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This is exactly right. Experience the glamour and danger of the roaring 20s from the palm of your hand in

In June's Journey, you have the chance to solve a captivating murder mystery and reveal deep-seated family secrets. Use your keen eye and detective skills to guide June Parker through this thrilling hidden object mystery game. June's Journey is a mobile game that follows June Parker, a New York socialite living in London. Play as June Parker and investigate beautifully detailed scenes of the 1920s

while uncovering the mystery of her sister's murder. There are twists, turns, and catchy tunes, all leading you deeper into the thrilling storyline. This is your chance to test your detective skills. And if you play well enough, you could make it to the detective club. There, you'll chat with other players and compete with or against them. June needs your help, but watch out.

You never know which character might be a villain. Shocking family secrets will be revealed, but will you crack this case? Find out as you escape this world and dive into June's world of mystery, murder, and romance. Can you crack the case? Download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android.

On July 11, 2002, J.C. McGee was shot and killed in the doorway of his home in Ohio. For 22 years, the case remained unsolved until his daughter Madison started asking questions. This

This is the journey of a daughter searching for answers, for closure, and for justice, and figuring out exactly what that means as she uncovers some dark truths that have been hidden from her. As far as podcasts go, it doesn't get more personal than this. From Tenderfoot TV, Ice Cold Case is available now. Listen for free on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the last 25 years writing about true crime. And I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solved them. Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes. And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.

Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st century lens. Some are solved and some are cold. Very cold. This is Buried Bones. ♪♪

Hey, Kate. How are you doing? I'm doing well, Paul. How about you? I'm doing pretty good myself. So what's been going on? Well, brace yourself. I have been dabbling in fiction. Oh. Your eyebrows just went to the ceiling, I know. I can't believe it.

I can't believe it either, and it might be ill-fated. I have no idea, but I've always been interested. Have you been interested in writing fiction or doing some kind of fiction project before? Believe it or not, I actually have written almost a complete, I'm going to use air quotes here, novel. Prior to retiring, I sat down and I started writing a creative novel.

story, you know, loosely based on sort of this blend of multiple cases throughout my career.

Okay. And how far did you get? You said almost. So what does that mean? I'm pretty much, I would say, 75 to 80 percent through. But what I found, because it's multiple plot lines, that I started losing track of where I was at. And it was like, how am I going to tie this together? You know, and writing is

You know, fiction, I found, I mean, I truly enjoyed it. It was sort of like just this thing to express myself and create my own little universe. But it also was very, very challenging. So I can only imagine, you know, with what you're trying to do is probably orders of magnitude much more sophisticated than what I was doing back in the day.

Sophisticated is not the word I would think of. But I tried a murder board that I have a cork board in my room that I tried to create in the master bedroom. I tried to create as a murder board. And now it's kind of devolved into a photo inspiration board of where locations in my head are.

Would be, which is also equally useful. But I do think when you're trying to create a narrative that's complicated, that's why I was so in love with American Sherlock with Oscar Heinrich, because here he just sort of like he had it. It's in his case files. I didn't have to figure anything out. And and fiction's harder than you would think. It really is. But I do think it's I think I agree with you. It's been pretty satisfying for me so far.

But you would think it would be kind of a no-brainer for people like you and I who deal with this kind of stuff all the time, especially with the amount of material, historical material I read, too. But, boy, it's not that easy. I have a lot of respect for people who write really good detective or Agatha Christie kind of whodunit stuff. It's complicated, isn't it? Well,

What is? And, you know, like, for me, the big challenge, you know, like the plot lines, because of the cases I've worked, you know, I could stitch together sort of an overarching story arc, if that's the right way to say it. But it's creating interesting characters. And, you know, for me, it's the dialogue. I suck at the dialogue. I've got the most cheesy dialogue you've ever heard. Yeah.

I write in my book, In American Sherlock, about Oscar Heinrich. He tried fiction, and it was terrible. It was terrible. And his dialogue was awful. And you would have thought this man would have been brilliant. And I'm not drawing a parallel between you and Heinrich, but...

But he really did struggle with that. And I don't know if that is like it was like the vernacular that was throwing him off or, you know, Heinrich had a problem, had a lot of interpersonal issues with different people. And maybe that made it hard for him to communicate literally in life, let alone on the page. So what do you think your problem is? Yeah.

Finding the right words, right? Well, it is. It's trying to make it sound natural. Yeah. But also, you want it to be engaging. And like for me, you know, I'm not like a witty conversationalist. Well, I guess you are. No, pause. No, that's not true. I really think you are. You can be very clever. You are. So I'm going to correct that right now. And so when I would write something, it was almost like a, you know, like a Jack and Jill thing.

type of kids book. I was like, God, this is the most juvenile dialogue two people ever had. Oh, where do you think he went? Said the detective. I don't know, said the witness. Pretty much.

I find that charming. Maybe you and I can collaborate on something, although I'm not sure I'm going to be much better. We'll see. I find it to be a really interesting outlet. You know, I talk about this a lot when people ask why I do so many different things, podcasting and writing books and teaching and all of that. And I just say I just like to be a good storyteller. And why limit myself?

to, you know, one area, only being a good podcaster, only being a good author or documentary filmmaker, whatever, you know, fiction film, why limit yourself? And so I feel like that too. I used to kind of say to myself...

