The Servant Girl Annihilator PT 2
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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, Paul. Hey, Kate. How are you? I'm doing well, except for this damn story. I mean, I know that we do true crime stories. We talk about them every week. But this is a hard one. A lot of dead women. Brutal, brutal, brutal. The servant girl annihilator story. I've been thinking about it all week. I don't know about you.

Well, I've been thinking about it, you know, but this is my world. You know, welcome to my world. The dark world, Paul. Yes, it can be. Well, let's recap for those of you who have forgotten over the past week. We have now four murders in Austin, Texas, in the late 1800s. Starting in December of 1884, a black cook named Molly Smith was sexually assaulted, it looks like, and murdered with an axe and stabbed with a sharp object.

We have Eliza Shelley, about five months after that, who was a black cook in her 30s. She was struck with an axe, stabbed with a sharp object, which I think they're now going to determine is going to be something like an ice pick.

Then Irene Cross, just a few weeks later, who was a black domestic worker attacked with a knife. Then Mary Ramey, the 11-year-old girl who was the daughter of a black cook who was knocked over the head. And then Mary Ramey was taken out and just brutalized and stabbed through the ear with a sharp object.

So that's where we are, four dead, one young girl, three women who are dead, and then a mother who is grieving and recovering very slowly. And a black community in Austin, Texas, that is shook to a point where they are all trying to kind of protect each other and sleep in areas where they feel a little bit safer than in their tiny little cabins at the back of the property of the people who have employed them.

Yeah, you know, and I think I just want to point out that, you know, we're talking the mid-1880s. The idea of the serial predator being a new phenomena, it's not. It's been going on forever. Yep. They called them multiple murderers back then. When Edward Ruloff, you know, who was the subject of a book in my first season of Tenfold More Wicked, I remember somebody in the media telling me that they were going to print serial killer. And I said, no, he was a multiple murderer. That's what they called them back then.

But it was still disbelief, but it was clear even to the police in 1884, 1885, that these were all committed by the same person. So the last one where we left off was Mary Ramey, which was August 30th of 1885. A month or so goes by. Now we're September 28th, 1885, and now we're back to 1885.

a man being present, a boyfriend. They are near the University of Texas on Guadalupe Street. It is a woman named Gracie Vance and her boyfriend, who is a man named Orange Washington. And they are asleep in the back cabin of a property owned by Gracie's boss, who was the publisher of the Texas Court Reporter legal newspaper at the time. Gracie and Orange were not alone. They were in bed, and they had two people sleeping on the floor.

These were two women named Lucinda Boddy and Patsy Gibson. They were also domestic workers, but for a different family. So Lucinda and Patsy were staying with the couple because they were terrified. So they were grouping up to try to protect one another. So the boss, William Dunham, says he heard odd noises through the night and

which he thought were Orange assaulting his girlfriend, Gracie. The boss said it sounded like Gracie was being either whipped or slapped. And the boss, William, says this happened between the two of them, between Gracie and Orange. So he didn't do anything. But he heard noises of violence around one in the morning, yet again, middle of the night,

The boss, William, hears somebody scream. It's a woman. He finally gets up. He gets a gun. He rushes outside, and he saw one of the overnight guests, one of the women, Lucinda, struggling with a man in the yard. She was bleeding from the head. She appeared confused. She screams, Mr. Dunham, we're all dead. The attacker got away because William could not get a shot off.

and the attacker left behind a horse, which was hitched to a nearby tree. Inside the cabin, the other guest, Patsy, was lying on her side. She was barely alive. She was bleeding from a severe head wound. The boyfriend, Orange, was dead. He was lying face down on the floor in the space between his bed and an open window. His head had been nearly sliced in half with an axe.

which was found in the bedroom also, left behind. Lucinda and Patsy had been beaten with what they think was the back blunt part of the axe. Gracie is dead too. She had been dragged 75 yards from her cabin over a four-foot-tall fence into a horse pasture. She had been sexually assaulted, and investigators say he had vandalized

violently beaten her with a brick until her head was described as jelly. Completely unrecognizable at this point. So this is awful. Everybody's been attacked in this cabin. Yeah, you know, to me it's obvious the offender went in and you have the four adults that are asleep and

