Under the Axe PT 1
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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.

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. Listen up. I'm Liza Traeger. And I'm Cara Clank, and we're the hosts of the true crime comedy podcast, That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast. Every Tuesday, we break down an episode of Law & Order SVU, the true crime it's based on, and we chat with an actor from the episode.

Over the past few years, we've chatted with series icons like BD Wong, Kelly Giddish, Danny Pino, and guest stars like Padgett Brewster and Matthew Lillard. And just like an SVU marathon, you can jump in anywhere. Don't miss new episodes every Tuesday. Follow That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. Dun-dun!

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

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

Hey, Kate, how are you today? I'm great. How about you? I am hanging in there. You know, I've got my Monster Energy drink, getting my caffeine in, getting ready to have you bamboozle me again with another case. You know what I've noticed a trend is that you are less whiskey these days and more Monster or...

Cava or whatever else you're drinking. I think I'm having a positive influence on you, or am I wrong and there's something else happening? Well, of course you're having a positive influence on me. Look at that.

Good. Well, I have a serious question that I don't think you and I have talked about yet. We're, of course, not surprising here. We're going into a very old case. What is the oldest case that you have really dug into? I know you've been, you know, kind of a consultant on like the case you and I met on, which is the 1925 Bessie Ferguson case. But what is the one where you spent time? Anything before the 60s or 70s?

Not before the 60s. The oldest case that I looked into in earnest was a 1964 homicide, a UC Berkeley professor. I'm not going to say the victim's name because his

family is heavily involved in the NFL. But in essence, he looks like he was abducted out of the Berkeley area and then shot and killed and left by Buchanan Airfield out in Concord back in 1964. I would have worked older cases, but the reality is we didn't have physical evidence going back before the 1960s.

They just weren't keeping the evidence back then. Some agencies do across the nation, but what I have found is most agencies do not keep that old evidence or haven't kept it. So I was kind of hamstrung in terms of going back further in time. But 1964 is the oldest case that I truly did work.

When did you work at what year, so however many years later, and then what did you find or contribute in this kidnapping case? You know, this is a case in which there's a strong suspect who was a former student of the professor. He had been arrested. There was a lot of publicity about it, but then was never convicted of the crime.

And so my goal was to prove whether or not he was the one truly responsible, or if not, to try to figure out who could be. And so in this particular case, it was really taking a look at the physical evidence that had been collected and what still existed in Sheriff's Property Room.

And so I got some forensic testing requested, but ended up leaving the sheriff's office before any of that testing was accomplished. And my sense, I've never been updated, but my sense is that they've never done the testing. So, you know, it's probably still a mystery in terms of whether or not the student was truly the professor's killer or not.

Is the student still around? You might not have even checked in on this since this is such an old case for you. But I mean, is this something that there could still be an arrest if they do run anything on it? No, the student is dead. Oh, wow.

That's hard. I know you have cases that have loose ends, and I know that happens with investigators. You start something, and then it's just, I'm sure, painful to not be able to see it through. And not only that, you're not handing it off to a new investigator. It's just sort of going into the ether, and that has to be frustrating. Yeah.

Well, it is. And that's, you know, that is typical of these older unsolved cases is that you see investigators that have a passion for them and they resurrect these old cases. But if they don't close the case out, which is more often than not, to be frank, you know, there's a reason why these cases are unsolved is because they're typically the hardest cases, particularly, you know, back then.

you know, when you start taking a look at 1960s and 1970s where they didn't have modern technology. And then when that investigator gets reassigned, as somebody else moves in, they may not have a passion for the cold case. The agency may not have a program in place to keep these unsolved cases moving forward with investigations and forensic testing. And they often just stagnate and go stale again.

And that is frustrating. It's one of these things where the family members of the victims, they want an answer. And even after many decades, I have seen this firsthand over and over again. These family members, the loss of their loved one was like it happened yesterday, even though it may have happened 40 years ago. They still want an answer.

And some of them want justice. They want the offender to actually pay for the crime. So it is frustrating. It's just it takes a certain personality to have an interest in these older cases. And I've seen it. There's select individuals that have the passion, like myself.

have the aptitude for these older cases because they're typically very complex. And then others, you know, they're more interested in working the gangbang homicides, you know, doing the, you know, the active cases. And it's just hit or miss, you know, on whoever gets assigned to these unsolved cases, if at all.