No, I can't. What are you thinking? You can't do that. I don't, you know, that's not in your wheelhouse. And now I'm kind of like, well, screw that. I can try it and maybe it'll work and maybe it won't, but at least try. And I try to pass it on to my kids. So this is a try and we'll see how it goes, but I really like it. I bet it will go amazing. I think, you know, one of your strengths is storytelling and, you know, this is where

Just in the, you know, the episodes that we've done to date, you know, I don't know how much our listeners truly appreciate how you take, in essence, bullet points and are able to off the cuff tell a story about.

in real time that I'm listening to and that the listeners are listening to. So you truly have a gift with that for sure. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. And, you know, the reason I'm bringing this up for this particular episode is this story that we are about to delve into is bananas. That's the only way to describe it. And I don't think I could have made it up. This would be an excellent inspiration for some true crime fan to use as a jumping off point for

for a good novel. But this is a story that's worthy of a two-parter, and it is really kind of off the rails. This is not only a whodunit. It's a what happened, and is this person alive? And why? I mean, it's just every who, what, when, where, why question is all in this story and not answered for kind of a long time. So it's right up your alley. It's a good mystery. Yeah, I'm ready to sink my teeth into it.

Okay, let's set the scene. This is a great time period. 1930s. Love it, love it, love it. 1930s. This is September 25th, 1937. And we start out with what I consider to be a pretty theatrical opening, which is an older man, a 72-year-old man named Charles Ross.

And he's behind the wheel of his car, and he is driving in a suburb of Chicago. So 1930s Chicago, just, I mean, I love it. You're nodding your head. That is just like a film ready to go, isn't it? Already, and I haven't even gotten to the details.

Well, you know, I'm just envisioning Al Capone and those types of gangs that were running the streets in Chicago back in the day, you know, and of course, with what Hoover was trying to do in terms of trying to suppress that gang activity from a law enforcement perspective.

We know Hoover. We're going to talk about him later. He's sort of a hero here. You know, he is the FBI character coming in, but he's a problematic character in history. Obviously, they found out there was a lot of corruption after he died. There's all kinds of things about Hoover. But in this story, he's a positive.

So we're already very atmospheric, which I love. 1937, we're in Franklin Lake, which is a suburb of Chicago. And this older man, 72-year-old Charles Ross, is driving in his car and he's on North Avenue. He is driving towards the city. He's with his former secretary, who is a close friend named Florence Fryedge, and she's 40 years old. So he's 72, she's 40.

Not telling you if that's important or not right now. We just know there are two people in the car. He is important because he has a lot of money. He's retired. He was the president of a company called the George S. Carrington Greeting Card Manufacturing Company, which was based in Chicago.

He had been a druggist, but he had just been wealthy from real estate investing for most of his life. So this is somebody who, you know, he's driving with his former secretary. He has a lot of money. Already we see kind of bad things happen.

happening one way or the other. There's a wealthy man and then there's a woman who we know is sort of a natural target in this situation and we're in gangster land. So do you see what I mean? Why this is already it's instantly kind of a good inspiration for some sort of fiction series. No, for sure. Because now, you know, I'm

My mind is twirling because obviously you're going to be telling a story in which a crime occurs. And so now, OK, so what is going on? We have potential financial motive with Ross's potential connections. Maybe that dives into the underworld within the gangs that were operating the streets at the time.

Then do we have a sordid affair going on between the 72-year-old man and this 40-year-old woman? And does she have a significant other that could be jealous as a result of this relationship? So now I'm starting to tease apart, okay, there's multiple lanes here.

That when a crime occurs, and I know you're going to be telling me there's going to be a crime, okay, what lane am I initially going to think is the reason that I need to drive down or the investigative path I need to dive down to try to figure out why the crime occurred?

There are, in fact, many lanes with this. And I want to preface this by saying that I'm going to ask you questions about what the would-be victims do in this situation. And it is not meant to victim blame. It's meant to just say, is this what you would recommend to people? What would you do in this situation if you're a layperson and you're not somebody who's in law enforcement? So before I drive you completely mad...

By not telling you what's going on. Well, let me at least address that because I know, you know, for me, victim blaming is a, that is a very distinct type of commentary. But risk assessment, what we do in law enforcement is completely different. It is not putting blame on the victim. It's assessing, okay, the victim is in this situation, right?

How does that elevate the victim's risk? The victim has a certain lifestyle. How does that elevate the victim's risk? It doesn't mean that the victim is responsible for the crime. When I see victim blaming, when that term is used, that's when somebody is saying they did something wrong.

that cause them to be a victim of crime? No. It's the offender that causes the crime to occur, not the circumstances that the victim has found them in. That just is risk assessment by somebody like me as I'm trying to determine

Why did this person become a victim of a crime? Well, let me tell you, I had to put myself in this situation several times and think, well, what would I do? So here we go. Charles and Florence are driving. He notices that there's a car tailing him, and they've been driving pretty closely behind him for a while. The headlights seem unusually bright.

