Speaker 1: It is Ryan here, and I have a question for you.
Speaker 1: What do you do when you win?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Are you a fist pumper, a wooo, a handclapper, a
Speaker 1: high fiver? I kind of like the high five. But
Speaker 1: if you want to hone in on those winning moves,
Speaker 1: check out chumbuck Casino. At chumbacasino dot com, choose from
Speaker 1: hundreds of social casino style games for your chance to
Speaker 1: redeem serious cash prizes. There are new game releases weekly,
Speaker 1: plus free daily bonuses, so don't wait. Start having the
Speaker 1: most fun ever at chumbu casino dot com.
Speaker 3: Noburgus necessary void wherever if I lost the terms conditions
Speaker 3: eighteen plus.
Speaker 1: Okay, round two, name something that's not boring.
Speaker 3: Laundry, a book club, computer solitaire.
Speaker 4: Huh oh, sorry, we were looking for Chumbu Casino. Chum,
Speaker 4: that's right, chumbucasino dot com as over one hundred casino
Speaker 4: style games joined today and play for free for your
Speaker 4: chance to redeem some serious prizes.
Speaker 1: Chum chumbucasino dot com.
Speaker 3: Nober scessar by eighteen plus tars the conditions of plusails.
Speaker 2: Judy was boring. Hello, Then Judy discovered chumpbucasino.
Speaker 5: Dot com it's my little escape Now. Judy is the
Speaker 5: life of the party.
Speaker 3: Oh baby Mama is bringing home the bacon.
Speaker 5: WHOA take it easy, Judy, jump the Chumba life. That's
Speaker 5: for everybody.
Speaker 2: So go to chumpacasino dot com and play over one
Speaker 2: hundred casino style games. Join today and play for free
Speaker 2: for your chance to redeem some serious prices. Jump chumpacasino
Speaker 2: dot com. Nobridgs just necessary weight, We're go get it
Speaker 2: into my mo eighteen plus terms and condition to play
Speaker 2: see what's seter details.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, it is Ryan. I'm not sure if you
Speaker 1: know this about me, but I'm a bit of a
Speaker 1: fun fanatic one.
Speaker 5: I can. I like to work, but I like fun too.
Speaker 5: It's a thing.
Speaker 1: And now the truth is out there, I can tell
Speaker 1: you about my favorite place to have fun, Chumba Casino.
Speaker 1: They have hundreds of social casino style games to choose from,
Speaker 1: with new games released each week. You can play for
Speaker 1: free anytime, anywhere, and each day brings a new chance
Speaker 1: to collect daily bonuses. So join me and the fun.
Speaker 1: Sign up now at Chumba Casino dot com.
Speaker 3: No, They're imediately repod where every by lost the arm
Speaker 3: Conditions eighteen Plus.
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 them. Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. 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. Good Evening, September nineteen
Speaker 6: fifty five. Neee Buchanan, a trustee at the State Prison
Speaker 6: of Southern Michigan, was denied parole because of his trustee status.
Speaker 6: He was assigned to pick up local trash from area
Speaker 6: farms in a prison truck, which provided the perfect opportunity
Speaker 6: to escape. Running out of gas near Stockbridge, Michigan, and
Speaker 6: continuing on foot, he hid out inside the barn of
Speaker 6: Howard and Myra Herrick, an elderly farm couple.
Speaker 7: Buchanan was planning to steal their car to further his escape.
Speaker 7: Surprised when Howard Herrick returned early, he killed the elderly
Speaker 7: man by crushing his skull with a hand grinder. Hearing
Speaker 7: the commotion in the barn, Myra Herrick came in and
Speaker 7: was viciously bludgeoned to death next to her husband. Their
Speaker 7: killer quickly hid their bodies under bales of hay and
Speaker 7: Buchanan Hitchdike to Mason caught a cab to Lancing and
Speaker 7: bought a bus ticket and fled to New York using
Speaker 7: Howard Herrick's identity. Thinking Buchanan was still an area, fearful
Speaker 7: residents armed themselves and looked upon strangers with suspicion. Ingham
Speaker 7: County Sheriff William Willard Barnes led the hunt for the kis,
Speaker 7: searching for months, but the investigation came to a dead end.
Speaker 7: Harry Doesburg and Naghmer to the Herricks raised a three
Speaker 7: thousand dollar reward, much of his own money, to find
Speaker 7: the killer. Dosburg sent wanted posters across the country and
Speaker 7: paid for wanted ads in various newspapers and magazines. Thirteen
Speaker 7: months later, an informant in Baltimore recognized Buchanan from a
Speaker 7: wanted ad in a magazine and turned him in. Buchanan
Speaker 7: was quickly returned to Michigan, signed a confession, pled guilty,
Speaker 7: and was sentenced to life in prison, all within a
Speaker 7: seventy two hour period. Ten years after a sentence, Neelie
Speaker 7: began appealing his conviction on numerous grounds, including police misconduct,
Speaker 7: racial threats, and improper court proceedings. For twenty five years,
Speaker 7: Neely had not been represented the book they were featuring
Speaker 7: the seating as a Slayer Waits, The True Story of
Speaker 7: a Michigan double Murder with my special guest, journalist and
Speaker 7: author Rod Sadler, welcomed back to the program. Thank you
Speaker 7: very much for agreeing to this interview. Rod Sadler.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Dan. I appreciate you having me on here
Speaker 8: and I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 7: It's always a pleasure. Thank you very much. To Hell,
Speaker 7: I must go. It was last time. That was a
Speaker 7: very fascinating book. Let's get to this story. How did
Speaker 7: you come to want to or need to write A
Speaker 7: Slayer Waits?
Speaker 8: It actually began in the nineteen sixties, not necessarily my
Speaker 8: desire to write about it, but I grew up in
Speaker 8: Ingham County, Michigan in the nineteen sixties and we lived, oh,
Speaker 8: I'm going to say, probably fifteen miles from Stockbridge, a
Speaker 8: small town in the southwest corner I'm sorry, the southeast
Speaker 8: corner of Ingham County, and I remember driving with my
Speaker 8: folks and they pointed out a barn one day and
Speaker 8: they said that's where that couple was killed. Well, you
Speaker 8: know what, as a kid who was seven or eight
Speaker 8: or nine years old, you hear about that, and I
Speaker 8: just I glanced over at the barn, and I always
Speaker 8: remembered that barn for some reason. And then I forgot
Speaker 8: about it. I forgot about it for the rest of
Speaker 8: my life until a couple of years ago. I'm a
Speaker 8: consultant on the side, and I was chatting with an
Speaker 8: attorney that I knew, and he happened to mention that
Speaker 8: he had used to work for the Ingham County Prosecutor's
Speaker 8: office in the nineteen seventies and that he had handled
Speaker 8: an appeal for this particular killer. Well, I remembered the
Speaker 8: case very vividly. I remember that day driving up fifty
Speaker 8: two and my parents pointing out that barn, and he
Speaker 8: began to go into all these points that the killer
Speaker 8: had made in an attempt to appeal his conviction. And
Speaker 8: I had just decided that I had already published my
Speaker 8: first book, and since I had a contact there that
Speaker 8: knew a lot about it, maybe this would be an
Speaker 8: interesting second book. And so that's how it kind of
Speaker 8: all started.
Speaker 7: Now, tell us a little bit about this area that
Speaker 7: we're talking about that's featured in this story described as
Speaker 7: general area in southern Michigan.
Speaker 8: Well Ingham County is located in the center of the state.
Speaker 8: As you know, Michigan is shaped like a mitton, and
Speaker 8: if you were in just about in the center of
Speaker 8: the state, you would find Ingham County. It's the state
Speaker 8: capital is Lansing, and that's located in the northwest corner
Speaker 8: of Ingham County. There's some small towns around the county
Speaker 8: and villages. On the western side. You have Mason, which
Speaker 8: is is actually the county seat. I misspoke myself. Mason
Speaker 8: is the county seat, but the circuit court for Ingham
Speaker 8: County is both in Mason and Lancing. Both. There's a
Speaker 8: small town south of that called Leslie. Along the center
Speaker 8: of the county is Williamstown, and then along the east
Speaker 8: side of the county is a small town called Webberville.
Speaker 8: And then if you go to the southeastern corner of
Speaker 8: the county there's a small town called Stockbridge. These small
Speaker 8: towns in nineteen fifty five, as you can imagine if
Speaker 8: you're older, I guess the best way to describe it,
Speaker 8: and I was trying to think of a way to
Speaker 8: describe it on the way in here tonight, if you
Speaker 8: can think of the town of Mayberry. You know, life
Speaker 8: was or a lot easier back then, or seemed that
Speaker 8: way anyway to those of us nowadays. But deals were
Speaker 8: made on handshakes, Strangers were welcomed with open arms, left
Speaker 8: their doors unlocked. You know, Families got together for picnics
Speaker 8: and the whole communities got together for picnics and Sunday dinners,
Speaker 8: and it was just it was a lot. It was
Speaker 8: a lot easier time back then, and Ingham County was
Speaker 8: no exception, nor was Stockbridge. It was just an easy
Speaker 8: way of life back then. And you know, the country
Speaker 8: was recovering from World War Two and the Korean War,
Speaker 8: the economy was booming. It was just really a good
Speaker 8: time to be alive. On the flip side of that,
Speaker 8: there was also the civil rights movement that was just starting,
Speaker 8: and the book touches on that to some degree. But
Speaker 8: all in all, Ingham County was a nice place to
Speaker 8: grow up, a nice place to live back in nineteen
Speaker 8: fifty five.
Speaker 7: Now, let's talk about the character, the main character in
Speaker 7: this story, Neee Buchanan, and you talk about, as you
Speaker 7: do in the book, his father Porter and his mother, Gladys,
Speaker 7: and he's one of seven children. He's the first child.
Speaker 7: So tell us about his life before we get to
Speaker 7: his teen life, where it seems things go off the rail.
