1 00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:03,720 Speaker 1: Imagine a box, not a metaphorical one, but a real 2 00:00:05,040 --> 00:00:07,879 cardboard banker's box. It's sitting on a shelf in some 3 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:10,199 police archive, you know, the kind that smells like old 4 00:00:10,199 --> 00:00:14,279 paper and stagnation exactly. And inside that box, it's not 5 00:00:14,359 --> 00:00:18,280 just old evidence like rusted shell casings and faded photos. 6 00:00:18,640 --> 00:00:19,640 It's a question mark. 7 00:00:19,800 --> 00:00:21,640 Speaker 2: It is. It's a question that's been burning a hole 8 00:00:21,679 --> 00:00:24,039 in a detective's mind for decades. 9 00:00:23,800 --> 00:00:28,039 Speaker 1: Or a famili's. It's that phone call that never ever rings. 10 00:00:28,600 --> 00:00:30,679 It's a detective lying awake at three in the morning, 11 00:00:30,760 --> 00:00:33,960 just wondering, how does a person just vanish? Or how 12 00:00:33,960 --> 00:00:38,200 does a monster walk among us for so long, completely unnoticed. 13 00:00:38,320 --> 00:00:41,479 Speaker 2: It's the ultimate locked box, the story with no ending, 14 00:00:41,560 --> 00:00:43,479 And for a long time, that's where these stories stayed. 15 00:00:43,479 --> 00:00:47,079 They were just gathering dust, becoming artifacts of a failure 16 00:00:47,119 --> 00:00:47,880 to find the truth. 17 00:00:47,920 --> 00:00:50,119 Speaker 1: But that is exactly why we're here today. We're not 18 00:00:50,200 --> 00:00:52,920 talking about the mysteries that stayed mysterious. We are talking 19 00:00:52,960 --> 00:00:56,039 about the moment the lock finally clicked open, the. 20 00:00:56,039 --> 00:00:57,759 Speaker 2: Moment the light turned on in the attic. 21 00:00:58,079 --> 00:01:02,520 Speaker 1: Yes, welcome to Thrilling Threads. Today is all about the breakthrough. 22 00:01:02,600 --> 00:01:06,359 It's about those aha moments that didn't just solve a crime, 23 00:01:06,519 --> 00:01:09,040 they literally rewrote the history books. 24 00:01:09,159 --> 00:01:11,120 Speaker 2: And you know, it's a fascinating time to be having 25 00:01:11,120 --> 00:01:14,040 this conversation. We're living through what I would call a 26 00:01:14,159 --> 00:01:17,799 golden age of forensic resolution. 27 00:01:17,519 --> 00:01:18,439 Speaker 1: A golden age. 28 00:01:18,799 --> 00:01:23,120 Speaker 2: How so well, you're seeing this convergence of three powerful forces, First, 29 00:01:23,120 --> 00:01:27,439 the maturity of genetic genealogy, Second, the declassification of old 30 00:01:27,480 --> 00:01:31,120 government files. And third just the simple passage of time, 31 00:01:31,200 --> 00:01:34,280 which loosens tongues, it loosens tons. You get deathbed confessions. 32 00:01:34,319 --> 00:01:37,439 We're answering questions that even ten fifteen years ago were 33 00:01:37,480 --> 00:01:39,000 considered permanently unanswerable. 34 00:01:39,040 --> 00:01:41,480 Speaker 1: We have a huge stack of case files to get 35 00:01:41,480 --> 00:01:43,319 through today. I mean, we're going to be all over 36 00:01:43,359 --> 00:01:46,560 the map, from the dusty plains of nineteenth century Kansas 37 00:01:46,959 --> 00:01:48,799 to the coastal fog of California. 38 00:01:48,879 --> 00:01:50,640 Speaker 2: We have escapes from inescapable prisons. 39 00:01:50,680 --> 00:01:53,799 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and we've got polite, unassuming neighbors who, it 40 00:01:53,840 --> 00:01:56,959 turns out, were some of history's most terrifying serial killers. 41 00:01:57,519 --> 00:02:00,680 And we have the science that finally find caught up 42 00:02:00,680 --> 00:02:01,000 to them. 43 00:02:01,319 --> 00:02:04,400 Speaker 2: What's so compelling here isn't just the who or the how, 44 00:02:05,079 --> 00:02:08,039 it's the shift in our understanding of these events. What 45 00:02:08,039 --> 00:02:10,479 do you mean when you solve a fifty year old mystery, 46 00:02:11,159 --> 00:02:14,520 You don't just close a file. You change a victim's 47 00:02:14,560 --> 00:02:18,800 memory from a statistic back into a person, or you 48 00:02:18,840 --> 00:02:22,039 strip away the myth of some genius criminal and reveal 49 00:02:22,120 --> 00:02:22,919 them for what they were. 50 00:02:23,080 --> 00:02:27,400 Speaker 1: Just lucky, we're just brutal, exactly. That's such a great point, 51 00:02:27,439 --> 00:02:29,360 and there is no better place to start than with 52 00:02:29,599 --> 00:02:33,680 the technology that has completely changed the game, the DNA revolution. 53 00:02:33,840 --> 00:02:36,439 I want to talk about the Boogeyman because for people 54 00:02:36,439 --> 00:02:39,159 in California in the seventies and eighties, the Boogeyman wasn't 55 00:02:39,199 --> 00:02:40,520 a story. He was real. 56 00:02:40,639 --> 00:02:42,199 Speaker 2: You're talking about the Golden State Killer. 57 00:02:42,319 --> 00:02:45,159 Speaker 1: I am the sheer scale of this guy's reign of terror. 58 00:02:45,159 --> 00:02:47,759 It's just it's hard to wrap your head around. We're 59 00:02:47,800 --> 00:02:50,479 talking about a spree that went from Sacramento all the 60 00:02:50,479 --> 00:02:52,000 way down to Orange County. 61 00:02:51,800 --> 00:02:54,360 Speaker 2: Fifteen different jurisdictions. He was a ghost. 62 00:02:54,520 --> 00:02:56,560 Speaker 1: He was the shadow in the bushes, the face in. 63 00:02:56,599 --> 00:02:58,879 Speaker 2: The windows, and he was a chameleon. That was the 64 00:02:58,879 --> 00:03:01,560 most terrifying part for him investigators at the time. He 65 00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:03,400 kept changing his methods. 66 00:03:03,039 --> 00:03:05,039 Speaker 1: His mo right. He wasn't just one thing. 67 00:03:05,319 --> 00:03:08,719 Speaker 2: No, he started as the vizil I ransacker, Yeah, just 68 00:03:08,759 --> 00:03:13,159 a burglar. Then he escalated to become the East Area rapist, 69 00:03:13,520 --> 00:03:18,520 then the original night stalker. For decades, police departments thought 70 00:03:18,520 --> 00:03:20,520 they were hunting three or four different men. 71 00:03:20,560 --> 00:03:25,520 Speaker 1: Not realizing it was one monster who was just evolving precisely. 72 00:03:25,879 --> 00:03:28,879 Speaker 2: And then he just vanished. The crime stopped in the 73 00:03:28,879 --> 00:03:32,919 mid eighties. The trail went ice cold for decades. 74 00:03:32,599 --> 00:03:35,560 Speaker 1: Until twenty eighteen. This is the moment, this is the 75 00:03:35,599 --> 00:03:38,919 breakthrough that changed everything. So how did they finally catch 76 00:03:38,960 --> 00:03:39,599 this ghost. 77 00:03:39,879 --> 00:03:43,280 Speaker 2: It wasn't a fingerprint or witness. It was genealogical DNA. 78 00:03:43,520 --> 00:03:45,400 This is the huge technical leap forward. 79 00:03:45,520 --> 00:03:48,199 Speaker 1: Okay, so break that down because we hear about DNA 80 00:03:48,240 --> 00:03:50,199 evidence all the time. What makes us different. 