INFAMOUS: The Lipstick Killer from Chicago
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High crime junkie, i'm your host ashly flowers, and i'm bringing you another throw back that happened only a few hours. Northwest of my home in inDiana is a city I absolutely love china. I feel like britten.

I maybe should make a little trip out there sometime soon, every little girls weekend with our crime junkets. But chicago isn't just home to incredible food and sports and tourists and shopping, whatever. IT is actually home to one of the cases that continues to bath for me, even all these years later.

So let's go back to twenty twenty, when I first told this story, high crime junkie, i'm your host, ashly flowers and i'm bread. And the story I wanna tell you today is one of those cases that sounds so simple on the surface, three brutal murders, once statistics killer, open and shut. But as soon as I really started researching the story, IT got way more complex than I ever expected.

Because as you're about to find out, nothing is quite what IT seems. And sometimes getting answers only leads to more questions. This is the story of William herrets, the man most people have dubbed phillip stick colour.

On january six, one thousand nine forty six, the dignity family was settling in for a nice sunday evening in their split level home on chicago s north side jim and hell's two daughters, Betty, whose ten, and Susan, whose six, both had been enjoying their winter break from school. But like all good things, Christmas vacation had come to an end, and the girls have to go back to school tomorrow.

So jim and HEllen put their daughters to bed at a reasonable hour so that we well rested for classes. They tuck them in, kiss them good night, and leave them with one final wish of sweet dreams. Now, at some point during the night, jim here, suzann, get up once and go to the bathroom, but he goes right back to bed, goes to sleep with no difficulty.

The next morning, jim goes to wake the girls up for school. Betty gets up easily and comes for breakfast. But jim noticed something a little strange.

Suzie's bedroom door is closed. Now six years old, she's hardly a baby anymore, but she's afraid of the dark. And according to an article I read on crime library, SHE always sleeps with the door open.

Jim goes inside to make sure she's awake, but instead of finding his Youngest daughter, he finds her empty bed and her bedroom window is open instantly. Jim is flooded with panic. He grabs Helen and Betty, and together they all start searching the house, looking everywhere for Susan and hoping that maybe she's just trying to avoid going back to school after break.

But as the search goes on, they get more and more frantic, calling her name and looking anywhere that could be a hiding place, even out in the fire escape. But Susan's not there. The dignes turned the upstairs neighbors the blinds for help.

But Susann isn't up at the flinn's either. And now they're faced with their worst nightmare. Their little girl is truly missing the dignity called the police. And by ten A M. That morning, their house is swarming with officers searching for little susiana.

Detectives start in her bedroom as their ground zero, looking for clues when one of them notices a piece of tissue paper at laying on the ground. At first he thinks it's just a scrap of trash, but then he sees, no, this isn't just a tissue. It's a ransom note in here. Brad, i'm going to have you read this for me. The spelling is a little weird, but I think you can get the gist.

okay? The note says, get twenty thousand dollars ready and wait for word, do not notify FBI police bills in fives intense burners for her safety. We are the dignity of wealthy family. You mentioned earlier that they lived in us with level with another family. Like do they have like twenty grand lying around?

They don't. So Helens to stay at home, mom and jims a government worker in the office of Price administration. So they're not rolling in.

Do what the office of Price administration .

I actually had to look at up um from what I understand IT was an agency set up to keep Prices stable during world war two. So the O P A also worked with rationing food. And at the time of our story there was a national mepc er strike going on.

So O P A employees, these aren't like exactly popular people during this time. But all that's to say, no jim doesn't make a lot of money. But because of his job, police are wondering, IT may be revenge, could be a motive, not the money. Now, the ransom note doesn't give away who the kidnapper is in the text, but police have a theory that they can possibly get prints off of IT. If they send IT to the FBI.

why don't they just do IT themselves?

Well, I guess at the time, they said that they didn't have the right technology to do that, so they had descended off. So please send the note up to dc, hoping for a breakthrough while the police and the dignes wait to hear back from washington. The search back in chicago continues all through the day.

