh not doubt very
Speaker 2: seriously that Jack the Ripper came to the United States
Speaker 2: and committed to murders just to rub Thomas Burns his
Speaker 2: nose in uh in the uh uh bragging that he
Speaker 2: had done about how the net or police would have
Speaker 2: called the Ripper.
Speaker 3: So you have you have the press in London goating
Speaker 3: over the idea that this Burns who had from New
Speaker 3: York City, this sophisticated guy that would would tell them
Speaker 3: and that's what he wrote that this is the techniques
Speaker 3: that he would use to employ to try to find
Speaker 3: Jack the Ripper. They were, you say, they were delighted
Speaker 3: that Burns now had his own ripper on his own
Speaker 3: hands and now had the pressure to make an arrest.
Speaker 2: Well, it wasn't so much the the London press as
Speaker 2: the London police.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: They were. They were quite pleased that Burns was in
Speaker 2: a position where he could no longer talk about them
Speaker 2: and had his own ripper case to have to solve.
Speaker 2: You know, the the traditional story was that Burns said
Speaker 2: he'd have if Jack the Ripper came to New York City,
Speaker 2: he'd have he'd have the Jack in jail within either
Speaker 2: twenty four, either forty eight or thirty six hours, depending
Speaker 2: on depending on on who on the which version of
Speaker 2: the story you heard, and in actuality, he had bin
Speaker 2: a Lee if Beinalley was the actual killer, had him
Speaker 2: in jailed within twelve hours. So if he may, if
Speaker 2: Burns made the boast, which he says he never did,
Speaker 2: and if Beneley was murder, he beat his post a
Speaker 2: good twelve to thirty six hours.
Speaker 3: You have the extraordinary status that the media had at
Speaker 3: that time in London, Jack the Ripper invigorated the newspaper business,
Speaker 3: and so it was they had never seen anything like this,
Speaker 3: and so this was truly really good for the newspaper
Speaker 3: business in London, and so in New York when they
Speaker 3: got these I am right here and I expect to
Speaker 3: kill somebody by Thursday. So go get ready for me
Speaker 3: with your pistols. But I have a knife and has
Speaker 3: done more than your pistols. Next thing you'll hear of
Speaker 3: some women dead yours, truly, Jack the Ripper. And then
Speaker 3: you talk about the New York Harold another note in
Speaker 3: and written in red ink, and he said he had
Speaker 3: just written, doctor of Detective Burns that I'm in America.
Speaker 3: So this was a frenzy. This was a This was
Speaker 3: a frenzy for the media having this kind of crime,
Speaker 3: having these kinds of characters involved. Tell us about what
Speaker 3: Burns' response is now as an investigator in this case.
Speaker 2: Burns was extremely closed my mouth right at the beginning,
Speaker 2: and he probably should have been even more closed mouth
Speaker 2: than he actually was. There's all kinds of confusion, is
Speaker 2: there always is at the outset of any kind of
Speaker 2: an investigation. Library'st I've been in a number of similar
Speaker 2: type investigations that you know, people running around like chickens
Speaker 2: with a head chopped off. The information is coming in.
Speaker 2: It may be true, it may not be true. It
Speaker 2: gets spread around, and Burne says some things to the
Speaker 2: to the press that didn't pan out. He made some
Speaker 2: informations to the press that he knew who the murderer
Speaker 2: was and had to and all I had. The only
Speaker 2: thing he had to do was find him. And the
Speaker 2: murderer was a man that they call Frenchie number two,
Speaker 2: and ben A Lee went by the went by the
Speaker 2: nickname of Frenchie because Algeria at that time was a
Speaker 2: possession of France, and all Algerians were subjects of France,
Speaker 2: and French had actually served as French soldier during the
Speaker 2: Franco Prussian War. So you know, that's how you got
Speaker 2: the name Frenchie. So Burne just saying that there's Frenchy
Speaker 2: number one, uh and Frenchy number two. French number one
Speaker 2: was simply in the hotel across the hall from where
Speaker 2: the murder occurred, and Frenchie number two was in the
Speaker 2: hotel room with carry brown murderinger.
Speaker 3: And they.
Speaker 2: Searched for Frenchie number two. He finally found FRENCHI number
Speaker 2: two and French number two had at an ironclad alibi
Speaker 2: as oops. And then instead of you know, saying, telling
Speaker 2: the press put out the fire and call on the nobs,
Speaker 2: we're not we're not interested in French number two anymore,
Speaker 2: he didn't say anything because that's kind of egg on
Speaker 2: his face. And then he's Frenchy number one and this,
Speaker 2: you know, this kind of you know, raises it raises
Speaker 2: the antennas. People say, Hey, what's going on here?
Speaker 3: Uh? Is is he.
Speaker 2: Being shooting straight with us? Or is he dealing off
Speaker 2: the bottom of the deck. Uh, there's something that right here.
Speaker 2: So this roused the suspicion of the press.
Speaker 3: And the.
Speaker 2: They became quite confrontational with him after that. Say that
Speaker 2: kind of started the sourness between him and the press.
Speaker 3: Can can you explain for us the what we haven't
Speaker 3: talked about is anything about who this Carry Brown was.
Speaker 3: You give this background that once upon a time she
Speaker 3: was doing quite well, she ruined her life with alcohol.
Speaker 3: Tell us a little bit about Carrie Brown, but also
Speaker 3: this frenchie one, Frenchy two and this notorious hotel that
Speaker 3: you say that this was not the only homicide, and
Speaker 3: in fact, there'd been an homicide in this room before.
