Crime Seen | Episode 121: Unsolved Mysteries Volume 4

[00:00:24] Hello everyone, I'm Sarah Carradine podcasting from Aora, Sydney.

[00:00:28] I'm Mari Forth.

[00:00:30] And this is Crime Seen, the true crime review podcast where we get to the heart of how true

[00:00:34] crime stories are told.

[00:00:36] You can get this show along with all the other fantastic reality TV content by subscribing

[00:00:41] to RobHeserWebsite.com.

[00:00:45] We know reality TV.

[00:00:48] We'd also love it if you were subscribed to our dedicated feed as well.

[00:00:52] Please go to RobHeserWebsite.com slash Crime Feed.

[00:00:57] We know true crime.

[00:00:59] Last episode we watched Worst X Ever with Jason Reed.

[00:01:04] Sarah, what did we watch this week?

[00:01:07] We watched Unsolved Mysteries.

[00:01:09] So the original series played from 1987 to 2010 and had 608 episodes.

[00:01:16] And in fact, our episode one was covering an old episode with Sarah debunting, featuring

[00:01:22] her husband as a reenactor.

[00:01:25] So that was the last time that Crime Seen touched on Unsolved Mysteries.

[00:01:30] Netflix revived the series in 2010 and we watched most of, if not all, the episodes

[00:01:36] of volume four of this Netflix series and volume five is premiering on October 18th.

[00:01:44] And it's no mystery why we keep asking this guest to return.

[00:01:48] He instituted the zero magnifying glass rating on his first appearance for Jared from Subway,

[00:01:53] uncovered the secrets of Hillsong and then suffered through the dual thief, Mr.

[00:01:59] Organ, and cooking up murder so we owe him big time.

[00:02:03] It's writer critic and podcast from Art Bank and the ship.

[00:02:06] Hey Mark, welcome back to the scene.

[00:02:09] Hi.

[00:02:10] Hello.

[00:02:10] I was very glad, at least during that cooking up murder episode to also get to talk about

[00:02:16] old law and orders.

[00:02:18] Yes.

[00:02:19] Yes.

[00:02:20] I mean, out of the five times you've been with us, you had four of the most duddy duds that

[00:02:28] we've covered here.

[00:02:29] We keep having fun and that's the most important thing.

[00:02:34] Yeah.

[00:02:35] Literally.

[00:02:35] So Crime is not a fun wema hat along the way.

[00:02:38] Exactly.

[00:02:40] What if the unsolved mysteries are the friends we made along the way?

[00:02:44] They are.

[00:02:45] They are.

[00:02:45] So we said to you, cut lunch, what would you like to cover?

[00:02:49] You pick because our pickers have been off and you chose unsolved mysteries.

[00:02:54] Why?

[00:02:56] Because this show in its current Netflix incarnation is the perfect thing for me

[00:03:03] to watch while I am weightlifting in my living room.

[00:03:07] I find it just compelling enough that I want to pay attention to it, but not so demanding

[00:03:16] that I can't grunt my way through a few more bicep curls, biceps curls.

[00:03:22] Forgive me if I want to get that correct.

[00:03:24] So to me, I didn't necessarily want to talk about unsolved mysteries because I think

[00:03:28] it's a masterpiece of the form, but more because I find it to be as much as it might

[00:03:34] be strange to say this about crime television quite comforting.

[00:03:38] And I find myself often thinking about the mysteries that are unsolved for days afterward.

[00:03:47] And that also to me says that the show is doing something correct.

[00:03:51] So while it isn't necessarily going to win a Peabody, I am also absolutely going to

[00:03:57] lick my chops with relish every time that I see there is a new batch of episodes on Netflix.

[00:04:03] That makes complete sense. And Murray, you have suffered through unsolved mysteries.

[00:04:08] You don't like anything unsolved, but such is not only our love of Mark,

[00:04:13] but the fact that we owe him big time.

[00:04:15] How did you, were you resentful or were you able to come to it with some kind of open-heartedness?

[00:04:23] No, like I said, just for Mark, I'll do unsolved mysteries when we came up with this.

[00:04:30] And honestly, the episodes weren't that bad. I told Tara, I was like, no aliens.

[00:04:35] I'm not doing any aliens, not watching anything very paranormal.

[00:04:39] And I think this batch of episodes was pretty good in that full disclosure.

[00:04:45] I did not watch the first episode, which is about Jack the Ripper because,

[00:04:50] God, like guys, we're never going to know.

[00:04:53] I'm sorry. It's unfortunately we will never know. And that sucks.

[00:05:00] I didn't watch the last episode, which was mocked and revisited because in the same vein,

[00:05:06] like I've listened to a lot of Mockman podcasts. I've seen the movie with Richard Gere,

[00:05:13] solid movie. And I just, I don't, cryptids just aren't my thing.

[00:05:20] But the episode, the three episodes in the middle, very solid, very, very interesting.

[00:05:26] So this was a pretty good batch. I'm not going to lie.

[00:05:30] Mari, that makes me very happy. Yay.

[00:05:34] So we are going to just talk about episodes two, three and four. I did watch them all.

[00:05:39] I watched Jack the Ripper so you don't have to. That's all I have to say about that.

[00:05:43] We don't know who Jack the Ripper was. We never will according to one of the historians.

[00:05:50] They didn't have CCTV in 1888. I'm not sure if I needed to hear that.

[00:05:56] The thing that amuses me is here in Australia, Ripper means good.

[00:06:01] So it was a Ripper night out. It means it was a good night out.

[00:06:05] So Jack the Ripper in Australian language is Jack the Fantastic.

[00:06:11] I'm not a Jack the Ripper person. My recommendation coming at the end might surprise you having said

[00:06:18] that. But it's always interesting like does someone have something else to say? And the

[00:06:22] answer is no. So if you've never heard of Jack the Ripper, it's a perfect primer for that.

[00:06:28] If you have, you can happily skip episode one. And then episode five, the Mothman Revisited,

[00:06:37] is talking to people who have seen something and completely believe it,

[00:06:42] and the people who are gathering the sightings together and trying to make sense of it.

