#480 - Wood Chipping The Wife - Newtown, Connecticut
01:11:03 Share

Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show and tell you a little bit more about one of our favorite things ever, Audible. Oh, audible.com or that app. The app is great, and I'm on the app constantly. Listening to Audible helps your imagination soar.

No.

There's more to imagine when you listen. And I'll tell you something that has set both Jimmy and I's imagination soaring. And that is the Lewis and Clark journals. We're both really into these right now. And as an Audible member, you can choose one title a month to keep from the entire catalog, including the latest bestsellers, the newest releases. New members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash smalltownmurder or text

smalltownmurder to 500-500. That's audible.com slash smalltownmurder or text smalltownmurder to 500-500. Now back to the show. Music

Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit about Angie. Oh, Angie.com. A-N-G-I.com. Absolutely. Angie. Good stuff. Angie's List is now Angie, the nation's largest home services marketplace, and they're here to help homeowners get all their jobs done well.

Angie, yes, they've helped over 150 million homeowners care for their homes. Whenever the project, big, small, indoor, outdoor, come to Angie, you understand, we both own homes and projects are difficult. And they pile up. They pile up, and Angie makes tackling the project simple from start to finish. Get started on the app, or you can go to Angie.com. That is A-N-G-I dot com. Get your job done well with Angie today.

And now back to the show. Hey, Prime members. Have you heard? You can listen to your favorite podcasts ad-free? Good news. With Amazon Music, you have access to the largest catalog of ad-free top podcasts included with your Prime membership. To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free or go to amazon.com slash ad-free podcast. That's amazon.com slash ad-free podcast to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads. ♪

Bye.

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. Yay! And choo-choo! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us all aboard the murder train, pulling away from the station. We have a very wild one today. A bit of a famous case, actually, today. And we're going to try to tell it in our way. So that's how we do this. It's...

honestly crazy stuff. It's, it spawned movie idea. The Coen brothers saw this and went, now that's,

That's something. That's a thing. This is something we can do that's pretty weird. We'll get through the top very quickly here. Definitely shut up and give me murder.com. Tickets for live shows April 5th, April 6th. We are Sacramento, San Francisco. It's here. What are you doing? Let's go. If you're listening to this right when it comes out, go to the theater. What are you doing? Get there. We're about ready to go. Get there right now. We're backstage. There's music playing. Let's go.

So do that. Rest of the year, tickets all on sale. Tickets are selling out for some shows already, so get there. Even the ones at the end of the year, New York and Boston, get there. Thank you. Thank you, yeah, for doing that. April the 20th, the 420 virtual live show, Saturday night, April 20th, just like a regular live show, except you're in your living room. Drinks are on you.

Whatever you want to do. Your own food, your own comfy chair. Do whatever you want. Anywhere in the world with internet, you can see the virtual live show. It's available for two weeks after that, too, so you can buy it or watch it 100 times. Do whatever you want to do with it there. ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com is where you find all that. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports. Uh-oh. Bonus stuff. All you got to be $5 a month or above, and it's a cup of coffee, really. Yeah. Or...

Hundreds of bonus episodes, including new ones every other week. This week is no different. What you're going to get this week for Crime and Sports, we're going to talk about Hans Nieman, who is a chess player who everybody thinks had a vibrator up his ass to cheat at chess.

It's a wild story. And we'll go into some other board game cheating scandals as well. And then for small town murder, everybody's heard of this and I've been wanting to talk about it for a long time. We're going to talk about DB Cooper and what our opinions are and see if, let's see if we can solve this bad boy. We can't spoiler alert. We can't, but it'll be very interesting to talk about. Very interesting. He jumped out of the plane. We all know what it is. Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all that. That said, I think it's time everybody.

Let's do this. Let's all clear the lungs here. Arms to the sky and let's all shout. Shut up and give me.

Let's do this, everybody. Let's go on a trip, shall we? Okay. Let's go, Jimmy. We are going to Connecticut this week. Yeah, it's a lovely place. Not very far from here. We're going to Newtown, Connecticut, which we've all heard of. Yeah, it's not that one. Don't worry. It's not that case? Not that famous case. No, no, no, no. Not that. That? Yeah, no. We're not doing that. No. That's just a lot. I don't even want to talk about it.

I don't even want to know it exists. It's bad. Yeah. But it does. God damn it. It does. Oh, it certainly does. 100% it does. It does. Population here, 19,521.

Is that right? So, yeah, it's a pretty small place. It started out, as we'll talk about, as a suburb of Danbury. So it's not. Yeah. It's a pretty small place. Median income here is high. Median household income, $133,991. They are crushing it. Connecticut's an expensive place. It really is. And it's nice. Things are nice there. When you drive on the highway, I've said, you cross into Connecticut, the road gets smoother immediately. That 130 does not go far.

No, it doesn't. Median home price here in this town, $531,100. So pricey. It's about two hours to New York City, about 20 minutes to Danbury, and an hour and 15 minutes to our last Connecticut episode, episode 433. That was in Willington. That was a ghost with a samurai sword. That was a crazy-ass episode. Connecticut, for a bunch of rich people, they have some weird-ass murders, man.

That money will drive you nuts. It'll drive you to murder with a samurai sword. So let's talk about a little bit of history here just for a second. The low of people here was in 1930. They had 2,635 people here in 1930. So that was their low. And at that time they had local industry. They started to grow a little bit more. They made tea bags and furniture and combs, fire hoses, etc.

pre-folded boxes, buttons and hats. That's what they were making here. Yeah. Yeah.

The game of Scrabble was developed here in this town. Stop it. Swear to God, by James Brunot. So there you go. And then they started after World War II. There was all the highway developments, and then it became a suburb of Danbury. And so we know that so far. Here we are. December 14, 2012, of course, was the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. That happened here as well. That's why everybody's – if you go to Newtown, that sounds familiar. Yeah.

This is why reviews of this town. We'll go through them quickly here. And they range five stars quintessential. They call it the quintessential Connecticut small town.

It not only has fun local events and parades year round, but also stunning historical buildings and amazing shops. Yeah. More importantly, those fucking woods are gorgeous. Oh, it's pretty there. Yeah. You drive. Holy shit. Northeast. The woods are everywhere. The woods are pretty. Down south, northeast, anywhere you drive. They're so thick. They're thick. So nice. Yeah, they're very pretty. Three stars here. Living in Newtown as a young adult has been hard.

There are very little nightlife, Jesus, and entertainment options. Maybe you should be in school instead. That's maybe, yeah. You should go back to English class. But he says and entertainment options, so I guess it's technically correct. It is a beautiful location surrounded by lush woods. There you go. Farms and filled with a great community. Chuck full of a great community. Fantastic. Here's three stars. Very short. One very bad incident ruined it. Well...

That'll leave a bit of a stain is the problem. Yeah, that's tough. Have you heard of Amityville? I mean, things happen. There you go. Amityville was a very nice place in Long Island until the 70s. That was two stars. Other than the Sandy Hook onlookers, there is none. I don't know none what. They don't say people. There's 19,000 people. Are they all just looky-loos? I don't know. Two stars, finally. It's a typical New England town.

That's all. So there you go. People like it. Some people hate it. That's what it is. Things to do here. Not a lot going on in terms of

It really is kind of a quiet. It's a place to live. Just sleepy joint. It's a place to live. Well, it's not a place to really hang out and party, but they have the new town arts festival, of course. Really? Oh yeah. The new town arts festival is the art event of the year. It's a three day art event focusing on bringing the community together to enjoy local talent and art, dance, music, and food. Jesus. Sounds like I would hang myself if I had to. No,

No offense. I'm just not a big art guy. I don't know enough about it. If there's art and then dancing, I'm like, I don't know what the fuck people are talking about. And if somebody's standing outdoors saying this is my art, I tend to go very dismissive on it. I just don't know. If it was good, it would be in a building. It could rain. You know that? It could rain on all over your stuff. You know what's really bad for art? Fucking water. Yeah. Like normally-

Great works of art are normally housed indoors. Under fucking glass. I get it. Here's somebody has this to say about it. The festival was organized and conducted beautifully and ranks in the top three shows overall that we have participated in over the last 11 years. That's very specific. Top three in 11 years. Wow.