And in quick succession, incapacitates or attempts to incapacitate three of them. Now, you don't indicate that there's any signs of a struggle between Orange and this offender. So I'm assuming Orange being the male is the first one that is likely struck with the axe, dispatched right away. And then Lucinda and Patsy are then also struck right away. Gracie is the chosen one.

whether or not he's evaluating on scene who his intended victim is going to be that he sexually assaults, or he knew going into this location who he wanted to have as a victim. Right now, we don't know. But he goes in and dispatches the three adults that he has no intention of having any further interactions with,

and then removes Gracie because she is the chosen one. And just so you know, she's 20 years old, Gracie. And Orange is 25. I know we talk about old man strength, but this is a young man. So I think you're right. There's a point that

he's found face down in between the bed and an open window. I'm not sure the claim is that the man entered through the window, but the window would have been open probably because, you know, it's September 30th and it's really hot still in Austin. In all likelihood, Orange may never have even been aware of what happened. He's asleep.

is hit in the head with the ax, whether or not he even had any type of mobility after that assault, who knows? You know, it's possible Orange is just on the bed, hit on the head.

offender dispatches Lucinda and Patsy and then drags Gracie out and maybe Orange gets up, stumbles and collapses or the offender pulls Orange off the bed, hits him in the head because now you have a solid surface of the floor versus a kind of the cushioning of the bed that could potentially minimize the wounding capacity of the axe. Experience the glamour and danger of the Roaring Twenties from the palm of your hand.

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.

Now, talk to me about the distance that Gracie's body was discovered, dragged about 75 yards from her cabin over a four-foot-tall fence and into an adjoining horse pasture. Is that a long way? I mean, he's really trying to get out of the scene. Yeah, no, he most certainly is trying to put distance from the cabin and where he can spend time with Gracie.

And again, is this because he's not sure that the three adults that he has struck are truly incapacitated? Is he aware of, let's say, the owners of the property and that they may be able to hear something if he's spending time with Gracie and he needs to get further distance away from the property? You know, who knows? But it's significant. I don't know how big Gracie is. Now, when they say the term dragged, you know, oftentimes people

you know, victims will be forced to walk. You know, so that's where it's like, well, is he truly dragging Gracie and carrying her up over this four-foot fence, or is he forcing her at knife point or something else to get to this other location? If he is dragging and then taking her up over the fence...

This tells me he's likely a very robust male. He's got some strength. He's got some stamina in order to move this adult woman that distance and up over an obstacle. Now, let me ask you about the timeline. So William Dunham, the boss, comes out because he hears Lucinda screaming. She is struggling with a strange man in the yard.

She's bleeding from the head, and she appears confused. And this is when she says, Mr. Dunham, we are all dead. Now, Patsy's barely alive. She survives. Lucinda survives. Orange is dead. Then you've got Gracie, who's dead in the field. Yeah.

Isn't this for this to be the way Lucinda is describing it? Doesn't it mean that he has to hurt these people, immobilize them, grab Gracie, sexually assault her and kill her in the field and go back for Lucinda in order for him to then get away? Because he can't be chased away by this man with a gun and then return and grab Gracie then. Doesn't Gracie have to go first and then he comes back?

No, I think the logical sequence is he goes in while these four are asleep. He dispatches the three adults, separates Gracie.

And then on his way back, and there's the unknown here, it's possible that he's heading back to where his horse is hitched in order to escape. And maybe Lucinda has come to and has now come out and is face-to-face with him. And that's when the owner comes out and sees them struggling. Or, I mean, the other possibility, which I think is less likely, is he goes back into the cabin and is now trying to pull Lucinda, you know,

you know, to where he has Gracie and she's putting up a struggle. I think the first scenario is more likely as he is now trying to escape and Lucinda just happened to stumble out there and comes face to face with him. And that's when the owner comes out and witnesses that interaction.

Now, what sounds like happened is that, you know, he is using the sharp end of the axe on some people and disabling other people with the blunt end of the axe. The fact that he hasn't done some of the other horrible things, like the kind of impaling thing with what they might say is an iron rod, does that mean he doesn't have time? Is that what's happening? Or this just seems like a blitz attack until he gets Gracie out into the field.