Speaker 7: But let's talk about his early life and what his
Speaker 7: family life was characterized by. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 7: about that.
Speaker 8: You know, his early life. There wasn't a whole lot
Speaker 8: of information available on that. I will tell you that
Speaker 8: he was born in Alabama. I suspect that his family
Speaker 8: was lower income, and it didn't take very long. By
Speaker 8: the age of I want to say, six or seven
Speaker 8: years old, they had already moved to Michigan. They had
Speaker 8: at one point lived down in Monroe, which is along
Speaker 8: the state line with Ohio, and they subsequently ended up
Speaker 8: in the town of Flint. I'm sure you're familiar with
Speaker 8: the Flint water crisis right now, but that's where they
Speaker 8: ended up. And he was well liked by the neighbors,
Speaker 8: by the people that he grew up with in that area.
Speaker 8: All of his neighbors liked him. But he eventually he
Speaker 8: got into trouble at a young age and it started,
Speaker 8: you know, with small thefts and things like that, even
Speaker 8: at a young age. Before he became a teenager, and
Speaker 8: that's when that's when his life really took a turn.
Speaker 8: And I think that's really when it all began.
Speaker 7: You talk about him being deemed incorrigible at fifteen after
Speaker 7: assaulting his father, and he went to a place that
Speaker 7: was first called the Industrial School for Boys, later boys
Speaker 7: Vocational School. He arrived there in nineteen forty. Describe, as
Speaker 7: you do, the conditions at this school, the.
Speaker 8: Conditions at the Boys' Vocational Training School, or whatever you
Speaker 8: choose to call it, because the names changed quite frequently,
Speaker 8: But that actually was built in the eighteen hundreds, and
Speaker 8: it was essentially a correctional institution for a young men.
Speaker 8: It actually began as a co ed facility back in
Speaker 8: the eighteen hundreds, but quickly turned to males only. The
Speaker 8: kids lived in dorms, were small dorms scattered around the campus,
Speaker 8: if you will. It really resembled like a large church
Speaker 8: or big business building, if you will. It's large brick
Speaker 8: building and had these small cottages all around. And each
Speaker 8: day the kids went through a regimented routine, and that
Speaker 8: included calisthenics. It included marching three times a day, in formation,
Speaker 8: it included classroom sessions. The kids were given specific jobs
Speaker 8: to do. And beyond that, the troubled kids, those that
Speaker 8: didn't go along with the program were punished in one
Speaker 8: way or another. And the one that sticks out the
Speaker 8: most to me is they were forced to stand on
Speaker 8: a line for hours on end, and that was a
Speaker 8: sort of punishment. They had a cabin number five, I
Speaker 8: believe it was, that was used specifically for punishment, and
Speaker 8: those were the severe cases. A lot of times the
Speaker 8: kids that ended up in number five, as they called it,
Speaker 8: would end up trying to burn mattresses or causing damage
Speaker 8: to the building, or screaming, yelling, assaulted behavior, things like that.
Speaker 8: So that was kind of the the atmosphere, if you will,
Speaker 8: around the Boys Vocational Training School. It was actually located
Speaker 8: in Lansing. It was located on Pennsylvania near Shiawashie Street.
Speaker 8: There was a b facility. Even into the nineteen seventies
Speaker 8: when it was still open, the Lansing Police Department would
Speaker 8: frequently get calls of runaways from that particular facility until
Speaker 8: it was eventually closed. There was a report issued back
Speaker 8: in the nineteen forties, actually while Buchanan was still there,
Speaker 8: that said all of the types of punishment that were
Speaker 8: going on there needed to stop. That wasn't the way
Speaker 8: that that facility was intended. And it was shortly thereafter
Speaker 8: that Buchanan got out of there. But I don't know
Speaker 8: if that sets the stage well enough, but I don't
Speaker 8: think it was a very pleasant place to be.
Speaker 7: You talk about that he was released in a couple
Speaker 7: of years, and what happens is that he's soon after
Speaker 7: got seven more charges. So how does his tell us
Speaker 7: what he does to avoid these charges and further incarceration.
Speaker 8: What does he say? Well, he got out, and you
Speaker 8: have to understand that the intention of the of the
Speaker 8: boys' vocational Training school was for the child to be
Speaker 8: rehabilitated to the point where he could be returned into society.
Speaker 8: And so when Neely was eventually released, he began to
Speaker 8: get in trouble again, and he eventually joined the service
Speaker 8: to avoid prosecution or to avoid jail time. And so
Speaker 8: he joined the service, and during World War Two he
Speaker 8: served over in Europe, and he actually drove an ammunition
Speaker 8: truck over in Europe for two or three years, and
Speaker 8: he was released from the Army, had an honorable discharge,
Speaker 8: and came back to the States. He had met his
Speaker 8: wife while he was in the army and was married
Speaker 8: and came back. They moved to the Detroit area and
Speaker 8: he began trying to support her and ended up getting
Speaker 8: back into trouble again.
Speaker 7: You talk about the kind of trouble that he got in.
Speaker 7: If we go just slightly backwards, what he does is
Speaker 7: he has to rejoin a military after three years in
Speaker 7: a military because he's convicted of peeping tom offenses.
Speaker 8: Yeah, he was. He was convicted of being a peeping tom.
Speaker 8: There was I think there was some theft charges in there,
Speaker 8: and I think back then they based it a lot
Speaker 8: also on maybe his juvenile record too. The assaulted behavior
Speaker 8: toward his father, the petty thefts, the driving without a
Speaker 8: driver's license, things like that got to the point where
Speaker 8: they said, look, you either rejoined the military or you're
Speaker 8: going back to jail. And so he did rejoin the military.
Speaker 7: Now you talk about he got married and met his
Speaker 7: wife in nineteen forty six and then nineteen forty ninety
Speaker 7: married Jeannette, And in nineteen fifty two he's convicted of
Speaker 7: armed robbery two to four years twelve dollars from a
Speaker 7: cabby and he'd just been laid off. And you say,
Speaker 7: that at this age, twenty eight years old, two hundred
Speaker 7: and ten pound auto mechanic started his sentence and his wife,
Speaker 7: Jeannette said, see you later. That's right.
Speaker 8: She did not, at least according to the records that
Speaker 8: I found, she did not communicate with him once he
Speaker 8: was convicted of that armed robbery. He had been fired
Speaker 8: from a job as a window washer, and honestly, I
Speaker 8: honestly believe he was probably trying to get money for
Speaker 8: his family. But he did an arm robbery of a
Speaker 8: cab driver in the town of Inkster, Michigan, down by Detroit,
Speaker 8: and he was quickly convicted, and he was he was
Speaker 8: sentenced to the State Prison of Southern Michigan which is
Speaker 8: today known as Jackson, which is Jackson Prison, which is
Speaker 8: the world's largest walled institution. And it's not a very
Speaker 8: nice place to be. And so when he got sentenced
Speaker 8: to prison, he did his time, and he got paroled.
Speaker 8: He was allowed out on parole, and it was shortly
Speaker 8: after his release on parole that he chose to break
Speaker 8: into a Chevy dealership called Funston Chevrolet in Detroit, and
Speaker 8: he was quickly caught. And I have to admit, I
Speaker 8: don't know if he was caught inside the building. But
Speaker 8: he was caught immediately, and he knew he was going
Speaker 8: back to prison. He knew that he'd have to go
Speaker 8: back before judge and that the judge wouldn't be happy
Speaker 8: because he was out on parole at the time. And
Speaker 8: the judge quickly sentenced him to one to fifteen years
Speaker 8: in prison for the break in at Funston Chevrolet and
Speaker 8: said at the same time that when he completed that
Speaker 8: he should complete his serving his sentence for the armed
Speaker 8: robbery and inkster.
Speaker 5: Also Judy was boring Hello.
Speaker 2: Then Judy discovered jumba Casino dot com. It's my little
Speaker 2: escape Now Judy is the life of the party.
Speaker 5: Mom is bringing home the bacon. WHOA Take it easy, Judy.
Speaker 5: The chumb of life is for everybody.
Speaker 2: So go to chumpacasino dot com and play over one
Speaker 2: hundred casino style games joined today and playing for free
Speaker 2: for your chance to redeem some serious prices.
Speaker 5: Jump chumpick Casino dot com.
Speaker 3: No just necessary weight, We're promitted my mind.
Speaker 5: He plus terms and condition to place. He lets every details, so.
Speaker 8: He was facing some serious time. But to him, he figured, Hey,
Speaker 8: if I watch my p's and q's, if I do
Speaker 8: what I'm told, maybe I can get paroled again. And
Speaker 8: that's what his plan was to get parole the second time.
Speaker 7: Now, he did everything as you are alluding to. He
Speaker 7: was a model prisoner. He did everything he possibly could
Speaker 7: to stay out of the way and not get any
Speaker 7: negative attention. And I guess planned as he knew that
Speaker 7: you have to to for parole to be eligible for parole.
Speaker 7: So tell us about the parole hearing and its result.
Speaker 8: Well, what had happened was he figured he could he
Speaker 8: could do his time as soon as he could. As
Speaker 8: soon as he would be eligible for parole, he would
Speaker 8: apply for it, and he would he would likely get
Speaker 8: a parole hearing. Well, he had only been serving about
Speaker 8: ten months into his second prison sentence and he was allowed,
Speaker 8: applied for and was given a parole hearing. He didn't
Speaker 8: know what to expect in that parole hearing, and so
Speaker 8: he went in before the parole board and they determined
Speaker 8: that it was just too simply too soon for him.
Speaker 8: He'd only been back in prison for ten months, he
Speaker 8: had been paroled before and had broke done a break in,
Speaker 8: and so they decided, no, you need this to spend
Speaker 8: a little bit more time, and so they said, your
Speaker 8: parole is denied, and they told him that he would
Speaker 8: not be able to reapply for parole for at least
Speaker 8: two years. This occurred on September. It was late August,
Speaker 8: or like September one, nineteen fifty five. It was literally
Speaker 8: two days before he ended up escaping from the prison.