Well, and one of the things we've talked about is we've had these cases where the heroes at the very end, 40 or 50 years later, are these retired investigators, prosecutors, you know, investigators for the DA's office, private investigators. We've just read about all groups coming together and forming these cold case squads where they volunteer. They're not being paid. So these are the people we, like you, these are the people who the consultants are

who really are the ones that seem to break these cases, it's great for us to be able to talk about those on this show. Well, and that's, you know, that is an underutilized resource because there are a lot of retired investigators out there that, you know, they have all this experience and expertise, but

But when they offer their services, many agencies don't take them up on it, you know, and so they're just kind of stuck because you need to have the law enforcement agency's willingness to bring on

these retirees. Even if it's in a voluntary basis, you think, well, that's a no-brainer. But so many agencies just don't want to deal with it. It's like, well, those old cases, that's just going to cause us more work, and we have to focus on what public safety issues are happening right now. Experience the glamour and danger of the Roaring Twenties 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. One of the things I love about this show, before we move on to our case, is that I hope it gets people interested in history. In these old cases, and it is always my biggest challenge to have the victims, even the killers and the families kind of come to life.

And so we can relate to them. And my hope is that you hear these people, you know, these people hear us, the ones who have the skills you're talking about and say, "Oh, wow, I mean, I really, I could see myself getting into some of these cases from the '50s and the '60s that you and I talk about." That it's sort of inspiring because these were real people. They had the same problems we do. Some of them bigger, some of them smaller. They kill for the same reasons. They're victims for the same reasons.

And so with this case coming up, you will see a lot of parallels between life now and life then. So, you know, I'm really interested to see what you think about this. This is a doozy of a case. Boy, a doubleheader for us. So I'll be interested in seeing what you think of it. I'm looking forward to it. Okay. Let's set the scene. Let me just start with a trigger warning. I try to do these as much as we can. This is around domestic violence.

So, you know, moving ahead, that's something that we're going to be talking about. This is 1900, and it is set in Iowa, but we have to go back a little bit to Scotland, probably one of my most favorite countries ever.

So there is a woman named Margaret Murchison who was born in Scotland in 1843. And when she was five years old, she and her family moved to the United States and they settled in Illinois. That's where her father began to operate a farm. And when she is introduced to a man who would change her life forever...

In 68, when she was about 25, she marries one of her father's farmhands. His name was John Hossack.

And he was also from Scotland. This would not be surprising, you know, people from the same country congregating together, meeting. I have no idea whether or not her father would have approved of this match, his daughter marrying a farmhand, but it happened. And when the two of them got married, Margaret and John moved to Warren County, Iowa.

And Margaret gave birth to their first child, Alex, in August of 1868. So doing the math, I'm not great at mathing, but doing a very simple math, they were married in January of 1868. They got married seven months later. We're already starting to think that maybe they had to get married because she was clearly pregnant beforehand.

Okay. And now, of course, I have to just try to figure out, you know, this geographic aspect. So it looks like Warren County is just south of Des Moines. I think so. It's rural, south, particularly in 1868, right? Oh, yeah. All right. And then now remind me, because I was looking up just the geographic thing. So what happened when they first got married?

So they got married in January of 1868. She gave birth to their first child, Alex, a boy, in August. It sounds like they were pregnant before they got married, which would have not been a very good thing in the mid-1800s. So there is a possibility that they were in love, but there is also a good possibility that they got married because they had to get married.

Okay. So obviously if they were forced into marriage, this could cause tension because neither one of them wants to be together, but because of the pregnancy and now the son, they're kind of stuck.

They are very stuck. And again, you know, this is something we'll learn a little bit more later on. But I will say they went on to have nine children, a total of 10 children over the next two decades. Also not surprising for me.

in rural Iowa in this time period, but it's something that they had a very long marriage. I have a family photo, which is unusual. I want to show you the family photo in a second. Nine of the 10 kids survived to adulthood, which is a pretty impressive odds,

But again, 10 children, maybe they didn't want to be married to begin with, does not seem like a great start to a marriage or a continuation of a marriage. We don't know yet. Right. You know, and this is something that I've run into, you know, doing the genealogy for casework and going back and looking at families back in the mid-1800s. This was typical. They would have 10 to 15 kids married.