[00:06:48] So for me, it's interesting in the way our brains work as people. But if you don't like cryptids,

[00:06:54] it's not going to be of interest to you. So that's my potted episode one and episode five

[00:06:59] comments. But let's dive into episode two, Body in the Basement. In 2015,

[00:07:07] Lee Antony returned after a weekend away to find his wife Amanda dead in a pool of blood at

[00:07:14] the bottom of their basement stairs. This will not be the last pool of blood we talk about today.

[00:07:21] Mark, did you know of this case? No. And I think this is also one of the reasons that I enjoy

[00:07:28] Unsolved Mysteries. Oh, I should add that like Mari, I never watch the supernatural ones because

[00:07:33] I don't really care about the ghosts in a Japanese forest or whatever. But these crimes

[00:07:39] I do watch and I am just disconnected enough from the world of true crime that even if the case is

[00:07:45] quote unquote famous, I've never heard of it before. So no, I had not heard of this particular crime

[00:07:51] until I watched this episode. And Mari, how did you find this? Did you know of it?

[00:07:57] No, I didn't know of this. I don't think this is relatively famous at all. But this,

[00:08:05] of course, this was probably the one that piqued my interest the most like my little forensic

[00:08:10] scientist brain. This one scratched all those itches and I was like, how did it get all that blood down?

[00:08:19] Like this was very interesting. I'm very, I want to hear your thoughts for sure.

[00:08:26] I wanted to know if either of you think you've solved it. I didn't know this case either.

[00:08:30] I was in my notes, I say is this a mystery or is it just a cold case? And I still think that

[00:08:38] that's a question worth answering. But let's dive in. Mark, this isn't the only episode where we're

[00:08:44] going to get surprise crime scene photographs. How did you find their use? We got a lot of close

[00:08:52] ups of blood and a very disturbing sort of ghostly mark where Amanda's body had been.

[00:08:58] How did you find it on a gore rating? Oh, I found it to be just appropriate enough,

[00:09:05] honestly, because it made me feel like I could understand what Lee saw when he walked into that

[00:09:12] house, which is part of the whole hook of this story is this. He comes home expecting to find

[00:09:18] his wife and instead finds this horror show. So yes, I thought they evoked that quite successfully.

[00:09:24] Yeah, I agree. And I mean, as far as forensics go, Mari, this wonderful Jodi

[00:09:30] Anz, one of our children here, she's the bloodstone

[00:09:33] patent analyst. How did you find her and her explanation for me? That was so crisp and so

[00:09:39] precise. I loved it. Oh, I loved it. Give him talk about those passive drops, please.

[00:09:46] Talk about the bloody footprints. I loved everything when they came back there like we

[00:09:52] ran the DNA and all the blood in the basement was Amanda's. I was like, say what? Yeah,

[00:09:59] say what? Literally. There's so much blood in this basement. There's a pool of it.

[00:10:08] There's there's hand marks everywhere. There's footprints and all of it is from her.

[00:10:16] Nothing from an attacker. That had me floored. And then not only that, but her autopsy report,

[00:10:26] they said she didn't have any like broken ribs. She didn't have a skull fracture.

[00:10:30] She basically just had some some bumps and bruises and then

[00:10:34] but the main source of the blood was a forehead laceration.

[00:10:40] Wow. Wow. Like my brain just started working because it's like, yes, as somebody who watches

[00:10:49] professional wrestling, forehead lacerations bleed like the dickens. It's the first place they

[00:10:57] do what we call blading in wrestling. If you want your if you want your match to have some color,

[00:11:05] wrestlers will intentionally hide razor blades in their tape or handed razor blades to them

[00:11:11] covertly. They will blade their scalp, their forehead and then it'll start to bleed. It is

[00:11:18] like that is that is how you get color the easy way in wrestling. So forehead lacerations do bleed

[00:11:26] a lot. They shouldn't bleed that much if they're a relatively minor cut like they bleed, but they

[00:11:34] shouldn't bleed that much. However, there was this match. Eddie Guerrero and people can go back.

[00:11:41] I think it was Eddie Guerrero versus JBL. I can't really remember, but Eddie Guerrero bladed

[00:11:47] and he bladed too deep. And not only did he blade too deep, he hit like a forehead artery

[00:11:53] or something like that. And blood was pouring out of his face during the match. It was it was a red

[00:12:01] mask match. So I'm sitting here thinking like, oh, something like that must have happened. By the

[00:12:10] end, there's thinking there's this piggy bank on the side of like the stairs. And they think that

[00:12:16] she went kind of like face first into this piggy bank. This piggy bank is what caused the

[00:12:20] forehead lacerations. She falls down the stairs. And then because we find out that all the blood is

[00:12:27] hers, we see passive drops where drops where she's standing up and the blood is just falling to

[00:12:32] the ground via gravity passive drops and bloody footprints. She was stepping in her own blood

[00:12:39] as her own footprint in her blood. So I'll get to what I think happened at the end. But

[00:12:48] it's very interesting that a forehead laceration ends up with this lady losing her life. And I

[00:12:55] think they did it in a way that it wasn't graphic or gratuitous. I think showing us the blood

[00:13:00] staying without the body was was very, very important because I mean, that's all of the

[00:13:07] evidence right there. And I think it really got across what the magnitude of the episode

[00:13:15] and what was going on. Yeah, Mark, this piggy bank, they kept saying piggy bank and every time

[00:13:20] they did it, I went because in fact, it is so clearly a green sheep.

[00:13:26] Yeah, it was green sheep. Yes. So it was a sheepy bank. It was a bar bank.

[00:13:34] So the piggy bank and the bloody bare footprints at the bottom of the stairs but not rising up

[00:13:42] the stairs. Did you get shivers or were you able to say as I did, there's an explanation,

[00:13:48] we just don't know what it is? Well, I got gripped because this episode is a very good example of

[00:13:56] what this show does well, which is take you by the hand step by step deeper into the mystery.

[00:14:04] And this episode does such a good job at offering you plausible red herrings along the way.