No, it is a blitz attack. And it's hard to say whether he is purposefully using the sharp edge of the axe in select instances, or is he, as he's just swinging the axe, you know, he's losing track of, you

you know, the orientation of the head, you know, and so you'll see this sometimes when somebody is bludgeoning, let's say with a very distinctive object such as a hammer, you know, sometimes the hammerhead, you know, you'll see these circular depressed skull fractures as the face of the hammer is hitting the skull. But every now and then you might see the claw end or the side of the hammer being used. And it's as the offender is striking over and over again,

The hammer has turned in the offender's hand or the victim has been, you know, they turn relative to the offender. And so different edges of the weapon end up striking the victim. It's hard to say in this instance, is he purposely choosing what end of the axe is being used on different victims? I don't know.

Nobody can identify who this person is. The 12-year-old boy from one of our previous victims gave the best, if we believe him, gave the best description. Chunky, black man, bare feet, pants kind of pulled up.

And that's it. Even, you know, Mr. Dunham can't give a good description because he's holding a gun and trying to get a shot off. So the owner of the horse that has been abandoned by our serial killer is arrested very quickly. This guy named Netherly Overton, he owned the horse, but he's alibied, number one. And number two, he said, "This horse was stolen from my stables. I didn't have anything to do with this." And the police believe him.

There just is not enough evidence on anybody at this point. And while the police are investigating, it is not a vigorous investigation necessarily, according to people I've spoken to, until we start to get to Christmastime 1885.

So this is a year, right? December 30th was the first murder of this kind in 1884. Now we're coming back to Christmas Eve, which is December 24th of 1885.

The city council had offered a reward, and they were trying to get people more on the case. But really, this, what happens on this night, Christmas Eve, is what changes the city and their point of view. Because there are two more women who die in the same night, and they are both white. And

And this is where things change. So the first one, a woman named Susan Hancock, she was in her early 40s and she was attacked first. This is on what was 203 East Water Street. And this is where now local folks, where First Street morphs into East Cesar Chavez today.

So, right downtown. She was the wife of a man named Moses Hancock. He's described as a carpenter. He's sometimes a mechanic. They have two kids who were away at a Christmas party when this happened.

They had fallen asleep, Susan and Moses, in separate bedrooms, which was not at all unusual, opposite sides of the house. So the house was unlocked. He enters. He goes into Susan's bedroom. She's alone. And he hits her with an axe while she's in bed. He drags her into the backyard. Nobody hears anything until Moses wakes up. He hears a noise.

And this is about midnight, less than an hour after the daughters had returned home and gone to bed. He has woken up. According to a TV station here called KVU that covered the story, there's a sinking feeling that he has that somebody's robbed the house. He looks at Susan's bed. It's soaked with blood. He runs around frantically around the house looking for her. He finally goes outside in the backyard and she is alive but barely alive.

So the kids had come home while the killer is in the backyard with Susan. Moses sees this shadowy outline of a man on the lawn. He yells for the neighbors. The man runs off. He could not see anything, just that he was wearing dark clothing.

And then I can tell you about Susan's wounds. I mean, there's a lot there. A 40-something-year-old white woman who has a male in the house and drags her to the backyard with an ax and signs of sexual assault. Well, it's similar to the other cases with a male in the house where the intended victim is being separated. And this is now trying to lower the risk to the offender so he can spend more time

committing the sexual assault and the other acts of violence on the woman. One of the things that's interesting to me is you have the kids who aren't in the house but come home. Is part of the reason he is dragging Susan away from the house, is he aware

that potentially kids are going to be coming home? Does he have intelligence as to what's going on inside with this family that night? You know, I don't know at this point, but that from an investigative standpoint would be something I just kind of tuck away going, huh, does he know what's happening that night? And that's the reason he is dragging Susan away. Why doesn't he just go into Moses's bedroom while he's asleep, hit him in the head with the ax and

and then spend time with Susan in the safety and the privacy of the house. That would be the easiest thing for him possibly to be able to do. He elevates his risk by having to potentially confront the male, but it seems like that is a scenario that the offender could choose, but he doesn't. So that's informative as to what the offender is thinking as he's trying to plan this crime and as he's committing the crime.

