The Cigar Girl PT 2
01:03:21 Share

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

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. On July 11th, 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. ♪♪

Hi, Kate. Hey, Paul. You looking forward to hearing more about the story of Mary Rogers? I am. I haven't stopped thinking about this case since the last time we talked about it. You haven't stopped thinking about a case from 1841? Well, it's just, you know, it's like, oh, I want to know this, this, and this, you know? And we got to the point of Mary's body being recovered. Yep.

seeing a decomposing body floating in the water, which I don't put a lot of weight on their observations. You know, that's where I'm really interested to see what the medical people said happened to Mary in terms of her injuries and stuff. But also, you know, where her body's located, you know, outside of the Sybil's Cave in the Hudson River. You know, so I actually did some research, some research on the tides in the Hudson River, you know, started rolling up my sleeves a little bit. I mean, thank goodness.

We need you to dig in sometimes on these details that just you can't let go of. So that's good. So before we do a quick summary of the case, I just wanted to give a trigger warning that we are going to be talking about sexual assault in this case. So Mary Rogers is 21. It's 1841. It's in New York City.

And she lives at a boarding house that her mother runs along with a slew of lodgers, two of whom she's been involved with, one who she seems to be in love with and engaged to. He is described as an alcoholic, but a jovial kind of guy. That's Daniel. There's another man named Alfred who not so much.

He really pines for Mary, but she has sort of rejected him at this point. He is very angry. He's left in a huff.

And then a month later, Mary Rogers is found, as you just mentioned, in the Hudson River in a particular area. And her body has been in the water for three days. And we are trying to kind of figure out the level of decomposition. And it's a hot summer day when she's discovered. And it is very clear to everyone that has seen her that she has extensive injuries. And

After I hear about your information about the Hudson River and where she was found, I'll tell you what the coroner says, which I think is very illuminating. Part of what I want to do is reconstruct...

based off of tides where Mary likely would have gone into the water. Now, she's been in the water for three days. Well, I think that's an assumption. So that's part of truly really digging into what Mary looked like, her state of decomposition. Is there any sessile marine organisms that are now on her body that could help indicate how long she's been in the water, etc.?

But in terms of the currents and the Hudson River, where did she go into the water? And this is where I think it's important because that now, if that can be somewhat isolated, that indicates, because we know where Mary was. She left the boarding house. Now, we don't know for sure. She never made it to her aunt's house. And we don't know if she actually walked in the direction of her aunt's house. And I don't even know where the aunt's house is. But it's not too far away from the boarding house.

I'm looking at, okay, the boarding house is roughly by City Hall and where Mary's body is found floating, it's about maybe a little less than two and a half miles straight shot. So it's a significant distance, but the tides are interesting in the Hudson River. Even though it's a river and you're thinking currents are flowing one direction. Well, it turns out, well, the direction of the water in the Hudson River is based on the tides itself.

So when the tides are rising, the water flows north. And when the tides are subsiding, which is, of course, going to be a daily cycle, the water's flowing south. So you can see now where Mary's body is kind of moving north, moving south from where, you know, ultimately her point of entry was. So that complicates trying to really narrow down that origin.

It's also going to be, okay, what time, if we assume she was killed on July 25th, 1841, within a few hours of her leaving the boarding house, what tide was it at that time?

And then now talking to the maritime experts, okay, how did these tides shift? And can we at least narrow down an approximate location where Mary's body likely went into the water? And what is that distance? What route would the offender and Mary have to take to get to that spot? That helps build up a timeline, so to speak.

And so you've got this timeline. If Daniel and Alfred both have alibis that night, how would the timeline help? Would we just say, well, one was in the Bronx and the other one was in Brooklyn, so it couldn't have been either one of them because we can kind of predict where her body was or does that not make sense?

Well, it could. You know, again, it all depends on what their statements are. But it also, if there is like a somewhat narrow region where Mary's body went into the water, then it's going and talking to people who were in that region at the time, you know, Mary likely was placed in the water. What did they see? You know, so it gives the investigation some potential more information and maybe some more leads to follow up on.

Summer heat is great for beach days, but not so much for sleeping. The temperature of your bedroom at night can really affect your sleep quality. If you wake up too hot or too cold, Miracle-Made's bed sheets may help you. That's because Miracle-Made sheets are inspired by NASA. They use silver-infused fabrics that are temperature-regulating. Traditional bed sheets can harbor more bacteria than a toilet seat –

leading to acne, allergies, and stuffy noses. Miracle-Made offers a whole line of antibacterial bedding that prevents up to 99.7% of bacterial growth. Miracle is so confident in their product that they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you aren't 100% satisfied, you'll get a full refund.

I was so excited to get these sheets because I'm a hot sleeper. I take really, really hot baths before I get into bed. So I feel like I'm kind of sweating from the beginning, but these sheets really cooled me down. Loved it. They were great sheets for me. Upgrade your sleep with Miracle-Made. Go to trymiracle.com slash buried to try Miracle-Made sheets today. Go to trymiracle.com slash buried

and use code buried to claim your free three-piece towel set and save over 40% off. Again, that's trymiracle.com slash buried to treat yourself. Thank you, Miracle-Made, for sponsoring this episode.