On january seven, the police keep up their search for any trace of who could have snatched Susana and where he might be, even though the dignes live on the first four of the house, Susan an's bedroom window is still high enough that her kidnap couldn't have just client inside her window without any help and shit up. According to the bolt mr. Evening sun, police find a seven foot latter in the backyard, which they believe could have been used to scale the house and polls Susan from her bed.

So the latter wasn't like up against her window anything. Well.

so here's the thing i'm actually not totally sure, because different articles I read from back in one thousand forty six have different information about where exactly they found IT. So the atlantic constitution says that he was up against the window to her bedroom and that neighbors had seen IT before in an ali near the house.

So I can't be exactly sure where the laughter was found, but wherever was found was obviously close enough to indicate to the officers that I was somehow used in the kidnapping. So now between the latter and the note, there is no doubt that we are looking for a kidnapper and police start canvassing the surrounding area to see if anyone was a witness to what happened. A woman named ethel, who lives and works as a made for the flint family upstairs, tells police that SHE actually heard the family dog barking between one thirty in the morning and two o'clock that morning.

And SHE heard at the same time Susan's boy saying, but i'm sleepy. Well, etl says he hears Susan an another witness, a guy named George says he may have seen the kidnapper. He tells police he saw a man in the area at about one A M Carrying a shopping bag.

George says this man looked to be about thirty five years old, about five, nine, wearing a feda and an overcoat, but he didn't know the man or couldn't recognize him as anyone that he's like had any kind of interactions with. So as the day creeped by organizing ly slow, police continue to search for Susann, jim and Helen wait, hoping and praying with every fiber of their being that their little girl will come home safe and sound. But instead, around seven P.

M, that night, after the sun goes down, they get the worst possible news image, able, in a sewer catch basin less than a block away from the family home. Police have found Susan's had over the course of that night, the police keep searching the sewer system in the dignes neighborhood and make even more grazy y discoveries. They find Susan's legs and lower torso separately, around ten P.

M and finally around midnight, wrapped in fifty pounds sugar bag and dumped in a gutton police fine Susan upper body, though there's no sign of her arms. Keep in mind, this is early nineteen, nineteen forty six. So the number trials of nazi war criminals are going on, and the public are well used to appalling stories from the and crimes against humanity that rival what was done to Susan.

But those who seems all happened overseas far away, making IT easier to pretend that it'll never happen here and certainly wouldn't happen to a child. And yet here IT is right in their own, a peaceful, well to do neighborhood. And the media jumps on IT right from the start.

Police are under tremendous pressure to catch the killer, and they act accordingly, while the hard, broken dignity family waits for answers. This should go police, keep up the relentingly search to find out more about what happened to suzann. The city's medical examiner determines that SHE was strangled to death shortly after being abducted and that the dismemberment took place after Susana was already deceased.

Okay, but that's not something the person can just do in public, even if it's super early in the morning, you would kind of need a place away from everybody, even if they are just sleeping. I hate saying this, but like, do the world?

No, totally. I mean, that's the number one thing. Please are trying to find the guise I mean workshop or whatever went to call IT because they believe that if they can find where this took place, IT will lead them to who did this.

So they start going door to door throughout the neighborhood. And according to the pitch burgs on telegraph, they're down in the basement laundry room of an apartment building a few blocks from where suzann lived, looking for clues when they find traces of horr in the wash bands. There is blood, bone fragments, blond hair just like Susan's, and even bits, a flesh that the killer failed to totally wash away.

There's also a large haxo in some bloodstained rags. And so police are sure that this is the place they're looking for, and they're also sure that they have their killer, a sixty five old belgian immigrant name, hector, the building's janner, who has a key to the basement and access to the whole building. Now, despite hecker having an alii, police arrest him on the spot, and they spend the next forty eight hours trying to violently covers a confession out of him.

So IT doesn't work. And eventually they released him without ever filing charges. Now, when I say they tried to violently coerce a confession from him, i'm not talking mental torture alone. Hector had been so badly beaten that he goes right to the hospital, leaving police with a twenty thousand dollar fee after he sues for damages.