And then, of course, up to maybe a handful of the kids never either survived the childbirth or never grew up into adulthood.

which is just the sign of the times. But for them, they had nine of their 10 kids survive to adulthood. So that's pretty impressive. And they have a farm, and we'll talk about that in a minute. And that's helpful. Kids are helpful on a farm. They all worked on the farm. Let me show you the family photo. So you can describe what we're seeing, but it's the parents sitting down.

and then everybody else standing up in front of what looks to be like a farmhouse. Exactly. So I see this family. They're all well-dressed. The men are in the equivalent of suits. The women appear to have dresses on. The mother and father are...

seated in front with the children of varying ages. It looks like there's quite a span of age from the oldest appearing to be an adult woman to a young boy, possibly five, six, maybe eight years old.

All standing on the front lawn in front of this house. I think what stands out to me is the spacing, you know, that the kids are, it's like, it's almost like three feet in between each kid. You know, it's not like they're close together, like they're showing, you know, an emotional connection. They look like they're very apart.

You know, and part of the complexity of taking pictures, and this picture was taken in 1892 per the footer associated with it, you know, is that the film, you know, this is old-style photography. And so the exposure had to be long.

And so when the photographer is saying, okay, the picture is going to be taken, you know, everybody has to freeze for a long period of time. It's not like modern photography where now you have a fast shutter speed. You know, these shutter speeds had to be pretty slow. So they all had to be static like this. And you see the one boy, you know, he's looking off to the right. He's not even looking at the camera, which is, you know. They're so easily distracted. Yes. Yeah, squirrel. So...

Yeah, it is a little bit odd for a family portrait. You'd think they would be closer together. I'm not sure that is any indicator in terms of what this family feels about each other. If the photographer was just telling them, hey, spread out. I need to fill the frame. They might. And to me, what I noticed also was the home is perfectly framed.

So it looks like they really, I mean, they were shooting from kind of down below. It looks like they really wanted to get that farmhouse in. And this is also kind of an unusual photo for me because late 1800s, you had to have some money to have this done. And normally you're seeing portraits.

Like when we were looking through my family's farmhouse, which is from the 1870s, we found portraits from the 1800s, perfectly beautiful portraits. This is almost sort of like a, you know, on the scene checking out like a real estate photo in some ways.

So this was interesting for me to see, but the range of ages here, it looks like you've got, what, between the parents, maybe a four or five-year-old, I'm not sure about the boys' age, all the way up to at least three or four full-on adult children. Yeah, you know, and I guess, because I was looking at the woman on the right who's in this full dress, and I was thinking, okay, that must be the oldest child, but their firstborn was a son, Alex, right? Yeah.

Yeah, and I'm a little confused because they don't have Alex here. Okay, that's true. And I'm almost wondering if this woman that I'm seeing, maybe she's like a nanny or some sort of help that they've hired? I don't know. This is saying the whole family. It looks like Alex is missing, but we have everybody else. We've got eight kids and then John.

John and Margaret are the ones that are seated and there's a little boy, Ivan, in between. I think these are all family members. So that's a lot of kids, 10 kids. Oh, yeah, that's a lot of kids. Now, tell me what you think, because what's going to happen next happens inside this house.

I know it's really hard to get a perspective on a house. This actually looks strangely like our farmhouse, you know, kind of put together. There's, you know, there's a two-story on the right, maybe a two-story on the left too, I guess. But I wouldn't call it sprawling, but it's definitely roomy. Yeah, you know, I can kind of visualize. It's a two-story house, gable-roofed. You know, you have the, in essence, a 90-degree joining of the two stories, you know. So I can see from the...

where the door is you go off the front door is you go off to the left you probably have either a living room or a kitchen area i see a a chimney up above that side of the house you know is that coming from the first floor the second floor who knows and then from the front door you go to the right and it appears that you also have on the first floor probably one or two more possible spaces rooms

And then there's got to be a staircase that leads up to the second floor. And I imagine since it appears that the windows indicate the height of the room is that the second floor, the rooms up there, the roof is so slanted that, you know, it's not just a flat roof. Each of these rooms would probably have a

kind of like peaked ceilings, you know, whether there's attic space up there or maybe there's bedrooms up there, you know, right now I don't know, but it appears that there's two chimneys, one that's, you know, from the front door that would be to the left, either on the first or second floor of the house. And then one to the right of the front door, either on the, uh, the first or second floor. I,

I think one of the questions will be who can hear what when the thing that happens happens in this case. This is a pretty good size farmhouse. So as we go through it, I just wanted you to see physically that there are some adults here besides the parents. There are also little kids and also that this is a good size house.