81 00:03:50,479 --> 00:03:54,520 Speaker 2: Well, historically police used CODIS, which is the FBI's database. 82 00:03:54,840 --> 00:03:56,919 But that only works if your suspect has already been 83 00:03:57,000 --> 00:03:59,360 arrested and had their DNA swabbed. If they have a 84 00:03:59,400 --> 00:04:01,719 clean record, they're invisible to that system. 85 00:04:01,759 --> 00:04:02,680 Speaker 1: So what did they do here? 86 00:04:02,759 --> 00:04:04,639 Speaker 2: They used public genealogy databases. 87 00:04:04,680 --> 00:04:06,400 Speaker 1: Just so like those heritage slides where you send in 88 00:04:06,400 --> 00:04:09,520 a sample and find out your ten percent Scandinavian, exactly 89 00:04:09,599 --> 00:04:10,080 like those. 90 00:04:10,280 --> 00:04:14,479 Speaker 2: They uploaded the crime scene DNA profile evidence that had 91 00:04:14,520 --> 00:04:17,879 been sitting in an evidence locker for forty years to 92 00:04:17,959 --> 00:04:21,360 a public database. Wow. And they weren't looking for the 93 00:04:21,399 --> 00:04:23,959 killer directly, that's the genius of it. They were looking 94 00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:26,399 for his third cousins, his fourth cousins. 95 00:04:26,040 --> 00:04:28,759 Speaker 1: People who had absolutely nothing to do with the crimes, 96 00:04:29,079 --> 00:04:31,439 nothing at all, people who just wanted to build out 97 00:04:31,439 --> 00:04:32,439 their family tree. 98 00:04:32,759 --> 00:04:36,319 Speaker 2: And by finding those distant relatives, investigators could start to 99 00:04:36,360 --> 00:04:38,800 build that same family tree, but in reverse. 100 00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:40,680 Speaker 1: So they're building it backwards through time. 101 00:04:40,720 --> 00:04:44,439 Speaker 2: Precisely, it's reverse engineering a family. They built trees back 102 00:04:44,480 --> 00:04:47,480 to the eighteen hundreds and then moved forward, branch by branch, 103 00:04:47,959 --> 00:04:51,000 looking for a male who fit the age profile and 104 00:04:51,160 --> 00:04:52,879 was in the right locations at the right times. 105 00:04:52,920 --> 00:04:54,519 Speaker 1: And that led them to one name. 106 00:04:54,959 --> 00:04:57,680 Speaker 2: It led them to a former police officer named Joseph 107 00:04:57,759 --> 00:04:58,680 James DiAngelo. 108 00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:00,759 Speaker 1: And this is the part of the feels like it's 109 00:05:00,800 --> 00:05:03,959 straight out of a movie script. A former cop. He 110 00:05:04,120 --> 00:05:07,519 knew the tactics, he knew how to not leave fingerprint, he. 111 00:05:07,560 --> 00:05:09,160 Speaker 2: Knew exactly what they'd be looking for. 112 00:05:09,240 --> 00:05:13,240 Speaker 1: And he'd been living this quiet suburban life for forty years. 113 00:05:14,319 --> 00:05:17,560 But they couldn't just arrest him based on a probability, right, 114 00:05:17,879 --> 00:05:20,279 They needed his actual DNA. 115 00:05:20,480 --> 00:05:22,759 Speaker 2: They needed a direct match. Yeah, so they set up 116 00:05:22,800 --> 00:05:25,399 surveillance on his house. They watched him, They waited for 117 00:05:25,480 --> 00:05:26,680 him to take out his trash. 118 00:05:26,759 --> 00:05:28,439 Speaker 1: That's it, the trash, that's. 119 00:05:28,279 --> 00:05:30,680 Speaker 2: It, because once that trash can is on the curb, 120 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:34,480 legally it's public domain. They went through his garbage and 121 00:05:34,519 --> 00:05:37,399 retrieved a single piece of tissue he'd used. That is 122 00:05:37,800 --> 00:05:40,920 just why, And that one piece of refuse provided a 123 00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:43,720 one hundred percent match to the biological evidence found in 124 00:05:43,759 --> 00:05:45,600 crime scenes forty years prior. 125 00:05:45,759 --> 00:05:49,240 Speaker 1: Just think about that. You spend decades as this mythical monster, 126 00:05:49,360 --> 00:05:53,879 this terrifying Golden State killer, this ghost, and your downfall 127 00:05:54,000 --> 00:05:56,360 is a used Kleenex in a trash can. 128 00:05:56,519 --> 00:05:58,519 Speaker 2: It just strips all the power away from him, doesn't 129 00:05:58,519 --> 00:06:01,920 it completely? And it highlights a brand new reality for criminals. 130 00:06:02,360 --> 00:06:05,519 There's no such things anonymity anymore. If you leave your 131 00:06:05,600 --> 00:06:08,319 DNA behind, you're not just betting against the police, You're 132 00:06:08,360 --> 00:06:11,040 betting against every single one of your distant relatives who 133 00:06:11,120 --> 00:06:12,600 decides to take a heritage test. 134 00:06:12,959 --> 00:06:17,000 Speaker 1: It's chilling for them, but it's amazing for justice. Speaking 135 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:19,720 of justice delayed, let's talk about the Boy in the box. 136 00:06:20,199 --> 00:06:24,800 This one, uh, this one is just heartbreaking. Philadelphia, nineteen 137 00:06:24,879 --> 00:06:25,560 fifty seven. 138 00:06:25,720 --> 00:06:30,639 Speaker 2: This was Philadelphia's longest continuously investigated homicide for sixty five years. 139 00:06:31,279 --> 00:06:34,639 Generations of detectives worked this case. The tragedy wasn't just 140 00:06:34,680 --> 00:06:37,600 the murder, it was the complete erasure of his identity. 141 00:06:37,680 --> 00:06:39,319 Speaker 1: He was just the boy in the box, a. 142 00:06:39,319 --> 00:06:42,240 Speaker 2: Nameless symbol of tragedy, a face on a poster. 143 00:06:42,399 --> 00:06:44,240 Speaker 1: I've seen the pictures of the flyers they used to 144 00:06:44,319 --> 00:06:46,199 hand out, just a sketch of this little boy and 145 00:06:46,240 --> 00:06:48,920 a plea for anyone to come forward. But in twenty 146 00:06:48,959 --> 00:06:52,519 twenty two, that box was finally metaphorically. 147 00:06:51,839 --> 00:06:54,959 Speaker 2: Open, and again it was thanks to genealogical DNA they 148 00:06:55,040 --> 00:06:56,480 finally identified. 149 00:06:56,000 --> 00:06:58,920 Speaker 1: It Joseph Augustuszarelli Joseph Augustus Cirelli. 150 00:06:59,160 --> 00:07:01,920 Speaker 2: They even managed to his original birth certificate just saying 151 00:07:01,920 --> 00:07:02,399 the name. 152 00:07:02,720 --> 00:07:04,959 Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels like, I don't know, like you're fixing 153 00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:06,560 something that was broken in the universe. 154 00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:10,040 Speaker 2: That is the emotional weight of these breakthroughs. It's not 155 00:07:10,079 --> 00:07:12,720 just about finding a killer in this case, the people 156 00:07:12,800 --> 00:07:16,680 responsible are likely long dead. It's about giving a victim 157 00:07:16,800 --> 00:07:17,959 their humanity back. 158 00:07:18,199 --> 00:07:19,720 Speaker 1: He's not a ghost story anymore. 159 00:07:19,839 --> 00:07:22,040 Speaker 2: He was a child who existed. He had a name, 160 00:07:22,319 --> 00:07:23,120 he had a birthday. 