Even after the hector fiasco, the chicago police spent the rest of january making arrests, performing shadie interrogations and continuing their investigation, while the media frenzy gets stronger and stronger every time they make a new arrest. The states attorney close to the media, this is the one we promise we get in this time, and we did. But then he would basically have to eat his words when the suspect is released.

And the lead ends of going nowhere mean this happened over and over again. Now, around this time, this is my january. Mind you, the FBI comes back with two prints that they were able to pull from the ransom m note, but the prince don't seem to match any of their previously identified suspects.

Then in late february, they get what feels like another huge break. Suzanne's arms are found by a pair of utility workers in a sewer three blocks away from the deadman's house. The chicago tribune reported that there was evidence to show that the arms were put in the sures later, since they were Better preserved and less discolor than they would have been if theyve been out there since jan, very seven, when he went missing, despite what felt like big breaks.

In a case, the fingerprints, the rest of suzann, these leads don't bring the police any closer to a culprit. But the corners physician tells the chicago tribune, whoever dismembered her body knew what they were doing. And the decanter daily review describes Susan's killer as a, quote, expert carver, because whoever dismembered her body didn't damage her joints in the process.

So someone who would be like, familiar with how the body works, where the joints are, like a doctor, maybe.

Well, I mean, I guess that's what they're thinking. But from everything I can tell, there were no people on their radar who fit into this box soly because of their professional like again, no doctors, pathologists or whatever. So it's helpful to know, but ultimately probably wouldn't be useful until they found the right guy.

But there was no right guy to even look at. By june of one thousand forty six, the case is all but called until a hot summer day when an unlikely suspect turns the case upside down. On june twenty six, almost six months after Susan was murdered, police spot a Young man trying to break into a house.

The man tries to run, he aims a gun at police, threatened to shoot, but he's not unconscious after a couple of flower pots drop on his head, police learned that this Young man is seventeen year old William hirings. And when they take a beat after the dust settles, they realize that there was something interesting about this arrest. That apartment they caught him trying to break into was just blocks away from where suzann was taken and killed. That's when they're short. There has to be a connection here.

Wait there, that convinced just because they found the sky in the same neighbor. D, but that seems really fragile for connection. Like to jump straight to this person was here. He must have killed and dismember red, a little girl.

what? No, on its own totally. But remember the fingerprints that the FBI got off.

The ransom note found enthusiasm, bedroom. Well, police take Williams fingerprints once he's in custody. And they find what they say is match.

And that is what has them, convinced that they have the right guy. Plus, the more they look at William, the more they realize they didn't arrest a quired boy at only seventeen years old. William doesn't match the witness description of a thirty five old mean.

But since witnesses memories aren't always totally accurate, police don't think too much of the age difference, especially not when they learn Williams history. IT turns out that Williams got a pretty extensive criminal record already, starting with an arrest when he was just thirteen years old, and later getting sentenced for over ten counts of burglary. And according to adam hig bottom G. Q magazine, Williams done time at reform schools in both illini and inDiana before returning to chicago for college.

So at the time of his arrest, William of student at the university of chicago so police uri to searches dorm room, and what they find is shocking for the time, in addition to loot from his burglary career like jewelery war bonds, there's a scrap book with photos of nasty soldiers, philosophy books by na doctor hana stones, a marriage manual, a practical guide to sex and marriage. He also had a copy of psychopathic sexual is, which is one of the first modern sexual pathology guides, and goes into all sorts of about various sexual practices and devane. But most disturbing of all, police also find a set of surgical tools, including a sculpt, armed with the evidence from Williams room investigators to begin their interrogation.

And the chicago media lapses that right up every detail, cells, gobs of newspapers, and keeps the friendly going. And IT only gets more intense when police announce out of nowhere that William is not only under arrest for the murder of the Susan, but they have also linked him to not one, but two more unsolved murder in the area. Oh my god. So they think .

that they have a zero killer on their hands, possibly.