Do you think that the change in age from 20s and 30s into 40s or the color of her skin is significant in any way? You know, at this point, you know, based on my experience, I don't think I can put any weight aside.

on the change in the victimology from black to white victim, there could be something there. Or is he just out prowling and he happens to look in a window and sees an adult woman who's asleep by herself inside this house and decides, "I'm going to do this." And it doesn't matter what her race is. It doesn't matter that she's, oh, she's in her 40s versus her 20s. We just don't know at this point. Either scenario is a possibility.

Well, let me tell you about the state of the room, and then I'll tell you about her wounds. Susan's trunks had been rifled through. The clothing was thrown all over the room. The window was opened, and there was blood on the windowsill. I have no idea what that means, if that's her putting her hand up or he gets in or he's getting... I don't know what that means.

But there's blood. The room is in disarray. Someone finds the bloodied axe, which interestingly was the Hancock's axe. It was typically out by their woodpile, so he just grabbed it and used it. Is that different? I'm not sure. Right.

that there is any opinion as to whether or not he's bringing, let's say, a personal axe. Or as he's out prowling, he runs across various weapons, maybe in neighbors' yards, not necessarily the victim's yards or victim's property. So this is not surprising that he's using something that is readily present. And in many ways, you know, this is what criminals do, is they, if they're out and about, they're

they're not necessarily going to have the burglary tools on them or the weapons on them. They know they can go into any house and find something in order to accomplish the crime. So if they're caught by law enforcement while they're out, let's say, walking in a neighborhood, they don't want to be caught with a knife.

or in this case, an ax, because that would be kind of suspicious. Right now, without further details, it's hard to draw any conclusions, you know, in terms of what the offender is intending to do, why he chose Susan, and then what are the dynamics of the crime. But there is an interesting aspect in that he is finding the window in which Susan is alone, the kids are out of the house, Moses is asleep in a separate bedroom, and

And he's purposefully dragging Susan away in order to be able to sexually assault her. Now, you said that there was more wounds to Susan. She had two deep head wounds, which were consistent with being struck with an axe. She had been hit on her cheekbone...

as well as between her left ear and her left eye. And he had used a round rod-like instrument and shoved it in her right ear. And she eventually died, but she was alive through all of that. And you indicated that there was a significant amount of blood

blood on the bed in this case? The bed was soaked with blood and there was blood on the windowsill, which could have been her, if she's alive, grabbing, you know, covered in blood, grabbing for anything as he's dragging her outside. Who knows? Or splatter. Sure. But they're not describing that there's a bloody trail that leads out the back door or the front door? Not that I can see, no. Okay. So with these types of wounds, these head wounds...

They bleed extensively, and the amount of blood inside the bedroom is consistent with she received these wounds, at least some of these wounds, while she's in the bed. The fact that we're not getting any descriptions of blood anywhere else in the house tends to suggest that she likely was taken out through the window. Well...

We have the city physician arriving, William Jefferson Burt. Again, if you've heard my season eight of Tenfold More Wicked, you will recognize that name, William Jefferson Burt. He was a very well-known physician. He reported to all of these crime scenes. He makes an odd decision. This sounds like we're deviating, but it's kind of important. He brings along his teenage son, who is a young man named Eugene. He is 16.

And Eugene is the one who found the axe in the bedroom. So he brings it down, he hands it to his dad, it's covered in blood, and life would move on, you know, for the Burt family, except I need to bring this up because it is something I talk about in Tenfold. That season is about Eugene Burt 12 years later, because at age 28,

He murders his wife and his two young girls with an axe. And he wraps them up with wire and cloth and shoves them down his cistern. And one last thing before you react. When he was a child, he had impaled a live bunny rabbit with a railroad tie. Paul, you're like, I need a drink.

for all that. Can a 16-year-old do this? I think, I will tell you, I think this absolutely influenced him. I don't know. He was briefly thought about because he found the axe. But 16. Well, you know, I think Eugene, you know, this torture killing of the bunny rabbit, as I've mentioned in prior episodes, to me, that's the number one predictor of the various serial killer triad aspects. Mm-hmm.

that somebody's going to escalate to inflicting violence on humans. So I would say, yes, this in all likelihood, his exposure to this crime would be something that probably fed Eugene's fantasy as he grew up, tends to indicate Eugene likely, even at this young age, already was predisposed to thinking about violence.