I always try to be the kind of person who never shows up empty-handed. My go-to gift for a host is a great bottle of wine. And as a First Leaf member, I always have the perfect bottle on hand to share. First Leaf isn't your average wine club. It's better. Each shipment delivers a personalized selection of wines from all over the world,

handpicked just for you. And you can tailor your membership to your needs. Whether it's six or twelve bottles, reds or whites, and a shipping window that suits your schedule, it's all up to you. A couple of times a month, my girlfriends come over and we hang out by the pool and drink wine. And so they're all really excited, as am I, to get

these First Leaf wines in, they had me take a quiz. It was really easy and very specific, like exactly what kind of food I like, the kind of tastes I like, what I don't like. So they really try to focus in on what will be your preference so they can send you the right wine. Get wines to sip and share all summer long with First Leaf. Go to tryfirstleaf.com slash buried to sign up and you'll get your first six

hand-picked wines for just $44.95. That's T-R-Y-F-I-R-S-T-L-E-A-F dot com slash buried. Try firstleaf.com slash buried.

Let's get to the injuries, because we do have a coroner from New Jersey named Dr. And I want to emphasize, I don't know if we've had a coroner who's a doctor before, Dr. Richard Cook, who you're either going to love or think is silly, one or the other, I think.

Okay. I really don't remember the last time we've had doctor before the name of a coroner. And we've talked about this before. It's, you know, an elected position, right? So he didn't have to have experience, but he says he has pretty extensive experience examining people who are victims of drowning.

And he says, after looking at Mary's body, that is not what happened here. I'm going to just say a bunch of words that Dr. Cook says, and then I'll stop. And then you tell me, because these are all related to drowning. And you tell me if what he's saying makes sense. Okay. This is in regards to a drowning and why he doesn't think it's a drowning. He thinks that her blood is too coagulated and that her crossed arms are

which are in a stiff position that they can only be uncrossed using force, are not consistent. Those crossed arms are not consistent with the form that you'd expect to see in a drowning victim. A person's arms would likely be moving around their sides ahead of his or her death. He says,

was suffused with blood, bruised blood. There was frothy blood still issuing from the mouth, but no foam, which issues from the mouth of persons who die by drowning. Her face was swollen. The veins were highly distended. If she had been drowned, there would not have been those particular appearances that I found in the veins. What is he saying? Okay, well...

What he's saying is, is Mary was killed and left on land for a period of time and then placed in the water. Her posture in the water, on her back with the arms crossed, that didn't add up to me. So he is saying, okay, she's in rigor now.

you know, at the time he's conducting the autopsy and she must have been entering rigor with her arms in this position when she was placed in the water. So the arms don't just flop down as what you typically see when you have, let's say, somebody who has been freshly killed and put in the water or somebody who drowns and now goes limp.

So this is important because now, kind of like I said, we're assuming Mary was in the water for three days. Dr. Cook, who's got what sounds like extensive experience because he's dealing with bodies out of the waterways here in the New York area all the time coming through the coroner's office. So he is an expert. And so I put a lot of veracity on his observations.

So now we have a larger window of time where Mary walks away from the boarding house. We don't know what happens, but she runs across an offender. She's killed. And then there's a time period, unknown time period in which Mary is not necessarily left, but she is not in the water for a period of time to allow rigor to develop and her arms to be fixed in this cross position.

Now, of course, does he have the expertise to observe, you know, potential binding marks like her arms have been bound? And would those be obscured by being in the water for a period of time? And likely not, you know, but that's where this gets interesting because now the offender is either with Mary for a period of time after she's dead and then places her in the water.

Or the offender leaves Mary in a hidden location and then comes back and moves her body and dumps it into the water. He has a lot of details that I think are really interesting, and they're sort of out of order. But I want to go back real quick because he says a lot of phrases that I don't know why they're relevant to a drowning specifically. So her blood is too coagulated. What does that have to do with drowning? And what does he mean by that? Well,

Well, this is where you start talking about sort of the water intrusion into the body. And what he is noticing is that there's a lack of the intrusion. You know, blood, when it gets dilute, doesn't coagulate. And so he's observing, like he's seen all these other drowning victims who have been in the water, you know, the water for at least as long as Mary, if not much longer.

And he generally doesn't see the blood start to thicken up and coagulate inside the body like what he's seeing with Mary. So he's also drawing that opinion. Yeah, she's dead.

before going in. Now, of course, one of the diagnostic aspects of drowning victims is as they're in the water still alive, they ultimately breathe water into their lungs. And he's making an observation that that's not the case. I don't know if he said that very clearly, but he's talking about there is bloody foam, but there isn't the froth that he typically sees in a drowning victim.

You know, you get this bloody purge when somebody dies and you got some decomposition going on. But this froth is what he's kind of keying in on going. What's coming out of her mouth, her nasal mouth area is not consistent with what he sees with drowning victims. You know, where now you have the water that is mixing with the physiological fluids internally. And then now you have this foamy material that is now being exuded out of the oral cavity and out of the nostrils.