I don't know. So they're in their 11th year of the festival. There it is. They say the magic that results from this festival is truly inspiring. Well, what is that? Let's get inspired. You know what inspires us, though? What is that? Talking about a murder. Let's talk about a murder. Never mind this art stuff. Okay, let's get into this. Let's talk about a murder. This is a weird one here.

Okay. Let's talk about Hel Lortje Nielsen first off. Hel Lortje. H-E-L-L-E. Oh, that's her first name. Yes. She is born in Denmark, this woman. Okay. That makes sense. Born in 1947 in Denmark. She was born in Copenhagen, I guess, and grew up in a small village in Denmark. Yeah. That's a snow globe, right? She just grew up in a snow globe. Yeah.

Right. That's all it could be. It's Leo's mom from Catch Me If You Can. Yeah. Maybe something like that. She's known as a very outgoing kid and she liked going to school more than the other kids. She was real happy. She's very good at learning languages. When she was a teenager, she learned French and English. Yeah. And in addition to being able to understand German, Norwegian and Swedish as well.

Fluent in all five? That's a lot. That's a lot. Yeah. And that'll come in handy because she's going to be like an international flight attendant. So it helps to speak multiple languages here. She attended college in England. She worked as an au pair in France, taking care of people's kids. She's very pretty, too. She's blonde. You know, the whole high cheekbone.

You know, she's a Danish, tall, blonde, hot Danish girl. Flight attendant. Yeah, flight attendant from back then in the 60s. She's not a nanny, James. She's an au pair. An au pair. She's hot as fuck. An au pair is a woman you worry that your husband's going to cheat on you with. That's an au pair. A nanny is like...

A nanny is like a haunchy. Yeah. A nanny goes at least like 220. You know what I mean? Yeah. A nanny has thigh-high stockings. Thigh-high stockings with hair coming down off them. Thigh-high tight. Yeah. An au pair has thigh-high stockings. At least one large hairy mole as well.

The au pair dresses like Alicia Silverstone and Clueless. That's the difference. That's different. It's very different. What au pair? I'm going to give you a quote here. Her high cheekbones, long blonde hair, trim figure, and a warm, engaging smile turned the heads of men whenever she entered a room.

She's hot as shit. She's hot as shit is what that says. While she's in France, she gets a job as a stewardess at the time with Capital Airways.

And she flew all over the place, Africa, Germany, Belgium, you know, flying everywhere. That's when she heard that Pan Am was looking for stewardesses in the Copenhagen area. Now, Pan Am at that time in the 60s was the airline to work for. That was like in terms of like the cachet like that. They had handsome pilots and these, you know, hot stewardesses at the time. And yeah, that was the way to go here. She was one of eight candidates selected out of a group of 200.

They used to have huge like tryouts for like week long tryouts. Yeah. Turned away 192 of those chicks. Yeah. And they had made it through the initial screening. Right. These are all 200 smart, attractive young women. And they said 192. You are not hot enough, not hot enough to serve coffee on it in a metal tube. Yeah.

What a weird thing. Yeah, they really sold that job as something great. Oh, glamour. Go all over the world. Meet exciting people. Yeah.

And back then I read the book. What is it? Fly Girl, is it called? I think the book. It's a book about a woman who was a flight attendant back then. And she went through all the process. And she said all the girls back then were just talking about, I want to get in first class so I can meet a husband. That's it. Oh. In the 60s, that's what women were. A lot of these women were being flight attendants. Some of them were interested in careers and stuff. Sure, sure. But they said like 90% of them were married and retired by 27.

they would marry.

Now I always cross my fingers to get bumped up to first class because that's where the nice flight attendant is. That's where the one who grudgingly, yeah, they'll grudgingly, yeah, fuck that. I use the card to get the miles. I'm doing what I can because. I want everything up front. Yeah, they will grudgingly be nice to you. The people in the back, that lady cannot give a fuck about you. There's so many of you. She just throws handfuls of packaged fucking pretzels and nuts in there. Just handfuls. You guys fight over it.

Like we're a pack of monkeys.

So she's taken to Miami with the airline for her training. So she had prior experience. She's already a flight attendant, so it was very easy for her. She was finished first in her class. She was top of the heap here. She stayed in a small motel in Miami near the airport, which was all the airline employees lived there, pilots and stewardesses. It was like an Olympic village, basically. Yeah.

And they said it was just pilots and stewardesses just fucking banging away. Carnal fucking craziness. Just smell it. Yeah. In the morning, the pool would probably have a film on top of just a jizz film. I think back then, too. We're talking late 60s. Oh, forget it. Yeah. My God. One friend said she didn't tell you the intimate things about men she saw. She was far too cautious to have been promiscuous, but she had a few lovers.

That's a lady. Yeah, she was European. What a wonderful person. Yeah, she was also like European. Well, I mean, shit, it's the 60s. Fuck your way through all of them. Who cares? Yes. It's my business, not yours. So they said that they liked airline pilots. The stewardesses really wanted to get also hooked up with the pilots. They liked them a lot too. And on May 24th, 1969-

She meets a young man here. She's 22. He's 31 at the time. And he is a pilot. Yeah. His name is Richard Crafts. So Dick Crafts here. Yeah. Old Dickie Crafts. They said he was...

Kind of like he had the 60s. He was a pilot, so you're kind of clean cut, but he had his hair a little messy. A quaff, yeah. A little unkemptness, just a little rock and roll to him. A little I don't give a fuck. Yeah, a little that 60s, like, ooh, I bet in his off time he goes and sees a Grateful Dead show probably or something. He might wear a leather bracelet when he takes that thing off. Oh, yeah, yeah. When he unbuttons his pilot suit.

Dress shirt sleeve. He pulls it up. There's a leather bracelet on there with a roach clip in it. Fuck yeah. Yeah. It's got a built-in roach clip, definitely, for sure. A little hemp rope anklet, this guy. Yeah. And he wears Birkenstocks while he flies. Fuck yes. So they said he was a little rough around the edges, not the stereotypical pilot. He's about 5'8", kind of a medium frame guy, nothing. My kind of guy, yeah.

Doesn't like stand out as like a giant guy or a tiny guy or just an average cat. He was, so he's kind of attractive though. He's always got a woman near him, which he's a 60s pilot. So it's easy to attract. Yeah. Yeah. He would date exclusively flight attendants. That's what he was into pretty much. That's it. Yeah. And he would tell all of these extravagant tales, these long stories about his life.

CIA involvement. Apparently, from what we understand here, he worked for he worked as a part of the Air America program, quote unquote, would do the illegal bombings of Laos and Vietnam War. He was part of that. So, yeah, he tells stories about that being CIA and all that kind of thing. He was born in New York in 1937. He's got a couple of brothers. He's got two older sisters. I'm sorry.

His father was a very successful businessman in Manhattan. So he grew up kind of a rich kid. His dad had bought a giant house in Connecticut in a very affluent community. And his dad was a former World War I pilot and a college football player. So, I mean, he's just the coolest guy ever. You know, when I was quarterbacking my college team after I got back from flying a bunch of sorties and bombing the Kaiser, you know, then I...

Jesus Christ. Finish up the national championship at Pitt. Yeah. Imagine having to live up to that. You're the only son, too. Holy shit. That'd be brutal. So he went to private school, retired.

Richard did, but he wasn't very good at it. He graduated, ended up going to the regular high school to graduate because they were like, well, if you're not even going to get A's in private school, there's no point in having you in here. Why am I spending this? Yeah. He went to college for a little while, but then dropped out and just joined the Marines in 1956. He dropped out. Quit it. Quit it. He wanted he liked aviation, which I assume growing up with a dad who was a World War One pilot. Yeah.