And so this may have shaped how he committed his crime when he got into his 20s. But we don't think a 16-year-old could pull off all of this, I assume, right? Well, I wouldn't necessarily eliminate the offender based on the age. A 16-year-old teenage boy is very physically capable of doing that.

This would be an unusual series of crimes for a 16-year-old to have committed and is, at least right now, inconsistent with the witness. You know, the 12-year-old boy who saw the chunky black man with bare feet. Specific. That bare feet characteristic really puts a lot of veracity on the 12-year-old's details.

And I believe that the 12-year-old is seeing the offender and is able to accurately portray the physical characteristics of the offender in the series. Eugene doesn't match those characteristics, I'm assuming. No, he doesn't. And, you know, I have photos of his brothers, and then I have good drawings of Eugene. And he is not a large man as an adult. I can't imagine as a 16-year-old. He's not some strapping 16-year-old.

Certainly nobody asked about alibis back then, but I think you're right. You know, when he lobotomized this bunny rabbit when he was very young, it was his brother's bunny rabbit. When somebody said, why did you do that? He said, because I'm interested in my dad's job. And his dad was essentially a medical examiner for the city. So it's very dark. I mean, I had thought that. Like, I doubt Eugene Burt is responsible for this.

I do think that this series of crimes and hearing about it from his father really influenced him later on. Right. And, you know, this is where, you know, at this point in time, if Eugene is in a pool of suspects, from my perspective, he's a weak suspect, right?

But he's not eliminated. He's just somebody that is a name in my file. And if there's more information that causes Eugene to kind of bubble up, then I would start drilling down on Eugene a little bit more. But my efforts investigatively would probably be looking at other individuals and other individuals that match this, what appears to be a good physical description of the offender.

Well, the police don't have time to think about suspects because another murder happened within an hour. I mean, unreal. On Christmas Eve, KV24, which shout out to KV24, I used to work there when I was a kid, did this story. Of course, at a television station, they did this story.

They said that while a statesman, Austin American Statesman newspaper reporter, was gathering information on the Hancock case, standing on the lawn, a shriek rang out and another murder had occurred, this time at the home of an architect named James Phillips Sr.,

This is now on 8th Street, so this is not very far away from where they were before kind of First Street area. This is a 17-year-old named Eula Phillips.

She was well-known in Austin society. White woman, of course, described as a great beauty and married into a well-to-do family. She was discovered when police ran there from the Hancock residence. They run there and they find her on her back with her nightgown pulled up around her neck, which is how they describe as a sexual assault. It's believed that her gown was used by the killer to drag her outside like a rope.

She had been struck above her nose with an axe, which split her forehead down the middle, and she had been hit on the side of the head with the axe. And this is the weird part. It seemed like her attacker staged her body. There were three small pieces of wood laid across her chest and her stomach, and her arms were outstretched.

Skip Hollingsworth said it looked like she was posed like a figure in some twisted crucifixion scene. Geez. No, this is very informative. And I definitely want to address the term staging versus posing. Okay. And staging is when the offender does certain things to try to make the crime look like something that it's not in order to misdirect the investigation. Okay.

Posing is purposefully putting the victim's body in a certain position or objects on the body. We've seen this many times. I've seen this. And this now with Eula, I mean, this is posing. This is the offender. Now, this is the offender taunting. Now, I can draw an opinion. You have two

two white women on Christmas Eve, both in nice houses, nice neighborhoods, killed within an hour of each other or roughly, you know, at least within the same night. And you have one victim being posed in a manner with the objects placed on her body as sort of as a taunt. The offender is now

seeking attention. He is now, "I'm the boogeyman out here. You can't catch me." And this sort of absolves Eugene Burt, doesn't it? Because he's with his dad at the first crime scene when this is happening with the second crime scene, unless it's the shriek of her. Now, they aren't clear about the shriek, unless it's the shriek of somebody discovering her. But I got the impression it's more like the attack. Let me tell you what happens inside the house.