[00:14:10] And the piggy bank and then this is when they're talking about, oh, maybe it was the husband. Oh,

[00:14:16] maybe. And then they're like, oh, there have been crimes committed in this neighborhood. And here's

[00:14:20] an example of one that happened nearby. And then every single time you're thinking or I was

[00:14:25] thinking, okay, okay, wait, how does this relate to the piggy bank and the dog which they keep

[00:14:31] indicating is important? And I really got sucked into waiting for all of these pieces to be

[00:14:39] dropped into some more coherent pictures. So yes, Sarah, I did assume that it would be explained

[00:14:45] and I got titillated in waiting for that explanation to come because the feeling of

[00:14:52] having the curtain lifted thread by thread is one of the things that makes unsolved mysteries

[00:14:58] satisfying. And this episode does a good job at that. Yes, I agree. If you like procedure as

[00:15:06] dear listeners as we do, I was reminded watching all three of these episodes of exactly that

[00:15:13] step by step. Now there have been other properties where they've gone down

[00:15:18] side roads and then no, no, it wasn't that and we've become frustrated by it, Mari.

[00:15:23] But here I always feel like because we are hearing it from mostly from law enforcement certainly

[00:15:30] guiding us through. I always feel like, oh, if I was law enforcement working on this case,

[00:15:37] these are the steps and these are the bar ways I would have to go down. These are the things I

[00:15:42] would have to check off. So for me it isn't frustrating when it's a dead end or something

[00:15:50] that you think, oh yes, it must be that and then it isn't that because it reminds me that good

[00:15:54] police work keeps the open mind. They don't just decide who it is and make the evidence fit,

[00:16:03] which may surprise you that sometimes happens. But I really liked this episode. I think a very

[00:16:09] strong if you say that this is a three episode volume, this is a very strong first episode.

[00:16:15] So Mark, why don't you kick us off? What happened?

[00:16:18] Well, after realizing for certain that the husband didn't do it and accepting that it's probably not

[00:16:27] true that random intruders did it, it would seem that our victim may have in a deeply ill state,

[00:16:39] like she was physically sick. She may have stumbled, fell, landed in the basement

[00:16:46] and died because there was no one there to help her, creating an incredibly tragic

[00:16:52] irony that her husband who was accused of doing it actually may have in some way inadvertently

[00:16:59] helped her to die because he actually wasn't there to do it. If you know what I mean.

[00:17:03] Yes. Larry. Okay.

[00:17:08] So a lot of the things that we have to take in consideration here, right?

[00:17:17] So one, the dogs. They had what two dogs, a dog. Okay.

[00:17:22] They're gonna catch one. That's what it was. The pets. Okay. The pets did not

[00:17:29] get trapped in the blood. This is a basement that has no door. There's no door.

[00:17:35] It like, I don't even know if you can call it basement. These stairs, dear listener, are like,

[00:17:41] it looked like it was like six steps, seven steps at the most. It was not like,

[00:17:45] am I am I wrong in saying this guys? There's no door. It's open, open

[00:17:53] set of steps going down to a finished room. Basically, we saw the wiggly mirrors on the

[00:18:00] wall. Exactly. So it's like, it's not, if you're thinking of a scary movie style basement,

[00:18:08] it's not this. It might even kind of might be considered almost a ranch style to me because

[00:18:14] it's like, it's not that many steps y'all. But anyways, I say all that to say,

[00:18:20] I think she gets cut on the forehead. I do think that there had to be somebody else there.

[00:18:28] I think there had to be intruder. I think she does get pushed. She falls to the steps because

[00:18:35] the passive drops of her standing up, of her being able to stand up and the blood dropping

[00:18:42] and she's stepping in her own blood. But for her not to walk up those like seven or eight steps,

[00:18:47] there had to be a reason why, like they said at the end, she felt safer in the basement

[00:18:52] than upstairs. And I don't, there wasn't evidence of burglary or anything like that.

[00:19:02] It didn't seem like, but there was a tipped over chair and her phone was upstairs.

[00:19:06] There had to be somebody, I think keeping those pets away long enough, like maybe locking

[00:19:13] those pets in a room and trying to keep her down there. I think you look at a cut on your forehead,

[00:19:22] you're thinking like, oh, it's just a cut on my forehead. Yes, it's bleeding a lot, but I'll be fine.

[00:19:28] And I think she whatever was keeping her down in the basement, she was like, it's fine. I'll

[00:19:33] stay down here, you know, do whatever you do. I will stay down here. And I just don't think

[00:19:38] she realized the severity of the cut. However, it takes you about two hours to bleed out from like

[00:19:46] a stomach wound, like if you get shot or stabbed in the stomach. I can only imagine that it would

[00:19:53] have taken an even longer time to bleed out from a forehead laceration in that much blood. So

[00:20:00] at some point she becomes incapacitated. Like at some point she lays down falls down and is

[00:20:06] just there until the blood is gone. So I don't, there has to be a reason that she stayed down there.

[00:20:14] There just has to be, you know what I'm saying? Like maybe she heard something, maybe she heard

[00:20:24] something that spooked her enough that she started to run down the stairs, fell down the

[00:20:28] stairs, got cut, heard something and decided to stay down there, maybe like hiding. And she was

[00:20:34] hiding down there. She just dies like that. Maybe it's, maybe it could have been something like that.

[00:20:40] But we have to, like there has to be an explanation of why she got up, why they said she, it looked

[00:20:48] like she could have been just like looking up the stairs or listening at the stairs but not going

[00:20:53] up. You know what I'm saying? So that's why I don't think they're just full on accident falling

[00:20:59] down because she gets up at one point. She gets up at one point, you know what I'm saying?

[00:21:05] So I don't know. I don't know. Maybe she wasn't pushed. Maybe it is an accidental fall but I do

[00:21:14] think that there's something going on in the house that kept her down there and kept the

[00:21:18] pets away. There had to be. Sarah, what about you?