So let's move forward with the story here. Over time, John becomes a pretty big deal in Warren County. He's a farmer. He has a lot of influence beyond the family's farming operation, too. According to the Iowa Cold Case website, he took a leadership role in the church. He ran for political office. He served as a trustee of the county. The blanket description I would use is sort of trusted member of society. So he's...

He's obviously somebody that is integrated within the community, both on the religious and political side. I'm sure the other citizens within that community look up to him potentially, you know, as a

Yeah.

Big family, big farmer, probably lots of stress. We don't know yet the background of his marriage to Margaret, how that went. But for now, we know that John is widely considered to be generally somebody who is, you know, important in this community. I want to give a little bit of a caveat here. There's a book that we'll refer to called The Midnight Assassin. This is not my buddy Skip Hollingsworth's book.

about the Servant Girl Annihilator, which you and I talked about. That happened in Austin, Texas in the 1890s. This is not that book. It's confusing because it's the same kind of book. So just know going forward, when I say Midnight Assassin book, that's what we're talking about is this case. Okay.

So let's get back to John. I have not talked about whether John is a killer or a victim or has nothing to do with this case and it involves the kids. We just know things happen in this house. But for context, John might seem like this wonderful community leader on the outside, but he has a much darker side that many, many people know about. Neighbors know, friends know, family knows. He's abusive. He is temperamental and more than just crabby. He is eroticist.

erratic. He has verbally and physically attacked people in the family to a point where people in the family had wondered if they should commit him to a mental health facility, better known in the 1800s as an asylum, which is very serious. Neighbors even intervened in some bouts of domestic violence at the family home, and Margaret, the wife, was often a target of

Again, if we're thinking about this, is John a potential victim or a potential killer? It's kind of up in the air right now because he could be either, right, from what you know about domestic violence. Well.

Well, when you say John as a victim, are you talking about he's a victim of mental health situations or is he potentially also being physically abused within this house? Somebody who, if we're looking at who is going to get murdered and somebody will be murdered, is he going to be a victim or a killer? Or we don't know because the possibility with somebody who is abusive to their family could, I think, go either way. But what do you think?

Well, no, for sure, because, you know, if he's being abusive to Margaret and she has extended family in the area or friends that are looking out for her, you know, they may take justice into their own hands or the kids possibly could. You know, I've got a case that I rolled out on. This was a situation where the homicide victim was abusive.

to his wife and the oldest son took the situation to his own hands and killed his dad. So, you know, that's part of the DV spectrum of what happens, you know, so...

Here we have, in this case, we have John being abusive to Margaret. And, you know, if John ends up being a victim of homicide, then there's going to be several suspect pools that right off the bat just form in terms of the investigative process. It must be difficult, I would guess, from your point of view, to roll out on these cases where you know, after gathering information, that the victim was abusive. Right.

And you aren't sure what's going to happen to the killer, even though we know the victim was abusive and maybe this was self-defense or maybe it wasn't. But doesn't it just become really muddy? There's no good guys or bad guys here. It's like, what do you do with a victim who was not a good person? These are the hard decisions that have to be made, you know, from...

from my role, whether it be as a CSI or let's say a forensic scientist, I never investigated this type of case personally, you know, but

It's you do your job, you know, so the facts are presented to ultimately to the district attorney's office. And now the prosecutors are the ones that have to make that tough decision. They know, let's say, the abuser who's a homicide victim, the victimology is this is a deplorable person, you

And let's say the wife is the one that killed her husband. Well, oftentimes the wife does that to save her own life because she eventually possibly could be a homicide victim due to the abuse that she is receiving. But you still have a crime. Somebody's life has been taken. And if it's not in a heat of the moment self-defense situation where let's say somebody

the abusive victim is physically attacking the killer in this case. The husband on wife is the hypothetical that I'm gonna be putting out there, and the wife kills her abuser during this physical attack. Well, there's an argument for self-defense. But like in the one case I brought up that I rolled out on, the abusive husband was asleep in his bed when he was shot in the back of his head.