So here's the thing. In nineteen forty five, there were these to really ugly murders that had never been solved from the june before Susan is murder. There was a middle aged single mother named Joseph e.

Ross who was stabbed to death in her apartment on the north of chicago around ten thirty and morning. And he was found on her bed with a dress wrapped around her head and tape over the wounds on her neck. SHE lived with her two teenage daughters, one of whom found her body when he had come home for lunch, even though police had some leads.

In this case there was like this potential boyfriend. And a man Josephine daughter said, was colton cope attentive? The case was ice called by december, but then in december, another woman was found murdered nearby.

The second victim was a Young woman named Francis Brown, who had just gotten back from serving in the women's branch of the navy, which was known as the waves. Now, SHE was stabbed and shot in her apartment while her rooming was gone overnight. Just like Joseph in her head was also rapped in her own, her body was found slumped over in her bathtub, and the butcher knife used to stab her was still embedded in her neck. As shocking as that is, IT gets even more unusual for police because the killer left a note on the living room wall. And here I want you to read IT for me.

For heaven sake, catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself.

And that note was written in red lipstick. So this is when the press coins the name lipstick ler back in december, and it's stuck even after Francis case went called. So now IT looks like police may finally have the infamous lipstick killer in their hands because they match Williams fingerprints to a bloody print that was found in Francis brow's apartment.

Now there's not a huge amount of stuff that I could find linking William to Josephine ross. But since her murder was so similar to franti sis, police think that IT had to have been the same killer. So he's almost connected by association while he's in custody.

Police have William do a handwriting test to compare his handwriting to the ransom note from Susan's room. And the lipstick note on Frances is well. And here's what's really interesting.

His sample has the same misspelling as the ransom note, where safety, which is Normally spell S A F E T Y, is written as safety S A F T Y no e and weight was written as W A I T E. So to police with the same, like miss spellings in each know, this is even more proof of his guilt. And all along, as i'm sure you can imagine, this is like catnip for the media.

And since is the era of giant headlines, every new revelation is splashed on the front page, story is everywhere, and the media covered drives public opinion. Public opinion, in turn, drives votes, which drives elections in public funding. And you can see how the pressure on chicago police and all the state's attorney would get out of control really fast.

Even Williams's owned defense lawyers are so horrified by the crimes and the pressure to solve them that they're starting to have their own questions about their client. IT doesn't help that Williams s behavior deteriorates after several days in police custody. For the first few days, he won't confess to any of the murders, but after several days of hard questioning, he's injected with sodium pentafour A K A trusera. After the injection, he reveals an alter ego named George merman, who, according to the papers all over the country, William claims, is responsible for the murders.

Wait, just let me sort this earthquake. So Williams, in jail, he's not confessing to anything. They are. Give him the truth serum and he's like, I didn't do IT my alter ego.

George man did exactly, at least that was being reported in the papers. Reporters sees on this whole George muran thing and decide that mirman sounds a lot like murder man and murder mayon. Irans dominates the headlines.

I mean, the heck of a story, right? IT. It's like doctor jackal, this harmless, petty, getting good grades in studying for college degree. And then mr. Height is this killer alter ego.

Totally due to the crazy details and the horrific nature of the killings, this whole thing explodes into a media sensation and is really one of the first, like, highly covered cases in the country after the end of the war. Now here's where the timelines starts to get a little unclear. Despite the reports about George mermen and Williams code confession by my july, the state's attorney of illinois is still denied that William has actually confessed to anything.

And I don't know exactly where or when the George merman story originated, and the earliest mentioned I could find was on july first, nineteen forty six, but the papers in chicago and all over the country picked up the story and ran with IT, like IT was a hundred percent fact. Fact and fiction only get messier on july sixteen th, when the chicago tribune runs a huge story, all about William committing the crimes with the headlines, how high winds slew three. The story walks police and the public through Williams s mindset, along every step of his gruesome exploits that LED to the three, and the public just eats IT up.