161 00:07:23,279 --> 00:07:25,720 Speaker 1: We saw something similar with the Lady of the Dunes 162 00:07:26,160 --> 00:07:31,399 nineteen seventy four, Provincetown, Massachusetts. This one was particularly gruesome. 163 00:07:31,639 --> 00:07:34,079 Speaker 2: It was the killer had actually cut off her. 164 00:07:33,920 --> 00:07:37,279 Speaker 1: Hands to prevent fingerprint identification. 165 00:07:36,759 --> 00:07:41,399 Speaker 2: A brutal, calculated attempt to erase her from history, and 166 00:07:41,480 --> 00:07:45,319 for nearly fifty years it worked. Because there was no id, 167 00:07:45,879 --> 00:07:48,000 the public imagination just ran wild. 168 00:07:48,199 --> 00:07:50,160 Speaker 1: I heard theories that she was an extra from the 169 00:07:50,199 --> 00:07:52,519 movie Jaws since it was filming nearby. 170 00:07:52,319 --> 00:07:54,600 Speaker 2: Right, or that it was an organized crime hit. When 171 00:07:54,600 --> 00:07:57,079 you don't have facts, fiction fills in the blanks. 172 00:07:57,079 --> 00:07:59,680 Speaker 1: But DNA doesn't need fingerprints, No, it does not. 173 00:08:00,639 --> 00:08:02,759 Speaker 2: In twenty twenty two, they identified her. 174 00:08:02,759 --> 00:08:05,199 Speaker 1: As Ruth Marie Terry, and even though we don't know 175 00:08:05,240 --> 00:08:08,199 who killed her yet, just knowing her name it matters. 176 00:08:08,399 --> 00:08:09,879 It restores her dignity, It. 177 00:08:09,839 --> 00:08:12,240 Speaker 2: Connects her back to a family, It ends the what 178 00:08:12,360 --> 00:08:14,480 if that they've lived with for decades. 179 00:08:14,639 --> 00:08:16,879 Speaker 1: There's one more DNA case we have to touch on 180 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:19,720 just because the twist is so unbelievable. The bear Brook 181 00:08:19,839 --> 00:08:21,240 murders in New Hampshire. 182 00:08:21,639 --> 00:08:26,639 Speaker 2: Ah, yes, this is an incredibly complex web. You have 183 00:08:26,720 --> 00:08:29,079 barrels found in a state park, the first one in 184 00:08:29,160 --> 00:08:32,879 nineteen eighty five, and then more years later in two thousand. 185 00:08:32,600 --> 00:08:35,519 Speaker 1: And Inside are the remains of a woman and three. 186 00:08:35,360 --> 00:08:38,279 Speaker 2: Young girls, and for years they were all Jane does. 187 00:08:38,879 --> 00:08:42,120 But the breakthrough here didn't just identify the victims. It 188 00:08:42,200 --> 00:08:44,600 identified the killer, who was already dead. 189 00:08:44,679 --> 00:08:46,440 Speaker 1: He was in prison, but under a fake name. 190 00:08:46,799 --> 00:08:50,120 Speaker 2: Correct The man died in prison in twenty ten. He 191 00:08:50,159 --> 00:08:52,000 was known as Bob Evans, but he had a dozen 192 00:08:52,039 --> 00:08:55,639 other aliases. Through forensics, they found his real name was 193 00:08:55,720 --> 00:08:58,360 Terry Rasmussen. But here's the twist you mentioned. 194 00:08:58,399 --> 00:08:59,559 Speaker 1: This is the part I can't get over. 195 00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:02,120 Speaker 2: And a testing revealed that one of the victims, the 196 00:09:02,159 --> 00:09:05,639 middle child found in the barrel, was his own biological daughter. 197 00:09:05,720 --> 00:09:08,720 Speaker 1: That is horrifying. So he murdered his own child along 198 00:09:08,720 --> 00:09:08,960 with the. 199 00:09:08,879 --> 00:09:12,559 Speaker 2: Others, it appears. So this case shows how forensic science 200 00:09:12,600 --> 00:09:15,159 can reach back through time. It connected a man who 201 00:09:15,240 --> 00:09:18,080 died in prison for a completely separate crime to these 202 00:09:18,159 --> 00:09:21,759 cold cases from decades before. It's like building a puzzle 203 00:09:21,759 --> 00:09:24,039 where the pieces are scattered across half a century. 204 00:09:24,240 --> 00:09:28,120 Speaker 1: It's like the ghosts are finally talking to each other. Okay, 205 00:09:28,120 --> 00:09:29,639 I want to pivot now. We've talked about the people 206 00:09:29,639 --> 00:09:31,720 who finally got caught, but what about the ones who 207 00:09:31,759 --> 00:09:36,679 got away? Or maybe got away? The art of the 208 00:09:36,840 --> 00:09:41,559 escape The Ultimate Escape Story Alcatraz nineteen sixty two, Frank 209 00:09:41,639 --> 00:09:44,440 Morris and the Angland Brothers. This is the stuff of legend, 210 00:09:44,759 --> 00:09:46,320 the inescapable rock. 211 00:09:46,639 --> 00:09:49,240 Speaker 2: It was designed to be impossible. I mean, you have 212 00:09:49,320 --> 00:09:52,080 the cell house, the watchtowers, a twenty foot fence with 213 00:09:52,080 --> 00:09:54,960 barbed wire, and even if you somehow get past all that. 214 00:09:55,200 --> 00:09:57,000 Speaker 1: You're staring at the San Francisco Bay. 215 00:09:57,120 --> 00:10:00,240 Speaker 2: The San Francisco Bay, freezing cold, turbulent current that can 216 00:10:00,279 --> 00:10:03,159 pull even a strong swimmer under in minutes. It was 217 00:10:03,159 --> 00:10:03,720 a fortress. 218 00:10:03,759 --> 00:10:05,519 Speaker 1: But these guys had a plan. They'd been working on 219 00:10:05,559 --> 00:10:08,200 it for months. They had the raft made from raincoats, 220 00:10:08,240 --> 00:10:10,879 the paper mache dummy heads, and their beds to fool 221 00:10:10,879 --> 00:10:11,360 the guards. 222 00:10:11,360 --> 00:10:14,759 Speaker 2: The ingenuity is undeniable. It was meticulous, But for decades 223 00:10:14,799 --> 00:10:18,080 the official narrative from the FBI was very simple. They 224 00:10:18,120 --> 00:10:21,360 drowned case closed, the raft failed, they perished in the bay. 225 00:10:21,879 --> 00:10:22,519 End of story. 226 00:10:22,679 --> 00:10:27,440 Speaker 1: But now we have new files, declassified FBI documents, and 227 00:10:27,480 --> 00:10:29,240 they paint a very very different picture. 228 00:10:29,519 --> 00:10:33,159 Speaker 2: They introduce a lot of doubt. The files mentioned reports 229 00:10:33,159 --> 00:10:37,840 of family correspondence, like letters sent to relatives after the escape. 230 00:10:38,519 --> 00:10:40,559 There were sightings of the men for years. 231 00:10:40,679 --> 00:10:43,240 Speaker 1: But there's one piece of evidence that really challenges the 232 00:10:43,279 --> 00:10:44,360 whole drowning theory. 233 00:10:44,399 --> 00:10:46,159 Speaker 2: Isn't there the blue Chevy? 234 00:10:46,279 --> 00:10:47,840 Speaker 1: The blue Chevy tell us about that? 235 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:52,039 Speaker 2: Okay, So a nineteen fifty five blue Chevrolet was reported 236 00:10:52,039 --> 00:10:55,919 stolen in Marin County on the very night of the escape. 237 00:10:56,080 --> 00:10:59,279 Speaker 1: And Marin County is right across the bay from Alcatraz. 238 00:10:58,799 --> 00:11:00,879 Speaker 2: Exactly where you'd want to have a game away car waiting. 