Am I dense in thinking how would frothy material be anywhere on her body when she's been in the water for so long, banging against stuff and being washed over? How is anything frothy or any blood, external blood or anything showing up on her body? Or am I misunderstanding? It's after she's pulled out of the water. Oh, okay. You know, so yeah, for sure, something like that froth

is going to wash away. But after she's taken out of the water and you've got maybe some air still within the lung cavity, you've got gases that are developing as a matter of decomposition, as those are being expressed up through the trachea and then out of the oral cavity, if there is

blood or if there is this secretion as a result of it's almost like an edema you know the lungs they're trying to protect themselves and they get exposed to the water and now you you have the body reacting and you got these proteins and cells and and when the air mixes with that it creates that that froth and so now that's what happens after she's pulled out of the the water

You know, we did a tenfold season, season 11. And I think I might have mentioned this to you, a woman who dies mysteriously in a fire. When the women in the village were dressing her, this is in the 1600s, were dressing her, there was some blood that came out of her, I think through her nose or her ear maybe.

And in the 1600s, that was a sign of the devil, that she had been overtaken. I know you're smiling, but this was not a funny matter in the 1600s. But they didn't understand that. So I'm glad that you clarified. So nobody thinks this is attached to the devil. I don't know why I'm surprised by that, that things come out of people's bodies, you know, after they die. It's really interesting. Yeah, you know, and that's just a lot of that is just experience and seeing bodies that are dead, you know, and you

If you go and see somebody who's overdosed and you see the froth that is coming out of their mouth, they've overdosed on something like heroin. I went out to a suspicious death that involved a teenage boy that drank way too much cough syrup and codeine, and he had all this froth coming out of his mouth and his nose. You know, that's just part of the body's physiological response.

Did you know that most break-ins happen during broad daylight and they spike during the summer? That's why there's no better time to secure your home with SimpliSafe Home Security.

SimpliSafe is a trusted security company that offers peace of mind whether you're home or away. With fast protect monitoring and live guard protection, SimpliSafe agents can act within seconds of receiving your alarm. They can even see and speak to intruders to stop them in their tracks.

Pricing is transparent and affordable at less than a dollar per day, and you'll never be locked into a long-term contract so you can cancel any time. SimpliSafe has been named Best Home Security Systems by U.S. News & World Report for five years running and offers the best customer service in home security, of

according to Newsweek. You can install your system in less than an hour or choose professional installation to have a pro do it for you. There are a few things more important to me than safety, especially when it comes to my teenage daughters. I want to make sure they get sleep in peace and they're not worried about somebody breaking into our house. So that's why SimpliSafe has been such a great addition to our family.

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 buriedbones. That's simplisafe.com slash buriedbones. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. 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. Well, let me give you some more information. So it sounds like right now you're a fan of Dr. Cook.

It sounds like he knows somewhat what he's doing here because so far he's giving you some pretty good details. Right. You know, for a doctor in 1841 who is, you know, pulling bodies out of the waterways in New York all the time and looking at them, he has expertise. Maybe not at the level of a modern forensic pathologist, but what he is

describing and observing, I put far more weight on than anybody that was on the shore, you know, poking her with a stick and saying how horrendous she looked. Right now, he is, of course, convinced that she's been murdered. And I'll tell you why. I buried the lead a little bit. There's two things that lead him to believe that she died of strangulation. And I think he thinks it's important to establish specifically how she died.

So I'm going to tell you the less interesting one. He says that, this is a quote, "...a deep bruise about the size and shape of a man's thumb on the right side of her neck."

near the jugular vein, and he found several smaller bruises on the left side resembling the shape of a man's finger. So, really, that would be present still after three days and some decomposition? He would be able to see those markings that clearly to say this came from a man? Well, probably overstating the source of these bruises, but the observation of those bruises is important, you know, but more important is did he dissect the neck?

Well, I don't have information on the neck because he's concentrating on her lower region. And I'll get to that in a second. Because what he finds that is very obvious to everybody is that there is a piece of lace which has been pulled from her underskirt and it is wrapped around her neck. And somebody made a gag from her underwear. So he is saying that he thinks she has been strangled both with this

lace and gagged and manually strangled. And that's what happened to her body and of course, beaten beyond belief. Yeah. And the duality in terms of the strangulation methods is relatively common. Oftentimes, the offender will start with manual strangulation and either kills the victim that way or the victim succumbs, goes unconscious, and then a ligature is applied to the neck afterwards.

So that is a sequence that is often seen. And I've talked about this, I think, a little bit before on Buried Bones, is that many of these offenders, they don't know if they've actually accomplished killing the person through strangulation. They just know the person is unconscious.

And so to ensure that the person is dead, then they will go ahead and apply a ligature so that that person actually, there's no way that person, that victim could recover from that. The offender is utilizing the victim's own clothing. He's not bringing binding material with him. So that's a significant observation. And the ligature that is being used is coming from an undergarment.

You know, so this starts to really support that this is a sexually motivated crime. But it sounds like there's other observations on her body that you're going to get to. Quite a few. First of all, she does have ligature marks on her wrists. Okay, so binding marks. They say ligature. So tell me what the difference is. Yeah, this is a little bit of a pet peeve in terms of the use of these terms.

So a ligature is a material that encircles a body part to cut off circulation. Binding is a material that is applied to the extremities to prevent movement.

People often will call bindings on the wrist as ligatures. Well, the offender's not applying this binding material to cut off circulation to the victim's hands. They're doing it to prevent movement. When I'm talking to, let's say, other experts, and I see them or hear them misusing those terms, I go, oh, well, maybe they're not as much of an expert as what I thought they were. Oh, no. So everybody out there, dial in on ligature versus binding. Yeah.