The problem is it's totally fake, like the author sites uncompetitive sources as his main sources, and get super imaginative about what he assumes William was thinking, breaching all kinds of journalistic ethics in the process because, I mean, I think the general rules, you can make stuff up about real people like it's liable and IT doesn't even matter that at the end of the peace the states attorney again says William hasn't confessed. But of course, that last line is not what people pick up on that same day that this rAngel's sixteen, the witness from outside the dignity house, identifies William as the person they saw that night, Susan was murdered. Between the tribune article and the positive I D, the public is whipped into a friendly and they're screaming for Williams head.

This sounds like it's like the nineteen forties version of like oj or jump. Rem z, like everyone is obsessed that it's everywhere.

all the time you got. Now, I agree, I think that's a great comparison. The entire city was on edge, waiting to find out what's gonna happen next. I think parents were locking their doors and windows now, afraid that another buggy man like William is going to come stature their children.

But finally, on August seventh, one thousand nine hundred and forty six, the clouds lipped when William confesses to all three murders, the windsor star publishes pictures of police actually taking him down to the basement where Susann was dismembered. And even though he says he doesn't remember actually cutting up her body or putting the part in the sewer, he reenact every step of his killing spray for them as crowds gathered to watch, leading little doubt and observers minds that this is the murderer. Heavily encouraged by his lawyers to accept full ownership and responsibility, William also takes a guilty plea in addition to confessing to the murders and in exchange for avoiding the death penalty, he's given three consecutive life sentences, one for each victim to be served back to back.

So that should be alright. Crimes are solved, killers behind bars where he'll never hurt anyone again, and now everyone can get back to their lives. Except it's not that simple.

Even though he's confessed and plead guilty, William almost immediately recent, and from then on, adamites maintains his innocence. And for those who took the time to reexamine the case, stunning new revelations began to come to light over the years. And a surprising question started getting asked, what if Williams telling the truth? Is there any chance the lip stickler could actually be an innocent man?

Almost from the moment William is incarcerated, ted, after his guilty plea in the fall of one thousand nine forty six, is handful of supporters start looking through the evidence against him. And their findings over the next few decades raised some really questions I want to take you through a piece by piece and see what you think. So first there is the handwriting.

We have the lipstick message scrawler on Francis brow's wall in the ransom note left in thusia's bedroom. While police are adamant that Williams handwriting is a match to both samples, I found an article in the chicago tribune from january to all the way back in nineteen forty six, like right around the time this happened, that ran with the headline handwriting expert doubts murder of x wave su child. So it's a little confusing, but like I mentioned before, a wave was the woman's branch of the navy.

Dn role par two inferences had been in the navy. So he was the x way that the headlines were talking about. So in other words, long before William was ever even arrested, there were doubts that the same person wrote the note on Francis is wall and the note enthusiastic bedroom.

Not only that, this handwriting expert in the tribune article was, I named herbert. Herbert is the same one who later was hired by the state's attack y to say, hey, guess what? I decided the handwriting matches now.

And so I mean, not saying money helped change his mind, but I think we have to ask the question, I mean, what changed from day one to now when you're on the stand? right? Plus, do you remember the spelling areas from that ransom note and how William made those the same exact ones that, I mean, what made the police like? Sure.

without a doubt with him, right? Yeah, I remember.

So William said that police told him to misspell those specific words in that specific way and to follow the ransom note exactly. So you can judge someone spelling if you're telling me how to spell things. According to crime library, police in the states attorney also went expert shopping because herbert was brought in after another handwriting expert compared Wilson school papers to the lipstick note and the ransom note. And this first guy said, IT wasn't a match.

They are just trying to find someone who will say what .

they wanted to say exactly. I. And they ended up getting somebody who had a different story to begin with.

And I read in G, Q, two that there was actually a long standing rumor among the journalist in chicago that one of them had actually planted the lipstick note before the police got there to spice up the crime scene and cell papers, which I can't even begin to like, contemplate who would do that or why. But if that's the case, I mean, that kind of throws off everything. So the other thing I think it's important to look at is how William was treated after his arrest.