Speaker 8: He had already been given in that short ten months
Speaker 8: that he'd been back in prison, he had already earned
Speaker 8: trustee status, which allowed him to be housed outside the
Speaker 8: prison walls and to do menial tasks. Go in this case,
Speaker 8: he was allowed to use a prison truck go around
Speaker 8: to the local farms and pick up garbage from the
Speaker 8: local farms, and then he would bring that back to
Speaker 8: the prison and that would be given to the hogs
Speaker 8: that the prisoners raised. Jackson Prison or the State Prison
Speaker 8: of Southern Michigan at that time, really it was a
Speaker 8: city within itself. They grew their own produce, they raised
Speaker 8: their own farm animals, they had wood shops things like that,
Speaker 8: So it really was a city within itself. And the
Speaker 8: whole purpose of Neely Buchanan being allowed out as a
Speaker 8: parole to pick up the trash was simply to bring
Speaker 8: it back and it would be fed to the hogs
Speaker 8: and the livestock that they were raising within the prison.
Speaker 7: Now you talk about the history of escapes at this prison,
Speaker 7: we won't go into some of the more sensational ones,
Speaker 7: but tell us about just its ability to secure its inmates,
Speaker 7: its track record on that in its history.
Speaker 8: You know, I didn't find a whole lot of information
Speaker 8: on that. That that I did find I garnered from
Speaker 8: the former director of the Michigan Department of Correction, a
Speaker 8: guy by the name of Perry Johnson, who wrote an
Speaker 8: outstanding book called Jackson, The Rise and Fall of the
Speaker 8: World's Largest Prison. He talks briefly in his book, and
Speaker 8: we had lunch together and he shared some of the
Speaker 8: escape stories with me. But it was very, very difficult
Speaker 8: back then. It seemed like to keep track of the prisoners.
Speaker 8: It seemed that there was frequently walkaways. They were very
Speaker 8: creative and how they escaped somewhat hide in crates and
Speaker 8: boxes and you know, be carried out on trucks. Some
Speaker 8: of them walk crawled through prisons. A couple of them
Speaker 8: actually took over a guard tower and actually ended up
Speaker 8: in a shootout with the prison guards. Prior to this,
Speaker 8: and that it seemed as if, at least in the
Speaker 8: communities around Jackson, that the local residents were always calling
Speaker 8: in about escapees. The press was always talking about the
Speaker 8: escapees from the prison, and it just didn't seem that
Speaker 8: a lot was being done about that at the time,
Speaker 8: and that became a real issue, especially after the murders
Speaker 8: of Howard and Myra Herrick.
Speaker 7: Now talk about the plan that Neely Buchanan has to
Speaker 7: escape and how he does it, and tell us then
Speaker 7: a little bit about Howard and Myra Herrick and in
Speaker 7: their little place of Stockbridge Township.
Speaker 8: Well, Neely decided that he would have no part of
Speaker 8: the parole Board's decision that he would have to wait
Speaker 8: two years. He wanted to see his family. And the
Speaker 8: only reason that I know that is I had the
Speaker 8: opportunity to interview his appellet attorney, and we'll get into
Speaker 8: that a little bit later in the interview, but who
Speaker 8: was actually still practicing law, and he shared a lot
Speaker 8: of information with me that he was allowed to. But
Speaker 8: Neely wanted to get back with his family. He missed
Speaker 8: his wife, and he had two little girls by that time,
Speaker 8: and they were very very young. I think one was
Speaker 8: the oldest was three at the time, and the youngest
Speaker 8: was probably born either just before he went back to
Speaker 8: prison or shortly thereafter. But he set up to take
Speaker 8: the prison truck out and get the pick up the
Speaker 8: trash from the local farms. And he set out one
Speaker 8: morning and he never turned back. He had a prison
Speaker 8: truck at his disposal, and he was supposed to be outside.
Speaker 8: He was supposed to be away from the prison, and
Speaker 8: he figured it would be a while before they noticed
Speaker 8: whether or not he came back. So he started north
Speaker 8: from Jackson along his route, picking up the trash, and
Speaker 8: he got to the small town of Stockbridge in the
Speaker 8: southeast corner of Ingham County, and the truck was getting
Speaker 8: low on gas, and so rather than run out of
Speaker 8: gas on a roadway and be more noticeable, he ditched
Speaker 8: it at the local high school in Stockbridge and he
Speaker 8: set out on foot. It was still dark out when
Speaker 8: he abandoned it at the high school and he set
Speaker 8: out walking north, kind of paralleling the state highway at
Speaker 8: that time it was, and he walked through woods and
Speaker 8: fields all day. Well, he's doing that. About four miles
Speaker 8: north of Stockbridge there was a small farm and it
Speaker 8: was owned by an elderly couple. And I say elderly,
Speaker 8: and I have to apologize for that. I'm fifty six
Speaker 8: years old, and I think that mister and missus Herrick
Speaker 8: were in their mid sixties, so they weren't really much
Speaker 8: older than me, and I don't consider myself elderly. But
Speaker 8: beyond that, they lived on this farm of eighty acres
Speaker 8: and it was all land. There was only their farmhouse
Speaker 8: and a barn. And this was the farm that Myra
Speaker 8: Herrick had been born in. Her parents lived there. She
Speaker 8: had lived there all of her life until she met
Speaker 8: Howard and they were married, and she moved out. Once
Speaker 8: her parents passed away, Howard and her moved back into
Speaker 8: that home, and they had lived there and had raised
Speaker 8: their children there. Their children were adults, were moved out
Speaker 8: of the house, so Howard and Myra lived there by themselves.
Speaker 8: Howard was a retired chicken farmer. He still had a
Speaker 8: brood of chickens in the barn on the lower level,
Speaker 8: and every Sunday the entire family would come over to
Speaker 8: the Herrick farm and they'd have a big meal, and
Speaker 8: the kids would play in the barn and jump off
Speaker 8: the hay, and the parents would sit down on the
Speaker 8: front porch and swap stories, and it was sort of
Speaker 8: a I don't know how else to describe it other
Speaker 8: than to tell you maybe a Norman Rockwell painting, if
Speaker 8: you will. It was just an easier time back then.
Speaker 8: So Howard and Myra lived there. Across the street from
Speaker 8: Howard and Myra's house was a little general store. It
Speaker 8: was owned by a guy by the name of Harry Dosberg.
Speaker 8: Harry lived there with his wife, and they had little
Speaker 8: grocery items in their store. They had cold cuts, they
Speaker 8: sold gas. And then north of there, about two miles
Speaker 8: was the very small village, and I say small because
Speaker 8: it was another general store, a church, and a school,
Speaker 8: and it was called the village of Millville. So that
Speaker 8: was two miles north of Howard and Myra's home and
Speaker 8: Harry Dosberg store. The state highway M ninety two, which
Speaker 8: she eventually became M fifty two, ran north and south
Speaker 8: between Stockbridge and another town into the next county called Perry,
Speaker 8: and it was just a really simpler time back then.
Speaker 8: So Neely Buchanan sets off walking through the woods in
Speaker 8: the fields, and he walks all day. He's trying to
Speaker 8: stay concealed. He knows they're going to eventually find that
Speaker 8: prison truck, and they do. He abandons it probably around
Speaker 8: six am, five or six am, and starts out walking
Speaker 8: through the woods in the fields. And about eight third
Speaker 8: the Sheriff's department gets a call about this abandoned prison
Speaker 8: truck at the Stockbridge Schools. It doesn't take them long
Speaker 8: to determine that number one, it shouldn't be there, and
Speaker 8: number two, the driver's missing. So quick call to the prison.
Speaker 8: They determined that Neely Buchanan has escaped, and the story
Speaker 8: continues from there. Neely comes upon the Herrick home after
Speaker 8: dark that night. He said it was still dark when
Speaker 8: he got there, and he chose that barn simply because
Speaker 8: he wanted to rest. He went in there and lay
Speaker 8: down and figured he was going to sleep. He could
Speaker 8: see that the lights on in the house and inside
Speaker 8: the barn was a fifty to two DeSoto automobile, and
Speaker 8: he figured the next day when the farmer came out,
Speaker 8: he would get the keys from him and further his
Speaker 8: escape from there. He was tired of walking, I guess,
Speaker 8: and so his plan was to knock out mister Herrick
Speaker 8: and take the keys to the car. So in the
Speaker 8: barn is a large chopping block that mister Herrick used
Speaker 8: to slaughter his chickens. So Neelie Buchanan takes that chopping
Speaker 8: block and he sets it in the rafters right over
Speaker 8: where the car is, and he figures the next morning,
Speaker 8: when mister Harrick comes in, he will push that off
Speaker 8: the rafters and he will knock out mister Herrick, grab
Speaker 8: the keys, and take the fifty two to Soto and escape.
Speaker 8: That's what his plan was. Unfortunately for the Herricks, it
Speaker 8: didn't turn out that way.
Speaker 7: Now you say that while prison officials are looking for
Speaker 7: him and hot on his tail in Stockbridge, that he's
Speaker 7: hiding in the barn and he has this plan. Let's
Speaker 7: find out what he does and how that plan changes
Speaker 7: and what happens to the Herricks.