Very easy. You know, World War I pilot, that's ballsy, too. That's like dogfighting the Red Baron. You know what I mean? James, the gun was in time. Yeah. That's a fucking... It's a biplane, for Christ's sake. What Snoopy's pretending to be is what he was. The gun is in time with the rotor or the propeller. So the bullet goes. It shoots only when the propeller's clear of it. Yeah. Yeah.

It's frightening. It's terrifying. If that gets out of time, then what? Oh, you're screwed. Yeah, you're crashing. You're going to tear apart your fucking propeller. Also, people are shooting at you while you're up there. Right. That's the other problem. It's not just your gun that you have to worry about. There's a bunch of German guys trying to kill you. So...

That's not good. So he got into aviation and became good at flying helicopters. And then he trained on fixed-wing aircraft and then became certified as a pilot in the late 50s. He was transferred to Korea and Japan while he was in the Marines. He flew planes for Air America, which was a branch of the CIA at that point, basically. And that included the Laos-Vietnam bombings and things like that. He... I guess...

They say he was wounded during a mission over Laos, but we don't know if this is true or not. So he ended up returning to the United States in 1966. Okay.

And he gets a job as a pilot very quickly and easily. I'm sure, yeah. Because he knows how to fly. And, yeah, so he gets a pilot's job with Eastern Airlines in 1968, which is an airline that went out of business probably 91, 92. Yeah. Like when I was a little kid, we went to Florida once, and it was on Eastern Airlines. So I remember... So you're saying probably just right up and down the East Coast. It was mainly New York, Florida. New York, Florida, New York, Atlanta, like that kind of shit. That's where it went. That was Eastern. But it was very...

a big airline at the time and very busy. It was, you know, the East coast airline. So he's making a comfortable living. He's doing, he's a pilot. Sure. He's doing great for himself. So he meets hell here in, uh, in 1969. He was already engaged when he met her. Well, but he meets this, you know, smoke show Danish broad. And he's like, hold on a minute. Uh,

minute. Maybe I've... Look at her. Maybe I've been hasty. You know what I mean? I may have jumped the gun. Yeah. And she didn't mind, though, that he was already engaged. She started seeing him, and she had a very casual attitude about the whole thing, and she knew that he had relationships with other women. She's not jealous. That's one thing about her. She's confident, maybe. Maybe that's it. Yeah, because she's like, I'll throw you away and get another. You're coming home to this, probably, I would assume. You're not gonna... Please. I know what the...

First in my class. Yeah. First in my class of hot chicks. So I know what I'm doing here. Her friends didn't really understand why she was so into this guy. They're like, she can have any guy she wants, basically. Why is she like this guy? Her friends didn't like him at all either. But in 1975, after they've been kind of seeing each other for years now, like six years, she becomes pregnant with his child.

And so they get married in November after she finds out. Yeah, that's well, I guess narrowed down now. So then they bought a one level ranch home in Newtown, Connecticut, and she had her child and they end up having three children overall here. Yeah. Yeah. And their marriage. She returned to her job as a stewardess and hired an au pair, which back in the 70s, a married stewardess with children was very rare.

Really? Very rare. Yeah. It used to be a rule in the 70s is when they changed the rule where you could still be married and get hired.

Before that, that was part of it. If you were married, they wouldn't hire you. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, they don't want you. You're not gettable. You're flirting with the passengers. That's what they want. I need you to be gettable. Yeah. They want to sell this fantasy of not only are you going somewhere to an exotic place in the air and you'll be served a... It's going to be a hot chick serving you who's single. Maybe you can take her home in the next city. Air hooters. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's how they've been selling chicken wings for 30 years. Yeah.

What was it? Lukewarm. What is that? I know this Hooters is it's not on Hooters, but it's an old joke that someone said lukewarm cheese sticks served by prostitutes. That's Hooters. Now, I know they're not prostitutes, but I'm just saying that was the joke. The idea. Yeah, that's what the general thought of it was. Right. That's the market. And if you don't believe it, then go look at their clothes. Yeah. Otherwise, they'd let him put clothes on. Yeah. Yeah.

Jesus Christ. So she hires an au pair as well. And he's a pilot. She's doing that. They hire a 19-year-old au pair. Oh, boy. And together at the time in the mid-'80s, early-'80s, they were making together about $125,000 a year.

Wow. That's a lot of money in the 80s. It's good now, but back then, that was a lot of fucking money. It was really crushing it. My family was dreaming about it in 92, and I was like, how much? Jesus. Back then, this was the top 5% of people in the country. So Richard does all the finances, and he loves collecting guns. He spends a lot of money on guns.

Really? Yeah, he's got a collection. He likes to collect them. He had several shotguns, dozens of handguns, a lot of 9mm, .44, .357s, that kind of shit, high-powered rifles, all sorts of stuff, hand grenades, crossbows. What? Yeah, he's been in war, for Christ's sake. Yeah, but I think those are still illegal. I don't think you can have live hand grenades, probably. You shouldn't be able to anyway. Pretty sure that's...

pretty sure that's what started the waco thing yeah no shit but he would spend they said that was his hobby was cleaning and polishing his guns and you know because when you have tons like that you have to keep it's like painting the golden gate bridge you gotta start you're done you start back over get the beginning again that's what they do they just keep going yeah so yeah he was doing all of that trying to spending a lot of money on that here a lot um

Now, she, during this time, started appearing in public with bruises on her face from time to time. What? Yeah, and she told one of her friends that Richard was physically abusing her. Oh, boy. And they also said that he was mean to her during her pregnancies. She told a friend that she would never forgive Richard for what he put her through when she was pregnant.

She said after the children were born, Richard would just disappear for days at a time and then just come back but never say where he was. He's like Don Draper from Mad Men. Yeah, who does he think he is? He comes back like four days later. He's like, I was working. Don't worry about it. I was busy. I'm not now. That's why I'm here. Crazy. I just went to California and came back and met another woman and all this. But don't worry about it. I'm home now. It's good.

So they said he would just pack his bags and leave and then he would come back. She never knew if it was business, a gun show, hanging out with some broad. Who knows?

He'd do all that shit. Yeah. He controlled all the money. He made her pay for all the house expenses, and he just spent his money on guns and bullshit. What the fuck? Yeah. He bought all sorts of landscaping equipment and tractors and mowers for some reason. He bought a $25,000 backhoe, which he never used. It was still, like, had the tags on it sitting in the yard, just...

He just bought it. He was like, look at that. Pretty. There it is. That's a Cat 310. Enjoy it. That's what he was like. Yeah. His neighbors would complain about all the shit he always had in the yard because he always had all this equipment. Yeah, because it's trash. He wasn't even using it. So he starts, he becomes an auxiliary police officer in the Newtown Police Department in 1982.

And he's one of these guys who acts like he is Joe Friday when he's an auxiliary police officer. But he's like Mr. Cop. Yeah. Like all the other cops roll their eyes at him like this fucking guy. Take it easy, Tackleberry. You've got a backhoe. Yeah. Dude, your lawn is just littered with fucking landscaping equipment. Suck a dick, bro.

They said he was always at the police station, even when he was off duty, and sometimes responded to police calls without authorization. He'd just show up because he heard it on the scanner. So he just got in his car and drove over there. What a fascinating man. He's a weird guy. Yeah, we'll talk about this. In 86, he was hired as a police officer in the nearby town of Southbury, and he made $7 an hour doing that. What? Yeah, he was an unpaid auxiliary officer for Newtown. Yeah.

He paid his own way for all these expensive training seminars on police procedures that he didn't have to do. Use of lethal force and all this stuff. And he paid like all these normally expensive because departments pay for it if you need it. But it's a small town police force. Generally, it's not that, you know, in the 80s, it wasn't that big of a deal. So he they said that he had a weird he's just so into his police duties that have creeped all the other cops out.