And this is nighttime, so it's not unusual for the headlights to be on. But Charles is alarmed for whatever reason. He says to Florence, the former secretary, I don't like the look of this car and I don't know why they're tailing me so closely. I don't want them to hit me. I'm going to just pull over and let them pass. OK, so he's just saying I'm just going to move over to the shoulder or whatever and let them go around me. OK.

I would assume this is, I mean, just from the beginning, this is fine, right? I mean, somebody's right behind you. You're moving forward. He's not saying, I'm going to stop the car. He's just saying, I'm just going to move over and let him go past me. But he's clearly nervous about this. I feel like I hear about road rage incidents regularly.

where it doesn't matter if the person pulls over to let the other person pass. Bad things can happen while in motion. It just scares me to death to even think about having somebody behind me feeling like a threat and not knowing what to do when you're on a single lane road, which is what this sounds like.

Why is Charles immediately concerned about this car versus, you know, if you're just driving and you see somebody who's now tailgating you and you go, okay, that's too close to comfort. I'm just going to let them pass. You wouldn't naturally go, oh, I'm nervous about this. Something doesn't look right about this car.

So that, to me, is a little bit informative in terms of Charles has something happening in his life that he has concern about that possibly is elevating his risk. And the fact that we know that he made that statement tells me, well, Florence is a witness in this case. You're right. So Florence is concerned, too. She says, I agree, move over. He moves over to what we presume would be the shoulder, and the car pulls around him.

and pulls in front of him and blocks him. So effectively stopping the car so that Charles doesn't, you know, run into the back of this car. So he's blocked in. Florence says, because she is a witness, she says that a young man, and this is her only description, a young man with curly hair and a pointed face jumps out of the car. This guy runs over to Charles's window to get Charles to roll down the window because Charles is not going to roll down the window.

The man with the pointed face taps a revolver on the window and threatens to shoot him through the window. So, I mean, on my notes, I'm questioning why not drive off, and now I'm thinking, well, he's walked in. I don't know what this lane is like, and I can tell you the name of it, and it might have changed then, but...

It seems like, according to Florence, there was nowhere for him to go. There was nowhere to drive off to, essentially. But, oh boy, I mean, what a scary situation. What I'm wondering is how long and what path did Charles take in this vehicle? And did this man in the car either follow them until they got into a length or stretch of road that

in which now the offender knew he could effectively block Charles by getting in front of him. It doesn't sound like the offender did anything proactive to force Charles to pull over. He's just driving aggressively behind him. And Charles chose to pull over along a stretch of road in which, in essence now, he doesn't have options. You see this man block you, it's like, "You gotta get out of there." The car is a deathtrap.

Bullets pass so easily, not only through the windows of vehicles, but through doors of windows, through the trunk of the car. I mean, basically, it's your engine block that is going to prevent a bullet from actually penetrating into the cab.

And so, in essence, Charles and Florence are sitting ducks if this man decides to shoot. Well, Charles doesn't want to take a chance, especially with Florence in the car. I'm assuming she's panicked. He says, get out of the car or I'm going to shoot you through this window. And Charles gets out of the car and the man searches him.

And grabs him and says to Charles, this is a kidnapping. My boss told me to bring you along. And so now I'm looking at this and wondering, is something going to happen with Florence? Also, there's only one man. And he has grabbed this older man who is 72 and says, I'm kidnapping you.

Does this sound targeted? It must be targeted. He must know who this guy is. My suspicion is he may not necessarily know this man with the revolver. This could be somebody who's been hired or an underling, but it sounds like...

The individual ordering the kidnapping is probably somebody Charles has a prior relationship with in some capacity, whether it be, let's say, a business partner, a partner in crime, owes money to. Something along those lines would be my guess. I think it's striking that

this man is abducting Charles, and now you have Florence who sees this man. Yep. And I'm assuming he doesn't kill Florence. Well, I was worried about Florence as I started to get into this because I thought, well, I mean, I wonder if this is going to be a crime of opportunity and he's going to sexually assault her. But it doesn't sound like this is going to be his motive. He really wants this rich guy. Right.

So she is completely a wreck and she is trying to negotiate with this guy with the pointed face. She's reasoning with him and she says, please do not do anything to him. He has a really bad heart.

I have $85, which, by the way, is almost $1,200 today. And you can have it. Just leave him alone, please, and let us drive off. And the kidnapper looks at her and says, are you his girlfriend or his sweetheart? And she said, I'm just his friend. And I thought, what an odd question to ask a woman who is sitting with the man that you're clearly planning to take a hostage, you know?

Yeah, why take the time to even engage with that woman? If you're there to kidnap, you want to be in and out, right? Yeah. He's already taking the risk of leaving her alive, at least, you know, he's made a decision. And he may not have even known that Florence was in this vehicle at the time, you know, he gets out of his vehicle to kidnap Charles.

And now is not necessarily even thinking straight. He's on a mission. The offender is there to get Charles and all of a sudden there's Florence there now to ask, well, who are you? You know, are you the girlfriend or sweetheart? You know, why is he asking that?