Speaker 3: It was called the Rains Hotel, so it was the
Speaker 3: kind of hotel you write that you could get a
Speaker 3: drink in the basement and then go upstairs with a
Speaker 3: lady of the evening. So that's the kind of tell
Speaker 3: it was, So first about this. Tell us first about
Speaker 3: the rooms thirty one and thirty three in their significance,
Speaker 3: and then also we didn't mention an extraordinary thing was
Speaker 3: a symbol was carved on one buttox and her genitals
Speaker 3: were slashed. So tell us about the room scenario, and
Speaker 3: then more about the blood and the blood that was
Speaker 3: found in the condition of carry Brown.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, first off, Kerry Brown was a very respectable
Speaker 2: woman at one point in her life, a mother, the
Speaker 2: wife of a sea captain, and she took to drink
Speaker 2: and basically ruined her life. Her husband was actually a
Speaker 2: captain of a ship in the Union Navy during the
Speaker 2: Civil War, but he finally got fed up with her,
Speaker 2: divorced her, and she wound up moving to New York
Speaker 2: worked for a while as an actress, and the supposition
Speaker 2: is that's where she picked up all her lines from Shakespeare.
Speaker 2: And finally the drink got there so bad that that
Speaker 2: the only way she could make a living was as
Speaker 2: a prostitute. The one place that she frequented to uh
Speaker 2: work as a prostitute was this East River Hotel also
Speaker 2: known as a Fourth Ward Hotel, also known as the
Speaker 2: House of All Drinks. And on the first floor was
Speaker 2: a bar, and in the bar was where the men
Speaker 2: and the women would meet up. They would drink, they
Speaker 2: would uh agree on services to be rendered, and then
Speaker 2: they would retire to the upstairs. It was a five
Speaker 2: story hotel, and the way they've numbered the way they
Speaker 2: number of stories back in the back in the eighteen nineties,
Speaker 2: the first there was ground floor, first, second, third, and
Speaker 2: fourth floor, So the fourth floor is what we'd actually
Speaker 2: called the fifth floor. But anyhow, up on the top
Speaker 2: floor was where Carrie Brown went with her John on
Speaker 2: the night of her murder. They met she they bought
Speaker 2: a bucket of beer for a nickel to go up
Speaker 2: the stairs or one stairwell going up to the to
Speaker 2: the top floor, and up the stairs down the hall.
Speaker 2: At the end of the hall was room thirty three,
Speaker 2: and it was the best room, probably the best room
Speaker 2: in the in the the house because it had two windows.
Speaker 2: It was a corner corner house. They retired into that
Speaker 2: room and later that night Ben a Lee came in
Speaker 2: and he rented room thirty three, which was right across
Speaker 2: the hall. Carrie and her John were in room thirty one,
Speaker 2: and Ben a Lee was in room thirty three, which
Speaker 2: was right right across the call. Heady cornered across the hall. Okay.
Speaker 2: At some point during the night, then John left, and
Speaker 2: then early that morning Ben a Lee left and the
Speaker 2: janitor saw him leaving, and nobody saw that John leave
Speaker 2: when ben and Lee left. The janitor saw him leaving
Speaker 2: and he said he looked like he was sneaking out.
Speaker 2: And then when the maid went up to uh uh
Speaker 2: check on the on the rooms, make sure everybody was out,
Speaker 2: she found the body, I say the maid. I forget
Speaker 2: whether it was the maid or the janitor that found
Speaker 2: a body. But the room, the door was locked, had
Speaker 2: to be unlocked, and uh so the killer had left
Speaker 2: the room, locked the door, and the key was gone.
Speaker 2: They had to get the master key to go in.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm. You also talk about tell us what was
Speaker 3: carved on her buttocks.
Speaker 2: There was a cross carved on her on her on
Speaker 2: her buck. She was naked uh uh, sprawled under the
Speaker 2: cover uh bedclothes in her uh uh her shift we'd
Speaker 2: been wrapped around her head and uh the pretty graphic
Speaker 2: description from the uh autopsy report of the uh the carving,
Speaker 2: the depth of the carving, and uh and whatnot and
Speaker 2: uh the slashes to her vaginal area and her uh
Speaker 2: and her uh uh uh deep ragged, lengthy slashes and
Speaker 2: s part of her intestines small intestines had been taken
Speaker 2: out and placed between her legs. And there was a
Speaker 2: knife found, a bloody knife found in the bed beside her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's use as an opportunity to stop, just for
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Speaker 3: You talked about the incredible that Carrie Brown was left
Speaker 3: in mutilated with her intestines out of her body positioned,
Speaker 3: But what about the police arriving once they were called?
Speaker 3: You mentioned Edward Fitzgerald, the janitor, and then someone that
Speaker 3: had also was involved, another William Thomas. So police arrive,
Speaker 3: tell us about the blood evidence in thirty three and
Speaker 3: thirty one, When the police arrive, tell us about the
Speaker 3: media arriving with the corner, tell us about this whole
Speaker 3: incredible situation that arises.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, the police arrive. I think there was Captain
Speaker 2: O'Conner who was the first first officer to look at
Speaker 2: in the scene. He just looks at the door. God,
Speaker 2: that's awful. Need to call the corner backs out. He
Speaker 2: places an officer by the name of Malarkey down at
Speaker 2: the bottom of the stairwell. Nobody goes up, nobody comes down.
Speaker 2: Maintain crime scene integrity until the corner gets here. Now,
Speaker 2: at this point, nobody has noticed any blood stains outside
Speaker 2: of the.
Speaker 3: Of the.
Speaker 2: Room, right, Yeah, there's blood all over the room, Room
Speaker 2: thirty one, But nobody's noticed any blood stains in the
Speaker 2: hallway or anywhere else on the top floor. The corner
Speaker 2: finally arrives and Corner Schultz is man I was familiar
Speaker 2: with because he was a corner in the previous book,
Speaker 2: previous case that I wrote a book about. And to
Speaker 2: put not to put too fine a point on it,
Speaker 2: but to corner Schultz is an income poop. He botched
Speaker 2: the corner's investigation in the previous case that I that
Speaker 2: I wrote about, and he screwed up the investigation in
Speaker 2: this case. Also, he you know, the corner is a
Speaker 2: is a public official, he has authority, and so he
Speaker 2: trapeses up the room thirty one, which he has the
Speaker 2: authority to do, and carries about a dozen newspaper reporters
Speaker 2: with him. Right, okay, now, crime scene integrity is ruined.