[00:21:25] Accident. She's on the phone to her husband. Well, first of all, the reason that she didn't

[00:21:29] go away with her husband was she had a migraine and through the days that he still talked to her,

[00:21:36] she said she was getting better but she was still unwell. So migraine plus presumably some

[00:21:43] some drugs to help her recover from that. She's on the phone with Lee, her husband,

[00:21:52] one evening at 10 past seven and he hears the dog. Yep. And the phone goes. Oh right.

[00:22:01] And to me, you know how you do? You've got the phone, you're wandering around,

[00:22:05] you don't notice the dog. I think she stepped on the dog. The dog dashed, which is where the

[00:22:12] the chair went over. She dropped the phone. She fell down this. It's an open, it's wider than a

[00:22:18] doorway folks. It is. Hit the green sheep on the way down and then the disorientation,

[00:22:28] the illness from the migraine and the bleeding and perhaps the drugs. There's a confusion.

[00:22:35] She tries to get up, she does walk to the stairs. There's a moment and I think then she just

[00:22:42] she lies down and dies unfortunately. Why the animals didn't go down? I'm not sure.

[00:22:49] They might have been frightened. Some dogs don't like stairs too. That's the other thing.

[00:22:55] My mother-in-law's dog does not like stairs. Yeah. So I don't have an explanation that part

[00:23:02] is mysterious, but I think to me it was the yelp of the dog that Lee heard before the phone cut out

[00:23:09] that I probably would have thought it anyway, not necessarily that she tripped on the dog,

[00:23:13] but that she tripped and fell. But I think the migraine, the several days of migraine

[00:23:18] varied debilitating physically. Some perhaps drugs are taking, tripping on the dog and landing

[00:23:24] down the bottom with some disorientation is probably what happened. And it's just so,

[00:23:30] it's so sad. It's very sad. And Lee looked so suspicious in the beginning because he's like.

[00:23:36] Oh, I know. Oh, that's for sure. Yes, definitely. It felt like he was building his alibi. He's

[00:23:42] like, I was talking to her all weekend. We were on the phone the whole time. It was like

[00:23:47] as I wait for my hitman to go kill her, you know, type thing. And then even worse,

[00:23:52] after the phone disconnects and all that, it's still another 48 hours before he goes back home

[00:23:59] to discover her body. Like why after like, okay, I get it. You're not a true crime person. You're

[00:24:06] not a person who's easily spooked. Your spouse, you're talking on the phone with your spouse,

[00:24:12] their voice gets cut off and you're like, Oh, they're, you know, I'm not going to worry.

[00:24:17] I'm sorry. After another 12 hours, if me, I don't hear from my husband in 12 hours,

[00:24:24] I'm calling everybody and they mama around there like, yo, go check on him.

[00:24:28] Like I don't, that's where I was like very much side-eyed Lee. I don't think I definitely

[00:24:34] don't think he did it or anything like that. But like I was like, sir, it was 48 hours,

[00:24:40] right? It was like two another two days, right? Yeah. It was from 10 past seven on the Saturday night

[00:24:47] and he started driving home at eight 30 on the Monday morning. So yeah, so that's a good long

[00:24:53] time. Yeah. So he hadn't heard from her for an entire day. I mean, not like Sally from a couple

[00:24:59] of weeks ago, whose boyfriend 10 minutes, he's calling the police after 10 minutes,

[00:25:06] he's worried when she doesn't answer the phone. Lee, it's fine. She's gone out. She's somewhere,

[00:25:11] the phone, she hasn't charged the phone. I mean, he was now in Lee's defense, not that he needs me

[00:25:17] to defend him because he definitely didn't do it. What he was doing away was he was with his mother

[00:25:23] winding up his father's affairs and his father had died within the previous year.

[00:25:30] So I think he was distracted is not the word, but perhaps his attention was more on his mother

[00:25:36] and looking after her and making sure that she was getting through the process in the best way

[00:25:41] possible. So he also had a distraction. I still think Lee not hearing from her for the entire Sunday.

[00:25:48] He maybe should have set up a set off on Sunday afternoon to drive. But I think there are,

[00:25:53] you can see why he wouldn't and he has to live with that for the rest of his life.

[00:25:59] All right, listeners, let us know what you think we have three different theories there.

[00:27:02] Let's go to Pennsylvania in the year 2014. Episode three, The Severed Head, a 15-year-old boy finds an

[00:27:11] embalmed head in brush beside a road. Now this episode was directed by our friend, Skye Borgman.

[00:27:18] So I thought myself thinking, oh yes, I saw her fingerprints all over it. To me,

[00:27:23] this was the best of the three, but I might be biased because she directed it.

[00:27:28] Mark, start us off on The Severed Head. Where do you want to go?

[00:27:32] Oh my gosh, this one also so interesting. And I'm just going to jump forward in the storytelling

[00:27:39] a bit to the detail that made me go, what? So this teenage boy finds The Severed Head in like

[00:27:47] a responsible citizen he calls the cops and they quickly dismiss him as a potential suspect.

[00:27:52] And as they're investigating or examining the head, they discover that the eyeballs have been

[00:27:59] replaced with red rubber balls that you would get out of a vending machine at an arcade or some such

[00:28:08] thing. And that to me just says, organ black market. That's just I just don't know what

[00:28:15] else you could possibly think it is. There is a centuries long tradition, dark tradition of

[00:28:21] body parts scavenging and sales. It seems so obvious to me that that is what is going on.

[00:28:27] But one of the things that is so delicious about this episode is the fact that how could

[00:28:33] they possibly have misplaced a head on the side of the road? What in heaven's name

[00:28:39] could have allowed this to happen? Did they want to get caught? I don't know.

[00:28:43] Oh my gosh. So that's where I'll start.

[00:28:47] Yeah, but I don't want to say I don't want to talk through the whole episode,

[00:28:51] but that was the first thing they'd be go. Oh my gosh.

[00:28:54] Pick it up. Talk through the episode we'll jump in.

[00:28:57] So, Mari, what was for you something that jumped out in this particular tale?

[00:29:03] The moment that they said the 15 year old boy had a relationship not a relationship,

[00:29:09] but he knew the guy whose house overlooked where the head. The very stable, genius Jay.

[00:29:18] Yeah, the neighbor. Yes. Yes.