And it complicates things, her being there. So then I was wondering how this was going to go for Florence. She says, we're just friends. And I just want to clarify right off the top, Charles is married. His wife had gone on record and said, they truly are just friends. I have never, ever thought that there was anything happening between them. The relationship is that Charles retired, but Florence is still at the greeting card company where he owned. And

And so he had not sold his interest yet in this company. So he meets with Florence, you know, once a week to be briefed on what's happening at the company. And the two had been returning to Chicago from one of their meetings where they had dinner at the Fargo Hotel in Sycamore, Illinois. So, you know, the wife just says later on, take that off the table right now that this was some sort of weird personal thing. And I just have to say,

Knowing the rest of the story, I would say that that is the case. Florence is a witness, though, and she does give us a lot of clarity. Thank goodness. Let me just show you, just because I like to. Here's a photo, because I know you love photos, because we don't get them very often. Here's a photo. This is Charles and his wife. Just so you can put, you know, names to faces.

He just looks like a typical older man, and she looks like a typical older woman. And I know you like to see any kind of a sense for how big he might be, you know, if he's broad or not. What do you think? Well, it is hard to tell. I think, you know, I'm looking at, you know, this couple with Charles on the left. He looks—actually, he's dressed in what appears to be a suit. He's got a necktie on.

He looks very distinguished looking. I would say the same of Mrs. Ross is she in this photo is also dressed nicely. In terms of Charles, you know, I can't really get a sense in terms of like, is he a robust male? If let's say there's now a combat situation where this offender and Charles get into a grappling match or, you know, they're now fighting,

you know, how well Charles could defend himself. You know, from this photo, I wouldn't be able to determine anything. Well, and, you know, the side note that I want to remind you of, Florence has said over and over again, he has a bad heart. Stop scaring him. Stop scaring him. Experience the glamour and danger of the roaring 20s from the palm of your hand. In

In June's Journey, you have the chance to solve a captivating murder mystery and reveal deep-seated family secrets. Use your keen eye and detective skills to guide June Parker through this thrilling hidden object mystery game. June's Journey is a mobile game that follows June Parker, a New York socialite living in London. Play as June Parker and investigate beautifully detailed scenes of the 1920s

while uncovering the mystery of her sister's murder. There are twists, turns, and catchy tunes, all leading you deeper into the thrilling storyline. This is your chance to test your detective skills. And if you play well enough, you could make it to the detective club. There, you'll chat with other players and compete with or against them. June needs your help, but watch out.

You never know which character might be a villain. Shocking family secrets will be revealed, but will you crack this case? Find out as you escape this world and dive into June's world of mystery, murder, and romance. Can you crack the case? Download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android.

Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. That's June's Journey. Download the game for free on iOS and Android. So the kidnapper looks at Florence after she says, we're just friends. Now I want to give a shout out to, we have another researcher who is wonderful. Her name is Allie Elkin. And I had to ask her a couple of questions and here's what I had to find.

The kidnapper, the man with the pointed face, jabs his gun at Florence's shoulder and says, can he stand a touch for a quarter of a million dollars? And I said to Allie, what the hell? What does that even mean? Do you know what that, can you guess what that means? Well, he's saying this after Florence died.

talks about he has a weak heart. And so I imagine the term or the phrase, can he stand a touch? I'm kind of extrapolating that may have been a phrase that was more commonly used within maybe a certain segment of society, maybe within, you know, we started out talking this episode about the mob, you know, is this a slang phrase that

But it sounds like, well, he has a weak heart. Well, can he at least hold up for a period of time? And here's the amount that is going to be asked for, you know, in order to get him back, to get him back safe. Allie believes, looking through all of her research, it's gangster speak for does he have quick access to a quarter of a million dollars? Okay. I have never understood that.

gangster speak, but we get a little bit of a tutorial in this story. So that is it. So really the takeaway from this is the quarter million dollar part. I could do a quick search, but would have been a gazillion dollars now. It would have been a lot. But he's not making any statement of you get me that quarter million dollars, he will be returned safe.

He doesn't. She essentially says, I don't know. Leave him alone. And the kidnapper snatches the $85 from Florence. He tells her to lie down across the front seat of the car. Of course, says don't call the police. And then he drags Charles to his own car, which someone else is driving. But Florence can't identify who this is.

She pops her head up long enough to see them driving off. She is, of course, petrified. Let me ask you this. What should Florence do next? Because there are a couple of options here. What would you tell somebody to do next?

Well, part of it is going to be, you know, dependent upon the environment. But the vision that I'm having, it's at night. This is a single lane road. I'm assuming that Florence is going to be able, you know, when Charles is abducted, that the car is still drivable, that Florence would be able to drive the car away. Yes. Now, if it's a single lane road, of course, she runs the risk of driving right up into the offenders if they decided to stop and see if she listened or not. Right.

And of course, this is well before the days of cell phones. So it's not like she can call the police right away. I'm assuming that this is in the days before there were phone booths that were, you know, readily available, you know, so she probably has to drive

a ways before she could even access a phone to be able to notify authorities. Under these circumstances, I think Florence would be best driving the car the opposite direction the offenders went off and drive straight to a law enforcement station or straight to if she sees a patrol car, you know, flag down that officer and now say this has happened.