Speaker 2: And not only does they do they go up up
Speaker 2: on the fourth floor with him, They go into the
Speaker 2: murder scene with him. But he is absolutely positive certain
Speaker 2: you know that they didn't touch anything, and they didn't
Speaker 2: step in any blood. They just stood there and talked
Speaker 2: while he examined the body.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 2: They get the parade of reporters out and gone, and
Speaker 2: the police more police officers arrive. They start looking around
Speaker 2: and trying to try to find, uh, trying to determine,
Speaker 2: you know, places that could been used for escape, trying
Speaker 2: to see if there's any evidence that they could be found.
Speaker 2: And and they see blood stains on the floor, on
Speaker 2: the hall all the way and on the door, and
Speaker 2: they follow the blood stains in the very minute, blood
Speaker 2: stains across the hall into room thirty three, and they
Speaker 2: find blood stains in the room thirty three, which has
Speaker 2: been a lee's room. Okay, now, I think this first
Speaker 2: thing in the morning when they get there when the
Speaker 2: police arrive and nobody has noticed any blood stains outside
Speaker 2: of the room until four o'clock in the afternoon, right,
Speaker 2: which would have been fine if they had had good
Speaker 2: crime scene integrity from the time they arrived, the time
Speaker 2: that off from a larkey had been stationed at the
Speaker 2: bottom of the stairwell to keep people out, and the
Speaker 2: time that they went to processing the scene. Now you've
Speaker 2: got all kinds of of uh potential for some reporter
Speaker 2: possibly got blood on the bottom of his shoe and
Speaker 2: tracked it out. And so you know, there's great weakness
Speaker 2: in the in the in the blood stained evidence outside
Speaker 2: the room, and in the uh in room thirty three,
Speaker 2: even because the room got circulated after the trial. That's
Speaker 2: some of the uh that a couple of reporters side
Speaker 2: of that'd string blood all over the top floor of
Speaker 2: the of the hotels and make this crime more sensational
Speaker 2: than already was, which you know, sounded me like a
Speaker 2: ridiculous story, but uh, but that was the rumor that
Speaker 2: was being being bandied about. Of course, the the received
Speaker 2: story is that the officers planted all this evidence up there.
Speaker 2: But uh, yeah, you know, it's uh, there's and there's
Speaker 2: a British UH official who would be accused of the
Speaker 2: conspiracy theory sometimes some sort of a conspiracy one time
Speaker 2: and he said, no, that the conspiracy theory doesn't explain
Speaker 2: what happened. The cock up theory explains what happened. And
Speaker 2: uh that uh, you know, if the blood was not planning,
Speaker 2: was not uh left by the perpetrator, it was left
Speaker 2: by accident and as a result of the inconfidence of
Speaker 2: the corner. So you know, you don't need a conspiracy
Speaker 2: theory or corrupt police to explain the presence of the
Speaker 2: bloodstains in the hallway. And even more than that, you
Speaker 2: don't need to be you don't need to.
Speaker 3: Be too.
Speaker 2: Critical of the police, not for them not to have
Speaker 2: noticed the bloodstains if they were there that morning before
Speaker 2: or four in the afternoon, because there had a lot
Speaker 2: of things going on. That was a horrific scene, and
Speaker 2: it's easy to overlook small things like miniscule blood stains.
Speaker 2: And I gave a few examples of things being overlooked
Speaker 2: or homicide scenes that was involved. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 2: two of bodies were overlooked.
Speaker 3: So let's let's let's talk about let's talk about the
Speaker 3: the idea, now that they believe that ben Ali is
Speaker 3: there there. Once they had dismissed him as a suspect.
Speaker 3: Now they believe he is the killer, and so now
Speaker 3: they quickly organize the coroner's inquest, which would ends up
Speaker 3: being just like a preliminary because it's certainly not a trial. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: tell us about the arrest of ben Ali and and
Speaker 3: also the idea that his grasp of English, how good
Speaker 3: is it? And what do they do in response to that?
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, the criminal procedure in New York at the
Speaker 2: time homicide. You, when you had a homicide, he started
Speaker 2: off with the coroner's in quest, right, determine if there
Speaker 2: was a if there was a chronal act, and who
Speaker 2: was responsible for it. And then you held a preliminary
Speaker 2: hearing which called in which they called an examination, and
Speaker 2: then you had a trial. Okay. In in Ben A
Speaker 2: Lee's case, they held the coroner's inquest and then his
Speaker 2: lawyers waived the examination of the preliminary hearing and then
Speaker 2: we just went straight to trial. But uh, the I
Speaker 2: think that they that that Burns had his eye on
Speaker 2: Ben A Lee from the very beginning, uh, right, as
Speaker 2: as a possibility because they he's he's talking about French
Speaker 2: number two. We gotta find frenching number two. And he
Speaker 2: does that for a period of days. We're looking for
Speaker 2: french and number two. But all the time he's looking
Speaker 2: for French and number two. They're cutting, They're taking they're
Speaker 2: taking Bentilee's clothing and cutting blood stains out of it
Speaker 2: to be examined by a lab analyst, doctor Edson. They're
Speaker 2: taking his socks because there's a blood stain on his
Speaker 2: sock to doctor Edson. And they are digging the dirt
Speaker 2: out from under his fingernails to take to doctor Edson
Speaker 2: to be examined on the possibility that there's blood under
Speaker 2: his fingernails. And so they're doing all those things, and
Speaker 2: it doesn't seem to me they would be doing all
Speaker 2: those things if they didn't have some suspicion that he
Speaker 2: was a man. They arrested him as a material witness,
Speaker 2: but I think they suspected all along that he very
Speaker 2: well could have been the person who did it.