239 00:11:01,519 --> 00:11:04,639 And the eyewitness who reported the theft, so they saw 240 00:11:04,720 --> 00:11:06,159 three men inside the car. 241 00:11:06,360 --> 00:11:08,960 Speaker 1: But here's a kicker. The escape wasn't public news yet, 242 00:11:09,000 --> 00:11:09,240 was it. 243 00:11:09,480 --> 00:11:12,360 Speaker 2: That is the key. The witness saw three men in 244 00:11:12,440 --> 00:11:15,759 a store and car hours before the world even knew 245 00:11:15,759 --> 00:11:17,639 that three men were missing from Alcatraz. 246 00:11:17,840 --> 00:11:19,879 Speaker 1: Oh that just gives me goosebumps. That feels like the 247 00:11:19,919 --> 00:11:20,679 smoking gun. 248 00:11:21,240 --> 00:11:24,600 Speaker 2: It is certainly compelling evidence. It strongly suggests they made 249 00:11:24,600 --> 00:11:27,679 it to land. Now, whether they lived out their lives 250 00:11:27,679 --> 00:11:30,639 in Brazil, which is the popular rumor, or got into 251 00:11:30,639 --> 00:11:33,960 trouble later, we don't know. But the idea that they 252 00:11:33,960 --> 00:11:34,480 died in the. 253 00:11:34,440 --> 00:11:36,120 Speaker 1: Water, that seems much less likely. 254 00:11:36,200 --> 00:11:37,320 Speaker 2: Now, much less likely. 255 00:11:37,480 --> 00:11:40,120 Speaker 1: From a raft made of raincoats to a parachute in 256 00:11:40,120 --> 00:11:42,279 the middle of the night, we have to talk about D. B. 257 00:11:42,440 --> 00:11:46,759 Speaker 2: Cooper, the only unsolved skyjacking in American history, A true legend. 258 00:11:47,120 --> 00:11:49,919 Speaker 1: Nineteen seventy one. A man in a suit and tie 259 00:11:50,039 --> 00:11:54,159 hijack's commercial airliner, demands two hundred thousand dollars, drinks a 260 00:11:54,159 --> 00:11:56,679 bourbon and soda, and then jumps out the back of 261 00:11:56,720 --> 00:11:59,720 the plane with a parachute somewhere over Washington State. 262 00:12:00,039 --> 00:12:02,159 Speaker 2: He became a folk hero, didn't he totally? 263 00:12:02,600 --> 00:12:05,440 Speaker 1: Because nobody got hurt. He was apparently very polite to 264 00:12:05,440 --> 00:12:07,960 the flight crew, and you know, he stuck it to 265 00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:11,679 the man. But for years the question was just who 266 00:12:11,840 --> 00:12:14,600 was he and did he even survive the jump? 267 00:12:14,720 --> 00:12:17,759 Speaker 2: Well, recently the theory is really solidified around one guy 268 00:12:17,759 --> 00:12:20,279 in particular, Robert Regstraw, and. 269 00:12:20,240 --> 00:12:22,200 Speaker 1: He fits the profile perfectly. 270 00:12:21,799 --> 00:12:24,799 Speaker 2: To a t. He was a former soldier, extensive experience 271 00:12:24,840 --> 00:12:28,039 with parachuting. He had a my serious history aggrievance with 272 00:12:28,080 --> 00:12:30,519 the military. He has all the skills you would need 273 00:12:30,559 --> 00:12:33,440 to survive a jump like that into the dark, rainy woods, 274 00:12:33,600 --> 00:12:34,480 and the attitude. 275 00:12:34,519 --> 00:12:36,600 Speaker 1: I love the detail about his response when people asked 276 00:12:36,679 --> 00:12:38,799 him if he was dB Cooper. He never really denied it, 277 00:12:38,840 --> 00:12:39,440 did he No. 278 00:12:39,600 --> 00:12:42,000 Speaker 2: He played a very cooy game. He would say things 279 00:12:42,039 --> 00:12:44,519 like I told the world I did what I did. 280 00:12:45,320 --> 00:12:46,440 It was a wink and a nod. 281 00:12:46,559 --> 00:12:48,480 Speaker 1: So has the FBI confirmed it was him? 282 00:12:48,879 --> 00:12:52,840 Speaker 2: The FBI officially closed the act of investigation without naming 283 00:12:52,840 --> 00:12:58,320 a suspect. But the circumstantial evidence, the skills, the physical resemblance, 284 00:12:58,720 --> 00:13:02,519 his own cryptic statement, it all points to Rackstraw. It's 285 00:13:02,559 --> 00:13:04,600 the strongest narrative we have by far. 286 00:13:04,799 --> 00:13:07,159 Speaker 1: It's that difference between we can't prove it in a 287 00:13:07,200 --> 00:13:09,720 court of law and we're pretty sure we know who 288 00:13:09,720 --> 00:13:12,559 did it precisely. Now here's a guy who definitely did 289 00:13:12,559 --> 00:13:16,679 not become a folk hero John List. This story, this 290 00:13:16,799 --> 00:13:18,919 story creeps me out more than almost any other. 291 00:13:19,120 --> 00:13:21,960 Speaker 2: The Family Annihilator. This is a case of what you 292 00:13:21,960 --> 00:13:25,000 could call the long Con Escape. In nineteen seventy one, 293 00:13:25,159 --> 00:13:28,679 this accountant John lest murdered his entire family, his wife, 294 00:13:28,679 --> 00:13:31,279 his mother, and his three children in their New Jersey home. 295 00:13:31,480 --> 00:13:34,240 Speaker 1: But he didn't just run. He planned the aftermath with 296 00:13:34,320 --> 00:13:36,120 this chilling, cold precision. 297 00:13:36,200 --> 00:13:39,039 Speaker 2: He did. He canceled the mail delivery, He stopped the milkman. 298 00:13:39,320 --> 00:13:41,759 Speaker 1: He cut off all the household expenses, and wrote letters 299 00:13:41,759 --> 00:13:43,559 to the kid's schools saying the family was going on 300 00:13:43,559 --> 00:13:45,600 an extended trip to visit a sick relative. 301 00:13:45,919 --> 00:13:48,759 Speaker 2: He bought himself time, a lot of time. By the 302 00:13:48,799 --> 00:13:51,440 time the bodies were finally discovered, he had a month 303 00:13:51,519 --> 00:13:52,759 long head start, and. 304 00:13:52,759 --> 00:13:56,519 Speaker 1: He just vanished. For nearly eighteen years, he was a ghost. 305 00:13:56,759 --> 00:13:59,120 He was living a completely new life under a new name. 306 00:13:59,240 --> 00:14:02,039 Speaker 2: He remarried, He was working as an accountant again. He 307 00:14:02,120 --> 00:14:04,480 was a church goer in Virginia. He just started over. 308 00:14:05,120 --> 00:14:08,399 He compartmentalized the horror of what he'd done and built 309 00:14:08,440 --> 00:14:09,200 a new identity. 310 00:14:09,320 --> 00:14:11,000 Speaker 1: Until America's most wanted. 311 00:14:10,960 --> 00:14:14,720 Speaker 2: Television was The Breakthrough. The show hired a forensic sculptor, 312 00:14:14,799 --> 00:14:17,600 Frank Bender, to create a bust of what List might 313 00:14:17,679 --> 00:14:21,200 look like aged up. A neighbor in Denver saw the show, 314 00:14:21,519 --> 00:14:23,399 looked at the bust and thought. 315 00:14:23,440 --> 00:14:25,320 Speaker 1: That looks like my quiet neighbor. 316 00:14:25,039 --> 00:14:28,440 Speaker 2: Bob, and she called it in It's just terrifying to 317 00:14:28,440 --> 00:14:30,360 think that someone could just switch off one life and 318 00:14:30,399 --> 00:14:33,360 start another like that. His motive was financial struggles. 319 00:14:33,440 --> 00:14:35,799 Speaker 1: He said he wanted to save their souls from poverty. 320 00:14:36,080 --> 00:14:38,840 Speaker 2: That was his twisted logic, a perverted sense of mercy. 321 00:14:39,440 --> 00:14:42,919 But the meticulousness of his escape shows a very cold, 322 00:14:42,960 --> 00:14:44,240 calculating minded work. 323 00:14:44,360 --> 00:14:46,960 Speaker 1: Speaking of families in cold calculation, let's go way back 324 00:14:47,200 --> 00:14:49,960 the eighteen seventies, the Bloody Benders. 