This is not what Florence does. Oh, okay. That doesn't sound good. That sounds like a good idea, but she does not do that. She goes in the same direction. She decides to tail them. Okay. Now I know you're ready to say something. She knows that one of the offenders has a gun. Right. What is she going to do? In reality, she is elevating her risk of

doing this. So maybe her intent is to follow them and see where they go. But is she capable of that type of surveillance without being spotted, especially on an isolated road? She has to get them in vision to be able to see where they go. Well, if she gets them in vision, they can see her, you know, and so they just stop and take her out.

you know, this is, I think, a very poor decision on Florence's part. I like the intent, which is to help her friend, her former boss. She was trying to save him. Sure. So what she does is she tries to be smart, of course, and follows them from a long way away. But eventually they get away from her. You know, now she's lost precious time. She does make it

to a phone to be able to call the police, and the police call Charles Ross's wife, and now everybody knows. I'm grateful that Florence didn't get hurt and that she is a witness, and we at least understand the dynamic between this kidnapper who asks odd questions about Sweetheart and stuff like that, but at the same time, she's so worried about Charles because of his bad heart.

So that's where we are right now is you've got an older man who is very wealthy, well-known in the city, who has been carjacked, sort of kidnapped, definitely. And we are left wondering what is going to happen next to this man. Is he going to survive this? Because it's a big mystery, boy. Sure.

You know, and it just kind of dawned on me with the man with the revolver asking her, are you his girlfriend or sweetheart? If she had said yes, I wonder if the man was trying to determine how much leverage, you know, what is the emotional connection between her and Charles? And could he leverage that emotional connection?

where now he's threatening her in order to get Charles to do something he wants Charles to do down the road. Maybe he's assessing, should I also take her and then I could use them against each other if, let's say, they're in love. And, you know, now it's like, well, she's going to die unless you give us that quarter of a million dollars or vice versa, where maybe she has knowledge that they think she might know and Charles is refusing to give it. Well, they're now going to, you know,

we will kill Charles unless you divulge what we need to know. Well, and I wonder if there's a second person, if there's a getaway driver in the car, why not take her too? Yeah, I think that just really informs me that they weren't expecting Florence to be there. They didn't have a plan to handle two adults. And the primary target was Charles. And they got Charles and they accomplished what they set out to do.

Let's move through the story. His wife, of course, is incredibly upset. And she, along with the state police, are waiting by the phone in Chicago, waiting for a ransom note, they hope.

Now, the rest of this is going to be how they did things in the 1930s versus how we would do things in a similar situation now. So they are waiting for a ransom note, and they think that the robbers were targeting Ross because of the car that he drove, that they didn't know him personally.

But there are a couple of people who think that there's a connection with the Fargo Hotel. They had had dinner there, Charles and Florence, and there was a young man in a gray cap talking to Charles in the lobby.

But Florence doesn't identify him as the same man. Of course, she didn't see the driver. And this never comes back in the research. So I don't know if it's anything, but it's definitely possible that whatever they did before, you know, at this dinner at this hotel, somebody saw them and sort of tailed them. And this is what ended up happening. But it didn't sound like this was personal. It sounded like he was recognized as somebody who

with money, who's older, who was targeted. So this idea that they are assessing, you know, they're looking for a victim and they're assessing Charles. He's well-dressed. He looks distinguished. He's getting into what I'm going to assume is a more expensive vehicle. And so they're now said, here's our target. And they follow Charles. There's that on one hand now, but when the offender initially comes out of the vehicle and makes a statement about...

What was the statement they said about his, it wasn't his main man. So the man with the pointy face says, this is a kidnapping. My boss told me to bring you along. Yeah. So that suggests that this boss possibly targeted Charles.

Now, it may be that there's a boss saying to these underlings, go find somebody that has the financial assets to get a quarter million dollars. And there isn't that prior knowledge of who Charles is. And so they're just looking for somebody that appears to potentially have that. But I think that that initial statement...

This is a kidnapping. You know, my boss told me to bring you along. I really lean towards there's a prior relationship of some sort between that boss and Charles. Okay. We'll see moving forward. This is a huge manhunt. 500 police officers searched the countryside near Sycamore, which is where this happened.

And of course, they canvass everywhere, including the Fargo Hotel, which is where Charles and Florence had been having dinner. And the next thing you know, he's being kidnapped in the evening. Police are very concerned because it turns out not only does Charles have a bad heart, he has high blood pressure, and he's 72. And so now you've got not only the risk that he's going to get killed no matter what happens, ransom or not,

But on top of that, it's like he could already be dead just from fright. So I think this is a sign of the times, Paul. And you tell me it takes five days for the first ransom letter to come in. That seems like a long time in 2024. I might be wrong.

How do ransom letters come in these days? Is it an email or is it just everything possible? It's everything possible, you know, and this is, you know, kidnappings with ransom. This is not a common crime at all.