Speaker 3: Right, you talk about the material witnesses, This is interesting
Speaker 3: that the material witnesses are in fact incarcerated in the
Speaker 3: House of Detention for Witnesses. I thought that was interesting
Speaker 3: that they knew where exactly those witnesses were because they
Speaker 3: were behind bars essentially exactly.
Speaker 2: You know, that's something that was done even up to
Speaker 2: quite recently in Florida. I remember when I was in
Speaker 2: high school, we had a rape case. They got a
Speaker 2: lot of bad publicity because the victim was put in
Speaker 2: jail and they accused was released on bail. So the
Speaker 2: victims sitting in jail waiting for trial and the defendant
Speaker 2: is out walkin the street or if they don't do
Speaker 2: that in Florida anymore, but as over fifty years.
Speaker 3: Ago, now at this at coroner's inquest again, like you
Speaker 3: say that they waive the examination afterwards and then they
Speaker 3: go right to the right to trial. But at this
Speaker 3: in quest there is a little bit of an audition
Speaker 3: of how evidence will work. And there's a prosecutor named Wellman,
Speaker 3: and you alluded to him already. Yeah, you talk about
Speaker 3: his reading his memoir later on. But so tell us
Speaker 3: just briefly, because we've got to get to the most
Speaker 3: important thing, which is the tr While anything extraordinary at
Speaker 3: that inquest, and again I asked, how did they accommodate
Speaker 3: this ben Ali's Apparently he couldn't speak English very well.
Speaker 3: So how do they accommodate him at this inquest and
Speaker 3: that trial.
Speaker 2: They accommodated him with with translators, interpreters. They were I
Speaker 2: forget the names of the interpreters at the inquest, Constance
Speaker 2: Perco and chileman by the name of Martin. Who who
Speaker 2: were the who are the interpreters at the inquest?
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 2: At the trial they Martin was replaced by a man
Speaker 2: whose name mis cakes me.
Speaker 3: I can't I can't remember where or assaultan his name
Speaker 3: is Sultan, okay, miss Sultan.
Speaker 2: That's right, and uh but anyhow, uh, that's uh uh
Speaker 2: that's how they how they did it. French he or
Speaker 2: ben A Lee spoke a language. It was a kind
Speaker 2: of a mixture of French and Algerian or or or Arabic,
Speaker 2: kind of like you know on the on the border
Speaker 2: of Texas and Mexico, they speak a kind of a
Speaker 2: rich language called tex mex Right, that was that was
Speaker 2: the language that French he spoke. So they had a
Speaker 2: at the uh, at the at the trial or at
Speaker 2: the inquest, they had a French interpreter and an Arabic interpreter,
Speaker 2: so so they could get him make sure that he
Speaker 2: knew everything was going on. Of course, he also spoke
Speaker 2: English quite well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he.
Speaker 2: Exhibited a syndrome that I had noticed people from outside
Speaker 2: the country. You get themselves arrested and charge the crimes.
Speaker 2: They English, Yeah, and they h and you know, and
Speaker 2: I just kind of bogs. The bogs processed down and
Speaker 2: you have to get them an interpreter.
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Speaker 3: to start your Ritual today. Now we talked about Frenchie
Speaker 3: at the inquests, and then later we'll be talking more.
Speaker 3: Soon we'll be talking about Frenchie at this trial. But
Speaker 3: he has this interpreter there and when there is the
Speaker 3: sentence and the conviction at this inquest, when they have
Speaker 3: their determination, he believes that he doesn't understand that it's
Speaker 3: just an inquest. What is his behavior at this inquest?
Speaker 3: And he is frustrated or posse certain questions? Tell us
Speaker 3: how he acts and let's get to okay.
Speaker 2: Well, he he didn't answer any questions at the at
Speaker 2: the at the inquest other than just a few questions
Speaker 2: that were put to him by the by the coroner
Speaker 2: and filled out on a sheet. But you know, he
Speaker 2: was he was sullen, He was morose, uncooperative. He would
Speaker 2: get rather vocal at times. But he really, want to say,
Speaker 2: showed out at the trial when he actually testified for
Speaker 2: the jury. He you know, that might have been the
Speaker 2: turning poor of the case as far as him getting
Speaker 2: himself convicted.
Speaker 1: Was the.
Speaker 2: The way he behaved on the witness stand.
Speaker 3: And what was that? How did he act?
Speaker 2: He basically acted like a wild man.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: He jumped up and down, waved his arms, shouted, uh,
Speaker 2: evaded the questions that that he was being asked by
Speaker 2: the by the by the prosecutor and the prosecutor did
Speaker 2: a very stupid thing. He took the knife and I
Speaker 2: gave this this man he believes to be a mad
Speaker 2: dog killer. Yeah, and walks over to them, walks over
Speaker 2: to him and hands him the knife.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's not a real good idea to have a
Speaker 2: deadly weapon to a man that she's thinks it a
Speaker 2: mad dog killer. And french he erupts, or ben a
Speaker 2: Lee erupts and waves the knife and whoops and hollers
Speaker 2: and scares the mud out of the prosecutor, and the
Speaker 2: judge calls out, take that knife away from him, and
Speaker 2: they get the knife away from him, and it showed him,
Speaker 2: and showed Frenchy in a whole different light from the
Speaker 2: way that he had been trying to portray himself in
Speaker 2: front of the chery. He looked like a man who
Speaker 2: could rip somebody to pieces of the knife. At that
Speaker 2: point he'd been in front of the jury. He had
Speaker 2: been meet mild bit over, trying to act as pitiful
Speaker 2: as he possibly could. I'm pretty sure that the defense
Speaker 2: attorneys had tried their best to get him not to
Speaker 2: take a witness stand, but he insisted on taking the
Speaker 2: witness stand. And I think he I think that he
Speaker 2: went a long way towards shaking his case when he did.