He even bought his own 1985 Ford Crown Victoria, the same cars that the Connecticut State Police used. Got his own cop car. His own one and outfitted it as a police car at his own cost. Multiple radios, antennas, police lights, and a siren all at his own cost.

Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you about one of the safest sponsors you could ever see, SimpliSafe. SimpliSafe.com. S-I-M-P-L-I-S-A-F-E.com. Totally. And if you're anything like us, you think a lot about the security of yourself, your things, your family, the people you love. It's a big deal. And I'm going to tell you about it.

Safety first. Safety first, especially like I know for me personally, after we had the house we were selling got broken into and everything got messed up and the plumbing and all this stuff was like, oh, my thank. Thankfully, we weren't there. And, you know, nobody nobody got hurt or anything like that. But, you know, I knew at that point, got to get some security because it's the world is crazy. And especially doing our shows, we understand that.

And luckily for us, when this happened, we were already doing a podcast and I knew about SimpliSafe. And we happen to have the best security there is. SimpliSafe is the best. And we've trusted SimpliSafe to protect our home and our studios and everything else for years. And you know us. We're weird with research. I've researched. They are the best, by the way. Protect your home this summer with 20% off any new SimpliSafe system when you sign up for Fast Protect Monitoring.

Just visit simplisafe.com slash small. That's simplisafe, S-I-M-P-L-I, safe.com slash small. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Now back to the show.

Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit more about one of our favorites, Quince. Oh, quince.com. Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com. That's right. And it's busy seasons. We're all going around. We're going everywhere in the summer. We're traveling. Your wardrobe's getting beat up a little bit. Let's be realistic here. We're not going to do, neither Jimmy or myself, we're not going to do total wardrobe overhauls here. This isn't like some sort of reality show. But you get...

A few things here to replace some stuff, and that's what we're doing. Replacing some worn-out stuff with some high-quality essentials at a very affordable price from Quince. And that's what we've done. And they have all the seasonal must-haves. We got some cool stuff. Jimmy, those linen pants. Oh, they're so comfortable. Oh, boy. They are?

You went for the outer. I got some undershirts, which I like because you need a comfortable undershirt. These are really comfortable and soft. And I got some sunglasses. You can do it too. Upgrade your wardrobe with pieces made to last with Quince. Go to quince.com slash smalltownmurder for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's QC.

Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash smalltownmurder to get free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash smalltownmurder. Now back to the show. I mean, if you're a cop, you're allowed to do that, right? Yes, but normally if you're a cop and they need you, they give you a police car. That's how it works usually. They don't say, when you apply as a job as a policeman, they don't go, where's your car? They usually assign you one, I would imagine, right?

If you're necessary. I'd like to be on the SWAT team. Where's your battering ram? Yeah. Do you have a ram? Well, we're looking for a guy with a tank, if you know anybody. That's because we need one of those. So he continued to see other women, too, during this time. And she was aware of the infidelity. His wife is aware of it and tolerates it and kind of just ignores it, basically.

We'll complain to a friend once in a while, but that's it. But by 1986, she starts openly speaking about divorce with a bunch of her friends. At some point in the, I think it was about 84, he had a cancer diagnosis that he ended up coming out of okay, I guess. He beat it, huh? He was treated. And that seemed to bring them closer together for a minute.

One of her friends said, I got the impression that Richard was a private person. I did not get the impression that he was strange.

So the man bought his own cop car. He's not a strange strange. Yeah. He's got a backhoe with tags on it for no reason. Never even started it. No fucking reason. Yeah. He still got the plastic thing thing on the key from the dealership there that plays average to you. What are we doing? That's normal. Yeah. He's not straight. And it's dot dot dot strange. So she was like I never got the impression that he was strange.

He has a caterpillar with a New England caterpillar still on it. Yeah. Jesus. What's happening? So by 86, they have three kids, 10-year-old Andrew, 7-year-old Thomas, 5-year-old Christina. And all three of the kids, by the way, were christened in Denmark. And everybody, including Richard's parents, went over for the christenings. Like, it was a big deal. Jesus. So in summer of 86...

Hell retains a divorce attorney. She's done here. She hired also a private detective named Keith Mayo, who sounds like a made-up cartoon character, but he's a great private detective, as we'll find out. The guy's fucking amazing. He's a former cop, and she hired him to gather evidence of cheating against Richard. November 18, 1986 comes around. Okay. Here we go.

really bad winter storm which if you know in the northeast is uncommon before christmas time christmas yeah yeah or easter around thanksgiving that's insane january february it'll snow but usually november december it snows once in a while but it's not really that common flurries and it's cold it's cold yeah sometimes sometimes it's warm so they had a really bad winter storm hit connecticut this

this time and driving conditions are terrible and you know the storm is it's a mess snow and sleet and then snow again oh god damn it it's a triple bogey there there's ice everywhere it's everything's frozen gusty winds there's utility lines down everywhere from the weight of the snow because usually when that happens too it's at the temperature where the snow is heavy trees get heavy when the snow falls on them they fall down and they fall into power lines and your power goes out

So electricity went out in this area for several hours during this night. Jesus. Real bad. Now, Southbury, where he's a police officer or Richard's a police officer, they called the plow guys in to lay salt and plow and do all this shit. So for the next few days and nights, these guys were working nonstop plowing because first you do all the main roads and they got to get the side roads and all that kind of shit.

One of the guys, Joseph Hein, he November 20th, he goes at 1130 p.m. on November 20th. He goes to plow. He goes and picks up his plow to plow during the night. It's a sander. I'm sorry. He takes the sander out.

And starts to sand Route 172, which is one of the main roads there. At about 1230 a.m., he returned to the garage and picked up a snow plow. So he sanded, now he's going to plow. He begins his route along Southberry's Main Street here and goes for several hours plowing and also going around all these trees that are falling in the road and all that kind of shit. At 330 a.m., he's plowing along the length of River Road.

until he came to an intersection of South Flat Hill Road. It's still snowing and sleeting at this point. And it looked, you know, it's that storm, you know, that dark gray winter, but it's also kind of bright because it reflects off the snow. Even at night, it's a little bit brighter because of the snow. So he's plowing here. He sees, as he passes the intersection, he sees a truck parked off on the side of the road.

Yeah. Somebody that's maybe they've slid off the road or something. He said, I would describe the vehicle as a U-Haul box van. Oh. One to one and a half ton with dual wheels, he said. Dually in the back. Dually in the back. He said the box of the van was an off-white or dirty white square type. The cab was orange colored. It's a small U-Haul truck. Yeah. So-

He said the lights were off and it was rolled up and the roll-up back was closed. So the big sliding door. As he got closer, he saw the truck had a large wood chipper attached to its back. Okay, so it's dragging a wood chipper. This is on the banks of a river. Okay, now the chipper...

He said looked old and well used. And as he passed the U-Haul, he saw a man standing near the driver's door who suddenly began to walk near the back of the truck when he saw the snowplow. Yeah. The man motioned for the plow to go around him like, go ahead, go around. Yeah, don't worry about it. I don't need help. So the guy continued to plow down the road.

Two hours later, he plowed River Road from the opposite direction because he plows one lane, then he plows the other lane. As he passed this area, the Glen Road area, he saw the same U-Haul with the attached wood chipper once again. And he said, I didn't see anyone in or around the truck or the chipper. But as he passed it, he noticed something different. He said the back of the box was open this time. And he said, I could see some wood chips inside.

He also saw wood chips on the shoulder of the road. He continued to plow. He watched the U-Haul drive away. And he said that was strange that a person would be out so early in the morning in the middle of a storm chipping wood. Throwing it into the back of the truck, yeah. This is not a time to chip wood. It's just you wouldn't do this in the middle of the night during a storm. Who the fuck does that? That's weird. So now three days later here, this is the nanny, Dawn Thomas. She's our au pair.