Okay.

over the entirety of my career. And it actually happened, I believe, even before I started in 1990. So it's not a common thing. What we do get is we do get the threatening letters that

that will come in or the tips that come in. And somebody who's writing a ransom letter, I'm putting myself in the offender's mind, right? They're going to want to communicate. They want to financially benefit as a result of the kidnapping and the ransom letter is a way to communicate what their needs are. But they want to provide that information

in a manner that is going to minimize risk of being found by law enforcement. And it could be, even to this day, if it's done right, done through snail mail versus electronically.

If you send an email in, there's so much we can do on law enforcement side to start backtracking that unless the person is fairly sophisticated on how to anonymize themselves in the online space. And it's interesting because when we talk about ransom letters and kidnappings, I could be wrong, but the only cases I can think of, modern cases, are the fakes.

Yeah. Are the people who have set it up themselves. I cannot think, I'm sure somebody will message me about this, but I can't think of another one recently that has made national headlines where it's been a legitimate ransom. Yeah, that I know you're talking about the fakes, you know, the people who said I was kidnapped and then it turns out that they had just set up the story themselves. Yep.

You know, there is also the cases in which oftentimes it's a child in this day and age that's abducted. And then a ransom letter comes in, but the child has already been killed. Yeah. That's my fear with this case. Five days. If he's really alive, they have kept him alive for five days. Number one, why did it take so long?

And number two, what are the chances that Charles is really alive at this point? What do you think, Paul? Well, in terms of why did it take so long, I think I need to know more about the ransom letter. I'm assuming it came through Postal Service? Yes. Was there anything about, you know, the investigation into the postmarked

when was this letter submitted to the Postal Service? You know, did it take five days for the kidnappers to write the ransom letter and then it was delivered right away? Or was it written and it took the Postal Service five days before it actually arrived at the address? I have answers to those questions. So there are actually two letters. The first, first one that arrives, they arrive kind of on the same day, but to two different people.

One is to his wife, Charles's wife, and the other one is to somebody who is a former business associate of Charles's, and he lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin. And it will be pretty clear from the content of these letters why these people were picked. The business associate has a lot of money, so I think, and of course the wife has a lot of money, so I think they're looking for who the hell has money here, right?

Before you ask, the FBI is called in, but we don't have photos of the letters. We have what the letters say, but we don't have the photos. The first letter is to the wife. It is in Charles's handwriting. And kind of as we get deeper into this, it's hard to know whether or not it's really his, but the police are pretty convinced, as is J. Edgar Hoover, that this is actually his handwriting and under duress. It was postmarked.

In Savannah, Illinois, on September 29th, it was delivered. The first one to the wife is delivered the next day. So it took them four days. Now, let me just throw out just a, and this is probably a long shot, but this is something that has to be considered. Did Charles stage his own kidnapping? Yes.

Why would he do that? Insurance? You have individuals, yes. You know, whether oftentimes when you see fraud, you know, they have run into some sort of financial difficulty and they are now pretending to be a victim of a crime because there would be something like an insurance payout.

or it may be where they are concerned about their own physical safety. And so they stage this crime to disappear to try to avoid somebody from hunting them down. With these ransom letters being in Charles' handwriting and taking so long, I'm just kind of, you know, just chewing on that as a possibility, especially the wife is an obvious person to send a ransom letter to, right?

but a business associate that lives in Green Bay. Why is that person being selected? You know, this would, on one hand, really further this boss person that sent the kidnappers having that prior relationship with Charles and has...

fairly detailed knowledge of Charles' business enterprise. But at the same time, who else would know that this businessman in Green Bay has money? Charles. And why would Charles throw that man out there to these people? Unless it's like, well, the only two people that are potentially going to get you the money that you want so I can be safe is either my wife or this man I used to work with or currently have a business relationship with in Green Bay.

It's confusing, and these letters are something else. And I might actually, Paul, have you read the letters aloud so you can stop and comment because they are a little confusing for me. The first one arrives five days later, as I said. Charles's wife's nickname is

from him was Dick. I have no idea why. I've never heard of that before, but he calls her Dick. So you can read for the listeners what this letter says. So start where it says Dear Dick, right there. So this is the ransom letter to Charles's wife. It starts, Dear Dick, I'm held for ransom. I have stated I am worth $100,000, including the G.S. Carrington Company stock held in escrow by First National Bank

Try and raise $50,000. Yours, Charles S. Ross. Contact Harvey S. Brackett. Say nothing to anyone except Harvey. All communications will be addressed to Williams Bay. And that's it.

That's it. What do you think so far? Obviously, he's using the term of endearment to dear Dick to his wife. That's indicating that the writer of this, and I'm assuming it is Charles, that their handwriting analysis is correct. I am held for ransom. I have stated I am worth $100,000. That's a red flag to me. Why is he saying I have stated?

I'm reading that going, well, if I'm like the kidnappers, I'm going, well, are you worth more than that? How much are you truly worth? Whereas he's almost divulging, well, I'm just, I've stated almost like I've lied, you know, about how much I'm worth. And so, but he is saying that I am worth $100,000, including the GS Carrington company stock held in escrow by First National Bank. Why is that stock in escrow? Try and raise $50,000. Wow.