Speaker 3: You write about the This is impressive too, and I've
Speaker 3: read this about other cases, but it's still shocking and
Speaker 3: startling for people to read now about the crowds and
Speaker 3: the mobs that were everywhere outside the courtroom. At every
Speaker 3: point there was a huge crowd. In fact, you right,
Speaker 3: at one point, the police had to fight off these
Speaker 3: It was beyond curious onlookers had to fight them off physically.
Speaker 3: And the media was very sympathetic. You say there was
Speaker 3: some not they weren't all in agreement. But the media
Speaker 3: was sympathetic towards Ali, weren't they.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah they At that time in New York City,
Speaker 2: I think there was a newspaper on every street corner.
Speaker 2: M m uh there were. The story was massively covered
Speaker 2: by the newspapers.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: Some of the newspapers were skeptical of of u ben
Speaker 2: Lee's uh poor pitifile b act and his men no
Speaker 2: speak of the English act. Uh, but most of them,
Speaker 2: uh you know, they swaller to hookline and sinker, and
Speaker 2: they uh portrayed him as as being the poor, friendless
Speaker 2: child of the desert who is being u crushed in
Speaker 2: the in the in the cogs of the of this
Speaker 2: relentless uh legal system. It was being completely unfair to him.
Speaker 3: M Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, that's the way they played it.
Speaker 3: At the same time, at the same time at this trial.
Speaker 3: You you talk of the in your mind, quite impressive forensics,
Speaker 3: especially given the time. And this does come down to
Speaker 3: the forensic evidence, uh, and that being something to do
Speaker 3: with those intestines that were taken out of the body.
Speaker 3: So tell us what evidence they had that pointed at
Speaker 3: Ali and his involvement. Well, with those intestines, the.
Speaker 2: Most damning evidence against ben a Lee came from under
Speaker 2: his fingernails. You know, you can forget the bloodstains in
Speaker 2: his room, Room thirty three, You can forget the blood
Speaker 2: stains on his clothes, you can forget the bloodstains in
Speaker 2: the hall. The bloodstains under his fingernails were examined by
Speaker 2: two of the most forensic doctors medical legal men in
Speaker 2: the nation at that time. I mean they were head
Speaker 2: and shoulders above everybody else in the country as far
Speaker 2: as their ability, skills, abilities.
Speaker 3: And they.
Speaker 2: Came up and they and they said the blood under
Speaker 2: his fingernails came out of carry Brown's intestines. And they
Speaker 2: not only said that it came out of carries out
Speaker 2: Browns in testines, they said that he came out of
Speaker 2: a certain specific portion of carry Brown's intestines. And the
Speaker 2: kicker is that they said this before they got the
Speaker 2: autopsy report, and then he went and got the autopsic well.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, the two of them, there
Speaker 2: was a little bit of discussion. Doctor Flint said, you know,
Speaker 2: this comes from this portion of the woman's intestines. And
Speaker 2: doctor Formatt said, I wait a minute, I ain't said that.
Speaker 2: I'm sure they may have come from the large intestines.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Format says no, and Flint says, no, they from the
Speaker 2: small intestines. That they come from this part of small
Speaker 2: intestine the blood come. And so they went and got
Speaker 2: the autops report. Hadn't got an autopics report yet. They
Speaker 2: bring the autopsy report in, they opened it up, they
Speaker 2: read it and the only part of her intestine is
Speaker 2: cut is a part of the intestine that doctor Flint
Speaker 2: said the blood came from.
Speaker 3: So he was correct.
Speaker 2: Uh, And you know they were they were doing forensics
Speaker 2: that a modern crime lab would have a hard time
Speaker 2: to do it.
Speaker 3: And it's.
Speaker 2: At the end of the corner's inquest. The prosecution had
Speaker 2: a losing case. They had this uh one doctor who
Speaker 2: was out of his league that had examined the blood,
Speaker 2: and the case was not strong, and they did what
Speaker 2: lawyers frequently do, is they waited until the last back
Speaker 2: a minute to see about trying to score up that
Speaker 2: evidence and recruit uh some experts who knew what they
Speaker 2: were doing. And so as they're picking the jury, doctor
Speaker 2: Flint format and doctor Flint or going back over the
Speaker 2: examination that doctor Edson did and finding all kinds of things,
Speaker 2: and so uh uh when they get through with their
Speaker 2: when they get through with their examination, the blood, the
Speaker 2: blood under Frenchy fuingernails either came from Carry Brown's intestines
Speaker 2: or the intestines of some other woman who had eaten
Speaker 2: the same kind of food. Carry Brown had had the
Speaker 2: same illness that Carry Brown had, and also had intestinal parasite,
Speaker 2: the same intestinal parasites that the Carry Brown had.
Speaker 3: Wow, and.
Speaker 2: I don't think that there's no record of another woman
Speaker 2: in uh in New York City that night that got
Speaker 2: killed exactly just like that. So any theory of ben
Speaker 2: A Lee's innocence has got to account for what is
Speaker 2: carry Brown's blood doing under his fingernails.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you write about the legal team of Friend, House
Speaker 3: and Levy with the big star being this House and
Speaker 3: he had previously earlier had been sick. They said something
Speaker 3: about exhaustion, physical exhaustion, but he was physically sick. But
Speaker 3: then he came to You write about how eloquent he
Speaker 3: was and how he tried to defend this alley and
Speaker 3: also what strategy they employed to do this tell us
Speaker 3: a little bit about this eloquent sounding experienced attorney House
Speaker 3: and Friend and Levy and their strategy to defend Well.