Okay. So I'm going to get to his speculation in a minute, but we'll continue on with this autopsy. So let's talk about the potential sexual assault here. He says Mary's not pregnant at the time of her death. And actually that note's going to be important later on. He does not see evidence that she was pregnant, like as in a termination of pregnancy. So this is what he finds. Bruising and abrasions in the quote-unquote feminine region.

as well as skin that is rubbed raw on her back and her shoulders. So he says that he believes that she has been laid down on a rough surface and sexually assaulted. He says by, quote, no fewer than three assailants. I have no idea why he thinks that. It must have just been the vast amount of injuries that she had that he just thought, oh, one guy is not going to be able to do this.

But he says she was sexually assaulted before or after she was killed. He is sure of it. So I'm liking Dr. Cook's observations. And yes, there are instances on women's bodies with these types of abrasions on the buttocks region or the lower back as well as the upper back during sexual assault. And if they've been on a substrate, that is somewhat rough.

So he's spot on with that, though, you know, that can also, those types of abrasions can occur from other activities, you know, a body dragging, movement of body, transport of body. But this statement about at least three men, no, no way could he ever make that determination. Basically, we don't know how many men. I mean, could multiple offenders have sexually assaulted Mary? Absolutely. But the likelihood of that is low relative to a single offender operating by himself. Right.

It sounds like he might have been insinuating it was one of these criminal gangs roaming the streets of New York, but he's got some more observations. He believes that she had been undressed and then killed and then dressed back in her clothes, including her hat, and then her body was moved to its dumping spot in the river. I have never understood why...

redressing if you're just going to dump her in the river? Why put her clothes and including her hat and she had her gloves on too? This is more common than not in terms of the offender either allowing the victim to redress and then killing the victim or, you know, kills the victim and then redresses the victim. It's not an unusual circumstance. Now you think about in this case, the offender likely is not sexually assaulting Mary right on the shore.

you know, of, you know, of Sybil's cave or something, somewhere else. Now he has to transport a body. If he's seen, it's probably a little suspicious that he's got a nude female body and a bag of clothes versus, well, I'm going to put the clothes on the female's body and he might be able to pass her off as having sex

you know, gone unconscious because she had too much to drink, you know, or people will just see her. Who knows if there's carriages involved, you know, and she's just propped up to look like she's asleep. But there's a practical aspect in this situation where

And like I said, as I believe, based on Dr. Cook's observations, that Mary is not in the water for a period of time. Don't know how long that is, but there may be something that the offender is now redressing Mary knowing, well, she's going to be laying at a location while I try to figure out what I'm going to do with her.

Is the crossing of her arms before rigor and then, you know, that's how she ends up, does that tell you anything? Or that wouldn't have been something she would have done. It would have been him. Does that tell you anything about the guy, about the person? In most instances, when you see arms and legs being bound up, it's for packaging. Okay. It's to make the body easier to move. Well, speaking of packaging, this is what Dr. Cook says happened.

He said whoever did this, if there's more than one person, you know, whoever moved her, actually moved her, tore off a piece of her dress and tied it around her waist after she had been redressed and used it like a handle to move her body. He said it wasn't delicate either because she's got scratch marks and drag marks all over herself. I had thought for a millisecond, wow.

Would you really need that? You would need a handle? I don't know. Is that odd to you? I've actually consulted on a case. In fact, one that I presented with Max, Cheryl McCollum, on a crime cruise.

in which it wasn't the woman's own clothing, but the way that the rope had been used to bind her up as well as went through the belt loops around her waist. And it was for the same reason. This was to provide a carrying handle. Even though Mary's petite, likely she still weighs over 100 pounds.

And you think about something like picking up a 90-pound bag of cement. That's still heavy for most people. Now you have a body that has length, a body that possibly is going to flop around. Now, Mary's in rigor, so some of that flopping is not going to occur. But this offender sounds like, well, I need to make my life easier here.

and recognized that there is an article of clothing with Mary that had the strength to be able to utilize it as a handle. And it's just the offender making his life easier. Well, we now have a series of decisions made that will affect the way that people view Mary Rogers moving forward. So it starts really with Dr. Cook.

He says to the press that Mary had evidently been a person of chastity and correct habits.

Probably that meant because she wasn't pregnant and he didn't find evidence that she had been recently pregnant. But modern day authors have said it's probably because out of propriety, he was trying to preserve her dignity, particularly about the way she was found. And it seemed clear to him that she had been sexually assaulted and this was not rough sex or, you know, consensual in any way. But because he had to report on the state of autism,

of all of her body, it would have been sort of salacious and we're also in a time period when people would have said the woman was asking for it or she did something. And this is a woman who had been in the society pages that she must have been promiscuous

Instead, what happens is the press latches onto this and says, well, I mean, obviously, based on what your findings are, something was going on with her. And they start framing him as incompetent and bumbling, essentially, and saying that we don't think that he actually knows what he's talking about. That he's sort of fibbing in a way to make Mary look good when I think he was just trying to be a nice man and felt uncomfortable with her.

revealing information about a woman and then having people make assumptions about her. But this starts framing this whole investigation as being sort of bumbling a little bit. He goes outside of the medical evaluation of Mary. All he can say is that she's not pregnant at the time of her death, nor does she have any indications that she's had a recent abortion. He could not draw a conclusion about her sexual habits prior to her being killed.