Obviously, policing tactics were different back in one thousand forty six, but abusing prisoners was still definitely illegal. And as we mentioned before, the chicago police were already out twenty grand for beating up another suspect while he was in their custody. William, who remember was just seventeen when he was arrested, was beaten, deprived of sleep, deprived of most food for almost a week, relentlessly interrogated, forbidden to see his parents for four days.

And they kept him from seeing his lawyer for six days after he was arrested. Now this is long before maranda verse, arizona, which was like the supreme court decision that made maranda rights a thing, but deliberately keeping a mire away from legal representation. And his parents, to me, is just like shady as all get out in my opinion.

Yeah and then there's the question of, I mean, torture while he's in custody. According to A G Q article written by adam higden bottom, during those six days, William was tied to a bed and had etha pred on his genitals, which got, I mean, it's not only humiliating, but literally burned his testicles. And on the fifth day he was given a spinal tap without a warrant, without his consent and without any anesthetic.

Supposedly, IT was to make sure that he wasn't brain damage or faking brain damage before a polygraph test, which I mean, did even consent to the polygraph. But I mean, I guess what I am like, donny, a spinal tapes aren't used to diagnose in injuries as far as I know. Like there's no medical basis for giving him one. It's certainly not without pain killers.

right? And all of this sounds like torture to me. I cannot even imagine like what i'd be willing to say just to make a stop.

No, I in its spinal tap is a really invasive medical procedure. And it's notoriously painful on its own because it's and inserting a needle inside the spine to collect fluid for testing. But patients are supposed to stay still for a few hours afterwards to give the spine time to recover and get back to like healthy pressure levels.

But William was loaded into a moving car just minutes after the procedure, driven to the polygraph site, and proved to be in so much pain. The police were unable to even do the test. The next day when Williams was finally given the polygraph, the result supposedly came back inconclusive.

Why do you say supposedly?

Well, according to crime library, the two guys who actually invented the polygraph machine wrote a book in one thousand and fifty three, and they said, not only were his results totally conclusive, but they also showed that William was telling the truth when he said he didn't kill anyone. This isn't the only revelation that comes out in the early nineteen fifties about Williams time in police custody.

The true serum injection, the one that the Price was so adamant, got him to confess about his alter ego, George, committing the murder that was also done without a warrant. And there's also the fact that there is no specific proof that the true serum is legit outside of fiction. I mean, sodium and pental doesn't make someone tell the truth, but what IT does do is cause drowsiness and makes a person highly acceptable to suggest. Now, George just also happens to be both Williams middle me and his father's name, so it's not completely unreasonable to me that that particular name would come to him when he was under this kind of influence. Plus at least one of the doctors who gave Williams the injection later testified under oath that he never actually confessed to murder while in the truth or mind state and get this, the transcripts of Williams entire time under the serum have mysteriously ping kept secret.

Oh, no.

Oh, the states attorney y said at the time that they just weren't ready, but to this day they've never been released, which seems odd to me in the case that thrives under so much media attention like the fact this still has never come out. I mean, drives me crazy. What are we not seeing? And here's something else that's super shading.

The states attorney lied about having anything to do with the injection. At first, he claimed he didn't even know about IT until after was already done but according to Williams s. Clemence plea, he too was forced to admit under oath in one thousand nine hundred fifty two that he lied about the whole thing because not only was he there, the state's attorney was the one who ordered that.

I'm totally with you that all of this is super shady, and I don't like any of IT. But going back, didn't he confess again when he wasn't under the influence of .

the truth serum? Yeah, he did. But I think we have to ask if that confession can be trusted in light of everything we know about how he was treated in jail. I mean, how reliable is the word at a scared, hurting, exhausted teenager who's been physically tortured and threatened with the death penalty?

I mean, at this point, already attempted suicide multiple times while in custody, when would the pain stop if he didn't do what they said? And even more than that, I think it's well known that people who hurt kids are often treated far worse by other prisoners. So I mean, who's he's supposed to get help from? What deals are made behind the scene? The chicago police have already shown him what they're capable of.