Speaker 2: The most criminal trials that I have been involved being
Speaker 2: boil down to a war between logic on one side
Speaker 2: and emotion on the other. Mm okay, And it's usually
Speaker 2: the uh the prosecution that has the logic and it's
Speaker 2: the defense that has the emotion. That's one thing I
Speaker 2: really liked about trying circumstance levels murder cases. You can't
Speaker 2: generate a whole lot of emotion in the s for
Speaker 2: for the defense defendant, and the circumstance level is murder.
Speaker 2: But anyhow to tide the point? Uh So they play
Speaker 2: uh ben a Lee up as.
Speaker 3: Uh a.
Speaker 2: Ignorant, uh innocent uh stranger in a strange land who
Speaker 2: is uh just been confronted and run over by this
Speaker 2: by this massive of bureaucracy of the of the New
Speaker 2: York Police Department, uh and just totally unable to defend
Speaker 2: himself because of his lack of ability to speak, his
Speaker 2: lack of understanding. Uh you know uh uh yeah. Have
Speaker 2: you heard that the country song poor poor pitiful be Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 2: that's that's the uh that's song that he was saying,
Speaker 2: poor poor pitiful he h, poor poor pitiful of lee.
Speaker 2: And he did an excellent job of making this person, uh,
Speaker 2: making him as sympathetic as he possibly could uh and
Speaker 2: at the same time making the witnesses who had to
Speaker 2: fight against him uh as unattractive as possible, because if
Speaker 2: you got testified for the prosecution, you have a bunch
Speaker 2: of prostitutes and pimps and uh drunkards, and uh then
Speaker 2: you have the police, of course. Uh So on the
Speaker 2: one hand, we've got this uh, this poor penniful guy
Speaker 2: who's being run over by the police, and they're trying
Speaker 2: they're depending on uh uh gutter snipes pulled out of
Speaker 2: the worst slums of the city to try to convict him.
Speaker 2: And that's the uh. And that's the uh, the uh,
Speaker 2: the the story he's picking to him. And of course,
Speaker 2: you know he waves the flag. We're an America presumption
Speaker 2: of innocence. You know, despite the fact that he's this
Speaker 2: poor child of the desert, is so so ignorant and
Speaker 2: unlettered and whatnot, that doesn't mean that he doesn't have
Speaker 2: the same uh presumption of venison. Had been trying to
Speaker 2: the same presumption to anybody.
Speaker 3: Mm hm.
Speaker 2: So that's that's the dicht. It's a good one, yeah, uh.
Speaker 2: And before the right Jerry, it could.
Speaker 3: Work now despite these despite the media support, despite an
Speaker 3: eloquent House and and in his opening statement, his closing statement,
Speaker 3: a valiant effort by friend House and Levy, and even
Speaker 3: the testimony of Frenchie. Once again, Ali, what is the verdict?
Speaker 3: And you talk about this being a capital case. He
Speaker 3: was charged for first degree murder, but explain the jury
Speaker 3: has discretion with that degree of murder, don't they.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the law as it relates to lesser included offenses.
Speaker 2: As you know, every first gree murder includes within it
Speaker 2: the second degree murder and manslaughter, and in some jurisdictions
Speaker 2: third degree murder. Also, you know, if you commit first
Speaker 2: grew murder, you've also committed all those lesser included offenses.
Speaker 2: Uh So if you are charged the first grew murder
Speaker 2: and the jury is not satisfied that the first grew
Speaker 2: murder is proven, then they can find the defendant guilty
Speaker 2: of the lesser crime, the second degree murder or manslaughter,
Speaker 2: and the judge instructured jury on those lesser offenses, and
Speaker 2: the jury then has the has the discretion to find
Speaker 2: the guilty of a lesser included offense. And uh that's
Speaker 2: what they did in this particular case. And uh, you know,
Speaker 2: and the press frosted at the mouth about that. Oh
Speaker 2: it's you know, his first dream murder is nothing. Uh
Speaker 2: well yeah, I used to as I used to say
Speaker 2: when I was a defense attorney, talked to jury. So
Speaker 2: they may be tracks to maybe a bold, but it
Speaker 2: ain't nothing till the umpire calls and uh, you know,
Speaker 2: it may be first scream murder and maybe not, but
Speaker 2: it ain't anything until the jury makes his pronouncement. And
Speaker 2: the jury made his pronounced and they pronounced his secondary murder.
Speaker 2: So that's what it is.
Speaker 3: What was what was Ali's reaction at this verdict. Uh,
Speaker 3: talk abouts at.
Speaker 2: First he thought he was gonna be At first he
Speaker 2: thought he was gonna be executed, right, Uh and uh
Speaker 2: they explained to him that he wasn't gonna be executed,
Speaker 2: and he was relieved at that point, and he he
Speaker 2: was not real happy. Well, haven't been arrested his laugh
Speaker 2: in prison.
Speaker 3: But that beats the alternative, right, we missed the talk
Speaker 3: about that. At one point in this trial they tried
Speaker 3: to employ jailhouse informants or people that came forward and
Speaker 3: said that that Ali had had a gun in prison previously,
Speaker 3: was in for a little stint. I mean, not much
Speaker 3: was Yeah, not much was made of that. But so
Speaker 3: now that he is convicted, as the same attorneys considering
Speaker 3: an appeal, what happens in that regard?
Speaker 2: Okay, they found a notice of appeal and then there's
Speaker 2: no record of any opinion by the appellate court, which.
Speaker 3: You know, my.
Speaker 2: Take on that would be, well, they got to procure
Speaker 2: in affirmance, in other words, that it was affirmed without opinion.