325 00:14:49,879 --> 00:14:52,039 Speaker 2: America's first family of serial killers. 326 00:14:52,440 --> 00:14:55,960 Speaker 1: That phrase alone, family of serial killers is just a 327 00:14:56,000 --> 00:14:58,240 lot to untack. They ran a small inn on the 328 00:14:58,320 --> 00:14:59,919 Kansas Prairie. 329 00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:02,240 Speaker 2: It seemed like a normal stopover for travelers on the 330 00:15:02,240 --> 00:15:05,840 Osage Trail. You had the parents, a son, and a daughter. 331 00:15:06,720 --> 00:15:09,879 But they had a system, a truly gruesome system. 332 00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:12,600 Speaker 1: They would see a guest at the dining table with 333 00:15:12,679 --> 00:15:14,279 their back to a canvas. 334 00:15:13,840 --> 00:15:16,399 Speaker 2: Curtain, and behind that curtain was one of the Bender 335 00:15:16,440 --> 00:15:20,240 men with a hammer, and directly under the guest's chair 336 00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:21,840 was a trapdoor. 337 00:15:22,120 --> 00:15:24,480 Speaker 1: It's like something out of a Sweeny Taw horror story. 338 00:15:24,639 --> 00:15:26,960 They'd knock the person out, drop them through the trap 339 00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:28,840 door into the cellar and rob them. 340 00:15:28,960 --> 00:15:31,879 Speaker 2: At least eight to eleven bodies were eventually found buried 341 00:15:31,879 --> 00:15:34,799 in their orchard. But the real mystery here isn't what 342 00:15:34,840 --> 00:15:36,279 they did, it's where they went. 343 00:15:36,519 --> 00:15:40,279 Speaker 1: Because when people started getting suspicious, especially after a prominent 344 00:15:40,279 --> 00:15:43,600 doctor's brother went missing, the benders didn't fight, they didn't 345 00:15:43,600 --> 00:15:44,039 get caught. 346 00:15:44,159 --> 00:15:47,120 Speaker 2: They fled. By the time the community formed a posse 347 00:15:47,200 --> 00:15:49,120 and went to the end, the food was still on 348 00:15:49,159 --> 00:15:51,320 the table. The place looked like they had just stepped 349 00:15:51,360 --> 00:15:54,240 out for a moment. But the benders were gone and 350 00:15:54,279 --> 00:15:58,120 never caught, never officially caught. There were all kinds of rumors, 351 00:15:58,240 --> 00:16:01,960 vigilante justice sighting in other states, but as far as 352 00:16:01,960 --> 00:16:05,000 the record shows, they committed this series of horrific murders 353 00:16:05,480 --> 00:16:08,559 and just vanished into the wild West. 354 00:16:08,799 --> 00:16:12,200 Speaker 1: That is deeply unsettling. An entire family just gets away 355 00:16:12,240 --> 00:16:12,600 with it. 356 00:16:12,600 --> 00:16:15,360 Speaker 2: It speaks to how vast and anonymous the frontier was 357 00:16:15,440 --> 00:16:18,279 back then. It was a lot easier to disappear before 358 00:16:18,320 --> 00:16:19,759 we all had digital footprints. 359 00:16:19,799 --> 00:16:22,960 Speaker 1: That's true, but some mysteries they hang around for a 360 00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:26,159 lot longer than the Wild West era. Let's talk about 361 00:16:26,159 --> 00:16:30,120 the big ones, the historical titans of cold cases, Jack the. 362 00:16:30,120 --> 00:16:33,080 Speaker 2: Ripper, the Whitechapel murders. Yeah, one hundred and thirty years 363 00:16:33,120 --> 00:16:34,240 of endless speculation. 364 00:16:34,440 --> 00:16:36,600 Speaker 1: Everyone has a theory. It was a member of the 365 00:16:36,679 --> 00:16:39,759 royal family, it was a doctor, a painter, but recent 366 00:16:39,799 --> 00:16:43,440 evidence points to someone while someone remarkably ordinary. 367 00:16:43,080 --> 00:16:46,480 Speaker 2: Aaron Kasminsky. He was a Polish barber an immigrant living 368 00:16:46,519 --> 00:16:48,679 in the area and he was actually a suspect at 369 00:16:48,679 --> 00:16:50,799 the time. The police had their eye on him, but 370 00:16:50,840 --> 00:16:52,120 they could never prove anything. 371 00:16:52,200 --> 00:16:55,320 Speaker 1: And the proof now supposedly comes from a shawl, a. 372 00:16:55,320 --> 00:16:57,600 Speaker 2: Shawl that was said to be found near one of 373 00:16:57,600 --> 00:17:02,879 the victims, Catherine Eddos. In twenty nineteen, researchers performed DNA 374 00:17:02,919 --> 00:17:06,440 analysis on stains found on that shawl. They claimed the 375 00:17:06,440 --> 00:17:10,200 mitochondrial DNA match descendants of both Eto's and Kazminski. 376 00:17:10,400 --> 00:17:13,000 Speaker 1: Now, I know there's some controversy around this finding. 377 00:17:13,079 --> 00:17:15,960 Speaker 2: A lot of controversy. Critics argue about the chain of 378 00:17:16,000 --> 00:17:20,440 custody of the show. I mean, has been contaminated in 379 00:17:20,440 --> 00:17:23,119 the one hundred plus years since the murders, how many 380 00:17:23,119 --> 00:17:25,920 people have handled it. It's definitely not a court of 381 00:17:26,000 --> 00:17:30,200 law beyond a reasonable doubt. Slam dunk historically, historically it 382 00:17:30,240 --> 00:17:34,119 fits the profile. Kauz Minsky suffered from severe mental illness. 383 00:17:34,519 --> 00:17:37,480 He was committed to an asylum shortly after the murders stopped. 384 00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:39,160 The timeline aligns. 385 00:17:39,279 --> 00:17:42,279 Speaker 1: It's a recurring theme, isn't it. The real monster isn't 386 00:17:42,319 --> 00:17:45,960 some shadowy, evil genius. He's the local barber with mental 387 00:17:46,000 --> 00:17:46,799 health problems. 388 00:17:46,839 --> 00:17:49,359 Speaker 2: It grounds the legend in a much more pathetic and 389 00:17:49,400 --> 00:17:51,119 perhaps more terrifying reality. 390 00:17:51,240 --> 00:17:53,480 Speaker 1: Same thing with the Cleveland Torso murderer. This is the 391 00:17:53,480 --> 00:17:56,640 guy that elliot Ness, mister Untouchable himself couldn't catch. 392 00:17:56,960 --> 00:18:01,599 Speaker 2: Nineteen thirties, Cleveland dismembered bodies off and just torsos started 393 00:18:01,599 --> 00:18:05,960 appearing in an area called Kingsbury Run. It was brutal, 394 00:18:06,039 --> 00:18:10,039 shocking stuff, and elliot Ness was convinced he knew who 395 00:18:10,119 --> 00:18:10,599 was doing it. 396 00:18:11,000 --> 00:18:12,440 Speaker 1: Doctor Francis C. Sweeney. 397 00:18:12,599 --> 00:18:15,359 Speaker 2: Right. Sweeney was a doctor. He had the medical knowledge 398 00:18:15,359 --> 00:18:18,799 needed for those precise dismemberments. He even failed a couple 399 00:18:18,799 --> 00:18:22,599 of light detector tests that Ness secretly administered, but Ness 400 00:18:22,599 --> 00:18:26,079 could never find enough hard physical evidence to charge him. 401 00:18:25,920 --> 00:18:27,400 Speaker 1: So Sweeney just walked away. 402 00:18:27,480 --> 00:18:30,000 Speaker 2: He eventually checked himself into a veteran's hospital and lived 403 00:18:30,039 --> 00:18:34,480 out his days there and the killing stopped. Declassified files 404 00:18:34,559 --> 00:18:37,839 later confirmed that Ness was absolutely certain Sweeney was his man. 405 00:18:38,359 --> 00:18:41,480 It's a frustrating end, knowing the truth but lacking the justice. 