I mean, they they tried to beat a confession out of hero, the Janet, the public is screaming for Williams head due to all the sensational media coverage. And even Williams own lawyers had made up their minds about his guilt and opted to CoOperate with the prosecution. What I found out is that his lawyers were actually pretty close with the state's attorney to the point that he actually thanked them during sentencing.

I read in the chicago reader how one of Williams defense lawyers, and remember, these are the guys that, like, encouraged him to take the guilty plea, that at first we thought I was just to, like, save his life. This is the best thing for you. This guy justify their methods by saying he felt like he had a quote, unquote public duty to see William get just punishment.

That is not what defense attorneys are supposed to deal. IT is not zell's advocate and IT adds to the perfect storm for a false confession. But even beyond all of those circumstances, there is more supposedly damming evidence that's been disproven or shaken up.

The witness from the knight suzann was murdered, red, the one who said that he saw that thirty five year old mean he's brought in once William is arrested, and at first he's unable to identify William as the man he saw. According to the chicago reader in eighty nine, IT takes him until a court appearance magically on july sixteen th and forty six, to say, oh yeah, just kidding. I know I said I didn't know before.

I know I didn't recognize them, but Williams, totally, the guy. Now, I saw him clearly in the headlights of my car. And to me, that's not a credible witness testimony.

Okay, so there's questions about the handwriting, the witness, the interactions. What about the fingerprints? Didn't they say they had Williams prints from france's apartment and the note from Susann?

So here's the thing about those prints. At first, according to the clemence plea fingerprints, experts don't think Williams fingerprints matched the one found at princess apartment. And then, just like with the handwriting, another expert is brought in.

And this time the new expert decides it's a matcher after all, plus the print didn't resemble like the typical type of print left at a crime scene. IT wasn't smudge or anything like that. I was very clean and IT was neatly, almost as if I had been taken professionally and as if IT might have been planted.

And since William had a criminal record long before he was ever arrested for murder, police would have had access to his prince if they wanted to plant them and pin IT on him. I mean, they had the means to do IT. And the fingerprints from the ransom note are equally questionable.

The chain of custody that supposed to keep evidence protected and untainted was broken multiple times as the note was passed around both law, forceful in the media, plus the print that was supposedly Williams. Didn't meet the criteria for an actual match. As hard core crime junkies might know, fingerprints are analyzed by looking at rich character istis called points, and the higher the number of equivalent points between two prints, the more likely that is, that is a match.

This sound like DNA, you know, I mean, like this is you kind of get I all IT yeah, a little bit of a little bit of science. But in nineteen forty six, the FBI standard required a minimum of twelve points in order to confirm a match despite Williams sprint only having nine matching points. The chicago police called the evidence in disputable, which no, that's that's just not accurate.

And then on july thirteen, months after the FBI first return, the ransom of chicago, the chief of police himself announced that his department has found another print. This time it's a poem print that has ten points matching for William. Now keep in mind, the whole reason chicago police sent the note to the FBI in the first place was because they said they couldn't get any prince off a bit with their own technology right. And now suddenly they get IT back from the B I, and they find a pam. Like, are you seeing the inconsistently .

of the story? Yeah, this is crazy.

yes. So i'm not saying he's guilty. I'm not saying he's innocent. But I think once you factor everything we just learned, then I think we have to look beyond the black and the White of guilt and innocence and ask, is William guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? And if Williams telling the truth and he's not the lipstick killer, then who is.

You might be surprised to know that another man actually confess to murdering Susan before William herron was ever arrested. This man, whose name was Richard Russell Thomas, was in jail in phoenix, arizona. He was waiting to be sentence after he was convicted of sexually abusing his daughter when a handwriting expert noticed similarities between Richards handwriting and Susan's ransom note.