Now, remember, the pointy-faced man said $250,000 to Florence, which would be $5 million. There's a big switch in how much money they're demanding. It gets worse. Well, there's, yeah, I mean, there's a weirdness to this. You know, it's like, why even mention the G.S. Carrington stock market?

that's held in escrow at this particular bank, First National Bank. And then even though, hey, I'm worth $100,000, but try and raise, you know, $50,000. The people that are asking for ransom, it's like, well, can you get us $25,000? No. No.

You want Charles back alive, you better get us 25 grand or else there's threats. This is like, oh, try and raise 50 grand. I am now very, very concerned about the reality of this kidnapping. My impression would be, and you can correct me if I'm wrong here, in this situation, it's almost more dangerous that they don't sound like they know what they're doing because I'm afraid they're just going to panic and

and kill him. The way all of this is worded, everything is really weird. And you would think that someone who knows what they're doing would kind of get the money, get it out the door within a day, you know, get this letter out, let's take care of it, let's get rid of this guy as soon as possible and move on. There were a lot of kidnappings in the 30s and gangsters were involved. This does not sound like a very well-organized gangster if this is a gangster at all.

No, it sounds very odd in terms of what they're asking for, the lack of threats. And then it's also now contact Harvey S. Brackett. And it looks like the researcher, Allie, determined that Harvey is a former business associate and he's the one. OK, he's the one that lives in Green Bay. Yep. And don't say anything wrong.

To anybody except to Harvey. Yep. Say nothing to anyone except Harvey. All communications will be addressed to Williams Bay. Okay. And what is Williams Bay? Is that a person? Is that just going to be like a pseudonym?

Williams Bay is in Wisconsin. So it's a city. It's a village in Wisconsin. Sounds like they're sending, they want them to send the correspondence when there's a reply or when the money is sent. It needs to go to Williams Bay. I don't know if this is signed. It doesn't sound like it's signed. Well, you should read the second letter. I mean, it's pretty bananas also. This is the letter that Harvey Brackett, who is the former business associate, received in Green Bay. Same day. So September 30th, 1937. And he said,

This sounds like something out of a spy movie, which is, again, makes me very worried for Charles because I'm afraid that these guys are off the rails and don't know what they're doing. Sure. Dear Harvey S. Brackett, have payment ready on instant notice to be delivered by employee of Harley-Davidson Company on motorcycle. Road to be designated later.

rider to drop bag on highway at signal a shot or repeated flashes of light rider to then continue forward for 300 yards and turn off road on left side to continue farther would be fatal

Money to be contained in small leather bag of following denomination. 20% payment value in $5 bills. 50% in $10 bills. 30% in $20 bills. All money to be non-consecutive and unmarked and of authentic origin.

When ready, insert following ad in Chicago Tribune, used cars for sale department. And this is the ad that they want. Dodge, good condition, no defect. Amount ready. And then left parentheses, example, $500 for $50,000, $25 for $2,500. Okay. And then the ad continues, name of rider and address.

Harvey, you are to hire a motorcycle rider from Harley-Davidson Company and get name and address. Say nothing to anyone except Dick, which is Charles's wife. And then it signed your friend Charles S. Ross for Albie. I don't know about the Albie part. Oh, this is... I mean, it's a mess. It's too much of a mess.

Well, I have two thoughts. One, the Harley-Davidson thing. I had wondered if when they print the name of this legitimate rider with Harley-Davidson, which, by the way, I didn't even know they hired out riders, but I guess so.

Maybe the kidnappers were thinking we can figure out if this is a legitimate person and not a cop being sent out. So I wonder if that's what they're thinking. That being said, there's a case in American Sherlock about a priest who was kidnapped in 1921 from Colma, California. And it's a very famous case that Oscar Heinrich worked on.

And the person who was ultimately the kidnapper wrote a note that feels very similar to this note. I'm not saying one inspired the other or anything like that. I'm just saying it feels like sort of weird and disjointed and it doesn't make sense. He turned out to have schizophrenia.

I mean, it was like handwritten. Half of it was handwritten. Half of it was typed. The instructions were this detailed. Like somebody reading really bad hard-boiled detective novels came up with this. This is what you and I would write. This is what I mean.

If I were doing a kidnapping, it would be this complicated. And so that's why I'm worried about Charles. What's going to happen with this guy? Yeah. And when you think about. So if I kind of continue down the path of the thought of is this a staged kidnapping? You know, I want to, you know, bring up.

John Bonnet Ramsey. And this may seem, we know there isn't a kidnapping, but there was a ransom letter found inside the homicide scene written on, you know, no paper that was found with inside that house.

And going through that ransom letter, you know, where the offenders don't have control over JonBenet's body. She is left inside the house. And so they're now saying, if you don't give us this very, very specific amount that matched the father's, you know, bonus, you know, she's, you know, she's going to be killed in essence. But then it used a phrase, don't try to grow a brain, Jon.

And this is where, hold on now, when people start staging crimes, where do they turn to to do research on how they're going to make this crime look like something? Because they don't know. They don't do these types of crimes. They're not in law enforcement. They don't see these types of crimes.