And that's where I think, you know, now when he makes that statement, people are recognizing that, you know, they're going, oh, hold on. But

Everything that he's done, I mean, he's made some overstatements, but I think fundamentally for 1841, I'm relatively impressed with what Dr. Cook was able to discern. Well, because the jerks in the press make such a big deal about it, Daniel Stashauer, who is the author of the book that we've been talking about, says that Mary's body goes through another exam, but this time with a coroner in New York.

And the coroner in New York says, oh, it wasn't strangulation. She was strangled, but I find evidence of drowning. And it just sounds like, you know, if he had agreed with Dr. Cook, that the press would have skewered him also. But we see zero evidence that she had been drowned, and it doesn't seem like there's even like a scene there. We will find a scene, we think, later on where we think this happened, but it was not on the shore of the Hudson River.

Yeah, you know, in these instances with subsequent autopsies, and those, of course, still occur today. You know, the family will hire a private pathologist to kind of come in and perform a second autopsy. But they are at such a disadvantage. You know, if a full autopsy is conducted on the victim's body, on Mary's body, I mean—

she's completely dissected. Her organs, you know, the standard thing is all the organs are placed in a plastic bag and intermingled and cut up, and they're now, you know, put back into her abdominal cavity, chest cavity, and she's all sewn up. So the second New York pathologist, maybe he's seeing things, you know, that he's interpreting. It's just that her body is so disrupted that

I put far more weight on Dr. Cook's initial autopsy. And when it comes to the drowning, because of Dr. Cook's experience,

I truly believe that if he saw evidence of drowning, he would be detailing that evidence, and he doesn't. He forms the opposite conclusion. And the other aspects, such as the arms being crossed in rigor, support she died on land and then is placed in the water. Well, we need to now leave the medical section here. I think we are done with Dr. Cook and any kind of controversy that his very honest autopsy turned up

Instead, we need to kind of go back to victimology slash profiling. So investigators, and I think I use that term loosely in 1830s New York, investigators start focusing in on Daniel Payne. Even more importantly, the press starts focusing in on him. There are all kinds of theories swirling around in the penny papers about what his potential motive would be. This is all speculation and probably BS.

that she was probably going to leave him, that just before the disappearance, Mary and her mom had fought over the relationship that Mary had with Daniel in their upcoming marriage. Phoebe is not saying anything one way or the other about this. It's just speculation. And then, of course, the thing I mentioned, the press goes crazy.

Okay, either Mary was doing something behind Daniel's back and lying about going to her aunt's house, or Daniel lied about it because he killed her. One way or the other, Daniel does not come off looking very well in the press because they're really thinking, who else would this be?

In the meantime, Alfred is continuing to really emphasize how proper Mary was and just sort of this angelic, wonderful woman. So you've got two men who are having very different experiences. Yeah.

Yeah. Now, how many times does a woman end up dead and the spouse or boyfriend are immediately thought to be the killer? This right now is a wide open investigation. Daniel and Alfred are

are suspects, I use that term, everybody kind of assumes that when somebody uses the term suspect, well, this person, there's a strong case against the person. No, they're just something suspicious about the person. We have weak suspects, we have strong suspects.

Daniel and Alfred, because of their relationship with Mary and because of some of the, you know, this lover's triangle or pseudo lover's triangle situation, of course, they're going to be under suspicion. But let's take...

Daniel's statements of what Mary said she was going to do, she's going to go walk to her aunt's house. The suspect pool is anybody in this case. She could have run across a serial predator she never met before. And what's done to her is very much akin to that type of stranger fantasy motivated offender. So that is just as strong of a possibility. And in my in my mind,

stronger possibility with the information that you've told me now because i know there's probably going to be more gotchas coming down the line but i have to consider a stranger did this to mary or she had a secret life and whoever she was meeting up with went off on her

So all of that is wide open in this case right now in my mind. Okay. Well, let's talk more about Daniel, who for right now is the press's prime suspect, not necessarily investigators. They want to know more information. But he is so disturbed by this public campaign against him that he requests, this is welcome to 1800s, seven sworn statements from

from his brother, as well as a bunch of bar owners, restaurant owners that account for his whereabouts that day. He had alibi. He had various people who saw him pretty much to the minute, you know, with the exception of the discussion he had with Mary about meeting her somewhere, account for his day. And he says...

to Mary's mom, will you write me a letter that says, I looked for your daughter. I wanted to find her. I am not acting weird. I loved her. I wanted to marry her.

And he turns all of these letters over to the newspaper because even Phoebe says, OK, I'll write you this letter. And they finally back off. But he has been what he describes as basically terrorized by the local press over this story. I will say my dad's, you know, as I've told you, started the actual innocence clinic at the University of Texas.

And one of his attorneys who helped him with the clinic was a guy named Bill Allison, who represented Michael Morton, who was the man who spent more than 20 years, it might have been 20 years, exactly 20 years, in prison for murdering his wife in Texas.

And, you know, he was exonerated and the real person was found using DNA evidence. And Bill Allison, my dad's friend, Michael Morton's attorney, said that when he put Michael Morton on the stand, he was an awful witness. He said the innocent man is an awful witness because they don't know anything. All he can say is, I don't know what happened. I just know where I was. I can't give you any details. And he said people didn't believe him. And that was that.