Speaker 8: Well, he misses his opportunity to push the chopping block
Speaker 8: down onto mister Herrick. He knows, and he said this
Speaker 8: in his confession. He knows that when that chopping block
Speaker 8: hits mister Herrick, it's going to kill him. Unfortunately, Neely
Speaker 8: sets up a wall of hay bales in the barn
Speaker 8: so that he can conceal himself and sleep. Mister Harrick
Speaker 8: comes out, gets in the car and leaves before Neely
Speaker 8: has the chance to push the block off, and so
Speaker 8: he's missed his opportunity. He's got every chance now to
Speaker 8: just simply leave the barn and continue on foot, but
Speaker 8: he wants what's the keys to that car. He knows
Speaker 8: that mister Harrick is going to come back. He knows
Speaker 8: he's going to have a chance again, so he waits. Well,
Speaker 8: mister Harrick comes back at three in the afternoon after
Speaker 8: leaving his part time job. Unbeknownst to Neely, Neely is
Speaker 8: out walking around in the barn because he's bored, and
Speaker 8: he's looking over mister Herrick's tools, and he said in
Speaker 8: his confession he said the car was really quiet, and
Speaker 8: he said he was surprised when the car pulled in
Speaker 8: and he was standing there. Neely had a hand grinder
Speaker 8: in his hand and he was looking at it when
Speaker 8: mister Harrick pulled into the barn. Mister Harrick always parked
Speaker 8: his DeSoto inside his barn and let me back up
Speaker 8: just a little bit. Just prior to this, Neelie's looking
Speaker 8: around the barn. Mister Harrick gets back and it's a
Speaker 8: Saturday afternoon. He stops at Harry Dosberg's store across the street.
Speaker 8: This is something that is routine. He does it every Saturday.
Speaker 8: Harry Dosberg comes out, doesn't even ask what mister Herrick
Speaker 8: wants because he knows Howard Herrick is there to have
Speaker 8: his gas tank filled up. And on the passenger seat
Speaker 8: of the car there's always mister Herrick's lunch pail, and
Speaker 8: there's a clean uniform from Wyeth Industries where he worked
Speaker 8: in Mason. So Howard Herrick pulls into Harry Dosberg's store.
Speaker 8: They chat a little bit. Harry pokes his head in,
Speaker 8: talks to Margaret, Harry Dolsberg's wife. Margaret says, what are
Speaker 8: your plans for the weekend? Always says, we're going up
Speaker 8: north to see some cousins. Oh that's great. So here,
Speaker 8: Howard Herrick gets back into his car, drives literally across
Speaker 8: the street, up around behind the house and pulls into
Speaker 8: the barn and there's Neely Buchanan standing there with a
Speaker 8: hand grinder in his hand next to tool bench. Howard
Speaker 8: says from inside the car, he says, what are you
Speaker 8: doing here? Neely Buchanan keeps calm. He says, I'm just
Speaker 8: looking at your tools. He says, I wondered if you
Speaker 8: wanted to buy it or if you wanted to sell this.
Speaker 8: Howard Herrick says, as he's getting out of the car. No, well,
Speaker 8: Howard Herrick was blind in his left eye and I
Speaker 8: was never able to determine how that happened. But as
Speaker 8: he's getting out of his car, and Buchanan says, hey,
Speaker 8: I was wondering if you wanted to sell this. Howard's
Speaker 8: stepping out of the car, Neely comes across with the
Speaker 8: hand grinder and hits Howard Herrick in the head, knocking
Speaker 8: him down to the barn floor and briefly knocking him out.
Speaker 8: She puts the handgrinder down, and he starts going through
Speaker 8: Howard Herrick's pockets, and he's looking for his wallet and
Speaker 8: his money, and he's looking for the keys to the car.
Speaker 8: About that same time, missus Herrick notices that Howard hasn't
Speaker 8: come out of the barn, so she goes in to
Speaker 8: see what's going on, and imagine her surprise when she
Speaker 8: walks in to see Neelie Buchanan kneeling over her husband,
Speaker 8: who's now unconscious and bleeding and going through his pockets.
Speaker 8: She says, what's going on in here, Neely grabs a
Speaker 8: ballpen hammer and attacks her, and she's able to fend
Speaker 8: off several blows. The pathologist that did her autopsy found
Speaker 8: several bruises on her hands and her arms where she
Speaker 8: was trying to fend off the blows from this ballpeen hammer.
Speaker 8: Neelie Buchanan finally connects with her head and knocks her
Speaker 8: out and then hits her again in the head with
Speaker 8: the ball peen hammer. Unbeknownst to him, she is still alive,
Speaker 8: but she's unconscious about this time. Now, Howard Herrick comes too,
Speaker 8: and he starts to get up, so Neely hits him
Speaker 8: a second time in the head, crushing his skull and
Speaker 8: kills him instantly. Now he's got to decide what to do.
Speaker 8: He knows that somebody's going to check that barn eventually,
Speaker 8: so he drags both bodies over into the hay area
Speaker 8: where the bailed hay is stored, and he covers both
Speaker 8: bodies with bails of hay in an attempt to conceal him,
Speaker 8: and then he goes back to the car and he
Speaker 8: rifles around looking for the keys to the car. Unfortunately
Speaker 8: for him, when mister Herrick was getting out of the
Speaker 8: car and was struck and he l the car keys
Speaker 8: fell under some hay and Neely never found him, so
Speaker 8: he had to set off and continue his escape on foot.
Speaker 5: It is Ryan here and I have a question for you.
Speaker 5: What do you do when you win?
Speaker 1: Like? Are you at fist pumper, a woo or a
Speaker 1: handclapp or a high fiver? I kind of like the
Speaker 1: high five. But if you want to hone in on
Speaker 1: those winning moves, check out Chumbuck Casino At chumbecasino dot com.
Speaker 1: Choose from hundreds of social casino style games for your
Speaker 1: chance to redeem serious cash prize. There are new game
Speaker 1: releases weekly, plus free daily bonuses, so don't wait start
Speaker 1: having the most fun ever at Chumbuckcasino dot com.
Speaker 3: No we necessary void where everybody lost the terms conditions
Speaker 3: eighteen plus.
Speaker 7: Now you talk about how the bodies are discovered the
Speaker 7: next day, Actually they're not discovered immediately. And you can
Speaker 7: tell us why. You talk about the next day and
Speaker 7: Howard and Myra's son and his involvement and his just
Speaker 7: routine of coming over and getting some eggs. So tell
Speaker 7: us what happens the next day.
Speaker 8: There's son, Yeah, their son lived in the small town
Speaker 8: of Gregory, which is in Livingston County. It's not too
Speaker 8: far from Stockbridge. Stockbridge is pretty close to the county line,
Speaker 8: and so Lester, their son, was coming over to get
Speaker 8: some eggs because Howard still had a large brood of
Speaker 8: chickens down in the lower portion of his barn. So
Speaker 8: he comes over with his wife and they walk in
Speaker 8: the back door. The house is unlocked, the windows are open.
Speaker 8: Everything is normal, except his parents aren't there. That seemed
Speaker 8: a little bit odd. So he went out to check
Speaker 8: the barn because he knew that his dad always parked
Speaker 8: the car in the barn. Well, the car was in
Speaker 8: the barn. He didn't go up and look in it,
Speaker 8: but he noticed the car was in the barn, so
Speaker 8: he figured that they must have left. They must have
Speaker 8: went somewhere in a hurry with some friends for some reason.
Speaker 8: And so he talks to his wife says, they must
Speaker 8: have had to go somewhere. I'll just talk to him tomorrow.
Speaker 8: He gets the eggs that he needs and he leaves.
Speaker 8: The next day, he shows back up and everything is
Speaker 8: the same as it was the day before. The car
Speaker 8: is still in the barn. Parents are nowhere to be
Speaker 8: found and he noticed something peculiar. Howard and Myra Herrick
Speaker 8: had a parakeet, and missus Herrick loved that parakeet and
Speaker 8: she fed that bird every day, except he noticed that
Speaker 8: the bird hadn't been fed. He knew something was wrong,
Speaker 8: so he called his brother. And his brother lived on
Speaker 8: the other side of the county in a small town
Speaker 8: called Onondaga, and his brother Harold said, yep, something's wrong.
Speaker 8: Mother would never leave without feeding that parakeet. That something
Speaker 8: must be wrong. He says, I will meet you at
Speaker 8: the farm. So he heads out and on the way
Speaker 8: to the farm, they swing through Mason and they stopped
Speaker 8: at the Ingham County Sheriff's department and they speak with
Speaker 8: Captain Versall Babcock, who was the chief of detectives at
Speaker 8: the time. And Captain Babcock actually knew the Herricks. He
Speaker 8: had met him the year before, and he agreed, yeah,
Speaker 8: something just doesn't sound right. He knew about Neely Buchanan's escape.
Speaker 8: He knew that the prison truck had been found in Stockbridge.
Speaker 8: He knew something was wrong at the Herricks. He was
Speaker 8: starting to put two and two together, but he didn't
Speaker 8: want to worry the Herrick boys because they hadn't heard
Speaker 8: probably or probably hadn't heard about the escape bee because
Speaker 8: they hadn't mentioned it. But he agreed to go over
Speaker 8: with them to check out the residents. It was now
Speaker 8: dark out. It was September third. September third was the
Speaker 8: day they were killed. Was December sorry September fifth. He
Speaker 8: goes over, He checks the house. Everything is in order.
Speaker 8: Missus Herrick's pocketbook is laying on the kitchen table, the
Speaker 8: windows are open. Parakeets obviously still hasn't been fed. The
Speaker 8: Herrick boys had checked with Howard and Myra's best friends
Speaker 8: in Dansville. They said, no, we haven't seen him, so
Speaker 8: that just added to the to the concern. So they
Speaker 8: go out. Captain Babcock and the Suns go out and
Speaker 8: they begin to check the barn and one of the
Speaker 8: boys goes down to check where the chickens are and
Speaker 8: he notices some red fluid, dark dark red fluid on
Speaker 8: top of one of the kitchen cage or chicken cages,
Speaker 8: and he goes up and he realizes that it's blood
Speaker 8: and that it has dripped through the floor from above.