406 00:18:41,720 --> 00:18:44,319 Speaker 1: And then there's the Zodiac, the taunting, the letters to 407 00:18:44,359 --> 00:18:46,359 the press, the cipher's I hope you were having lots 408 00:18:46,400 --> 00:18:47,599 of fun in trying to catch me. 409 00:18:47,799 --> 00:18:50,799 Speaker 2: The Zodiac thrived on the game. He craved the attention 410 00:18:50,880 --> 00:18:54,559 more than anything. For fifty years, one of his ciphers, 411 00:18:54,680 --> 00:18:57,000 the big one, the three hundred and forty character cipher, 412 00:18:57,240 --> 00:18:59,000 remained unsolved, and we all. 413 00:18:58,880 --> 00:19:00,920 Speaker 1: Hoped that when it was finally cracked, it would say 414 00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:03,519 you know, my name is Arthur Lee Allen or something definitive. 415 00:19:03,559 --> 00:19:06,920 Speaker 2: But in twenty twenty, a team of civilian codebreakers finally 416 00:19:06,960 --> 00:19:09,640 cracked it, and it didn't reveal his name at all. 417 00:19:09,799 --> 00:19:12,640 Speaker 1: No, it was just more of his creepy rambling exactly. 418 00:19:13,079 --> 00:19:14,799 Speaker 2: He talked about how he wasn't afraid of the gas 419 00:19:14,880 --> 00:19:18,240 chamber because he was collecting slaves for the afterlife. 420 00:19:18,319 --> 00:19:21,039 Speaker 1: It's almost more chilling that way. It wasn't a clue 421 00:19:21,039 --> 00:19:23,160 for them to catch him. It was just a window 422 00:19:23,279 --> 00:19:25,119 into his massive, twisted ego. 423 00:19:25,359 --> 00:19:28,240 Speaker 2: It reveals he wasn't leaving breadcrumbs because he secretly wanted 424 00:19:28,279 --> 00:19:31,160 to be caught. He was leaving graffiti to brag. He 425 00:19:31,240 --> 00:19:33,039 just wanted to be the smartest person in the room, 426 00:19:33,079 --> 00:19:34,480 even fifty years after the fact. 427 00:19:34,720 --> 00:19:38,160 Speaker 1: One last historical one Amelia Erhart. The story we all 428 00:19:38,200 --> 00:19:40,640 know is that she vanished over the Pacific, a crash 429 00:19:40,680 --> 00:19:41,319 at sea. 430 00:19:41,400 --> 00:19:45,480 Speaker 2: That was the prevailing theory for decades, but the Nickomaro 431 00:19:45,559 --> 00:19:48,559 Island theory has gained significant traction in recent years. 432 00:19:48,759 --> 00:19:51,000 Speaker 1: This is the idea that she didn't crash into the ocean, 433 00:19:51,039 --> 00:19:54,599 but made an emergency landing on a remote uninhabited at all. 434 00:19:54,680 --> 00:19:57,799 Speaker 2: And became a castaway. Yes, bone fragments were found on 435 00:19:57,839 --> 00:20:00,559 that island back in the nineteen forties. At the time 436 00:20:00,599 --> 00:20:04,839 they were dismissed, but recent more advanced forensic analysis suggests 437 00:20:04,880 --> 00:20:08,920 they are plausibly hers, a tall woman of European ancestry. 438 00:20:09,119 --> 00:20:11,720 Speaker 1: So instead of a quick, tragic end in the ocean, 439 00:20:12,039 --> 00:20:16,160 it becomes this long drawn out story of survival. 440 00:20:15,720 --> 00:20:18,759 Speaker 2: A tragic survival story most likely, Yeah, but it shifts 441 00:20:18,799 --> 00:20:24,039 the entire narrative from a mysterious disappearance into a specific, located, 442 00:20:24,119 --> 00:20:25,720 and ultimately knowable end. 443 00:20:25,880 --> 00:20:28,920 Speaker 1: It feels more real, less like a magic trick exactly. 444 00:20:29,200 --> 00:20:30,920 Now I want to move to a section that is 445 00:20:31,039 --> 00:20:34,559 I think arguably the most important, because sometimes solving a 446 00:20:34,599 --> 00:20:37,920 case isn't about finding a killer, it's about proving that 447 00:20:37,960 --> 00:20:40,680 the wrong people are in prison, correcting the record. 448 00:20:40,839 --> 00:20:43,559 Speaker 2: This is where the science of DNA becomes this incredible 449 00:20:43,599 --> 00:20:47,279 tool for exoneration, not just conviction. And the Central Car five, 450 00:20:47,599 --> 00:20:50,200 now known as the Exonerated five, is the defining case. 451 00:20:50,319 --> 00:20:55,200 Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty nine, five black and Latino teenagers wrongfully convicted 452 00:20:55,240 --> 00:20:56,920 of a horrific crime in Central Park. 453 00:20:57,000 --> 00:20:59,759 Speaker 2: It was a media frenzy. The press and politicians whipped 454 00:20:59,799 --> 00:21:02,799 up this narrative of wilding. These boys were interrogated for 455 00:21:02,880 --> 00:21:05,559 hours on end, without parents, without proper counsel. They were 456 00:21:05,599 --> 00:21:06,680 turned against each other, and. 457 00:21:06,599 --> 00:21:09,279 Speaker 1: They were coerced into giving false confessions. They lost years 458 00:21:09,279 --> 00:21:10,640 of their lives in prison. 459 00:21:10,519 --> 00:21:12,839 Speaker 2: For a crime they did not commit. Yeah, and the 460 00:21:12,880 --> 00:21:15,079 truth only came out in two thousand and two when. 461 00:21:14,880 --> 00:21:16,519 Speaker 1: The real perpetrator confessed. 462 00:21:16,960 --> 00:21:21,160 Speaker 2: Mattias Rays, a convicted serial offender who was already in prison, confessed. 463 00:21:21,680 --> 00:21:24,279 He said he acted alone, and the DNA that was 464 00:21:24,319 --> 00:21:27,240 preserved from the crime scene backed him up completely. 465 00:21:27,359 --> 00:21:30,440 Speaker 1: The DNA matched rays and excluded all five of the boys. 466 00:21:30,640 --> 00:21:34,680 Speaker 2: It exposed these huge gaping flaws in our justice system, 467 00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:39,319 the immense danger of coerced confessions, the power of media bias. 468 00:21:39,920 --> 00:21:42,920 It was reckoning. But you can't give those men back 469 00:21:42,960 --> 00:21:44,400 the thirteen years they lost. 470 00:21:44,440 --> 00:21:46,319 Speaker 1: No, you absolutely can't. And look at a case like 471 00:21:46,359 --> 00:21:49,799 John Banay Ramsay. The parents were essentially tried and convicted 472 00:21:49,839 --> 00:21:52,279 by the court of public opinion for years. 473 00:21:52,400 --> 00:21:54,799 Speaker 2: Everyone was so sure the family had to be involved. 474 00:21:54,799 --> 00:21:56,640 The narrative was set almost immediately. 475 00:21:56,720 --> 00:21:59,599 Speaker 1: But the DNA evidence, which has been retested with modern 476 00:21:59,599 --> 00:22:01,960 technolog tells a very different story. 477 00:22:02,039 --> 00:22:05,839 Speaker 2: It does unidentified male DNA was found on the child's clothing, 478 00:22:06,240 --> 00:22:09,160 under her fingernails. It didn't match your father, It didn't 479 00:22:09,200 --> 00:22:11,440 match her brother, It didn't match anyone in the family. 480 00:22:11,640 --> 00:22:12,799 Speaker 1: It points to an intruder. 