So her husband was home, 24-year-old James Jimmy Phillips. He was in bed with her with their baby, Thomas. Thomas is not hurt. He is covered with blood. Jimmy was struck just above his ear with an axe.

while sleeping in bed. He survives. And they find the bloodied axe, I mean, which he picked up another one because he left the other one at the Hancock scene. There's a bloody axe found at the foot of the bed, as was another footprint. This is in blood, and they said it is on the floorboard of the house, and it is clear that this person is missing a little toe.

blood is better, right, than dirt or snow in identifying whether somebody's missing a little toe? No, because you think about it. Let's say the reason there's blood on the bottom of the offender's foot is he stepped in a source of blood. Now, does this source of blood uniformly coat the bottom of his foot, or does it just happen to miss his little toe? You know, that's... And so you could see where that could account for the missing little toe, but...

You have the prior footprint that they had concluded, well, it's missing the toe. So two different bare footprints in different mediums, and in each instance, no little toe. That gives me greater confidence that this offender's toe is either missing or is configured in a way to which it would not touch the substrate.

when it's planted. Maybe it's got a deformity that causes it to kind of arch upwards. You know, I don't know. I'm sure there's medical conditions or the offender had broken the toe and it healed funny. And so it's not part of his natural footprint, though it might be present. You know, it's interesting about little toes. I never thought I'd be talking about this again with a killer. But Edward Ruloff, who was my multiple murderer in season one of Tenfold,

He got frostbite. He was on the run in Pennsylvania. He got frostbite. He lost his little toe. He had a pair of leather shoes specifically made, structured for his little missing toe. He did a robbery. He left the shoes behind. And of course, they said...

This is a weird shoe. And that's ultimately what at least got him indicted was that this was something at the scene. This was clearly something specially made. So it'll be interesting how this turns out, this bit, like a print in the blood on the floorboard. And they removed the floorboard to preserve it for hopefully figuring out who did this.

Yeah. And of course, I'd want to know, was there rich detail present? Yeah. In this day and age, we could actually do a comparison. Sorry, buddy. Now, I want to bring up something about casing, I guess. I don't know if there's probably a better word for it. But he went a mile. So he attacked Susan Hancock, and then he went a mile to get to Eula Phillips at midnight and 1 a.m.

He has to know who these people are, don't you think, or has been casing this or something, because how would he have been able to do this in such a tight time frame, assault and kill two women in it sounds like about an hour and a half time period that are not right next door to each other. They're a mile apart. Right.

Yeah, I would lean towards, you know, he has been out prowling in these neighborhoods and possibly pre-selected victims. And he may have had other victims pre-selected, but for whatever reason, he ended up going to Eula's location versus maybe a different one. But there is a misconception that these crimes take a long time to commit. Mm-hmm.

And oftentimes, I mean, these crimes that this offender is committing, for the most part, they're going to be measured in minutes. You know, this hour and a half, I mean, he could have killed Susan, probably spent, let's see, she's drug into the backyard. So, you know, a little bit of time there.

But once he dispatches her, does he have an hour, hour 15 to cover the mile distance and then be able to commit the attack on Eula? I'd say that's a possibility, you know, and he's just out prowling and then finding another victim. I wouldn't draw any conclusions. You know, again, I'm a little bit more just because the possibility of different scenarios I think are equal. You know, I lean towards he has evidence.

prowled in the neighborhood prior and has likely selected a variety of victims. And it just happened this night he chose Susan and Eula. So let me bring this up. I think the police at this point are not now 100 percent convinced that the attacks on the two white women are connected.

to the attacks on the black women and Orange and anybody else who was around, I think because of change of race. Yes. And the Blitz. So what do they do? They arrest the husbands of these two white women, and they both go on trial.

And I could tell you all kinds of stuff about how the trial went, but they're both acquitted. One spends a year in jail, but they're both acquitted. Neither of these guys are the greatest guys in the world, but there's just not enough evidence. What becomes significant...

is this floorboard from the Phillips house. They compare it to both men, and the footprint doesn't match either guy, and everybody's got ten fingers, ten toes. Everything's normal. So they are now at a dead end. I mean, we could talk a long time about it. The trials of the men are both interesting, but...

This is something that is, you know, significant. They are now out of Leeds at this point with these two women dead. And these men, you know, now acquitted. Well, how often do we see this, though, where the spouse is often targeted in the investigation and then possibly arrested and or convicted and then subsequently turns out

that was wrong and it was a stranger that had come in and committed the crime. So during Moses Hancock's trial, his defense attorney, who was a very famous U.S. congressman named John Hancock, no relation, brought up a name based on the little toe.