This is a scenario that plays itself out over and over and over again in the pre-DNA era, where now based on circumstantial evidence, suspicious behaviors by the spouse or the boyfriend, even making statements or confessions, you know, under the duress of, you know, professional interrogators, if you will, by law enforcement.

And then DNA has shown, no, they were innocent. And that's where, in this case, Daniel and Alfred, yes, they have to be considered. But the other possibilities I mentioned before, serial predator, secret lover, right now they're all on the even playing field as far as being suspects with Mary's death. Yeah, I mean, she has a very big world between the tobacco shop and the boarding house and just what's

walking through, and we've talked about this with other stories, where people disappear after leaving. There's that whole other world. Well, Daniel has an incredibly difficult time. And for whatever reason, whether he's her killer or a bereaved, you know, fiance, he is tortured over this. And he has a very sad ending, probably about three months or so. I would say three months after she is found,

He goes to New Jersey around the Hoboken area. He goes to a couple of taverns and says, can you tell me where the Sybil's cave is? And not long after that, he is found dead. He had ingested a fatal amount of laudanum. And this is the note in his pocket. And I think it's important just because there's a lot of speculation about it. He says to the world, here I am on the spot.

God forgive me for my misfortune in my misspent life. And so, of course, you've got people who say, well, he was in awful grief, and it was so symbolic that he did it there where she was found. And then, of course, other people said, well, he, of course, had a guilty conscience for butchering his fiancée. What do you think about that note?

Well, it could go either way. There isn't enough specific information. It's very obtuse. Is that the right word? It's a little vague. It's very vague. I can see it going both ways. Fundamentally, it comes down to, in my mind with Daniel, okay, let's...

see where the investigation goes. You know, could Daniel have done this under what we know with Mary being strangled, sexually assaulted, laying at a location for a period of time and then transported and being dumped into the river?

Did he have the means, the opportunity to be able to accomplish the crime? It doesn't sound like the people that were involved with the investigation knew how to truly lock Daniel in one way or the other, you know, with the information, you know, from his set of circumstances. In this day and age, in all likelihood, there was semen evidence with Mary. Mm-hmm.

And this probably would have been a very, even though she's floating in the Hudson River, this likely would be a relatively easy case to solve.

Well, it's funny because all of these rumors that float around and little bits of information all lead the Penny Press down some odd roads. Let's talk about Alfred because that's who I was interested in because he seemed like such a jealous jerk. He is never under investigation, you know, by the police or whatever organized group there was that was investigating this. But the Penny Press thought he could be responsible. He says that...

Well, there's a theory in the press that Alfred maybe knew that Mary had been alive and left town and, you know, maybe he was hiding her away and she was safe. But this woman pops up.

and the river, and he says, oh, that's Mary Rogers. So they're kind of saying Mary is actually in like a safe harbor somewhere, like she wanted to run away from Daniel. That's now while the speculation was, even though both Daniel and Mary's mother also identified the body later on, the idea was that, you know, Alfred is protecting her and she wanted to flee, and then he pins her identity on some random woman found in the Hudson River, which just seems stupid to me.

Yeah, I'm not buying that. You know, I did find that it was curious that Alfred shows up at the time that Mary's body is pulled to shore.

It's almost as if, you know, we see this with offenders who insert themselves into the investigation. They get there, they're kind of walking around the crime scene or they're talking to law enforcement trying to get a sense for, is law enforcement on to me? You know? Yeah. That is suspicious as well as just Alford's jealousy of Daniel and Mary's relationship. That type of relationship can lead to violence. So, yeah.

Alfred's got a couple of knocks against him. But again, it's like, okay, where was he that night? You know, we got to lock his statement in, have to investigate him. And, you know, I think if he was not investigated by law enforcement back in 1841, then they dropped the ball. And that these tabloid reporters, they were right in at least questioning him.

whether or not Alfred could be involved. But of course, you don't want to see that type of investigation being conducted in a tabloid. Right, right.

And that's what was happening. So, you know, Alfred keeps going on and on about how virginal she was. She was not promiscuous. I don't know why he keeps bringing it up, except to think that maybe he really did love her and he was very concerned about all of these details coming out. And again, living in the era of she must have done something. This is what happens when you go out by yourself and you're a young woman and you're unaccompanied.

and you're unmarried. I mean, that must have been his motivation if he is not her killer. But he is now, oh, I don't understand him. He is now suggesting that Mary had been carried off to a house of ill repute and murdered there. He keeps inserting himself in this investigation. So I think it's confusing to the press. Why does he keep saying weird stuff like that? And I don't understand his motive at

behind that either. But what do you think knowing that any sexual anything, whether it was consensual or not, would have just ruined her reputation in death also?

It seems like everybody surrounding Mary is kind of saying the same thing about Mary. She's, you know, in essence, a good girl relative to the standards at the time. And that was important for these people to say that. With Alfred, you know, his continued insertion into the investigation gives me a little bit of pause. You know, this, she was, you know, taken to this house of ill repute and that's where she was killed.

well, is there some truth to that statement? And where would that house be? It's like, okay, Alfred, what house of ill repute? And now there's potential witnesses there. Is there a crime scene there?