Well, they turn to popular culture. At the time of the JonBenet Ramsey homicide, the popular movie in the movie theaters at the time was the movie Speed. And that phrase, don't grow a brain, John, was verbatim what Dennis Hopper, the bad guy, makes a, you know, he says that to the Keanu Reeves character.

Well, it's like, hold on here. Okay, so that starts telling me, okay, this ransom letter sounds like it's staged. Now, in this case, there's specific things going on. The vagueness and everything else is like, okay, I'm concerned about this being staged, but what's going on in popular culture that if Charles is involved, what would he be relying upon? And that I don't know. It's just that that's something where it's like, okay, there is red flags going off everywhere.

all over the place in this case right now.

Well, get ready. Charles's wife is like, oh, shit. She gets the ransom money and starts to work to place the ad and to get a motorcycle rider from Harley-Davidson. Three more letters in the meantime are sent. They are all sent to a guy named Elton C. Armitage, who was in the same, like, social organization. They call it a lodge, but it was a social organization, a fraternal organization, as Charles. These are not handwritten by Charles.

These are typed. And they are postmarked Chicago. And they were postmarked on October 2nd, October 6th, and October 7th. So at this point, if we believe that Charles really did write those letters, and if we believe that this is not a fake kidnapping or anything like that, that this is legitimate, then there is now a chance that Charles is no longer with us because we don't have anything handwritten from him anymore.

We have things typed out at this point. Why change the mode of communication from handwritten to typed at this point? The initial thing that pops into my mind is whether or not you have a copycat. This is a high-profile case, and we see that. You know, where others who have no involvement in the crime insert themselves into the case online.

just because they want the notoriety, the attention? Is this somebody who's just now going, okay, you know, you've got this high-profile kidnapping, ransom letters are coming in. Well, I'm going to see if I can squeeze some money out of this myself by pretending to be, I've got Charles. And who is this? You said it was, these letters were to Elgin, right? Elton C. Armitage, who is in the same social lodge. He must have thought,

he had to have gotten this information from Charles. He must have thought this is somebody who had money or who could influence and move along the process with Mrs. Ross. Yeah, okay. You know, so...

Right now, I think it's up in the air. I need to know more. It's like, do we truly have a kidnapper who just is bungling the ransom side, or do we have a stage crime where Charles is sort of, for whatever reason, has decided to pretend to be kidnapped as well as needs this money withdrawn under this criminal umbrella in order to save his own ass in some capacity? Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Okay. So let's find out. The first note that Elton gets, the guy from the social organization, is essentially the same thing that Mrs. Ross initially got. Give me $50,000, put an ad in the auto section of the newspaper confirming that the money is ready. You will get more instructions. The second note...

says, if you're concerned, essentially, I will give you proof of Charles's well-being. Go to a specific address on Wabash Avenue in Chicago. And when they go, it's a camera store. And there is some film laying on a countertop. They have it developed. And it is Charles. He's alive and

He's in the clothing that he's been kidnapped in, and he's doing a proof of life, classic film proof of life, holding up an edition of a Chicago newspaper dated October 2nd, seven days after he's been kidnapped. He's amid some birch trees outside. Seven days later, he is still alive. Can you believe that? Yes, if this is a fake. Right.

Killjoy. It doesn't resolve what's going on here because it could be either scenario.

If these kidnappers are real, you know, they're still leveraging Charles and they're keeping him alive. But if Charles is pretending, you know, to be kidnapped, he could stage, you know, these photos himself. So it's just more details, you know, the fact that you have this film at this particular store. Well, that, of course, is where you're going to be, you know, setting investigators. Who came into this store? Why was that canister of film here?

You know, how did that get in here? You know, you have witnesses all over the place inside this camera store, potentially. As a very short summary, we have the wealthy man who has been kidnapped. He appears, whether this is real or not, if we're going to assume that this is a real kidnapping, he appears to have still been alive seven days after he was kidnapped.

He has a bad heart. He has high blood pressure. He has a lot of money. His wife is frantically gathering $50,000, which is a million dollars today. The police appear to be on board. She's looped in the state police. Nobody seems to be objecting to this plan.

This is snail mail, so we are waiting painfully, not even for phone calls, but for snail mail. And these kidnappers, if we have real kidnappers here, seem off the rails. This is like you need a code to crack what they're asking you to do. And it only gets worse. And you're unfortunately, Paul, going to have to wait until next week to figure out what happens to poor Charles Ross if this is a real kidnapping.

It's a big if. It's a big if. Okay. I'll see you next week, and I'll get right to it. I promise there won't be any pleasantries at the beginning. Oh, come on. I enjoy the pleasantries, but I look forward to hearing the rest of the story. Okay. See you soon. All right. Sounds good.

This has been an Exactly Right production. For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com slash buriedbonessources. Our senior producer is Alexis Amorosi. Research by Maren McClashan, Allie Elkin, and Kate Winkler-Dawson.

Our mixing engineer is Ben Talladay. Our theme song is by Tom Breifogel. Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac. Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Daniel Kramer. You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at BuriedBonesPod.

Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded Age story of murder and the race to decode the criminal mind, is available now. And Paul's best-selling memoir, Unmasked, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, is also available now.