Approached with the similarities, Richard actually gave a detailed confession literally just days before William was ever connected to Susan's murder, according to an article from the dan bell morning news, in one thousand nine forty six, a trio of chicago police officers were actually already on their way out to photo x to interview him when William became the main suspect. So then the ritz just kind of visual out. Police later claimed his whole confession was a bid to get out of serving his jail sense in arizona, and Richard ended up recanting his confession after William was arrested.

Is there a chance that Richard was just a creep who wanted more attention?

Oh, I mean, absolutely. But there are a handful of factors around him that I think you're important to look at. He was in chicago at the time. Susan was murdered, and he had a previous conviction for kidnapping and extortion. And according to the clemency petition, his handwriting was a hot closer of a match to the ransom note that Williams was.

But Richard's not the only person who's been identified as a potential suspect in murder, because I came across a much more recent idea that blew me away. So in two thousand and nine, another theory comes to light. And IT links back to one of the most infamous uns of cases in american history, the murder of Elizabeth short in one thousand nine and forty seven, Better known as the black dolla.

What I know, this sounds bananas, but hear me out. So in two thousand three, this guy named Steve hotel, who's a retired lapd detective, comes out with a book called black dog, where he accuses his own father, doctor George hotel, of murdering Elizabeth shore and lays out his whole case. Although Steve evidence against his dad is pretty circumstantial, Steve isn't just shooting into the darkness, because, as he learned after his dad died in the late nineties, George was actually one of the prime suspects back in one thousand forty seven.

Plus, George was a pretty nasty character, even without the black dai allegations, because he was suspected of murdering his secretary and then tried for insist after years of allegedly raping his eleven year old daughter. I mean, we could spend hours talking about the black dial case, and we actually have a whole episode about IT over on our fan club with two very special guests. S so I won't get to the details too much.

But after he publishes this book, Steve keeps digging into other crimes George might have committed during his research. He comes across something shocking that he believes is a critical link between a Elizabeth th short and Susann the way they were disremembered. According to the corners report from both l county on california and cook county in elo that Steve posted on his website, both suzann analyzer beth were cut between the second and third lumbar vertebrae on their lower backs, which apparently is the only place to buy sector human body without going through the bones. I mean, this is a complex procedure that was commonly taught in medical school during the nineteen thirties when Georgeous training as a doctor. I don't know why doctors need to know how to cut people in half, but apparently this is something that they were trained to do.

And didn't you say, even back before William hirings was ever arrested, police were thinking that Susan's killer may have bn. A doctor.

Yes, they believe that whoever dismembered her had at least some level of medical or surgical training because, I mean, IT was so precise and so clean, and William never went to medical school. The surgical instruments that police did find in his room were apparently too small for cutting up a human body, and there was no proof to suggest they're ever been used on a human being since they tested negative things. A legal section would leave behind, like blood inherent ts ff like that.

Okay, my brain is officially a puddle. I not comprehend the idea that the black dial killer and the lipstick killer could be the same person. I mean.

it's a lot of all of the things that I expected define when I started researching this case. This was not yet, which I mean, honestly, is how I feel about so much of this case, but even armed all the evidence that we ve talked about, I mean, we've got all the physical evidence that that isn't what we thought I was or doesn't add up. I mean, Williams time in prison, he was a model prisoner.

He was the first prisoner in linos to earn a four year college degree. He was helping our other inmates to help them learn trades. I mean, again, model prisoner.

But Williams numerous bids for freedom were always denied, even with his good behavior, even with the massive amount of reasonable doubt. He got close to paro more than once over his long decades in jail. And his case for released was championed by numerous legal clinics in chicago, like the children and family center and the center on rankle convictions at northwestern.

But he just never worked. He died in prison on march fifth, two thousand twelve, at the age of eighty three. After his death, everyone kind of just let IT go because there was no one to fight on behalf of any more.

But if he didn't do IT, his incarceration in the state's refusal to investigate more could very well have helped someone else get away with murder. And many of us are still left to wonder, was he the lipstick killer? And more than that, are these cases even really connected? Or should we still be looking for more evil men?

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