You know, I don't know what to make of Alfred with the information that we have. I think in some ways, relative to Daniel, I think he's elevated in my mind as a suspect. But still, I'm completely unconvinced of Alfred's role in Mary's death, Daniel's role in Mary's death. It could be somebody that we would never, ever be able to identify. Right.

You know, maybe here you are, you know, 1840s and could be somebody that there's no information on in this day and age that happened to see Mary walking alone and took advantage of a victim of opportunity. Well, we'll go through a list of what people in 1841 predicted who could have done this, who had the capacity and the motivation to do this.

One was, of course, a violent gang. We're in criminal gang activity time period in Manhattan. In early August of 1841, the penny papers were running reports that she was seen in the company of several young men ahead of her death. This is not the last time that we will hear that. And then it's conflicting reports that are saying that this must have been a gang. And of course,

Remember, I told you the little details from the earlier part of the investigation, I think, are twisted. I think they get that maybe from Dr. Cook's report that at least three...

three men must have sexually assaulted her. And so they start investigating gang leaders. Of course, they look at the sailor who she had been with. Everybody's got alibis. So they're really grasping at straws. But it's not investigators. It's the penny press that's doing this, not the investigators. Yeah. Yeah. No. And

Everybody's throwing darts. Is anybody hitting the bullseye? I'm not convinced at all. How Mary was killed, you know, sexually motivated crime. Did she meet up with somebody and he wanted sex and she said no, and then he forced, you know, sex on her and killed her? That's an absolute possibility. Well, one little bit of information that's sort of new for us, about a month after Mary's murder, two

young men, two brothers, found some women's clothing in a thicket in Weehawken, New Jersey, which is pretty close to Hoboken, which is where she was found. The articles of clothing included a petticoat, a scarf, and a handkerchief. The handkerchief had MR embroidered on it, and the clothing was reportedly mildewed down hard, and the grass had grown around it. One of the newspapers estimated it had been there for several weeks.

The historical crime detective reported that the ground was torn up and the shrubbery trampled as if the spot had been the scene of a terrific struggle.

leading out of the thicket was a broad track such as might have been made by dragging the body through bushes. And this is where they believe that Mary had been murdered. And I'll tell you about someone hearing a scream on this night that she was murdered in a minute. But would all of this stuff still be present? I mean, I guess it's at the end of the summer. Maybe there was no rain over a month.

Well, I think that's a distinct possibility. Was mom able to identify this clothing as Mary's clothing? I believe so, yes. Okay.

And it sounds like due to the disruption of the shrubbery, this isn't just where an offender is disposing of the clothing, but it sounds like there's an interaction happening. So, yeah, this very well could be the homicide scene. Curious about, you know, this broad drag mark, because that also could create some of these abrasions that Dr. Cook observed on her back.

Where do they lead to? Do they lead to a roadside? Does not say. Okay. A broad track that might have been dragging a body through bushes. So investigators say this is where they think Mary was murdered. And the boys go home and tell their mother, who is a woman named Frederica Loss...

She becomes a center of attention pretty quickly. She owns a tavern. She said that that night that Mary was last seen, she saw someone who fit Mary's description in her tavern in the company of a young man with a swarthy...

They had lemonade. That doesn't seem on brand for a young man with a swarthy complexion. And then she said she heard what sounded like a scream coming from the direction of this thicket, which was close to the tavern. And she just thought it was an animal or a kid or something goofing off or one of her own kids. But after the clothing was discovered the next month, she thought, oh, I wonder if it was Mary Rogers or

crying out for help. But, you know, all of this is vague and we don't know. I'm putting weight on the mom identifying Mary's clothing, the initials MR on this clothing. Now, it's going to be tough to truly assess, was it actually Mary inside this tavern with this unknown male? But the scenario, kind of I proposed after hearing what Daniel said Mary told him she was doing that night about going to the aunt's house, but aunt said, nope, there was no arrangement like that.

and that Mary may have been using the aunt's house as a way to be able to escape and meet up with somebody. Well, that matches this. Did Mary meet up with a man at this tavern? And then is this man her killer? Or did she start walking back? That seems like a long ways to walk from Weehawken back to the boarding house.

I don't know what kind of mass transit was in effect in the 1840s, but or, you know, on her way back, did she run into somebody else? But Weehawken is an interesting location relative to where Mary's body is found because Mary's body is not too far away in the Hudson River from where Weehawken is, you know, so that kind of adds up in my mind.

Okay. Well, one or two more little twists here. There is a woman named Anne Trow Lohman, who I had read about. She was better known as Madame Restill. She was a very famous abortionist. She went on trial for essentially killing one of her patients during an abortion, which was not uncommon at all.

So, Daniel Stasshauer, the author, says that her trial, this woman's trial, and the murder of Mary Rogers are covered in the newspapers at the same time, and they sort of start to conflate.