So now it's like, well, you understand why this abusive husband is being killed, but it's a crime. And it's a tough decision that these prosecutors have to make in terms of, well, we have to prosecute, but what do we charge? So it's a tough situation all the way around.

Well, I have to tell you, I can't believe you just used that example. Oh. Because let's move through it. Thanksgiving in 1900, everything seems okay. Of course, okay to the neighbors is different than okay to this family. They had a big Thanksgiving dinner. Everything seemed to be okay with them. But just two days later, somebody dies. We are at December 1st. It's Iowa, so I'm assuming very cold, 1900.

John and Margaret are asleep in a tiny bed, four feet wide and smaller than a modern full-size bed, which I know couples who can sleep in a full-size bed together, not so much me. I need a king even by myself. Same. Same. Good God. John is crammed up by the wall. Margaret's on the outside of the bed. She is jolted awake about midnight. Right.

She hears a sharp sound like the striking of two boards together, something like that. She sees a light flashing on a wall, just like a passing light, and the sound of a door closing. She hops out of bed. She runs out of the room. She does not look at John because she's moving right out of the room. She's on the outside of the bed, not the inside.

From the hallway, she calls out to the oldest boys. She thinks somebody's broken into this house. She runs back into the bedroom to get her husband. She calls his name. He doesn't answer. John is the victim. So it sounds like you have an offender who came in, shot him,

That's that loud board. It sounds like two boards clapping together with this passing light, which would be the muzzle flash is my guess. And then the offender left. Obviously, if I'm right and John was shot...

You know, the offender came in while the couple was sleeping, specifically targeted John and preserved Margaret. You know, Margaret was not the focus. You know, so that's informative in terms of the offender's motive. It's going specifically after John. Well, I'm going to go through this right now from the kid's supposed point of view.

And then we'll talk about the investigator and the coroner and all of that. So the kids come in and they realize that John is still alive, but very injured. They're not moving him around. They're not trying to figure out what his wounds are, whether it was a gun or anything else. They're looking at him. The tiny little bed is covered in blood. And they ask John, who did this to you? He is in a daze.

And he says, I'm fine. I am just sick. That is it. Everything is okay. There's blood everywhere, Paul. So with a head injury, which it looks like kids can say his head looks bloody.

Does that surprise you that he denies somebody did something, either shot him or whacked him with something? Is that surprising? Well, he may be completely unaware as to what happened. You know, if he had been asleep and whether he shot in the head or let's say he's hit on the head, either can produce a fairly large amount of blood and blood pooling on the bed. But

he's awake and with the potential brain damage, he's just not truly able to assess what his injuries are. He may be waking up and have a headache and go, I just don't feel good. I'm sick, guys. Go back to bed, not realizing that he's what I'm assuming is mortally injured.

Yeah. And I think that that was what was interesting to me when I read that reaction. It's okay. I remember a story, and I can't remember the man's last name. A man and his wife are shot. It turns out to be by the son. The woman is dead.

He has, I think, a bullet lodged in his brain, and he goes about his daily business. They could see the trail of blood. He goes and shaves. They see it go downstairs. I think he gets coffee. So it's sad, but I'm fascinated by that reaction. And this is a common misconception, is that if somebody is shot in the head, that they are, it's lights out.

Sometimes it is. You know, it depends on, you know, of course, the extent of the damage to the brain. But it really comes down to, well, what structures in the brain have been damaged? If, you know, what did the bullet hit?

I always use this example because people, you know, what they know is what they see in the movies. But, you know, I've got cases in which people have been shot in the head and they're running off. I've got a trail of blood before they collapse. You think about the, you know, this is classic in psychology textbooks, Phineas Gage.

railroad worker. And he ends up, you know, there's, you know, kind of this explosion and he has this railroad rod. I forget exactly what it was, but it was driven up underneath his chin and came out the top of his head. He remained conscious of

The physician that looked at him was able to stick one finger up the entry wound and one finger into the exit wound and touch in between, you know. Now I remember this story, Paul. But Phineas Gage was able to function. But, you know, because he's in the psychology books is because of the, you know, the structure of the brain. He basically, in essence, I wouldn't say it was truly a lobotomy function.