[00:29:25] And and and not only that, he knew that 15 year old boy and he was kind of like pushing that it

[00:29:30] was like, oh, the 15 year old boy, maybe he did this. Maybe he did this. Why would a 15 year

[00:29:34] old boy having a bombed head and then calling the police. And then you find out like him in

[00:29:39] the 15 year old boy had a falling out. You find out that the way the head was placed,

[00:29:44] you could see from Jay's house with it from a telescope. Yes.

[00:29:49] And like this whole backstory with Jay and the 15 year old boy.

[00:29:55] Yeah, we'll get into the rest, but it was like that was that was crazy to me too.

[00:30:02] This was this was this one was interesting. It was just so interesting because of all the theories.

[00:30:08] Sarah, I want to ask you what did you think about when they thought it was the woman from

[00:30:14] from the 1950s? I mean, so we've had the we've had the the artist has drawn a sketch and then

[00:30:21] she's gone ahead and made a 3D model. So we know perhaps what this this woman looked like.

[00:30:29] We find out that there is a body without a head in a crypt. Where's the head? They don't know.

[00:30:39] We see a photograph of the woman whose head is missing. Looks exactly like

[00:30:44] I thought, oh, all right. So I thought, okay, well, we've solved you it is.

[00:30:51] But the mystery is like how did her head get there? Not her. Our friends.

[00:30:57] Dentist again, the forensics. The forensic dentist says no that the imbarmed heads are imbarmed heads.

[00:31:05] T have work that post dated the death of our Italian woman in the crypt. So that to me was

[00:31:12] that shocker because a wonderful they're not red herrings because the investigators are really

[00:31:19] investigating and they get photographs of this woman. Mark, did it look exactly like the head?

[00:31:24] Oh, I like you just figured that the rest of the episode was going to be about going deeper into

[00:31:29] the satanic cult that cut off the head from the woman. But no. And then the other thing that

[00:31:37] I'm so glad you mentioned because okay, that that trail goes cold, but it's so interesting.

[00:31:41] And I feel like there could be an entire separate episode about whatever happened to that woman's

[00:31:45] head and the cult that they reference. When this guy Jay is in footage in the police station

[00:31:54] being interviewed, he so clearly has that revolting narcissistic energy that makes

[00:32:02] certain teenagers want to talk to certain adults. And you can I could at least absolutely

[00:32:08] understand how this 15 year old boy would be kind of drawn to the sinister confidence of someone

[00:32:15] like Jay. And Jay is the kind of person who is constantly collecting acolytes. And maybe one

[00:32:21] day the teenage boy had the audacity to suggest that Jay wasn't the smartest person in the world.

[00:32:26] So then Jay constructs an elaborate scheme to punish this kid. And I think personally

[00:32:34] that the whole thing with the head was actually part of Jay's twisted need to punish

[00:32:42] this boy who stopped worshiping him. I agree. I agree. I agree. Don't forget ginger though.

[00:32:50] When ginger popped up, I think the listeners if you haven't watched it, like stop listening to us

[00:32:54] and go and watch it. It's a really good episode again. Very good episode. But Jay we first meet

[00:33:00] him and we think oh yeah he's just the guy across the road. And then we see him again.

[00:33:04] And then we see him again. And then we have interviews with him from a reporter called

[00:33:08] Blake Morrison who is investigating the appropriated bodies market. And he really

[00:33:15] tells on himself he's like that evil genius villain who must have people know how brilliant he is.

[00:33:23] He doesn't want to confess but he wants to go right up to the edge. Now he had a

[00:33:30] love affair with a horse called Ginger. Not his horse. Didn't own the horse but it was his horse.

[00:33:39] And Ginger one day was stabbed apparently. But I mean if you look at the side note,

[00:33:46] if you look at the field and around and about where Ginger would go, it's pretty

[00:33:50] dilapidated. There's barbed wire fences that are down. Horses run into things. Horses aren't

[00:33:58] everybody. And could easily run into something. Mr. Ed was just a TV show after a while. Mr. Ed

[00:34:02] was eating peanut butter so he decides that the 15 year old boy with whom he's had the falling out.

[00:34:08] And I mean it was so extreme. I told him never to set foot on my property ever again.

[00:34:14] This is not balanced. You say okay look I think you know our relationship has gone

[00:34:18] as far as it should. I wish you well but let's not see each other anymore is a much more

[00:34:23] you know balanced way of doing it but no he was banned. And then Ginger gets stabbed,

[00:34:30] lives a few days and dies and Jay convinces himself that the 15 year old boy did it.

[00:34:35] And also am I forgive me if I'm misremembering, if I'm mixing up my episodes but doesn't he

[00:34:40] also have a deep freezer in his basement? Yeah so it's also very clear that the body

[00:34:46] freeze dry dog Jackie in the fridge. Oh my god. So it's very obvious that whoever this poor woman was

[00:34:54] she's in the freezer and I think that he's got like a crazy side hustle selling organs.

[00:35:01] And I just think it just is almost immaterial to the thing that caused him to reveal to put

[00:35:08] the head on the ground. It's just like that's the easiest way that I have to get back at you

[00:35:12] to dip into my freezer full of body parts that I'm somehow selling. And I think that when someone

[00:35:19] gets to that level of self-aggrandized thinking they don't perceive anything they do as possibly

[00:35:27] being wrong because they have been slighted and anything they do to fix the slight is acceptable.