And the penny press wonders if Mary, she snuck away from Daniel, used the aunt as an excuse to get an abortion. And that's how she died. And it was an accidental thing. Maybe Alfred, when he said, Mary, I'll help you no matter what you need, helped procure this abortion, which is why he was so passionate about saying she was a good person, she was a good person. And maybe this wasn't a sexual assault, but a, you know, abortion gone wrong.

termination of pregnancy gone wrong, and then the body dumped. But you can tell me, because I think you're going to bring up the underwear and the other stuff that points to something very different. Yeah. No, no, no. You know, first, you know, start with the autopsy. You know, when I'm starting to assess any case, I always start with the autopsy. And in this case, Dr. Cook explicitly looks for evidence of pregnancy as well as evidence of abortion. Imagine

the barbarity of how abortions were conducted back in the 1840s, I believe a medical professional like Dr. Cook would be able to discern that there would have been the types of

injuries, if you will, and how thorough would Mary's, would the fetal aspects, you know, inside of Mary's body without getting too gruesome, you know, how thorough is this process back in the 1840s? So,

I put a lot of weight on Dr. Cook's observations on that front, and then everything about what happened to Mary with the ligature being placed from her own clothing, a gag being shoved into her mouth, her dress is torn.

The evidence, even though they're trying to say the bruising and the abrasions to Mary's genital area and surrounding area is related to the abortion. Well, no. I mean, this very well could be from the sexual assault. Everything about this is this is a sexually motivated crime. This is not a death due to an abortion. And now Mary's body is being dumped in the river. I don't buy that at all.

Well, let's just tie this silliness up because this is really what Mary Rogers is known for, is a botched abortion, what happened to her, the big mystery, nobody goes on trial for it. Frederica, the woman who owns the tavern who heard the scream, who saw Mary with a mystery man, a year later...

is accidentally shot by one of those sons with a shotgun. He was cleaning a shotgun and he shoots her. She is dying. And she says, reportedly, and I say that very loosely in the penny presses,

Close to death, she said she actually knows the man that Mary was with at her tavern. He was a young physician who was going to terminate her pregnancy. Now, this is Frederica saying this, and this are the newspapers reporting this, and all of this should be taken, obviously, with a grain of salt.

There's no evidence of any of this, but now the press after Frederica died is saying it must have happened at her tavern and she must have been the one that facilitated this incident.

And, you know, all of this is to say that the readers of these penny newspapers in New York were so desperate to have this story be done. What happened? They wanted something. And that was one of the very last theories that sort of landed. And that was that. I agree with you. That doesn't sound right to me at all. Well, you know, first, this is people latching on to what is essentially conspiracy theories.

Yeah.

Mary is a victim of a sexually motivated crime. It's just who did it? Somebody who knew her, a stranger, a secret lover, a businessman that she ran across, you know, at the tobacco shop and then became obsessed with her and was following her around. Who knows? You know, it could be any of that.

But I don't buy anything about a botched abortion in this case. There was, as I said earlier, no trial, no indictments, no really formal suspects whatsoever. And then Edgar Allan Poe gets involved. He used to go by. I mean, I know. Good old Edgar Allan Poe. He used to go by that tobacco shop he looked like had been a little enamored with Mary himself before.

He eventually writes a story called The Mystery of Marie Roget, and it is essentially Mary's story but puts her in Paris. He incorporates a lot of facts of the case, but then, of course, because he's a fiction author, as I would too, takes a lot of liberties. And because of that, you know, you're conflating this fictional account with the real account, and people don't do the correct research.

research when they're reading penny papers that are inaccurate. And so now Mary's story, really the real story has been lost in history and it's been completely morphed into something else. And that's why we're telling it here to try to get the real information in. Well, I trust you are giving me the real information. Well, it's such a sad story because there's no justice for her. It's a big mystery. She is

zero control over how her life was framed. It's in the newspapers. It sounds like before this even happened, she was popping up in the newspapers. This is a foreshadowing. When she disappeared for those few days...

and said, I can do what I want. Don't follow me around. And the press reported and speculated that was a foreshadowing for what was going to happen. And now, almost 200 years later, you've got still misinformation out there. So there you go, Paul Holes. Don't say I never tried to illuminate things for you from the 1800s, but these stories deserve to be framed correctly, I think.

Well, for sure. This is a fascinating case. It's unfortunate that it's just going to remain a mystery, you know, unless the authorities can find some evidence from the 1840s, which is unlikely. I'll get right on that, Paul. Well, a really good two-parter and such a good time period to be in, and a really sad case, and I learned a lot. I will say my big takeaway here is

There were coroners in the 1800s who you thought knew their stuff, and Dr. Cook was one of them. And I'm really glad to introduce you to a coroner who actually knew what he was doing and was saying words that made sense to you. At least up to a point, he knew what he was doing.

Except when he said she was moral and tried to go above his pay grade, and then they really ridiculed him for it. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and this is where, you know, it is important just to underscore whether he had medical training or not.

He had experience. And through experience, you do get a level of expertise for sure. So even if he didn't have the medical degree or the doctor in front of his name, the fact that he has seen many bodies coming out of the waterways here

You know, that's important. And that's where, you know, I put a lot of weight on his observations. It's obvious where he overstates. But his observations to me are the core of understanding what happened to Mary. I have a good sense of what happened to Mary. I just don't know who did it to her.

And we'll never know, most likely. But boy, the possibilities were endless. Next week, I will try to bring you a coroner or a medical examiner who knows what they're doing. But I'm going to tell you, the odds are against us, Paul. The odds are really against us. But thank goodness we have one in this one. So we'll see what happens next week. Okay. Sounds good. I'll try not to be too judgmental. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Okay. I'll see you next week. Sounds good. Bye.

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 Danielle 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.