481 00:22:13,160 --> 00:22:18,039 Speaker 2: It strongly suggests an intruder. It fundamentally reshapes the entire investigation. 482 00:22:18,359 --> 00:22:19,920 It doesn't tell us who it was yet, but it 483 00:22:19,960 --> 00:22:23,440 tells us who it wasn't, And that is crucial when 484 00:22:23,519 --> 00:22:26,200 you have a family that has lived under this dark 485 00:22:26,240 --> 00:22:29,920 cloud of public suspicion for decades, and then. 486 00:22:29,799 --> 00:22:33,279 Speaker 1: There's a case like Jeffrey Dahmer. This isn't about exoneration, 487 00:22:33,440 --> 00:22:36,559 but about expanding the scope of guilt. We all know 488 00:22:36,680 --> 00:22:39,880 about his horrific crimes in Milwaukee, but what about his 489 00:22:39,920 --> 00:22:40,720 time in Germany. 490 00:22:41,079 --> 00:22:44,720 Speaker 2: This is a terrifying and relatively recent revelation. Dahmer was 491 00:22:44,720 --> 00:22:46,920 stationed in West Germany with the US Army in the 492 00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:49,519 late seventies, from seventy nine to eighty one. 493 00:22:49,519 --> 00:22:52,599 Speaker 1: And investigators have found reports of unsolved murders and disappearances 494 00:22:52,599 --> 00:22:53,000 there at. 495 00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:56,759 Speaker 2: That time, unexplained disappearances and assaults in the exact areas 496 00:22:56,759 --> 00:22:59,960 where he was known to be present. The patterns are disturbing, 497 00:23:00,119 --> 00:23:01,759 least similar to his later crimes. 498 00:23:01,880 --> 00:23:04,440 Speaker 1: So his killing spree might have started years earlier than 499 00:23:04,480 --> 00:23:06,400 we ever thought, and on another continent. 500 00:23:06,559 --> 00:23:10,440 Speaker 2: It's very possible. It suggests his pathology was fully active 501 00:23:10,519 --> 00:23:13,119 long before he was making headlines in the US. It 502 00:23:13,279 --> 00:23:16,119 just makes you wonder how many other victims are out 503 00:23:16,119 --> 00:23:18,880 there across the ocean who have never been linked to him. 504 00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:21,519 Speaker 1: It really does. It's just it's overwhelming to think about. 505 00:23:21,519 --> 00:23:23,720 It is all right, buckle up, We're heading into the 506 00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:26,680 final stretch here, and this is the bizarre and unexplained 507 00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:29,039 file these are the ones that just make your skin crawl. 508 00:23:29,839 --> 00:23:31,559 Let's start with the Solder Children. 509 00:23:31,839 --> 00:23:36,599 Speaker 2: Nineteen forty five, Fayetteville, West Virginia. A Christmas Eve fire 510 00:23:36,799 --> 00:23:39,680 burns the family home to the ground. The parents and 511 00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:42,240 four of the children make it out. Five are believed 512 00:23:42,279 --> 00:23:43,599 to have been prapped upstairs. 513 00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:46,680 Speaker 1: Believed to have been because no remains were ever found. 514 00:23:46,880 --> 00:23:49,519 Speaker 2: None, and in a house fire of that intensity, you 515 00:23:49,519 --> 00:23:52,960 would expect to find skeletal remains. The fire chief at 516 00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:55,880 the time said so, the Solder family never believed their 517 00:23:55,960 --> 00:23:58,440 children died in that fire. They were convinced it was 518 00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:00,279 a kidnapping and the fire was a diverse. 519 00:24:00,440 --> 00:24:04,480 Speaker 1: And then twenty years later something arrives in the mail. 520 00:24:04,759 --> 00:24:07,680 Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty seven, a photo comes in the mail, 521 00:24:07,759 --> 00:24:09,720 addressed to the family. It shows a young man in 522 00:24:09,759 --> 00:24:12,880 his twenties. On the back, a cryptic note is written. 523 00:24:12,920 --> 00:24:14,640 It says Louis Sotter. 524 00:24:14,519 --> 00:24:16,559 Speaker 1: Who was one of the missing sons, and it resembles 525 00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:17,279 him grown up. 526 00:24:17,400 --> 00:24:20,279 Speaker 2: It did, and there was no return address, just this 527 00:24:20,400 --> 00:24:22,599 face staring back at them from a photograph. 528 00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:25,880 Speaker 1: Can you even imagine that you grieve for twenty years 529 00:24:25,880 --> 00:24:28,119 holding onto this sliver of hope and then you get 530 00:24:28,119 --> 00:24:31,519 a photo that seems to scream I'm alive, but gives 531 00:24:31,559 --> 00:24:34,160 you no way to find him. That's a special kind 532 00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:35,440 of psychological torture. 533 00:24:35,519 --> 00:24:38,960 Speaker 2: It's the definition of a haunting mystery. To this day, 534 00:24:39,359 --> 00:24:42,079 we don't know if it was a genuine, heartbreaking message 535 00:24:42,559 --> 00:24:45,279 or just a spectacularly cruel prank. 536 00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:50,279 Speaker 1: Speaking of cruel, the Thailand All murders nineteen eighty two. 537 00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:53,519 Speaker 2: This case changed the world. Seven people dead in the 538 00:24:53,559 --> 00:24:56,880 Chicago area because someone had opened Thailand All capsules and 539 00:24:56,960 --> 00:24:58,000 laced them a cyanide. 540 00:24:58,079 --> 00:25:00,480 Speaker 1: It's the reason why it takes me five minutes and 541 00:25:00,519 --> 00:25:02,559 a pair of pliers to open a bottle of aspirin 542 00:25:02,599 --> 00:25:04,839 today at the tamper proof seal exactly. 543 00:25:04,880 --> 00:25:07,920 Speaker 2: That is the direct legacy of this crime. One man, 544 00:25:08,039 --> 00:25:11,039 James William Lewis, sent an extortion letter to Johnson, and 545 00:25:11,119 --> 00:25:14,440 Johnson taking credit for it. He became the primary suspect. 546 00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:17,400 Speaker 1: The FBI even named him as the guy, but they 547 00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:19,559 could never charge him with the actual murders, could they. 548 00:25:19,759 --> 00:25:22,440 Speaker 2: No, they never had the physical proof to tie him 549 00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:25,279 to the poisonings, only to the extortion letter. So he 550 00:25:25,319 --> 00:25:27,200 went to jail for the letter, but not for the. 551 00:25:27,160 --> 00:25:29,759 Speaker 1: Seven deaths, and he denied the killings until the day 552 00:25:29,799 --> 00:25:30,240 he died. 553 00:25:30,359 --> 00:25:34,279 Speaker 2: He did, but the impact he had a single individual 554 00:25:34,319 --> 00:25:37,559 on global consumer safety is just undeniable. It was a 555 00:25:37,559 --> 00:25:38,240 pivotal moment. 