She says that this is November 21st. So November 18th was the storm originally. Now we're up to 21st. She said in the house she hadn't seen hell in a while, in three days. She said she noticed a black spot the size of a soccer ball on the carpet in the couple's bedroom and offered to clean it.

And Richard said, no, don't clean it. And he said, I just spilled kerosene there. So don't worry about it. I'll take care of it. Black kerosene. Black kerosene. It's the best kind. It burns so much longer. It's so much better. It's thick. The next day, the au pair said she walked into the bedroom and Richard had removed all the carpets except for a narrow strip around the edge of the room.

He also had taken the bed apart and removed the carpet from the bedroom used by the youngest daughter as well. That carpet was gone too. He said that his wife wanted the carpets changed, but she recalled that she had told her that she liked the carpets in both rooms. So since when does she want it changed? So...

She's not. No one has seen hell in a few days here. We get to November 30th, 1986. It's been 12 days now. And yeah, there's people are looking for her here. One is a friend of hers named Jet Romp.

That's a great name for a flight attendant. J-E-T-T-E. Jet romp? Jet romp. Yeah, that is a... Like, did you change your name to that? Hot. They got a romp in the jet with me?

That is certainly the name you want for a flight attendant. Holy fuck. She is my jet romp. So she called looking for her friend and said that, you know, it was, it was weird. Richard said that, um,

she took off and she, he doesn't know where she was. And this one's like, she's not going to take off from her job and her kids. That's crazy. So the friend said that, you know, that Richard said, Oh, relax. You've been watching too many movies.

And the friend said, well, why don't you report her missing? And he said, well, she'd be mad at me if I called the police and reported her missing. I'm sure she's just doing something. Yeah, when she turns up, she's going to be pissed. So her friend said the last time she spoke with her was on November 15th, 1986, when they had a conversation about her plans to divorce Richard. Oh. Yeah. Her friend Romps said, Jet Romp said she was very angry. She had found receipts from charge cards that showed Richard had been buying Christmas gifts with a girlfriend in New Jersey.

Yep. But they had I guess they had had a conversation. She told Richard, I want to divorce you. And Richard had told her that marriage was for life.

Yeah, but. All right. Jesus Christ. I guess so, man. You're not penguins. Relax. Yeah. Credit card receipts are for life, too. Yeah, that shit does not go away. Another friend of hers, a flight attendant named Lee Fisher, all said that she telephoned the house, too, and talked to Richard on November 24th. And he told her that hell had gone to Copenhagen to visit her mother, who was ill.

So and then she called again the 28th and Richard told her he was in fact getting a little worried too because he hasn't heard from her. So they the friend said well can I have the phone number of her mom here and a friend and I guess I know her friend who can speak Danish and we'll call. And so the mother told the friend that the daughter wasn't there and she wasn't expected to be there till April.

That's when she's going to come to visit. Yeah. So, okay. And she said she didn't know where she could be. Yeah. You sound impressively well for somebody who's sick. Yeah. So she called back to tell Richard the news about that. And she said, Richard was very abrupt with me. She said he was, he said he was leaving on a trip and that was that.

So, yep. December 1st comes around here. Okay. She, December 1st. Now, Keith Mayo, who is the guy that she had hired, he calls the cops and he said, listen, client of mine who's recently, I can't get ahold of her for two weeks. She's not around.

She, I'm afraid her husband killed her because she's been wanting to get away from this guy and he's been violent with her before. And he was, she said she's afraid of him and now she's gone for two weeks and I can't find her. So best person she ever hired. She was, he was adamant, please.

She said she left her home, allegedly, according to the husband, on November 19th to drive to Richard's sister's house. But she never showed up at the sister's home and hadn't been heard from since. Her car was later found in an employee parking lot of Pan Am Airlines at Kennedy Airport. But there's no record of her going anywhere.

So Richard is saying, well, she must have taken off if she wanted to get away from me so bad. She has means. She has passport. She has she can get go on a flight to anywhere in the world she wants. Fly standby anytime she wants. Also, she told me she was going somewhere plane and that's where her car is. So what the fuck? That's it. So they talked to Richard the next day and he says, quote, she was happy and showed no signs of being different or upset.

When she left, he said that he and his wife slept at home. They woke up that morning on the 19th. The plan was for her to go to my sister's house in Westport because we had no power due to the storm. And I haven't seen or heard from her since. That's it. The police aren't very concerned. They're just not. No. They said it's a marital problems. And they said, you know, a lot of times when a spouse leaves another spouse, when there's a lot of problems, they just want some time alone.

And they said she has the means and the ways to do this. And so, yeah, she'd be the perfect candidate for somebody to do that. So they don't prioritize the case at all. Put it in the folder somewhere. Yeah. All of her friends, though, say she's a devoted mother who wouldn't have left her small children out of nowhere. Right. She's got three kids. Nobody does that. They said she's a good mom. And they said that Richard had a series of affairs which were well known. She discovered this recently. She told him that she wanted a divorce. Right.

So, I mean, you know, they're worried, the friends.

So, yeah, he's telling people different stories, too. He told the au pair she's in Denmark. He told another friend that she was in Denmark and then she wasn't in Denmark. And so, yeah, some more time goes by and Mayo starts complaining. Mayo's like, you're not looking into this. You talked to three people and they said they're worried. And you went, all right, fuck it, and didn't do anything. And I got somebody that's willing to pay me to do shit for her and she's not here. I need to pay my mortgage. So he sent a letter to...

Yeah.

Without going into further detail, I strongly recommend that your commission undertake an independent investigation to determine the facts and circumstances surrounding the obvious irresponsibility of the Newtown Police Department's detective division. Oh, he is calling them on the carpet. Yeah, the police said, hold the mayo. Let's talk about this. We got problems.

Then they said, okay, maybe we are concerned because they talked to the au pair and get the story there. And they said, well, that sounds fishy. Yeah. That morning he woke all three of his children up at 630 a.m., loaded them into the family car with the au pair, and drove over to his sister's house. And then she was supposed to follow. Richard dropped the kids and Dawn off and left almost immediately. And Hell wasn't there even though she was supposedly had left before Richard. What the fuck?

She said that Dawn, the Dawn woman, the au pair, told the cops that Richard didn't return to pick them up until later that day at 7 p.m. And still no mom here. So later that night, Dawn asked where she was, asked Richard, and he said, I don't know. Then the next day, he said, she must be in Denmark with her sick mother.

And then there's also the stain on the carpet, which they don't like, and the carpet's being gone. So they say, hey, Richard, we just need to get to the bottom of everything. So would you mind just clearing yourself with a lie detector test quick? Quick polygraph. Let's talk about it real fast. He said, sure. He passes the test. He passes the test. But for some reason, even though he passed the test, he was in the CIA, basically. So he knows how to pass a lie detector test.

Sure. I mean, he's aware of drugs. He's aware of all kinds of strategy. He's aware of breathing. They tell you different. There's a lot of strategies here. One investigator wrote in his report, and this is not a computerized one. It's a guy with a piece of paper that he's looking at. It's different. One investigator wrote in his report that based on the polygraph examination and my numerous conversations with Mr. Crafts, he does not know where his wife is.

So they said, yeah. But some detective said, no, this is weird, and I don't like it. They really don't like the fact that he goes around in his own little, you know. Police car? His own little fashioned police car, yeah. It's bizarre. His own little weird cosplay of police car. Right.

They didn't like that. And also they're getting calls from her friends saying, what's going on here? What the fuck? This is crazy. So there's a few detectives that are a little curious of what's going on. So they decide to call Richard in for another interview. Let's talk, Rich. December 11th, they sit him down and they talk to him. This is 9.20 p.m. And they say, Richard, did you know that your wife hired a private investigator? He said, no. Did you know that the PI documented your relationship with a New Jersey woman? And he said, no. Uh-oh.