[00:35:32] Yes and I so my also theory for that is what we didn't talk about was because the head

[00:35:40] is embalmed it's like impossible to get DNA from it. Like they cannot get a DNA from it in order

[00:35:47] to do a DNA match right? So my theory is I think that is the head of the lady from the 1950s

[00:35:58] and I think he sold the head to people who are training in dentistry. I think that explains

[00:36:08] why the dental work is newer and then when the dental people are done with it he's like

[00:36:16] hey can I get a head back? And they're like sure because also they probably were working on removing

[00:36:21] the eyes you know practicing on all that you know and then they're like cool yeah here you can

[00:36:26] have your head back that you sold us or whatever so he could he was probably going to try and

[00:36:30] resell it to somebody else for something else. But then he was like no I'm going to use it to

[00:36:33] teach this 15 year old boy a lesson. Mary I love it absolutely. It looked too much like her

[00:36:41] for it not to be her. Listeners I came up out of my chair when Marisa said that. That is some Sherlock

[00:36:48] Holmes. Yes I'm telling you yes I do think where I would quibble would be that I don't think he

[00:36:55] is the original owner of the head. We do speak to Blake Morrison now Blake Morrison

[00:37:00] is a reporter who was looking into this body trade and what happens is bodies get traded they go to

[00:37:09] conference rooms at hotels. Don't have your wedding there and people are trained on these bodies

[00:37:16] and then apparently the bodies are discarded perhaps in a dumpster so either he got the discarded

[00:37:24] head or he purchased it it's only $500 he probably had $500 and then he put it in his freezer with his

[00:37:31] freeze drive dog Jackie. So I think he just happened to have the head because he's that kind of person

[00:37:39] and Blake does tell us that Jay seemed to know a lot about the body trade. Yes Blake who'd been

[00:37:47] you know reporting on it for a number of years was surprised at the depth of his knowledge

[00:37:50] now from what we've been saying about Jay you would understand that of course Jay wanted to

[00:37:55] show off his knowledge to Blake you're not the expert I'm the expert so yes I didn't

[00:38:02] I didn't think about the teeth but I thought he's bought that head or somehow come across the head

[00:38:07] put it in the freezer because he's that guy just like oh have that see what happens

[00:38:11] then he uses it to punish the 15 year old. I didn't take that extra step Mario that you have

[00:38:17] taken which I didn't even think that it could be Teresa our woman from the 50s but you have

[00:38:24] absolutely cracked that incredible mark you were jumping out of your chair. This conversation has

[00:38:31] opened up my mind to realize I've been watching Unsolved Mysteries in the wrong way because

[00:38:36] I've been watching it alone and clearly Unsolved Mysteries should be watched in a group because

[00:38:43] the wheelchair quarterbacking is making it so much more enjoyable so if ever there was a show to break

[00:38:49] us out of our isolated era it's Unsolved Mysteries come together people come together. Yes yes

[00:38:55] love it all right let's get to episode four the last one we're going to discuss today

[00:39:02] Murder Center stage in 1977 Trenton State College in New Jersey Sigrid Stevenson or some

[00:39:10] people call her Sigrid which is very strange you know Sigrid Stevenson is found dead in a pool of blood

[00:39:17] it's the pool of blood series the side of piano on stage at the college's theater

[00:39:24] that this strike a fear into your musical theater heart mark. Well this was my favorite episode of

[00:39:31] the three although I did actually like all three of them quite a bit because I have

[00:39:35] because I spent so much time in musical theater on stages you know as you just as you just mentioned

[00:39:41] Sarah I went to theater school twice both for an undergraduate and a graduate degree

[00:39:46] and it just was not hard to imagine what it would be like to be opening up a theater

[00:39:53] turning on all the lights and then this happens also just again the build in this episode I

[00:39:59] found very satisfying as they start layering in who could it be is it the creepy guy who just

[00:40:05] finished doing the show is it the creepy cop who bought all these handcuffs I mean they're just

[00:40:10] they do a really good job of obfuscating everything but giving you just enough to

[00:40:16] feel like you can almost clear everything up it's so good and I will say this episode obviously

[00:40:24] because they know so much more about the victim than the severed head but I think this

[00:40:28] episode does a great job of making cigarette feel like a real person and one of the things that's true

[00:40:35] is that she was living in the theater kind of squatting there and keeping a journal

[00:40:41] and it allows us to get to understand her as a person and I just think my heart ached for her

[00:40:48] in a way and they really did a good job of articulating more of who she was inside of

[00:40:54] this 45-minute episode and I found it I found myself thinking about cigarette a lot

[00:41:01] in the days that followed watching this episode so I was really quite taken with it.

[00:41:06] Mary we get the campus cop who found her Thomas Cacotl Joe he is with us he cries at the end

[00:41:14] he says hello to her every morning which is amazing 1977 to now but most of the investigation

[00:41:21] we're looking at are the cold case investigators who are going back over the original

[00:41:26] police investigation finding it slightly wanting what did you think of these two

[00:41:31] cold case investigators and their attempts to solve it? I mean it's just like kind of an uphill

[00:41:38] battle when you have these cold cases that are from the 70s you know if DNA isn't preserved

[00:41:45] they can't do anything about the DNA then and there so you know they have to

[00:41:50] to try and do their job without that and then you if it's not preserved we can't

[00:41:56] figure it out today so I mean on a small college campus you have campus police

[00:42:04] and you have regular police trying to solve a murder on a theater stage are we really surprised

[00:42:09] that this ends up unsolved I'm not and I don't think it's sinister even though a lot of the

[00:42:16] main suspects are like campus police I just kind of think it might have been like

[00:42:23] like a bumbling you know more than maybe a cover-up but you know who knows. Yeah I didn't

[00:42:30] get the feeling it was a cover-up I just got the feeling it was a quite a disorganized

[00:42:35] investigation let's put it like that because when Thomas calls in for backup he said first of all

[00:42:42] there's dead silence because they've never heard such a call before and the next thing every cop

[00:42:48] that's on duty is tramping all over the theater so I think it's more that we know it's a sexual

[00:42:55] assault because the marvelous doctor Rafat Ahmad talks about the sperms that she wasn't able to

[00:43:04] do much with them because they were just heads I didn't know sperms had heads she also says panties

[00:43:11] it's like yeah Rafat please don't say panties but there was some very very interesting talking

[00:43:18] heads I would say in this one so she has ligature marks which suggest handcuffs because they're

[00:43:25] very even and she's been beaten unfortunately very very savagely with a blunt object for example

[00:43:33] a baseball bat or a policeman's baton so we go oh well clearly clearly it's one of the campus police

[00:43:39] officers one of them came in when he was non-duty definitely that then we find out about the actor