And the name was Nathan Elgin. He was a young black man who was missing a tiny toe, and he was not a very good person. And that created enough reasonable doubt for the jury to say, we don't think Moses Hancock was responsible for this. There's someone else out there.

So we can talk about Nathan Elgin because, Paul, he is our prime suspect. He is who most people think was the servant girl annihilator. Now, how does the defense attorney know that Nathan Elgin is missing his toe? He has been in and out of jail. He's been arrested for various being a jerk things. And they know that he has a missing toe.

It's just been something that's been documented. But he has not been connected directly to the servant girl just yet until police start digging into it. He is a young Black man,

who at the time of the Servant Girl murders was working as a cook in a restaurant called Simon's. This was on the corner of Congress Avenue, which is still Congress Avenue, and Pecan Street, which is 6th Street. PBS did a wonderful history detectives on this case.

And they called it, I just want to have this quote here, the address was in the top 1% hot zone of probability in the map of our geographic profiler had created about this. So that's where he was, at this restaurant, just right in the middle of all of these murders. And he's a cook. And he's a cook. And he was never arrested. He was off the radar for all of 1885 for police. Right.

until something happens. So this is where I want to know if there's even enough evidence for this. Let me just tell you what ends up happening. So it's February of 1886. There have been no murders since Christmas Day, technically, 1 a.m., Christmas Day of 1885. So we've gone all of January with no murders. Nathan Elgin is in a saloon.

He is attacking a woman, like yelling at her, beating her. He's trying to drag her from the saloon and into a nearby house. He's being violent.

And he gets into an altercation with the police, and they kill him. Oh. I know. Now we have a problem. Because people suspect him, but there is absolutely no proof, except he worked in the area where all these people were killed. He fits the description, and he's missing a little toe. Had he been interviewed during the investigation at all? Did he give any statements? Nope. So listen, they made a plaster cast of his foot after he was killed, and

And then, I don't know if this works or not, they compared it, this cast, to the bloody footprint and it appeared to be a perfect match. Really? Is that a thing? Can that happen? You know, this idea of it being a perfect match, it's at what level did they effect this match? Was it just class characteristics in terms of the size, the shape, the

The missing toe. Was there other features present in the bloody evidence print that also were present on his foot? I would call it guesstimating is what my best guess would be for 1886. I would say, you know, they couldn't eliminate him.

versus it being a match. You know, that's typically, you know, when we start talking comparative sciences, and we've talked about comparative sciences in the past and some of the pros and cons of this type of evidence, oftentimes, particularly I imagined in the early days, there would be opinions expressed that are way too strong of an association.

So for somebody to go in front of a jury and say, this bloody print perfectly matches Nathan's foot, you know, that, in my opinion, would be a wrong statement. We cannot find anything in the bloody print that eliminates Nathan's foot as having made it as a more appropriate way to put it out there. Now, how strong of an association is it?

Don't know. The missing toe is significant. Is there ridge detail present, even if a minimal amount, but could that be intercompared? It's just like the crease lines, like in the palms of your hands. Are those present within this bloody print? You know, that would be a class characteristic that has some distinguishing aspect to

to further the association. I would say right now, the perfect match statement is something that I would discard, but at least it's not like he has a size 15 foot and the bloody print is a size eight. It sounds like at least, okay, he could have made this bloody print.

Yeah, I mean, they acknowledged that the two husbands, their footprints didn't even remotely match the one on the floorboard. So I don't know what the characteristics are that they looked at, really. I do know that one of the number one things that made investigators say, we think this case is closed with Nathan Elgin's death, is that there were no more murders after he died. That was it. They were done nothing even remotely like this. People were killed with axes. That happened all the time. But...

This was not it. They died when he died. The first two victims, Molly and Eliza, they both were cooks. Maybe this was a common occupation, but at the same time,

That'd be something I'd be looking at. You know, why were these women selected? Did the offender have prior knowledge? Can I show that Nathan knew any of these victims previously? This is, even though you said, hey, you know, Austin had gone through this exponential growth, it's still a town of, what, 25,000, 30,000. This is a small town. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I will say one interesting point is this woman that he was beating on and trying to drag from the saloon to a house, it sounds like she had no idea who he was. It was random. So that is another little check in the MO of this guy.