Oh, they said, why would you tell why would your wife tell her friends that she was afraid for herself regarding regarding serving you divorce papers and tell them to check on her if something happened? And he said, I cannot imagine her saying this. It is completely out of character for her to say this. She did it, bud. Yeah. They said, well, on November 18th, when hell came home, why when and why did she leave? And he said, quote, those answers are in my statement.

They know that. So you do not remember? Yeah. It's a homicide event or a missing person. They ask you the same thing five times to see if their story is the same five fucking times. Yeah. Do that with your 10-year-old and they'll always crack. It'll change. It'll change. So they said, what is the story with your bedroom rug? Apparently you removed it or cut some pieces out. Can you explain this to me? And he said, all of the rugs in the house are being removed and replaced.

Why? Yeah. Why now? That's not an explanation. Well, yeah, when my wife's been missing for a couple of weeks and my kids are really – it's almost the holidays too. And my kids are really worried about where's mom and all that. I like to do major renovation projects.

You know, we leave off if I leave for a couple of days, I come back and she's done something nice for me. Like it's just the way it is. Yeah. You know, so he said, what was spilled on the rug in your bedroom? And he said, kerosene. Richard did. They asked him, did you cut pieces out of the rug? Richard said, yes, two feet at the time. It's easier to remove it that way.

It is. Is it? Easier to cut chunks out of it than just to rip it up from the corner. It's easier to roll that motherfucker and carry it out. I've torn carpet up. You start at the corner, you rip a piece out, then you get the whole end, and then you fucking roll it. That's what you do. So you get the whole thing at once rather than several trips trimming it out. Cutting two feet at a time out. It's not a fucking hedge. You don't trim it.

He said, what did you do with the rug you took out of the bedroom? And Richard said, dump the bedroom rug in the Newtown landfill a week ago. It was blue in color. They said, why have you been telling everyone different things about your wife being missing, like her mother being sick?

And he said, I didn't want to say my wife was gone and I didn't know where she was. Like it was an embarrassment. Yeah. So they said. I'm being rejected. Yeah. They said, has she received any mail since she's been missing? And he said, no, she's gotten no letters since she left. She usually gets about two letters a week.

So they just asked him that. His demeanor was very plain spoken. And they didn't like it, but they really don't have anything. What else are you going to do? So they let him go. Christmas Day, they found out that he had taken his kids to Florida for the holidays. Oh.

so they execute a search warrant on the house while he's not there. Oh. So they don't want to deal with him. Yeah. They bring in Dr. Henry Lee to be present. Now, Dr. Henry Lee at the time was a world famous, the best. Now he's been completely disgraced as a total hack at this point. Well, no, he lied to people for 40 fucking years. Yeah, he can't do that. How many people went to jail or didn't go to jail because this guy went up and went, ah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and it was bullshit. Fucking Henry. Yeah, god damn it. So-

They bring him there. They come in. They look around everything. They found that the...

completely fucking in disarray they said furniture was strewn about dirty clothes were everywhere dishes and kitchen shit was unwashed in the sink and countertops it looks like a frat party happened why would you live like that said mattresses were on the bare floor in the living room along with boxes of toys and other items the carpets were all pulled up uh a freezer was located and searched there was no body in there but maybe she's in there uh they said though um

Yeah, they looked through that. This is a new freezer, though, by the way, that we don't know about. Yeah. During the search, they had tons of weapons that were found and tagged and cataloged and everything like that. So that's what they do. Several Smith & Wesson .357s, a few .38s, a Colt Python .38 revolver, Ruger carbine rifles, Finnish semi-automatic weapons, 12-gauge pump shotguns, Winchester rifles, Beretta handguns with clip.

380 automatic handgun, two hand grenades, Beretta crossbow, Walther PPK handgun, two 9mm semi-automatic handguns, Heckler-Koch .45 caliber over and under style universal shotgun, numerous clips, and an assortment of ammunition.

Most Americans think they spend about $62 per month on subscriptions. But get this, the real number is closer to $300. That is literally thousands of dollars a year, half of which you've probably forgotten about. Thankfully, Rocket Money can find a bunch of subscriptions you've forgotten all about and then help you cancel the ones you don't want anymore. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions,

monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so that you can grow your savings. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the app's features.

Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash wondery. That's rocketmoney.com slash wondery. rocketmoney.com slash wondery.

Looking for a way to simplify your family's back-to-school journey? Have lunch with Pack-It! Pack-It freezable lunch boxes and bags are designed with EcoFreeze technology, patented freezable gel that is built into the walls of the bag, eliminating the need for those annoying and often lost or hard-to-find ice packs. With Pack-It solutions-oriented products, food and drinks stay cool for hours, making it easy to prepare and pack healthy lunch options.

Shop cool styles, patterns, and colors on Packet.com. Use coupon code PACKET20 for 20% off. That's P-A-C-K-I-T and the number 20 for 20% off your purchase.

Make Packet the first stop on your back-to-school journey. This episode is sponsored by AutoTrader. Credit scores, down payments, interest rates. Car buying can be a numbers game, but you don't have to be a math expert to get the keys to your dream car. Just use Kelley Blue Book MyWallet on AutoTrader. Crunch your numbers and get your personalized results so you know exactly how much you'll pay each month for your car. It's like having a magic wand for your wallet. Perfect.

Presto! The car you've been wanting is now within reach. So hit the road and leave your calculator at home. Find your next car on autotrader.com. He is armed to the teeth, man. Dr. Lee did luminol tests in various locations and found positive for blood.

They said, of course, we were looking for any evidence of someone attempting to dispose of a corpse, is what he wrote. The blood was on some seized towels. They tested positive here. The blood was O positive, which was the same as health. But people bleed on towels in their house. Sure. I mean, you could have a pimple or cut yourself shaving. I bleed on every single one of my towels. She shaves her legs, you know, whatever. So investigator Keith Mayo's had enough here. Okay.

He's had enough of this bullshit. Once he learned about the rugs being cut out and everything, he goes, okay, fuck this. He swears himself in and takes over. He figured out where the garbage from his house gets deposited. Which grid? Which dump it's in. The Canterbury dump, which is about two hours away. He recruited some helpers, some garbage guys that he knew, and for the next several days, he went to the dump and sifted through mountains of fucking trash. Wow.

Yes. And he threw everything. They ended up finding a portion of rug that was identical to the rug at the residence.

He was sure it was the missing piece. It also had stains that appeared to be human blood. He took that to the laboratory and said, here, idiots, I did it for you. I found it. Found it. December 30th, then they talked to the plow driver. That's when the plow driver tells them about the U-Haul and the wood chipper and all that kind of shit. And then they do some research and they find out that Richard Crafts rented a wood chipper from Darien Rental Service on November 18th.

What? At a cost of $967.50. Wow. Yep, he signed the slip. No fucking way. Yep. Another receipt indicated that he owned a chainsaw that he purchased in 1981, which they're going to talk about, and he bought a new freezer a couple days later. Huh. Okay. Okay.

Detectives head to the wood shipping site now. It's on a river known as Lake Zoar. It's a river known as Lake Zoar. Okay. They saw piles of wood chips along the banks of the river, which is weird. Never seen that before. I've seen a lot of rivers. Never seen that. There also seemed to be small pieces of green plastic shit strewn about in there. Everywhere, yeah. So a detective got down on his hands and knees and sifted through it.

And all this, he's looking for everything. He noticed some scraps of shredded paper, partially covered up by debris as well. And he also found a few pieces of mail. He looked on the mail, one envelope. You could read Ms. Miss hell, hell, L crafts, five new field lane, new town, Connecticut. No fucking way. Withstood. Holy shit. And her name. See, so then all the cops come here. Yeah.

And every inch of the ground has gone over, photographed everything. They found numerous strands of blonde hair that we'll talk about, bone fragments, fabrics, cloth, plastic items, wood chips, and other shit. They bring everything into the lab here. They also find out, by the way, November 17th, Richard purchased a freezer. Freezer one day, wood chipper the next.