Speaker 8: So he goes back up and by that time Captain
Speaker 8: Babcock and the other son had been searching around with
Speaker 8: their flashlights and they discovered sticking out from under one
Speaker 8: of the hay bales was an arm and a leg
Speaker 8: and it was mister Herrick's body. And then that's essentially
Speaker 8: how they were discovered. I have to tell you that
Speaker 8: as they entered the barn, it had been two days
Speaker 8: in extreme heat, and Captain Babcock and the deputy that
Speaker 8: was with him, they knew I think once they entered
Speaker 8: that barn what they were going to find, just because
Speaker 8: of the odor. So as they start to process the scene,
Speaker 8: they secure the scene, they get help coming and as
Speaker 8: they're lifting the hay bail off mister Herrick's body, they
Speaker 8: notice missus Herrick's foot sticking out from a second out
Speaker 8: from under a second hay bail, and then they discover
Speaker 8: her body also.
Speaker 7: Now as a result of this with Babcock, the press,
Speaker 7: the police, is it official that they released that there's
Speaker 7: a killer on the loose.
Speaker 8: They do, and they know who the killer is. And
Speaker 8: I will tell you that I've been I served as
Speaker 8: a police officer for thirty years and there's a certain
Speaker 8: point where you just you just know, you just know
Speaker 8: who the killer is. And in this particular case. Inside
Speaker 8: the barn they had discovered prison clothing behind the wall
Speaker 8: of hay bales that Neely had built, so they knew
Speaker 8: an prison inmate had been in there. They knew that
Speaker 8: the prison truck had been abandoned four miles south of
Speaker 8: where they were. They knew that it was Neely Buchanan.
Speaker 8: They just had to prove it, and so they called
Speaker 8: in the Michigan State Police crime Laboratory, who came and
Speaker 8: they lifted a fingerprint from the automobile. Neely had gotten
Speaker 8: into their mister Herrick's DeSoto, and he had pulled the
Speaker 8: dash panel down near the floor in an attempt to
Speaker 8: hot wire the car, but he didn't know how to
Speaker 8: do it, so he just left the car there with
Speaker 8: his fingerprints on it. They were able to quickly match
Speaker 8: Buchanan's fingerprint with the fingerprints that were on file with
Speaker 8: the state because he'd been in prison, and so within
Speaker 8: a day or two they knew absolutely, without any doubt
Speaker 8: that Neely Buchanan had murdered Howard and Meyer Herrick that night.
Speaker 8: That particular night, Sheriff Barnes had been woken up and
Speaker 8: had gone to the scene, and he ordered his men
Speaker 8: to start going door to door in the middle of
Speaker 8: the night to see if anybody remembered anything. Well, he
Speaker 8: goes over. The deputy goes over to Harry Dosberg's store.
Speaker 8: She begins to ask Dosberg if he's seen anything unusual. Well,
Speaker 8: Dosberg had seen a black man hitchhiking on Saturday afternoon
Speaker 8: and he paid no attention to it. It was a
Speaker 8: little unusual, but he never thought anything of it, and
Speaker 8: it was right after Howard had filled his gas tank there.
Speaker 8: Shortly after Howard left the gas station or Harry Dosberg's store,
Speaker 8: his wife was working and she suddenly heard some screaming
Speaker 8: and she thought it was unusual, but she knew that
Speaker 8: Howard and Myra Herrick were hard of hearing, and so
Speaker 8: she figured it was their television. She never realized at
Speaker 8: the time that it was Howard and Myra Harrick being
Speaker 8: bludgeoned to death. She was listening to her neighbors being killed.
Speaker 8: So when the deputy shows up in the middle of
Speaker 8: the night, he begins to question Harry Dosberg, asking him
Speaker 8: if he saw anything, telling him that his neighbor's been murdered.
Speaker 8: Missus Dosberg comes out. She suddenly realizes the screams that
Speaker 8: she had heard weren't their television. It was Howard and
Speaker 8: Myra being murdered. So Harry describes. Harry describes the black
Speaker 8: man that he saw hitchhiking, and he knew that another
Speaker 8: local farmer had given that guy a ride, and so
Speaker 8: he said, yeah, Jarvis Wireman gave that guy a ride.
Speaker 8: Go talk to him. So they go over to Jarvis
Speaker 8: Wireman's house. Jarvi Wireman says, yeah, and McCoy was with me.
Speaker 8: Go over and talk to McCoy. So they go to
Speaker 8: the other farmer's house and they're show him pictures of
Speaker 8: Buchanan and he says, yeah, that's the guy. That's the
Speaker 8: guy that was in the truck with us. They go
Speaker 8: to the next door up the road to Millville where
Speaker 8: Buchanan had gotten a ride to from this Jarvis Wireman
Speaker 8: and he identifies him. Says, yeah, that's the guy that
Speaker 8: was in the store and he got a ride from
Speaker 8: Wireman over to Mason. So they go over to Mason
Speaker 8: and they notify the Mason police and everybody's starting to
Speaker 8: be on edge, and suddenly they realized that the killer
Speaker 8: took a cab from Mason into Lancing to the Lansing
Speaker 8: bus station that now the police have nowhere to search.
Speaker 8: He could be anywhere. The bus people didn't remember him,
Speaker 8: They didn't remember Neely Buchanan coming in and buying a ticket,
Speaker 8: so they had the police had nothing. Their trail turned
Speaker 8: cold at that point.
Speaker 7: We can use this as an opportunity to just stop
Speaker 7: for a second rod to talk about Blue Apron. Blue
Speaker 7: Apron is the number one fresh ingredient and recipe delivery
Speaker 7: service in the country, and Blue Apron's mission is to
Speaker 7: make incredible home cooking accessible to everyone. Blue Apron achieves
Speaker 7: this by supporting a more sustainable food system, setting the
Speaker 7: highest standards for ingredients, and building a community of home chefs.
Speaker 7: Blue Apron has established partnerships with over one hundred and
Speaker 7: fifty local farms, fisheries, and ranchers across the United States,
Speaker 7: and as a result, seafood is sourced sustainably. Beef, chicken,
Speaker 7: and pork come from responsibly raised animals, and produces source
Speaker 7: from farms that practice regenerative farming. Blue Apron can be
Speaker 7: delivered to ninety nine percent of the continental US It's
Speaker 7: affordable for less than ten dollars per meal. Blue Apron
Speaker 7: delivers seasonal recipes along with the preportioned ingredients to make
Speaker 7: delicious home cooked meals. You can choose from a variety
Speaker 7: of new recipes each week, or let Blue Apron's culinary
Speaker 7: team surprise you. Recipes are not separated within a year,
Speaker 7: so you'll never get bored. It's flexible so you can
Speaker 7: customize your recipes each week based on your prefers, and
Speaker 7: Blue Apron has several delivery options so you can choose
Speaker 7: what fits your needs. And there's no weekly commitment so
Speaker 7: you only get deliveries when you want them. Each meal
Speaker 7: comes with a step by step trust me easy to
Speaker 7: follow recipe card and pre portioned fresh ingredients and can
Speaker 7: be prepared in forty minutes or less. It also has
Speaker 7: a Blue Apron Freshness guarantee promises every ingredient in your
Speaker 7: delivery arrives ready to cook fresh or they'll make it
Speaker 7: right now. The featured upcoming meals this week include the
Speaker 7: basil pesto chicken with the summer vegetable panzanella. I tried
Speaker 7: that it was fantastic. I loved it. Panzanella's kind of
Speaker 7: like a salad with bread and tomatoes, but the spices
Speaker 7: the combination for the basil pesto chicken were fantastic, and
Speaker 7: they also tried the saute shrimp and green beans with
Speaker 7: the globe tomatoes, spin and orzo pasta little rice pasta fantastic.
Speaker 7: I loved it. I put it together myself, and like
Speaker 7: I say, easy to put together. Gourmet cooking done by me,
Speaker 7: You can do it. It's fantastic, fresh and unbelievable gourmet
Speaker 7: cooking made by me at home. Now check out this
Speaker 7: week's menu and get your first three meals free with
Speaker 7: free shipping by going to blue Apron dot com slash murder.
Speaker 7: You'll love how good it feels and tays to create
Speaker 7: your own incredible home cook meals with Blue Apron. So
Speaker 7: don't wait, that's blue Apron dot com slash murder. Blue
Speaker 7: Apron a better way to cook. Now we have the
Speaker 7: discovery of Myra and Howard Herrick. We also have the
Speaker 7: police hot on the trail of Neely Buchanan. And as
Speaker 7: you say, they have no idea, but Neely Buchanan starts
Speaker 7: a new life in another city using the identity of
Speaker 7: Howard Herrick. So tell us what he does, where does
Speaker 7: he go, and how does he rebuild his new life?
Speaker 7: How is that possible, What does he do well?
Speaker 8: He took Howard Herrick's identification. Back then, Howard Herrick carried
Speaker 8: a social Security card, his driver's license didn't have his
Speaker 8: picture on it, nor his description. It was just his name,
Speaker 8: and so Buchanan took those and by the time that
Speaker 8: the bodies were found, Buchanan was already in New York
Speaker 8: using Howard Herrick's name. He had taken the cab to Mason,
Speaker 8: I'm sorry. He had gotten a ride to Mason from
Speaker 8: Jarvi Wireman. He'd taken the cab de Lancing and he
Speaker 8: grabbed a bus. Originally he was going to go to Chicago.
Speaker 8: He figured he would just mix in in Chicago. Unfortunately,
Speaker 8: the bus to Chicago was going to leave later than
Speaker 8: he wanted to hang around, and so he took the
Speaker 8: bus to New York, which was actually a little further away,
Speaker 8: and he ended up just staying in a flophouse for
Speaker 8: a couple of days and finding quick work. He was
Speaker 8: using Howard Herrick's name. The one mistake that Buchanan made
Speaker 8: was he sent a postcard to his wife, and even
Speaker 8: though he hadn't seen her in several years, he just
Speaker 8: wanted her to know that he was okay. Well, she
Speaker 8: quickly turned that over to the police and they saw
Speaker 8: the New York City postmark. So New York City detectives
Speaker 8: are looking for a double murderer. They're looking for Neely
Speaker 8: Buchanans and they're in the Bowery, if you will, They're
Speaker 8: looking in all the flophouses. Neely Buchanan comes back from
Speaker 8: work one day, and this is just within a couple
Speaker 8: of days of the bodies being found, and he hears
Speaker 8: a couple of the transients talking about how the police
Speaker 8: had been in there looking for a guy named Needlely Buchanan.