[00:43:45] Chuck who was in the play and he played a police officer and he had a baton and handcuffs

[00:43:53] which weren't tested for blood mark come on I 100 think it was Chuck I just have

[00:44:02] worked in the theater enough to know that this type of person is drawn to enacting characters who possess

[00:44:11] authority and I strongly believe that he also has the rakeish magnetism of an actor which would

[00:44:20] make a young woman want to talk to him and the next thing you know that has become the

[00:44:27] horrible trap that she finds herself in now I say this having watched one Roman numeral one

[00:44:32] episode of unsolved mysteries about this case but again my bias my confirmation bias here is just

[00:44:39] knowing the type of bad actor quote unquote that you can find in the theater world and taken to

[00:44:47] an extreme I can absolutely see how this could happen yeah yes Scott Napolitano is with

[00:44:55] us throughout he's a writer and researcher as he says he's not a true crime investigator but gee

[00:44:59] he's done extremely well putting this together he did it he did a thesis film about it when he was

[00:45:05] at college he says that he put out on message boards about this case he gets a message back

[00:45:12] saying I think I dated him in the 80s he said he'd killed before and could do it again and

[00:45:17] then we meet this woman Susie Banks Chuck was her ex he was abusive and as he abused her he

[00:45:24] said I could kill you and get away with it I've done it before how is it not Chuck

[00:45:32] um the DNA right didn't the DNA didn't match are they couldn't partial DNA

[00:45:39] the partial DNA didn't match but but it's a dig I mean surely it's a degraded sample

[00:45:44] Mario no more than us I mean yeah yeah uh yeah tux brother provided a sample but that's right

[00:45:53] um it's one of those things it's like how how how can we how can we figure it out now Chuck's dead

[00:46:03] they they moved on to the to maintenance workers right and also the guy that ran the lightboard

[00:46:09] or something my thought process here is there's too many suspects because she was such a vulnerable

[00:46:16] victim um this is what happens when like unhoused with unhoused people and how like unhoused people

[00:46:22] are like more however many times more likely to be assaulted and murdered it's like she

[00:46:29] she had to stay in the theater she had a like you know a squat in the green room and stuff

[00:46:36] like that it put her in harm's way and in danger by so many people who are interacting with her

[00:46:42] and Chuck being the an actor on there and and playing a police officer like like like you said

[00:46:50] mark his rakeish charms could have pulled her in but honestly I could see the maintenance worker

[00:46:55] oh let me you know let I'll let you in but you gotta do something for me you know what I'm saying

[00:47:00] I can see the lightning guy like it's just so many um it's just so many suspects that

[00:47:07] you could tell me any one of them could do it and I'd be like that makes sense to me so this is

[00:47:13] to me is a mystery and I almost thought this was gonna be a ghost story I almost I almost turned

[00:47:18] it off I was like this is a ghost story I don't want a ghost story the haunted theater yes yeah

[00:47:24] yeah well all theaters are haunted I mean it was interesting mark can you probably notice this too

[00:47:29] as she talks so she in her diary she writes you know it's whatever it is 11 30 and soon all

[00:47:33] the lights will be out and I'll be in complete darkness and Thomas sort of worries about her

[00:47:38] being in complete darkness but as we know there's always a ghost light on on the stage which is

[00:47:42] why she might have been on the stage that was my thought if listeners don't know what a ghost light

[00:47:47] is every theater has a light on on stage it's like a it's a lamp it's not a it's not a theatrical

[00:47:54] light uh for the ghosts but also it does mean that that our theater is never fully dark

[00:48:00] and so that was my thought about why she was on the stage and also why whoever did this to her

[00:48:08] was drawn there either knowing she was there or seeing the light and going to see

[00:48:14] where the music was coming from she was playing the piano so do you think oh you oh you think

[00:48:19] she was playing the piano yeah okay not sitting in that folding folding chair by the way reenactors

[00:48:27] had folding chair in front of the piano but other than that other than that I thought all

[00:48:31] the reenactments were perfectly good uh and I think Mark you're right we know we feel like we know

[00:48:38] we feel like we know Sigrid a little more and one of them is we keep following a young woman with

[00:48:43] a bounce in her step and a jaunty scarf on her head from behind sort of moving about the

[00:48:48] theater and it's like you know it's not her but you do you do form an attachment yeah I'm

[00:48:54] learning so much stuff about the theater right now well you don't sit in a folding chair to play

[00:49:00] the piano you're at the wrong height you will hurt yourself I think this is so funny that like my

[00:49:06] favorite episode is episode one with the blood stains Sarah's favorite episode is episode two with the

[00:49:11] the severed head and Mark's favorite is episode three a little something for everyone yeah exactly

[00:49:18] look exactly and then if you like cryptids uh the mothman is very well done

[00:49:24] and if you don't know anything about Jack the Ripper at all then the first episode is good

[00:49:31] if you even know anything slightly then then no it's not for you it's annoying

[00:49:35] all right well I actually thought oh no Mark oh my god what have you chosen but apparently

[00:49:42] I was the only one foolish enough to watch that episode I'm a completionist

[00:49:46] Mark how many magnifying glasses are you going to rate unsolved mysteries volume four episodes two

[00:49:53] three and four out of a possible five I have to say I've gone up a half a magnifying glass because of

[00:50:00] the way that we have been able to talk about it and my realization that these shows work so well

[00:50:06] as conversation starters so I'm giving them four magnifying glasses such entertainment yeah

[00:50:14] highest your highest rating ever that's right it's actually not hard give given the other stuff

[00:50:20] I have new magnifying glasses for these three episodes oh I'm on the same wavelength as Mark

[00:50:30] I was I'm giving it a four um if it's just these three episodes I did find them really well done

[00:50:37] and well put together way better than a lot of the other unsolved mysteries like I've seen like this is

[00:50:45] this is the fourth season I have watched at least one episode from like each of the seasons because

[00:50:51] I skip around but these are probably the better ones um for me this is kind of up there with

[00:50:57] the unsolved mystery with the guy who um the former like uh official that was like seen wandering

[00:51:03] the city and then just vanished and fell into a hole yeah yeah they found them in like a junkyard