They led to the discovery of 2,660 strands of blonde hair. They found that many. 69 slivers of human bone, five droplets of human blood, two teeth, a truncated piece of human skull, three ounces of, quote, human tissue, just flesh. Oh, my God. A portion of a human finger, one fingernail, and one portion of a toenail.

He rented? He blasted his wife through a wood chipper of somebody else's? Yep. Oh, by the way, they also went to the bottom of the Housatonic River during the search and they find a steel chainsaw, the brand, the steel chainsaw. Yeah, S-G-I-H-L, yeah. With its serial number filed off, which...

That is terrifying. That's what a Baltimore drug dealer does before he shoots up a fucking corner and throws it in the sewer grate. That's the scariest chainsaw on the planet. Don't touch it. In the chainsaw, in the teeth of the blade, they were able to find remnants of human tissue, blonde hair, and a number of blue fibers in the teeth of the blade. What? The blue fibers matched the rug inside the home.

Did he roll her up in the carpet and cut her up in the carpet? They were able to restore the serial number even below the scratching. They were able to do it with some infrared shit or whatever. And it matched a receipt belonging to Richard Crafts indicating he purchased that chainsaw on January 9th, 1981 for $644.95.

The man used $1,500 worth of power tools. Yep. And it's his chair. He threw it in there. Yep. Keith Mayo ended up finding the receipt for it and bringing it to the cops as well. He's been helping out a lot.

That is insane. Unbelievable. Forensic odontology analysis was able to prove conclusively that the remains, those were her teeth. Those are her teeth. It's probably her blonde hair and everything else here. One specimen was a tiny piece of a fragment of tooth with a piece of jawbone still attached. A forensic odontologist testified later that the tooth was removed from the mouth with traumatic force that shattered it off and shook the bone with it.

He said if a dentist had removed the tooth, the base of the tooth would be clean and absent of jawbone residue. He said, in my opinion, the fracture occurred by blunt force that fractured it to the center line and took the jaw with it.

So, since there's blood in the bedroom, the cops assume that he bludgeoned her at the foot of the bed during the early morning hours of November 19th, maybe when she was making her bed or changing the sheets. They speculate that he carried his wife's body to the basement where he just hooked up a new freezer that he got two days earlier. He placed her in the freezer, then woke up the au pair, told them, you should go to my sister's house.

And, yeah, then picked the kids up and they believed sometime during the next day he took the frozen body or that day took the body then frozen solid to a secluded piece of property that he owned in Newtown, just a property. That's where he used the chainsaw to chop up her body and returned them to the freezer. Then the next day when it went when it got dark, he took those packages wrapped in plastic garbage bags to Lake Czar where he ran them through the wood chipper.

Oh, my God. This is horrific as you as it gets. They said what he didn't realize because it was dark out probably and it was snow and everything else that he was shooting her into the river. Not all the parts made it into the water and all this shit landed on the side and didn't quite get to the water.

And she had mail in her pocket. And that's what happened. And he didn't know. Didn't realize it. Yeah. She saved her. She solved her own case. Yeah. With junk mail. Her and Keith fucking Miracle Whip over there did it all. Unbelievable. So January 11th, 1987, an arrest warrant is issued for him. This is fucking hilarious, by the way.

That night, 9 p.m., a dozen Connecticut State Troopers and detectives go to his house, 5 Newfield Lane, to arrest him. They surround his house, and they call him on the phone. And they said, come outside to surrender. We got a warrant. He said, quote, I'm tired. I'll take care of it in the morning. There's 15 cops in your yard, bro. We're not betting down here.

They said, no, no, you really need to come out now. He got pissy with them. What? He got a little twatty with them. He said, quote, he said, quote, don't call me back and hung up on them. Not tonight. Not tonight, I said. I'll be there in the morning.

So they're like, shit. And they don't really want to rush the house because they know he's got an arsenal in there. Right. So they're like, fuck, we don't want to have to get shot and shoot this guy. So they wait. And finally, they said his children were still inside the house asleep, he said. At 12.30 a.m., he told the cops over the phone, I'll be out in five minutes. Uh-huh. And then...

A little while later, he came out and surrendered. What? He was taken to the jail, and his bail was set at $750,000. Oh, my God. I can't believe he came out peaceful. He came out. The kids are inside. I guess he didn't want to have a shootout with the kids there. That would have been bad. I'm shocked. I'm shocked. A man that can puff his wife into— Yeah, or his kids. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

He shot his wife into a river slash lake. It's cold, man. Cold fucking water. The neighbor said, quote, it's like something out of Edgar Allen Poe. That's what I think the next door neighbor. I'd say worse than that. I was going to say it's more like fucking Friday the 13th or something. Yeah, this is unbelievable. Another one said, quote, I'm kind of shocked it happened in Newtown of all places. Of course. Wait a few years. Wait a few years. Yeah, you won't be so shocked.

Since his arrest, in the two days since he was arrested, a major movie studio already took interest in the case. A representative of Warner Brothers visited Keith Mayo two days after Richard Crafts was arrested to discuss a possible deal for the dramatization of the case. So you're telling me Hollywood's been devoid of ideas for 40 years? Yeah, they just showed up two days after he was arrested. Here's a new idea. Mayo said he would do it if the proceeds could go to the kids.

That's nice. Because they're going to need it because dad's going to be in prison, we hope. Yeah. So during the trial here, the state's attorney says that she feared for her life because she should have feared for her life. Her husband had police training and connections stemming from his service in the CIA. Right. All this type of shit. They said that.

You know, it's obvious she was afraid and for good reason. The defense attorney said, though, that the body fragments found in that area here, they don't even we don't think they even belong to her. And they said, we think she's probably still alive. That's the defense. OK, that's that's.

That's some balls, man. That is fucking wild. Meanwhile, all her friends are going to testify she would never leave her three small children for Thanksgiving and Christmas. That's insane. That's not happening. Yeah, that is wild. So Dr. Henry Lee testifies about all the thousands of pieces of everything. They said they were able to determine about 65 pieces of bone were cut with a heavy type cutting edge that produced a crushing and cutting force.

He said the human bone, the tissue, human fibers and hair were all mixed together with wood chips and vegetative debris. But most importantly, the same machine cut it all.

Also, the teeth here, the way they did it, they said they took several hundred X-rays of the recovered tooth from all possible angles using a series of five sets of X-rays that were taken of her teeth between 80 and 86. The guy performed a comparison between the evidence and the images of her teeth and said the recovered tooth matched the lower left bicuspid on the X-ray charts. And he said he was 100 percent medically absolutely certain of the positive comparison. That is that tooth.

That's that tooth. Her friend Gertrude Horvath testifies here. They said, did this is the defense said, did she have any did hell have any indicate any hesitancy about going into her house? And she said no.

That was that. So when Richard was home at one time when she dropped her off, the nanny testifies as well, Dawn Marie Thomas, and she testifies about the stuff we already told you about. And she said as they left the house after the snowstorm with the kids, the youngest kid realized she left her gloves inside, but Richard refused to let her go back in the house and get them. He just get the fuck out. Snowstorm. Yeah. Mom's dead. Get out. That's it. So.

That is very, very interesting. So also the carpet spot, the prosecutor, there's that they testify about the kerosene stain that the au pair does. The prosecutor asked the au pair about a freezer that the couple kept in the basement. And they said the freezer was gone after hell disappeared and that it was replaced by a new freezer. Hmm. That's not great.

Wow. Dawn said she asked Richard Crafts about the freezer and he told her the old one was broken, but Dawn Thomas said it wasn't broken. I've used it. It's not broken. Puts it in it every week. Yeah. Richard Crafts' sister testifies...

that Richard has never expressed any emotion about his wife's disappearance. She describes hell as her sister-in-law. She said she was good friends with her too. She said they had planned to take their family skiing in February of 87. They made reservations at Okimo for a long weekend. I think president's week in February, she said. She said that hell had sent a deposit. Now, she also testifies that her brother Richard told her he knew that

that all of his wife's friends think that he killed her. He said, quote, they think I've chopped off her head. That's very specific. Yeah. That's interesting here. So they were more testifying about the money things, who controlled the money and that sort of thing. They said, from November 17th on, have you seen him demonstrate any emotions, any concern, any sorrow about her disappearance? No, is her answer. None. None.