Speaker 2: That's why there's no opinion. So apparently the appellate court
Speaker 2: didn't see anything wrong with the case as far as
Speaker 2: any error was concerned, and it was, you know, it
Speaker 2: was a pretty clean case. There was you know, there
Speaker 2: were things that they did that the prosecution did that
Speaker 2: today would cause a mistrial.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was said.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the things that were said. You know that the
Speaker 2: prosecution said some things that that would offend the twenty
Speaker 2: first century sensibilities, but they said in the nineteenth century
Speaker 2: and the defense sat right in there and did not object. Right,
Speaker 2: So you know, it was a different time, different standards.
Speaker 2: And uh, you know, but if you know, if you're
Speaker 2: going to criticize the prosecution for something, uh, that would
Speaker 2: probably be what you would what I what you what
Speaker 2: I criticized him for?
Speaker 3: And uh.
Speaker 2: And and the funny part of it is, or the
Speaker 2: hi wartic part of it is, is I think that
Speaker 2: the prosecutor who made those statements De Lancey Nickel, honestly
Speaker 2: sincerely thought he was trying to be fair. He was
Speaker 2: so blind to the racial prejudice that he was that
Speaker 2: he was espousing that he didn't realize that it was
Speaker 2: that it was on fair.
Speaker 3: Jesus as an opportunity, sorry, go ahead, go ahead, Lissie
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Speaker 3: Now, you talked about that pretty well. You said you
Speaker 3: describe it depicted as a clean trial. It was. It
Speaker 3: was well done. There was no misconduct. We'll say. Now,
Speaker 3: there was a person that was present the day, apparently
Speaker 3: that coroner Schultz went up to the room. His name
Speaker 3: is Jacob Riss. Yes, what happens in the ensuing ten years,
Speaker 3: as we alluded to in the title with this Jacob Riss,
Speaker 3: the newspaper man and the fate of Ben Ali Okay.
Speaker 2: Well, Ben a Lee. There's continuing newspaper articles during the
Speaker 2: time that Ben a Lee is in prison about how
Speaker 2: he was railroaded and about what a hard time he's having.
Speaker 2: And he melted down in prison and wound up and
Speaker 2: wound up being sent to Meddle Institution Matta a when
Speaker 2: middle institution. And so they, like I said, a frenchie
Speaker 2: or beIN a Lee served in the French army, and
Speaker 2: the French consulate had assisted the defense during the trial.
Speaker 2: Now this poor and friendless man had the assistance of
Speaker 2: the French government at the trial. And over the years
Speaker 2: while he was in prison, there was a continuing, sporadic,
Speaker 2: sort of a newspaper campaign of dropping articles about this
Speaker 2: poor man who's in prison, and continuing efforts on the
Speaker 2: part of the French consulate to have him.
Speaker 3: Pardoned.
Speaker 2: There were I forget exactly how many pardon petitions that
Speaker 2: were presented to how many different governors, at least three governors,
Speaker 2: Governor Flower, Governor Roosevelt, and finally Governor Oh gosh lost
Speaker 2: his name, the governor who actually community's centives, well, I
Speaker 2: can't remember his name anyhow, uh and uh So, the
Speaker 2: there was a sort of a pr campaign on the
Speaker 2: part of the papers and a sort of a legal
Speaker 2: campaign on the part of the French consulate. And over
Speaker 2: the years more and more support was was gotten for it,
Speaker 2: and they they thought that they had a pretty good
Speaker 2: shot at it. Okay, was the governor Black was one
Speaker 2: of the governors, and then and then the fourth governor
Speaker 2: who's who actually pardoned him, but I still can't remember
Speaker 2: his name. But anyway, when Black was h was governor,
Speaker 2: was when they thought they were gonna be able to
Speaker 2: get him pardoned for sure. And and he brained another
Speaker 2: inmate with the club and they kind of ruin that
Speaker 2: pardon attempt. And then they came back when Roosevelt was
Speaker 2: was the governor and what and uh Roosevelt turned the
Speaker 2: pardon petition down. He said there was no evidence of innocence,
Speaker 2: there was no way of there's nothing to change the verdict.
Speaker 2: M And they said at that time that they thought
Speaker 2: that they were gonna give it another shot. They thought
Speaker 2: that they would find some evidence of innocence. So after
Speaker 2: Roosevelt gets out of office, they come back to the
Speaker 2: next governor, Odell Odell, that's right, Benjamin Odell, and they've
Speaker 2: got a man who says that, uh, I know who French,
Speaker 2: you know who the carry Brown's john was. He worked
Speaker 2: for me. His name was Frank mm hmm. And the
Speaker 2: night that carry Brown was murdered, he came back to
Speaker 2: the he came came back to the farm where I'm
Speaker 2: where I where I live, uh, real late at night
Speaker 2: and uh he had a bloody shirt. And then he
Speaker 2: up and left without getting leaving the affording address and
Speaker 2: left a key in his room. And I took the
Speaker 2: key and went down to the uh uh to the
Speaker 2: East River Hotel. And I compared it to the keys
Speaker 2: on the keyboard up there on the East River Hotel
Speaker 2: uh uh keyboard behind the counter there by. Golly, it
Speaker 2: was identical to those Kings River Hotel keys. Wow, so
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: So, he's he's good for it. He's he's a man
Speaker 2: that he did the murder Frank. And I decided I
Speaker 2: wouldn't say anything about it because that man who's uh
Speaker 2: sitting in jail facing the death penalty for uh the murder. Uh,
Speaker 2: he's a bad man. He needs to be in jail anyway.
Speaker 2: So I waited for ten years before I come forward
Speaker 2: with this information.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh no, I don't remember Frank's last name.
Speaker 3: They called him Frank the Dane.
Speaker 2: Frank Dana. Yeah. I called him Frank the Dane, Frank
Speaker 2: the disappearing Dane.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And uh, you know, nobody credibility, despite any credibility
Speaker 3: to this story, does it work. Does the media accept it?