Yeah, he's showing a willingness to commit violence on women. He's fitting the physical description of the 12-year-old boy, which I'm putting a fair amount of weight on in terms of the accuracy of that physical description. Mm-hmm.

Physical evidence, the bloody evidence footprint seems to at least be within range of Nathan's one foot. I don't know if it's a right foot or left foot. One of the things I think you mentioned is that Nathan had been in and out of jail.

Seems like it, yes. There were some, from what I've read, there were some altercations. He was a violent guy. Yeah. But I don't have any more information than that. You know, part of what I would be looking at would be, okay, I'm going to timeline everything that I can substantiate about Nathan's whereabouts, whether it be in custody or interactions with law enforcement or, you know, various things in which, yeah, we know Nathan is here, here, here on these dates and times.

and then match that timeline up with when we have these attacks.

if Nathan is in jail for one of these attacks, then, well, he couldn't have committed that crime. And since it seems like all these attacks are related, then that potentially could eliminate him as the servant girl annihilator. But I'm assuming we don't have that kind of data on Nathan in order to be able to do that. And, you know, I would say in 1886, when this really is coming to a head and he's dead,

The police probably did do some due diligence. Certainly he didn't have an alibi, but I think because this has been the accepted suspect for 100 and something years, there was probably not a definitive, no, this guy was in jail or this guy was at sea or something. There must have been enough wiggle room wherever he was that he could have done this. But, you know, this case was dropped.

There were no more murders. And there was a interesting rumor. Besides the fact that Nathan Elgin had died, if you are not satisfied with that, perhaps you can open your mind to the idea that whoever committed these killings wanted to get the hell out of America and made it to England and became Jack the Ripper two years later. Because that is a theory that has gone around. No.

No. That's quite a smirk. No.

I don't buy that. I don't see any overlap with these two series in terms of victimology, what the offender's behaviors are with each of the victims. They are very distinct. These are two different offenders, Jack the Ripper and then the servant girl, Annihilator. At this point in time, this Nathan Olgin, I agree. He seems like a very strong suspect. With what they had on him...

Does it rise to the level of probable cause? I think I would need to see exactly this, you know, this bloody footprint and Nathan's foot to see how strong of a match could be affected. And is that strong enough from a physical evidence standpoint to say, yes, Nathan is the one that left that bloody footprint? Then I think you've got the PC. Otherwise, I think he is a very strong suspect. Yeah.

And, you know, this alarmed Austin for a very long time. There were private citizen groups that formed watch groups to patrol the neighborhoods. And, you know, they were people who closed down saloons and people were very scared. But eventually, when they figured out that the killings were gone and people were connecting it to Nathan Elgin, then that all sort of went away. I mean, there was always an increase in security as the city got bigger and bigger. But

Ultimately, this is the grandest unsolved case in Austin, with the exception of the yogurt shop murders. And

I'm not going to get into those. You can Google them because that's so awful. In the realm of history, the yogurt shop murders for me as an unsolved case are number one, but very close is the servant girl annihilator murders. And I will say, Paul, you know, for that season of Tenfold, what I did was I like to go to cemeteries, graveyards to try to find the headstones of these people.

And it was not difficult to find Eula, and it was not difficult to find Susan. But the other victims who were Black were all in unmarked graves, from what I could tell, in a graveyard that was meant specifically for Black people in the late 1800s in a historic area. And so it was just a very stark reminder. I have these two beautiful photos of

of Eula and Susan, the white victims, and it's not the same case with the other victims. Sure. You know, and it's sad to think that. And, you know, everybody deserves to be remembered, you know, and I know you're talking about this series as being an unsolved series. I would just say...

It sounds like to me it's just not a closed series. But in all likelihood, it seems like they have the right guy, this Nathan Olgin. I agree. Well, what a story. And I will take a few days off and process this and everything that you've said. And I will bring you another compelling story not located in Austin, Texas, sadly, next week. All right. Well, I'm looking forward to it. Thanks, Paul. All right. Thanks, Kate.

This has been an Exactly Right production. For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com slash buriedbones sources. 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 Breifogle. 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.