Speaker 8: Well they only knew him as Howard Herrick because that
Speaker 8: was the name that he was using. So he figured
Speaker 8: he'd better get out of dodge, if you will. So
Speaker 8: Buchanan decides he's going to head to either North or
Speaker 8: South Carolina, and I have to apologize. I don't remember exactly,
Speaker 8: but he's only got enough money to get to Baltimore,
Speaker 8: and so he takes the bus to Baltimore and he
Speaker 8: works a couple quick jobs and finally settles into a
Speaker 8: job at a paper company, and that's where he ends
Speaker 8: up working and continues to work until that fateful day
Speaker 8: when he's discovered.
Speaker 7: Now, before we get back to his life, we get
Speaker 7: back to the response in Stockbridge, the media response. Tell
Speaker 7: us about how much fear is instilled by this crime
Speaker 7: and the media response, and how far that media response
Speaker 7: before we talk about Harry Dosberg's extraordinary effort on behalf
Speaker 7: of his friends.
Speaker 8: Well, the best way to describe it is a term
Speaker 8: used by one of the newspaper reporters, and I used
Speaker 8: it as a chapter title in my book to describe
Speaker 8: the air, if you will, in Stockbridge after the murders,
Speaker 8: And it was literally a fog of fear. People that
Speaker 8: once left their doors unlocked and met strangers with a
Speaker 8: handshake now locked their doors, locked, their locked, their homes,
Speaker 8: loaded up on guns, new locks. Everybody feared that Neely
Speaker 8: Buchanan was hiding somewhere in their barn or in their outbuildings,
Speaker 8: or that he would break into their homes. Kids were
Speaker 8: being taught how to use shotguns. There was a photo
Speaker 8: in one of the papers that I found that showed
Speaker 8: a woman who was teaching her fifteen year old daughter
Speaker 8: how to use a double barrel shotgun, and while her
Speaker 8: eleven year old friend looked on. There was an elderly
Speaker 8: woman who literally put a revolver in her refrigerator, figuring
Speaker 8: that if Buchanan broke in and wanted food, she would
Speaker 8: reach in the refrigerator to get food for him and
Speaker 8: pull out the revolver and shoot him. The hardware stores
Speaker 8: in Stockbridge, they were running out of ammunition and guns,
Speaker 8: and they were running out of locks. It was everybody
Speaker 8: was fearful. There was a salesman from a nearby community
Speaker 8: who was going door to doors selling I think he
Speaker 8: was selling vacuum cleaners, and everybody kept reporting him that that, uh,
Speaker 8: there was a strange guy knocking on doors. People wouldn't
Speaker 8: answer their doors they were so fearful. The one the
Speaker 8: salesman actually went out and was tired and laid down
Speaker 8: in the brush near a field and and somebody saw
Speaker 8: him do that, and so they called the police and
Speaker 8: and they quickly swooped in and and determined that he
Speaker 8: wasn't the killer, obviously, But people we were calling in
Speaker 8: sightings down in Detroit, they were There was a prison
Speaker 8: guard who who was certain that he saw Buchan and
Speaker 8: driving through Jackson. Another x inmate from the prison said
Speaker 8: he was sure that Buchanan had broken out to get him.
Speaker 8: The fear was just overwhelming, and it continued for several months.
Speaker 8: To this day, I'll tell you a little side note
Speaker 8: to this. To this day, people still have changed their
Speaker 8: lives because of that. And I'll give you an example.
Speaker 8: I was talking to a local principle here in Eaton
Speaker 8: County and he told me that they always, always, always
Speaker 8: locked their vehicles, and after that murder, his dad parked
Speaker 8: a jeep out by their barn and he left the
Speaker 8: keys in it and left the doors unlocked, figuring that
Speaker 8: if an escape he came after that murder, he could
Speaker 8: jump in the vehicle and take off. So people's entire
Speaker 8: lives were changed because of that double murder. And I
Speaker 8: think to this day they were or they are. I
Speaker 8: know that that the children of Howard and Meira Herrick,
Speaker 8: their lives were changed forever. They were in fear for
Speaker 8: the rest of their lives that Buchanan was going to
Speaker 8: get out of prison and come back and kill them.
Speaker 8: It was it was just it changed the way that
Speaker 8: people lived back then.
Speaker 7: Now you talk about a very heroic person in this,
Speaker 7: Howard Dosburg, and he had been friends with the Herricks.
Speaker 7: And what does he do when does he undertake on
Speaker 7: their behalf, and how far does he go with this?
Speaker 7: What's the extent of his involvement and his persistence in this?
Speaker 6: What does he do?
Speaker 8: Harry Dosberg owned a little grocery store right across from
Speaker 8: the Herricks, and that's where Howard had gotten his gasolene.
Speaker 8: And of course Missus Dosberg heard the murder going on
Speaker 8: and didn't realize it, which actually gave Buchanan a two
Speaker 8: day head start. I think that probably had a lot
Speaker 8: to do with what Harry Dosberg chose to do. At
Speaker 8: the local township officials offered a five hundred dollars reward
Speaker 8: for information leading to the arrest of Neely Buchanan. Harry
Speaker 8: Dosberg took it upon himself to raise that reward beyond
Speaker 8: that five hundred dollar mark. He went door to door
Speaker 8: in the community during the evenings asking people to donate
Speaker 8: to the reward fund. Harry Dosberg took a lot of
Speaker 8: his own money, and he had wanted posters made and
Speaker 8: people would step into his store, people passing through on
Speaker 8: the State, and he would hand out what they called
Speaker 8: the bundles for Buchanan, and they were stacks of wanted posters,
Speaker 8: and he simply asked him to drop them off at
Speaker 8: restaurants or gas stations or wherever they were going, just
Speaker 8: to get word out there because the police, the police
Speaker 8: investigation had come to a standstill, and Harry continued his quest.
Speaker 8: He actually contacted every police agency in the United States
Speaker 8: and made sure that they had a wanted poster, including
Speaker 8: some police agencies in Canada, all the federal agencies. He
Speaker 8: really was a one man crusade to catch the killer
Speaker 8: of his neighbors. There were times where he would send
Speaker 8: out over one hundred dollars in mailings of his own money.
Speaker 8: He had he had wanted ads for Neely Buchanan put
Speaker 8: in in magazines that were geared toward African Americans because
Speaker 8: he figured that Buchanan was probably hiding in a big
Speaker 8: city amongst the black community in an effort to hide,
Speaker 8: and so he took it upon himself to do that
Speaker 8: and he got the reward raceed to three hundred dollars
Speaker 8: earth I'm sorry, three thousand dollars, and then continued mailing
Speaker 8: these things out with his own money. And it literally,
Speaker 8: I'm telling you right now, it literally was a one
Speaker 8: man campaign to catch that killer.
Speaker 7: Now you talk about Neely's life in Baltimore and just
Speaker 7: an odd, again very fascinating event where a girlfriend is
Speaker 7: reading a detective magazine. And again this is how far
Speaker 7: Harry Dosburg goes with trying to push this story and
Speaker 7: get this and raise awareness, as they say now in
Speaker 7: terms of this crime nationwide. He's reading a detective magazine.
Speaker 7: What does she do when she sees that? And talk
Speaker 7: about that confrontation as you do in the book.
Speaker 8: She confronts him, she sees the wanted ad and I
Speaker 8: think that I have to apologize. I don't know. I
Speaker 8: couldn't find out if she was actually reading the same
Speaker 8: magazine that the next guy was. But she sees a
Speaker 8: wanted ad and she recognizes Neily Buchanan and she confronts him.
Speaker 8: It's she's seeing him or dating him, if you will,
Speaker 8: And he says, oh, no, no, no, that's not me,
Speaker 8: that's not me. He convinces her that it's not him
Speaker 8: because he now he now has a mustache in the
Speaker 8: in the wanted poster. He doesn't. He says, no, that's
Speaker 8: not me, and she believes him. She believes him. And
Speaker 8: this is in Baltimore. So a couple of days, a
Speaker 8: couple of weeks later, another guy is looking through a
Speaker 8: magazine called Bronze Thrills and it's a pulp fiction sort
Speaker 8: of a true crime, true detective type magazine, and it's
Speaker 8: written for black people. It's geared toward African Americans. And
Speaker 8: he's looking through his issue with Bronze Thrills and he
Speaker 8: spots nearly Buchanan's wanted boaster. He thinks the reward is
Speaker 8: three hundred dollars. He's been in prison himself for assault,
Speaker 8: but he can use the money. And he had met
Speaker 8: Buchanan about a month before that in a bar and
Speaker 8: they had something in common. That's what made him remember
Speaker 8: him because they both lived on Bond Street, excuse me,
Speaker 8: in Baltimore. So he flags down a couple of patrolmen.
Speaker 8: He sees one of the patrolmen that he knows, and
Speaker 8: he flags down him and his partner and tells him
Speaker 8: about it. Well, he shows him the wanted ad and
Speaker 8: they're like, sure, I can tell you right now. If
Speaker 8: somebody told me that, I'd probably say, well, let's go
Speaker 8: check it out. But the chances that it's him are
Speaker 8: probably slimmed. It on they confront Neely Buchanan in a
Speaker 8: candy store you can and sees him coming and he
Speaker 8: steps into a candy store, hoping that they won't see him.
Speaker 8: They stepped in right after him, and they confront him.
Speaker 8: They've seen the wantedad, and the wantedad says that he's
Speaker 8: killed a guy named Howard Herrick. So they confront him
Speaker 8: in the candy store. They ask him, what's your name,
Speaker 8: Howard Herrick? He tells him his name is Howard Herrick.