But he turned from a God-fearing, very nice, publicly, you know, community-type guy into this rebel rouser, you know, as a result of the brain damage. But he had this massive damage, you know, to his brain, but was able to stay conscious forever.

motor functions, you know, walk around and in essence, carry on with his life, even though his personality had changed. So now when you start talking about like John's reaction, and right now you haven't told me whether he's been shot or whether he's, you know, been hit in the head.

But it sounds like with the amount of blood on the bed, it sounds like he does have a significant head injury. And I'm not surprised that he's able to verbalize to his family, and nor am I surprised that he is not

cognizant of the extent of his own injuries. Well, it's interesting. So the older children live elsewhere. They're adults, but there are five younger children. When they say younger, I'm not sure if that means high school age or if that's their definition of actually older people.

But the kids in the house are on the younger side. So we only know what people in this house who are not John are saying between midnight and 4.30 a.m. Margaret sends one of the kids to the neighbors for help, and a local physician who's a guy named Dr. William Dean doesn't come until 4.30. We don't know yet if she delayed it

And, you know, he came immediately or this is how long I think it's probably the second one. This is how long it could have taken for a physician to to travel and for them to track somebody down and wake him up and everything. He was still alive almost five hours later.

So does that right now tell you anything about his injuries? He was sitting up. They had propped him up and he had his head in cloths and there were pillows behind him to keep him up. He couldn't move, but the bedding around him was drenched with his blood. So what does that scene tell you if you are Dr. William Dean just arriving and seeing this man who probably should be dead at this point?

Well, if John is bleeding from his head, then obviously he suffered a significant head wound. Now, it could just be superficial, you know, in terms of, let's say he's hit on the head with something akin to a two by four. Because his head is on, I'm assuming, like a pillow and a mattress, you have this absorbent

substrate that will absorb some of the energy from the blow from this bludgeoning weapon. And it's possible the skull remains intact, but you have laceration to the scalp and the scalp bleeds like crazy. But this would be a non-fatal type of injury potentially. Now, you could have, due to that impact, even though the skull is not fractured, you could have internal hemorrhaging that

inside, subarachnoid hemorrhaging due to the forces on the brain as a result of the blow. And then he slowly, in essence, will die as this hemorrhaging starts putting pressure on the brain, the brain stem. So there's that side of the spectrum. I'm assuming John ends up being a homicide victim. So he may have something in which

on the surface appears to be relatively superficial with just maybe a scalp laceration, but has some internal injuries inside the skull that ultimately kills him. Or he could be shot in the head. There's an entry wound. Maybe there's an exit wound, you know, but again, it depends on what the bullet has struck in terms of the brain's anatomy as well as the blood supply.

If you're not injuring the various major blood vessels inside of the skull, inside the brain, it's possible that his bleeding is slower. And so he's able to survive for a longer period of time than what we see with maybe a more modern weapon with like a .357 Magnum that has a lot of power that is devastating in terms of what happens to people

somebody who's been shot in the head with that type of weapon. I, like you, was really reading closely to what Margaret described, and she ends up giving this description to William Dean, the doctor, that we already talked about this, a sharp sound like the striking of two boards together, something like that, a light flashing on the wall, and just sort of like a passing light and the sound of a door closing. So...

When she says that to William Dean, the doctor, he is, I think, in his head thinking, oh, this guy's been shot. He comes over. He looks at John. He's all wrapped up. He says John is sweaty. He has a weak pulse, which isn't surprising. He unwraps the cloths around John's head and around his neck.

This is what he says, and this is quoting from Dr. Dean.

His head first struck with a sharp blade and his skull then fractured by a blow from a blunt instrument. Now, I can then tell you the physical reaction, which is graphic, but I will also point out if you ask me how do they know it was an axe, I don't know if they knew it was an axe. They found an axe. And this might have been a putting two and two together. But that is initially what Dean said. He did not find a bullet.

It does not seem like he was shot, which seems odd with what Margaret said. Well, not necessarily. Okay. So, you know, you have this loud clapping sound. And then, you know, the flashing of a light is what Margaret is remembering. The loud clapping sound, you know, one of the weird experiences that I had was in the morgue. And...

There was a victim, homicide victim, male victim. And I remember during manipulation of the body, the victim head actually hit the floor. And there was this loud crack.