556 00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:40,640 Speaker 1: And then the disappearance of the century. 557 00:25:41,279 --> 00:25:44,000 Speaker 2: Jimmy Hoffa, the most powerful man in America, the head 558 00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:47,079 of the Teamsters Union, vanishes from a restaurant parking lot 559 00:25:47,079 --> 00:25:48,400 in nineteen seventy five. 560 00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:50,799 Speaker 1: And everyone has a theory. He's buried under the Old 561 00:25:50,839 --> 00:25:53,880 Giant Stadium, He's in a swamp in Florida. But the 562 00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:57,240 irishman confession that one feels done. 563 00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:00,920 Speaker 2: Frank Scheran, a high level mob associate friend of Haffa's, 564 00:26:01,359 --> 00:26:04,319 He claimed in great detail before he died that he 565 00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:06,839 was the one who killed Haffa in a house in Detroit. 566 00:26:07,039 --> 00:26:10,359 Speaker 1: So it wasn't some grand, complicated conspiracy burial. It was 567 00:26:10,400 --> 00:26:13,200 a simple hit carried out by someone Haffa trusted. 568 00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:16,799 Speaker 2: His account moves the story from this wild, almost mythical 569 00:26:16,839 --> 00:26:21,759 speculation into the realm of plausible insider testimony. Forensic teams 570 00:26:21,759 --> 00:26:24,519 even searched the house he named. They found blood traces, 571 00:26:24,559 --> 00:26:27,000 but due to the age, they couldn't conclusively match it 572 00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:30,079 to Haffa. Still the narrative fits the brutal reality of 573 00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:32,000 organized crime much better than the. 574 00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:38,440 Speaker 1: Stadium miss And finally, the Boston Strangler. This was another 575 00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:42,240 case filled with doubt. Albert DeSalvo confessed to the crimes, 576 00:26:42,839 --> 00:26:44,559 but then he recanted, and. 577 00:26:44,559 --> 00:26:47,279 Speaker 2: There was no physical evidence at the time linking him 578 00:26:47,279 --> 00:26:49,759 to the murders. For decades, people thought he might have 579 00:26:49,799 --> 00:26:52,759 just been a pathological liar, someone confessing for the fame 580 00:26:52,799 --> 00:26:53,559 and notoriety. 581 00:26:53,759 --> 00:26:55,839 Speaker 1: But twenty thirteen changed. 582 00:26:55,519 --> 00:26:58,400 Speaker 2: All of that. In DNA again, they were able to 583 00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:01,880 exhum Disalva's body and match his DNA to seminal fluid 584 00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:04,599 found on the last victim, Mary Sullivan, back in nineteen 585 00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:07,359 sixty four. It was a ninety nine point nine percent match. 586 00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:10,160 Speaker 1: So the doubt is gone. He really was the monster 587 00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:10,759 he was. 588 00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:13,240 Speaker 2: The confession that had been questioned for fifty years was 589 00:27:13,279 --> 00:27:14,440 finally proven to be true. 590 00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:16,000 Speaker 1: You know, as we sit here and look back at 591 00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:18,680 all these different cases, there's a common thread that keeps 592 00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:20,480 popping up, and it's time. 593 00:27:20,799 --> 00:27:23,519 Speaker 2: Time is a double edged sword in these investigations. Absolutely, 594 00:27:23,839 --> 00:27:27,960 on one hand, time degrades, evidence, memories fade, witnesses die, 595 00:27:28,079 --> 00:27:29,319 crime scenes are paved over. 596 00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:32,079 Speaker 1: But on the other hand, time allows technology to catch up. 597 00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:35,640 DNA sequencing didn't exist when the Golden State Killer was active. 598 00:27:35,519 --> 00:27:40,640 Speaker 2: And time loosens tongues, people give deathbed confessions, old classified 599 00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:42,400 files finally see the light of day. 600 00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:44,799 Speaker 1: The locked box we talked about at the beginning. 601 00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:47,960 Speaker 2: Time eventually rusts the lock, and with enough pressure and 602 00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:50,000 the right tools, it breaks open. 603 00:27:50,319 --> 00:27:51,880 Speaker 1: So I have to ask you, and I want to 604 00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:54,880 ask or listeners this too. What do you think is 605 00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:59,240 scarier the killer like DiAngelo, the Golden State Killer who 606 00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:02,519 gets away with it, lives a normal life, Moses Lawn 607 00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:05,599 waves to his neighbors for forty years before he's caught. 608 00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:08,400 Or the mystery that is never solved at all, the 609 00:28:08,519 --> 00:28:11,039 Sowder children just gone on thin air. 610 00:28:11,640 --> 00:28:14,920 Speaker 2: That's a tough question for me. I think it's the neighbor. 611 00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:18,519 The idea that pure evil can be mundane, that it 612 00:28:18,519 --> 00:28:21,079 can be boring and polite and live right next door. 613 00:28:21,279 --> 00:28:22,920 That is what's truly terrifying to me. 614 00:28:23,079 --> 00:28:24,640 Speaker 1: I think I agree with you, but I really want 615 00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:27,160 to know what you think. Which of these solved mysteries 616 00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:29,519 do you still have doubts about? Do you really believe 617 00:28:29,519 --> 00:28:32,440 the Zodiac cipher didn't have a name hidden in it somewhere, 618 00:28:32,839 --> 00:28:35,319 or that the England brothers actually drowned in that bay. 619 00:28:35,559 --> 00:28:37,359 Speaker 2: There's always room for a little bit of doubt. 620 00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:39,039 Speaker 1: Let us know in the comments. We want to hear 621 00:28:39,079 --> 00:28:43,279 your theories. Until next time, this has been thrilling. Threads 622 00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:45,799 keep pulling at the loose ends. You never know what 623 00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:46,920 might unravel.