Even if you were in the middle of a divorce and were apart, you'd be like, hey, the kids want to know where mom is. Yeah. That's fucked, man. Even if you hated her, you'd be like, hey, you know, kind of want the kids to have a mom here. Have a half day today because the kids need to see you. Yeah. So this, by the way, their whole defense is nobody, no crime. Again. That's the whole fucking defense. Nobody. That's not her. Nobody, no crime. Sorry. Don't know what to tell you. That's life. Yeah.

We've got 2,000 pieces of hair and her address on the riverbank. Well, if they were attached to a body, then you'd have a crime. But no body, no crime. So the barber emptied his bag there. Not my problem. Not my fault. Okay. This is a three-month trial.

So much evidence. So many pieces of evidence. They had to go over all these little pieces of evidence. So much. So many witnesses. Yeah. The jury deliberates for 17 days.

About what? I have no fucking idea. Yeah, what are they talking about? 17 days in, they come back and say, hopelessly deadlocked. Get out of here! Yep. One person would not crack. Everyone else said guilty from the start. 17 days, one person held out and would not give in. Oh my god. The one juror said it was like reasoning with a child. He had a real difficulty retaining. Yeah.

I think he has an ex-wife he hates is what it is. Yeah. That's what it's about. If I need to make her disappear, I don't want to go to jail for it. That's all. Wow. Another juror said that, quote, it wasn't chaos. It was hell in there. Uh-huh. They said they tried to convince the loan holdout, but in the end that he simply refused to participate any further. Just crossed his arms and said, I'm done.

Really? So 100 witnesses, 650 exhibits, 53 days, a mistrial. That's a man that definitely hates his wife. There's no other way to explain that. So they retry him, though, in 1990. This was 88 was the trial. There's the benefit of the high fucking taxes of that place. We got plenty of money to retry this. We can try people over and over again. I don't give a shit. It's an exact replay of the first trial. Exact same witness list. Exact same evidence. It's.

Just a replay of the second trial. The prosecution in closing said, it's difficult to imagine a more sadistic and surreptitious disposal of human remains. Whoever did this would have had to have nerves of steel, ice in their veins, disciplined. He'd be sick otherwise, trained and obviously totally free of emotion. You know, like a CIA guy that's been in war. Yeah, that's doing illegal bombing. Yeah.

No other human being could do that. Most of us couldn't even do it to a rat. The person who came within three quarters of an ounce of committing the perfect crime pointing to Richard. There he is. The defense said nobody to prove the death means no murder. That's literally what he said. He said all they have is a handful of hair, a few clots of blood and a fingernail with traces of red nail polish, part of a tooth, a dental cap, mangled bits of bone, a thumb and a toe.

Sing it, Marlee. That's it. Nobody will cry. They said the toe and thumb could only be determined to be human. Some of the blood and hair and the nail polish were similar to the alleged victim, but only the tooth and the dental cap were conclusively hers.

And the identification was immediately challenged by an expert for the defense. He said, quote, we have less than three percent of the hair on the human body, less than two thirds of an ounce or less than one percent of bones in the human body. And with respect to the blood, less than a quarter of one percent of that. But they say to you that this is hell crafts. There's no evidence of a murder.

Jesus Christ. He said if she wanted to disappear to say the heck with all this, nobody would be in more of a position to do it than her. Wouldn't she show up during the murder trial to go, hey, it's me. Leave him alone. Surprise witness. Dead lady. They explained exactly what happens to a body when you throw it through a fucking wood chipper. Yeah, horrible shit.

So this verdict comes in way quicker than 17 days, and he is guilty as fuck this time. Yeah.

They find him guilty. They can't. Yeah. One of the jurors said that he could only recall one vote that wasn't unanimous that they took. They said in the beginning, nine jurors voted guilty and three were undecided. And once they were talked to and showed, oh, yeah, that's that, and the dental evidence, they went, yeah, you're right, and they did it. The second vote was unanimous guilty. What else would our teeth be out there? Yeah. Who just sprays their teeth through a wood chipper and then goes out of town? So...

Yeah, I imagine she'd take both of those teeth with her if she was going somewhere. During the sentencing, Richard says, a great deal has been said about my apparent lack of emotion. He has ice water in his veins. I have feelings like everyone else. That's all. And the judge says, I'm about to hurt them. You, sir, may fuck off 50 years in prison. How's that?

Connecticut is very, very kind. Yeah, well, he's late 40s right now. He shot a woman through a wood chipper. It's a lot. Yeah. In 93, he loses his appeal for a new trial. Okay, so not going to get that. In 2020, he is released from prison.

He's out. He was 82 at the time, and they housed him at a transitional housing program for veterans in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Connecticut? What? What?

Yep. They said he served a dramatically shorter sentence for different reasons, mostly because of an old sentencing law known as statutory good time. That law, because he was convicted in 1990, which has since been changed, allowed for large amounts of time to be taken off your sentence as a reward for good behavior and jailhouse jobs.

So, yes. So they said, had he been sentenced after the new law had passed, he wouldn't have been eligible for any time off a sentence. Got it. And he would have been in there. So every day is like a day and a half or some shit like that. Yeah, basically. They said he's set to finish his sentence in June completely.

This man's a free man. Oh, he's free. Based on his sentence and without this period of supervision, Kraft would not have had any assistance transitioning back into the community. So for us, it's our job to prepare even someone of extreme violence because they're going to go home. Now, in 1989, a film called The Woodchipper Massacre was made where children kill their aunt, freeze her corpse, dismember it, then put it in a woodchipper. Exactly.

Also, this is the inspiration for Fargo's woodchip. Is it really? It absolutely is. Yep, Joel and Ethan Cohen said that. The pilot episode of Forensic Files was about this. No shit. The very first one in 96. The one that set up A&E's contract with them. Wow. 97, New Detectives outlined it in an episode. 98, it was on the History Channel's television series Crime Stories. And in July 2012, Investigation Discovery did it again.

And check this is the first man to actually do it. Yeah, this is he's the first one that we know about. Yeah, that actually cut him, cut his woman, cut his wife up with a fucking chainsaw and then put her through a wood chipper. That's why a wood chipper that everybody is Newtown, Connecticut. Holy shit.

If you like that show, tell the world about it. Get on whatever app you're listening on. Give a nice review for us. It really, really helps us out a lot. Shut up and give me murder.com live shows all throughout the year here. April 5th, Sacramento, April 6th, San Francisco.

4-20, April 20th, Saturday night, virtual live show anywhere in the world with internet. You can have a live show just like a regular live show, but in your goddamn house with your own booze and whatever else you got. Let's get after it. Enjoy that. It's available for two weeks after that, too. So you can watch it as many times as you want and have a lot of fun with it. Shut up and give me murder.com, patreon.com slash crime and sports, all the bonus shit.

This week, chess guy with a vibrator up his ass, Hans Nieman. DB Cooper, we know who that is for Small Town Murder. Jumped out of a plane. He's a sketch that we haven't known who the fuck he is there. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports. Do that. Keep hanging out with us. Also, at Small Town Murder on Instagram. Follow us. Do all that shit. Until next week, everybody. It's been our pleasure. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

She struck him with her motor vehicle. She had been under the influence and then she left him there.

In January 2022, local woman Karen Reid was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask.

Was it a crime of passion? If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling. This was clearly an intentional act. And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia. Or a corrupt police cover-up. If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover-up to prevent one of their own from going down. Everyone had an opinion.

And after the 10-week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision. To end in a mistrial, it's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is. Law and Crime presents the most in-depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen. You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.