Speaker 2: All the media is swallowed it. The hook line is
Speaker 2: thinker pointed out by Austin Flynn and his memoirs, no
Speaker 2: investigation was done to check on the veracity of the story. Right,
Speaker 2: And when they pitched this information to the governor Governor Odell,
Speaker 2: nobody from the DiscT Attorney's office showed up to oppose it. Okay, Right,
Speaker 2: And Governor Odell despite the one sided presentation at the
Speaker 2: hearing that he held, despite the lack of opposition to
Speaker 2: the pardon by the district Attorney's office, and the district
Speaker 2: had a new different had a different district attorney at
Speaker 2: that time, who, by the way, did not like the
Speaker 2: New York Police Department. But despite you know, all of that,
Speaker 2: and despite the support of some very prominent people, O'Dell
Speaker 2: does not pardon the uh French. Nobody noticed that O'Dell
Speaker 2: didn't pardon him. He commuted his sentence, right, and the
Speaker 2: terms of commutation were if he ever got convicted of
Speaker 2: another fellow, that he'd go back to president for the
Speaker 2: rest of his life and made and he commuted his
Speaker 2: sentence and made arrangements to turn him over to the
Speaker 2: French consulate and put his carcass on a boat back
Speaker 2: to Europe. Yeah, okay, so and he says in his
Speaker 2: uh uh, he says in his order commuting the sentence
Speaker 2: that this he doesn't mean to reflect anything on the
Speaker 2: on the quality of the police work or anything else.
Speaker 2: It's just enough doubt that this is correct thing to do,
Speaker 2: so he does it. And I I made the observation that, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, it would have been nice to see this
Speaker 2: honest citizen who waited ten years to come forward the
Speaker 2: key cross examined about that. And after the the book
Speaker 2: was out, a friend of mine who was interested in
Speaker 2: the case found a newspaper article where this guy had
Speaker 2: testified in another lawsuit and somehow the lawyer on the
Speaker 2: other side had got to cross examined him about the
Speaker 2: key and about the finding, and the guy melted down
Speaker 2: on cross examination. Yeah, you know, he would not have
Speaker 2: been able to withstand a competent cross examination by a
Speaker 2: competent prosecutor if it had a you know, a full
Speaker 2: blown hearing. Yeah, And I wish I'd owned that up.
Speaker 3: But you talk about Ali and him departing for France
Speaker 3: immediately in the introduction, we talk about that they finally
Speaker 3: thought they had new evidence to exonerate him. But soon
Speaker 3: after in the introduction you write that fresh evidence of
Speaker 3: his guilt surface. Well, what was that fresh evidence that
Speaker 3: made these people rethink their positions, or at least what
Speaker 3: new evidence in surface?
Speaker 2: Sultan the interpreter, Sultan mh. Unfamiliar with with the requirements
Speaker 2: of somebody who's working for the defense, and unfamiliar I
Speaker 2: think with the Turner cloud privilege, told a friend of
Speaker 2: his that Frenchie had confessed to him. Yeah, and he
Speaker 2: gave him the sostics of the confession. It actually, it
Speaker 2: wasn't the confession. It was I was supposed to meet Carrie.
Speaker 2: I think it was supposed to meet Carrie after she
Speaker 2: got through with her business, because he and she were
Speaker 2: her boyfrid girlfriend. And I went into the room and
Speaker 2: she was butchered and I got my hands in her
Speaker 2: interess and that's how I got a blood under my fingers.
Speaker 2: Basically story, uh, that kind of story, which you know,
Speaker 2: if that had been the only story he ever told,
Speaker 2: he might have got off by telling that story, you know,
Speaker 2: the kind of an agat the Christie sort of a
Speaker 2: sort of a an ending to it. But anyhow, that
Speaker 2: was the that was a statement that he made the
Speaker 2: just to the sultan. The Sultan had told his friend
Speaker 2: he is and who was an actor.
Speaker 3: And uh.
Speaker 2: When the news that Frenchie had been pardoned, nobody, none
Speaker 2: of the none of the news papers wrote that that
Speaker 2: he had been his sentence had been commuted. They wrote
Speaker 2: that he had been pardoned. Yeah, and uh, Thompson said
Speaker 2: it was the way to dad a minute, he confessed. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And and the reporter got got wind of the fact
Speaker 2: that Thompson was telling some of his friends that that
Speaker 2: French he had confessed, And so the reporter went to
Speaker 2: talk to him about it, ask him about it, and
Speaker 2: wrote an article about it. And that appeared in one
Speaker 2: newspaper in Buffalo, New York. And I found absolutely no
Speaker 2: reporting of it in any New York City newspaper. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because you know who wants to uh they kind of
Speaker 2: like kind of like uh Burns with his French he
Speaker 2: number two did it? Sure kind of egg on the
Speaker 2: face if I were to run that story.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's in an extraordinary tale. I want to thank
Speaker 3: you so much for coming on and talking about the
Speaker 3: East Ripper, the mysterious eighteen ninety one murder of old Shakespeare.
Speaker 3: It's been fascinating talking to you about this, George, So
Speaker 3: for people that might want to check this out, do
Speaker 3: you have an Amazon page? You talk you mentioned your
Speaker 3: other book that you have written recently, Amazon Amazon page.
Speaker 2: I got an Amazon page, and I've also got a
Speaker 2: page my say off at www Dot bobdekalbooks dot com.
Speaker 2: Www Dot bobdicelbooks dot com. I've written about nine other books,
Speaker 2: all of them having to do with with criminal law,
Speaker 2: and most of them historic murder trials.
Speaker 3: That's fascinating. Again, George, thank you so much for coming
Speaker 3: on and talking about the East River Ripper, the mysterious
Speaker 3: eighteen ninety one murder of old Shakespeare. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: I have a great evening. Thank you so much. Good night,