Speaker 8: They know they've got their man. They ask him for
Speaker 8: some identification. All he's got with him is some pay
Speaker 8: stubs from the Bohega Paper Company where he was working
Speaker 8: with the name Howard Herrick on him on it, and
Speaker 8: so they keep pressing him right in the candy store,
Speaker 8: and finally he says, you know what you got me?
Speaker 8: He says, I escaped from prison in Michigan. I was
Speaker 8: wanted for b and e or for breaking and entering,
Speaker 8: And Officer Zukowski says to him, he says, did you
Speaker 8: hurt anybody, because he knows he killed them, and Buchanan
Speaker 8: finally says yeah. He says, he says, I killed those
Speaker 8: two people in Michigan, And so he's arrested literally without incident,
Speaker 8: and he's taken to the Baltimore City Jail and he's
Speaker 8: interviewed there by some detectives and he makes a statement
Speaker 8: and the Ingham County Sheriff is notified immediately. The next morning,
Speaker 8: they fly out of Willow Run Airport in Detroit, fly
Speaker 8: to Baltimore, and they take two deputies with him. The
Speaker 8: sheriff takes two deputies. He takes Harry Dosberg because Harry's
Speaker 8: got the reward money, and makes a reporter from the
Speaker 8: local paper called the Ingham County Democrat. And they get
Speaker 8: to Baltimore and the next day, the next morning, they
Speaker 8: pick up their prisoner and they're on their way back
Speaker 8: to Michigan, and that evening that afternoon, when they return,
Speaker 8: they interview Buchanan and he makes a complete confession and
Speaker 8: he describes in vivid detail how he killed Howard and
Speaker 8: Myira Herrick and what his intentions were. He's interviewed by
Speaker 8: the chief assistant prosecuting attorney and the sheriff and another
Speaker 8: prosecuting attorney, and he makes this statement. They take him
Speaker 8: over to be arraigned before the local Justice of the
Speaker 8: Peace so that he can hear the charges against him.
Speaker 8: At that point, he's offered what's called a preliminary examination,
Speaker 8: which is like a mini trial. The prosecution simply has
Speaker 8: to show that a crime was committed and there's reason
Speaker 8: to believe that Buchanan had committed it. Buchanan says, nope,
Speaker 8: I'll waive my preliminary examination. I just want to get
Speaker 8: this over with. So the Justice of the Peace, he says,
Speaker 8: your case is bound over to the Circuit Court. You'll
Speaker 8: go before the Circuit Court in the morning for your arraignment.
Speaker 8: There so they take him to Lancing. The next morning,
Speaker 8: he's arraigned before a circuit court judge and the judge
Speaker 8: says to him, you have the right to have an
Speaker 8: attorney present. This is in nineteen fifty six. Now you
Speaker 8: have the right to have an attorney present, but if
Speaker 8: you can't afford one, the court will appoint one for you.
Speaker 8: And the judge continues on. The judge never asks him,
Speaker 8: would you like an attorney. Buchanan just stands there quietly
Speaker 8: and says, I want to get this over with. I
Speaker 8: plead guilty. So the judge says, we have to have
Speaker 8: a hearing to determine the degree of murder. They call
Speaker 8: it a degree of guilt hearing. So the judge calls
Speaker 8: in the sheriff, the medical examiner calls in a few
Speaker 8: other witnesses, and it takes about two hours, and the
Speaker 8: judge determines that its first degree murder and he sets
Speaker 8: the sentencing within the next hour. So Buchanan comes back
Speaker 8: for the sentencing after the degree hearing, and he gets
Speaker 8: sentenced to life in prison. The judge does not say
Speaker 8: to him before the sentencing, you have the right to
Speaker 8: have an attorney present. The judge doesn't say that. The
Speaker 8: judge is not required to say that. After Buchanan pled
Speaker 8: guilty and before the degree hearing, it was common practice
Speaker 8: for a judge to take the defendant back into his
Speaker 8: chambers and question him about why he's guilty, so that
Speaker 8: he believes that the defendant is actually pleading guilty because
Speaker 8: he is guilty, if that makes sense to him. He
Speaker 8: does it one on one with Buchanan. There's nobody else
Speaker 8: in the in the court chambers, and it only takes
Speaker 8: a few minutes. Buchanan explains why he's guilty. The judge
Speaker 8: comes back out says, I believe that he is guilty.
Speaker 8: I don't believe he's been coerced or threatened in any way,
Speaker 8: and we'll have the sentencing next And so they have
Speaker 8: the sentencing, and from the time of his arrest to
Speaker 8: the time that he's on his way back to Jackson
Speaker 8: prison is less than seventy two hours from Baltimore to
Speaker 8: getting back in Jackson prison, just that quick.
Speaker 7: And then late.
Speaker 8: Sorry, I'm sorry. I was just gonna say, the community
Speaker 8: is elated that, you know, the killers in custody. Larry
Speaker 8: Dosberg is a hero. He went, he paid out the
Speaker 8: reward to the two officers that made the arrest and
Speaker 8: to the guy that turned in Buchanan, and actually made
Speaker 8: a donation to the Baltimore Police Benevolent Society as a
Speaker 8: part of it. So everybody's happy. The killers in custody,
Speaker 8: and he's been sentenced to two life terms back in prison.
Speaker 7: I just wanted to mention too. The confession that he
Speaker 7: gives the William to Sheriff Barnes is part of this
Speaker 7: trial as well, and also helped establish the degree of
Speaker 7: murders well, which included deliberation, which included premeditation, and which
Speaker 7: included an intent to kill, correct right.
Speaker 8: And the way that they determined that is because they
Speaker 8: specifically asked him about the chopping block that was placed
Speaker 8: in the rafters and they said what were you going
Speaker 8: to do with that? And he said, I was going
Speaker 8: to push it off and it would have killed mister Herrick.
Speaker 8: So that was a key issue in the confession and
Speaker 8: that helped the judge make the determination that in fact,
Speaker 8: he had planned on killing mister Herrick. What came up
Speaker 8: in later years was the question, well, did he actually
Speaker 8: go into the barn to commit murder. That wasn't his intent.
Speaker 8: He was trying to escape with the car, and that
Speaker 8: became a huge issue later during some of the appeals.
Speaker 7: Now you talk about at the trial, all of the
Speaker 7: all four of Herrick's, the Herrick couple's children were in
Speaker 7: attendance for that verdict. And you also talk about Michigan
Speaker 7: state concerning the death penalty. Tell us what the state
Speaker 7: of the death penalty was in Michigan.
Speaker 8: There was none. Michigan was one of the first states
Speaker 8: in the eighteen thirties to abolish the death penalty. It
Speaker 8: came as a result of a gentleman who had beat
Speaker 8: his wife unmercifully and killed her because he suspected that
Speaker 8: she was cheating on him. He was taken to Detroit.
Speaker 8: He was given a trial and he was sentenced to
Speaker 8: hang in public, a public execution, and I can't think
Speaker 8: of the term that I'm looking for. The gentleman that
Speaker 8: put the show together, if you will, actually had a band,
Speaker 8: grand stands built around the gallows, had a military band
Speaker 8: as an honor guard, had a vendor selling food. It
Speaker 8: was more of a carnival act atmosphere for this public execution.
Speaker 8: And when it was over, the public was disgusted by
Speaker 8: what they saw, and that really turned the tide toward
Speaker 8: executions in Michigan. And it was a few years later
Speaker 8: when the Michigan legislature abolished it. So Michigan has not
Speaker 8: had had not had a death penalty since the eighteen thirties.
Speaker 8: And while the Herrick children would have loved to have
Speaker 8: had that penalty imposed, it wasn't going to happen. The
Speaker 8: judge could do. Judge Salmon was to sentence him to
Speaker 8: two life terms in prison, and Judge Salmon made the
Speaker 8: statement at the sentencing he said, I believe that if
Speaker 8: you were released, you would kill again.
Speaker 7: Wow, you say that.
Speaker 5: He was.
Speaker 7: In Wisconsin, the six x nine foot cell. He was
Speaker 7: transferred to Marquette, Michigan, but after ten years. Nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 7: Buchanan was wondering if there was something in his case
Speaker 7: that he could appeal, and as you talk about in
Speaker 7: the book, there are numerous jailhouse lawyers. Tell us a
Speaker 7: little bit about for those that don't know what a
Speaker 7: jail house lawyer really does do and can do, and
Speaker 7: what Neely Buchanan began doing on behalf of his case.
Speaker 8: A jailhouse lawyer literally is just another inmate who has
Speaker 8: studied in the law libraries and literally helps the other
Speaker 8: inmates write their appeals. They don't go to court for them,
Speaker 8: obviously their inmates in the prison, but they simply they
Speaker 8: assist them in doing research and writing appeals based on
Speaker 8: certain things that they might find that could help get
Speaker 8: a conviction overturned. In Neely's case, he waited for ten years.
Speaker 8: He didn't begin his appeals until nineteen sixty six, and
Speaker 8: he had to begin those appeals with the local courts
Speaker 8: in Ingham County. Judge Solomon quickly denied his appeal. It
Speaker 8: was denied each time it moved into the next phase
Speaker 8: of the judicial system, the local courts, the Court of Appeals,
Speaker 8: the Michigan Supreme Court. Every time it was denied, and
Speaker 8: it lingered in the courts each time. I have to
Speaker 8: back up just a little bit and let you know
Speaker 8: that in the previous arrest, prior to the murder, Buchanan
Speaker 8: had never had an attorney represent him. He always just
Speaker 8: pled guilty, never hired an attorney, was never appointed an attorney.
Speaker 8: That was not the practice back in the early fifties.