[00:51:12] right like yes exactly like like that what four years on that's the only one that has really stuck

[00:51:21] with me over the years so I think these these ones are gonna definitely stick with me so

[00:51:28] I'm gonna I'm gonna give it all I'm gonna give them a four how about you Sarah

[00:51:32] I probably came in at three and a half but I was taking episode one and five into consideration

[00:51:40] and dropping those out of consideration and due to our discussion and Marie solving the head

[00:51:46] certainly the the identity head I am going to join you in a magnificent four

[00:51:53] and Mark will you return to talk about volume five with us oh my gosh yes I also want to start a band

[00:52:01] with you Marie called Marie solves the head oh god yeah that is good though that is good

[00:52:12] Mark what do you have to recommend to our listeners what have you been reading watching

[00:52:15] or listening to lately well keeping with the theme of forensic anthropology I just a few days ago

[00:52:22] finished a book called written in bone hidden stories in what we leave behind written by Sue Black

[00:52:29] a Scottish forensic anthropologist and she takes us through chapter by chapter all of the bones in

[00:52:35] the human body starting at the top of the head and going all the way to the bottom of the feet

[00:52:39] and in each chapter as she discusses each bone she also talks about a crime that she had to work

[00:52:45] in which each of the bones she's mentioning was crucial in understanding what had happened

[00:52:50] so you get both science and true crime in the book and you learn so much about what each of the

[00:52:56] bones can tell you just from a biological perspective and then she shows you exactly how

[00:53:02] that information can be used in the pursuit of justice it's great great book that's I'm

[00:53:08] getting it from the library immediately and Marie what about you do you have a recommendation

[00:53:13] um yeah I think I mentioned this a few weeks ago I had started reading the silent patient

[00:53:19] by Alex Mclady's um I finished it I thought it was very interesting I would love to hear

[00:53:27] the audience's thoughts on that book a lot of people said that they liked how it started

[00:53:34] and they wanted how it started and they wanted me to uh my thoughts on the ending I am not

[00:53:39] going to spoil it here unless you know we get a lot of people be like sorry we want to know

[00:53:43] tell us tell us but it's one of those books that it should remain spoiler free if you are going to

[00:53:51] read it so um and I recommend it I did I did enjoy the the journey I did enjoy the journey

[00:53:59] I'll say that all right if you want to know more you can uh you could add me at at

[00:54:05] marie talks too much to like the number two and maybe we'll maybe we'll talk about in the dm

[00:54:10] so that we don't have to spoil it for other people but uh that would be my recommendation what about you

[00:54:15] sarah yes I have a couple so coincidentally I was in the middle of reading the five the untold lives

[00:54:22] of the women killed by jack the ripper by Hallie Rubenhold it's absolutely terrific uh because it

[00:54:30] does tell you things that you don't know it's the sociological as much as as anything else

[00:54:35] and for those who aren't ripper or just five is the canonical number of his victims they may well be

[00:54:44] more uh and over at rolling stone alan seppenwall has an article about homicide life on the streets

[00:54:52] with his 10 episodes to watch right now uh because it's now all available you can jump in on peacock

[00:54:58] and watch it so any homicide life on the streets for me is delicious but I'm now working my way

[00:55:05] through his list and I recommend you do the same he hasn't missed yet uh we'll put a link in the show

[00:55:10] notes so whether you're an old fan of the show or you've never seen it I say it's a must watch

[00:55:16] if you're missing andre brow and whoever this is not this is a real bum for our souls

[00:55:22] and you get to ask the question was richard belzer ever young

[00:55:31] at crime scene we're eager to hear your feedback and suggestions for future episodes

[00:55:35] you can follow crime scene on twitter at crime scene rhap that's s e en or email us at crime

[00:55:41] scene rhap at gmail dot com we're on tiktok at crime dot scene and all other social media at crime

[00:55:48] scene podcast and please remember to subscribe to our feed by going to rob has a website dot com

[00:55:53] slash crime feed it makes a big difference sure does so mark what do you have going on and

[00:56:01] where can the people find you well the best place to find me is at the lost songs project a

[00:56:09] sub stack newsletter in which I am excavating top 10 hits that have fewer than 10 million streams on

[00:56:15] spotify examining them thinking about what made them popular then what makes them interesting now

[00:56:21] and hopefully reminding people of hits they used to love or introducing them to songs they never

[00:56:25] do in the first place you can find that at lost songs dot sub stack dot com

[00:56:32] right and mary what about you what's going on in marieland

[00:56:37] well the best place you can find me right now like i said is on twitter at mary talks too much

[00:56:43] on there i'm talking about all things big brother i'm covering big brother for rhap so if you are

[00:56:50] fan of reality tv and a big brother and you want to know when i'll be doing my uh coverage of big

[00:56:56] brother 26 with rhap just make sure you're following me on twitter and i normally will tweet that out

[00:57:01] of course over on the recap kickback me and chappelle are covering shows in the only way

[00:57:06] that we can so spooky season is right around the corner uh so we will be doing some extra

[00:57:15] special coverage during the month of october i'm looking at like black horror movies horror

[00:57:21] movies in general we're going to have some great guests like horror movie enthusiasts guests over

[00:57:26] on the recap kickback so go to recapkickback.com in order to subscribe or definitely go and watch

[00:57:33] our video podcast by going to youtube.com slash at recap kickback sarah what about you where can

[00:57:39] the people find you well the people can find me at sarah caradine on all the things if that's

[00:57:44] something they would like to do you can find me over on silent podcast international andabel fiddler

[00:57:50] and i will be bringing you the amazing race australia celebrity edition the second iteration of that

[00:57:56] as sam smith and i are bringing you dutch courage yes we're going back to the beginning

[00:58:00] and talking about devaradas the original season of the traitors from the netherlands

[00:58:06] marie what are we watching next week next time on crime scene we're covering killer lies

[00:58:11] chasing a true crime con man with serady bunting watch it on hulu and send us your comments and

[00:58:20] questions thanks to mark blankenship for joining us well from america for the theme music and the