Speaker 8: And even as he appealed his cases after the murder,
Speaker 8: ten years after the murder, the only attorney he ever
Speaker 8: had was an attorney in the Lansing area who literally
Speaker 8: simply filed some papers for him, never really appeared in
Speaker 8: court for him. He never appeared before a judge for
Speaker 8: any type of an appeal, and once that particular appeal
Speaker 8: was denied, that was the last that he ever saw
Speaker 8: that attorney. So up until nineteen eighty one, twenty six
Speaker 8: years after the murder, Neely Buchanan had literally never been
Speaker 8: represented by an attorney in any court proceedings until he
Speaker 8: filed an appeal with the federal courts claiming violations of
Speaker 8: the fourteenth Amendment and I think the sixth Amendment, and
Speaker 8: he was given a new evidence hearing to determine the
Speaker 8: degree of guilt or the degree of murder. He's essentially
Speaker 8: was they were going to attempt to determine if it
Speaker 8: was first degree murder or second degree murder, or if
Speaker 8: it was manslaughter. Twenty six years later after the murder,
Speaker 8: the Herricks had moved on with their lives or the
Speaker 8: Herrick children had moved on with their lives, and subsequently
Speaker 8: he was actually given a judge overturned that reversed the
Speaker 8: decision earlier and said that he should be given a
Speaker 8: new preliminary examination to determine the degree of guilt. The
Speaker 8: evidentiary hearing determined whether or not he should be given
Speaker 8: a new preliminary examination, and he was going to be
Speaker 8: given that, and he was appointed an attorney. That was
Speaker 8: the attorney that I met with in Detroit, who argued
Speaker 8: for Neely, saying that clearly this is not first degree murder,
Speaker 8: this is easily second degree murder or manslaughter. The state's
Speaker 8: Attorney General's office represented the people and fought to keep
Speaker 8: Neely Buchanan in jail, saying that this guy waited twenty
Speaker 8: five years to file a federal appeal. No time's up,
Speaker 8: time out, It's gone beyond the stages of time. He
Speaker 8: referred to it as the doctrine of latches, which means
Speaker 8: that the time has run out. You had your chance
Speaker 8: to file your appeals years ago, and you never did.
Speaker 8: And the judges, they voted in favor of the preliminary examination,
Speaker 8: given him a new preliminary examination. Well, the state's Attorney
Speaker 8: General's office appealed to the United States Supreme Court, and
Speaker 8: the United States Supreme Court was scheduled to hear Neely
Speaker 8: Buchanan's case in nineteen eighty four or early nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 8: They were going to hear Neely Buchanan's case, and these
Speaker 8: issues were going to be settled. For a case to
Speaker 8: be heard by the United States Supreme Court, there's some
Speaker 8: major law that's going to be decided, And that was
Speaker 8: the case for Neely Buchanan. He was going to get
Speaker 8: his day and he likely would have been released.
Speaker 7: Now tell us about his health and how his health
Speaker 7: affects his decision making and hence this case.
Speaker 8: Well, Neely discovered in the early eighties that he had
Speaker 8: some internal bleeding and it was determined through some exploratory
Speaker 8: surgery that he had developed colon cancer. And the doctors
Speaker 8: knew that there was nothing that they could do for
Speaker 8: him that it was a terminal case. Neely never told
Speaker 8: his attorney that he had cancer. His attorney went to
Speaker 8: the prison for a consultation in the early eighties and said,
Speaker 8: I'm here to see my client, and they said, well,
Speaker 8: he's not here. Well, Neely's attorney said, where's he at? Well,
Speaker 8: we can't tell you where he's at. What do you
Speaker 8: mean you can't tell me? I'm here for an attorney
Speaker 8: client meeting. So the prison guard did some check in
Speaker 8: and they finally told him that Neely was in the hospital.
Speaker 8: So the attorney went and met with him. And as
Speaker 8: soon as he saw him, he knew. He knew Neely
Speaker 8: would never he'd never walk out of prison, never ever
Speaker 8: walk out of prison. He knew that Neely was going
Speaker 8: to die. Neelie's health began to deteriorate. At one point,
Speaker 8: he called for a friend of his. I say friend,
Speaker 8: a man that he had known through his entire prison life,
Speaker 8: who had begun in nineteen fifty five as a prison counselor,
Speaker 8: worked his way up through the ranks and was now
Speaker 8: the director for the Michigan Department of Corrections, and asked
Speaker 8: to see him. They had run into each other for years.
Speaker 8: Even the prison director knew that Neely was not a
Speaker 8: threat to society, but he knew that society would never
Speaker 8: accept him back in their ranks because he had killed
Speaker 8: two people. And Neely basically, laying on his deathbed in
Speaker 8: his cell, said, Hey, things are going good. My case
Speaker 8: is going to be heard before the Supreme Court. Could
Speaker 8: you get a hold of Frank, meaning the Attorney General,
Speaker 8: Frank Kelly and see what you can do for me. Well,
Speaker 8: the director knew better. Like I said, he knew that
Speaker 8: that there's no way Neely would ever kill anybody because
Speaker 8: he was an old man now, but he knew society
Speaker 8: would never accept it, and so he told He told Neeli,
Speaker 8: he said, I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do
Speaker 8: for you. And it was shortly thereafter that he'd received
Speaker 8: word that Neely began and had died in prison, literally
Speaker 8: months before his case was to be heard by the
Speaker 8: United States Supreme Court.
Speaker 6: Incredible.
Speaker 7: Now you talk about the interviews for this book, and
Speaker 7: you that you said that you had interviews with I
Speaker 7: believe Frank Emon his attorney, tell us a little bit
Speaker 7: about what he thought personally about the case, not professionally,
Speaker 7: and or what you determined he felt about the case
Speaker 7: personally rather than professionally.
Speaker 8: Well, I think personally. Although it was only a few
Speaker 8: years that he was associated with Neely Buchanan, he was
Speaker 8: affected by by Buchanan in the sense that he saw
Speaker 8: a senior citizen who regretted what he had done, had
Speaker 8: done twenty six years in prison, and actually by the
Speaker 8: time he passed away in prison it was close to
Speaker 8: thirty years. He had done thirty years in prison and
Speaker 8: deeply regretted the decision he'd made in killing Howard and
Speaker 8: Meyra Herrick. When he discovered that Neely had cancer, he
Speaker 8: went out to his car and sobbed, just cried. I
Speaker 8: couldn't believe he told me that, but he did, he said,
Speaker 8: And I don't know if I was, if I was
Speaker 8: crying for Neely or if I was crying for my
Speaker 8: dad who had passed away from cancer. So Neeli Buchanan
Speaker 8: deeply affected Frank Emon and Frank's stance in the end,
Speaker 8: and to this day is was Neelie Buchanan the same
Speaker 8: man in nineteen eighty four that he was in nineteen
Speaker 8: fifty five. And Frank would argue, no, he wasn't, he
Speaker 8: wasn't Frank, I'm sorry. Eric Egan, the Assistant Attorney General
Speaker 8: who handled the case for the state, fought to keep
Speaker 8: Neely in prison. Were there some issues that needed to
Speaker 8: be addressed by the Supreme Court? Absolutely? Was the Attorney
Speaker 8: General's office worried about decisions that the Supreme Court might make. Absolutely,
Speaker 8: absolutely they were. But they needed those issues resolved otherwise
Speaker 8: they'd be They'd be brought up again and again and
Speaker 8: again in other cases. So they needed some case law.
Speaker 8: So yeah, they were worried about it. I asked Rick Egan,
Speaker 8: I said, when you found out that Neely passed away,
Speaker 8: I said, what were your thoughts. He said there was
Speaker 8: no joy. There was no joy. He said, we wanted
Speaker 8: that case to go before the Supreme Court so that
Speaker 8: some case law could be made. And he said there
Speaker 8: was no joy when Neelie Buchanan died. He said he
Speaker 8: called one of the Herrick children, the daughter, and he said,
Speaker 8: you know, he told her that Neely had passed away,
Speaker 8: and he said there was no joy for her. It
Speaker 8: was just it was just a sad case from beginning
Speaker 8: to end. It really was, and there was no celebrations.
Speaker 7: I think the only bright spot is the dedicated police
Speaker 7: that were on this case, but also the heroic as
Speaker 7: I mentioned, Harry Dosberg and his extraordinary effort, and then
Speaker 7: again the very movie esque somebody reading a detective magazine
Speaker 7: in this story being featured, and you had the radio
Speaker 7: program Gangbusters again equivalent of America's Most Wanted or something.
Speaker 7: So very extraordinary effort from a small town and a
Speaker 7: guy that had a general store. He wasn't incredibly wealthy
Speaker 7: or anything, but what he did and its result was
Speaker 7: an incredible part of your book. I want to thank
Speaker 7: you very much, Rod for coming on and speaking about
Speaker 7: a slayer waits the true story of a Michigan double murder.
Speaker 7: For those that might want to take a look at
Speaker 7: your work, is there a website? Facebook page? How can
Speaker 7: they contact you or look at you other.
Speaker 8: Work you can find? You can find me on Facebook
Speaker 8: under Rod Sadler author R O. D S A D
Speaker 8: L E R. Author Rod Sadler, author and I also
Speaker 8: have a Twitter page and I enjoy new readers and
Speaker 8: I love to share stories. I gotta tell you real quick.
Speaker 8: After the book came out, I was contacted by some
Speaker 8: relatives of Harry Dosberg's that I didn't know existed, and
Speaker 8: it was such a joy to talk to them because
Speaker 8: they didn't know that particular part of the story. They
Speaker 8: didn't know what their grandfather had done. And they told
Speaker 8: me that they they actually have a letter from j
Speaker 8: Edgar Hoover written to Harry Dosberg after the capture.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: That's impressive.
Speaker 8: Yeah, very impressive. That was fun to talk to them.
Speaker 8: So but thank you for having me on your show.
Speaker 8: I really appreciate it.
Speaker 7: Dan, Thank you very much. It's been fascinating. Thank you
Speaker 7: very much, Rod for this and you have a great
Speaker 7: evening and hope to talk to you again soon on
Speaker 7: your new release. Thank you very much. Great, great, good
Speaker 8: Night, good night.