And it turned out that when the victim's head in the morgue, this had nothing to do with the crime itself, but just in the morgue, due to the pathologist, I can't remember, pathologist, pathologist assisted slipping, victim fell onto the floor, head hit this concrete and you hear this loud crack. Well, it was the skull. It was a skull fracturing.

So now when you start talking about with John, he has what sounds initially like a cut, which if we're dealing with an axe, sounds like there is a blow with the sharp side of the axe that maybe was not intended.

very strong and incised the scalp. But then this crushing injury, which I'm assuming the skull has a depressed fracture, that may be this clapping sound. As this skull is fracturing, maybe Margaret is hearing the bones breaking from this crushing blow of the axe.

Now, the passing light is a mystery. Maybe the offender had, when was this, 1900? 1900, yeah. Yeah, so he's probably using, you know, maybe a candle or a match in order to be able to see, and that's what Margaret is seeing, as opposed to, you know, my initial thought was, oh, sounds like a gunshot and a muzzle flash. Well, maybe it's not a flash flash. Maybe it's literally the offender saying,

using some sort of lighting mechanism in order to see where he's going, who the victim is, and to be able to escape.

Yeah, I think that makes sense. I thought maybe there was a light somewhere else. And maybe when she saw a flash of light, it was maybe the axe kind of flipping through the light and causing a little bit of a flash there. But we don't know. I just know she's inches from him when this happens. But let me tell you about the graphic injury, because that might, I think, would be an interesting discussion.

So we go through this again. Right side of the head, several inches above the ear, had been deeply cut, severely crushed. Dr. Dean thought he had been hit twice. His head first struck with a sharp blade and his skull then fractured by a blow from a blunt instrument. We're assuming they flipped the axe around and used the blunt end of it. Brain matter had spilled out of the open wounds, making the right side of his head appear to be greatly enlarged.

His right eye was swollen shut and the flesh around it had a bluish tint. He is not dead yet. He is observing all of this while this guy still has a pulse. Yeah. You know, not surprising. This is...

In terms of the description of brain matter emanating out of this type of depressed skull fracture, that is very typical. And his kind of swollen, shut right eye, well, we see this all the time with head injuries, whether you've been shot or bludgeoning.

where now the bleeding inside the cranium, where the brain is, it presses out into the orbits. And so typically somebody who's been shot in the head or has received a massive blow to the head, often one or both eyes,

are extremely swollen. They look like the worst black eyes you've ever seen. And it just has to do with all this blood that is now pressing out into the orbits and around the eyes. Oh, it's awful. I mean, he would be passed out by this point, I'm assuming, right? Would he be feeling pain from what you could tell? This has been midnight until now, about 9 a.m. Well, I think if

If he's conscious, there's nothing about this, from my perspective, that would mitigate any of the pain that he would be feeling potentially.

But this is where now you deal with your pathologists, your neuroscientists in terms of, okay, what structures of the brain at this point are being impacted? This is on the right side. It sounds like potentially the damage to the brain is restricted to the right side. You know, what structures of the brain, what anatomy of the brain are damaged? But I would imagine that none of these structures have anything to do with his ability to remain conscious or to feel pain.

But what's interesting is, you know, there's the organs inside the body, including the brain, well, they're not necessarily set up to register pain like this. As an example, stabbing victims.

You know, your internal organs, if you're stabbed in the torso, your internal organs, their nervous system isn't set up to register the cutting injuries internally where you feel the pain is on the outside with the skin being cut.

The internal organs like your intestines are more set up to detect the discomfort of stretching, you know, like if you're in a bloated situation. So stabbing victims often report, you know, I was walking down, you know, an alley and somebody came up and punched me multiple times in the stomach.

Well, they're not able to feel the knife actually cutting inside. So I imagine that even though he has this depressed skull fracture, the brain itself isn't necessarily registering pain because it's damaged, but it's going to be the other structures, you know, the scalp, possibly the bone, maybe the meninges, you know, these coverings of the brain that can be very sensitive to, you know, when you have the bleeding and you get the real strong headaches.

That would be my guess of the type of pain he would be registering, but he's probably not recognizing that, oh, my God, you know, half my brain is outside of my head. Well, Dr. Dean looks at Margaret and says, this guy has no hope. I'm sorry. And he's right because John dies at about 945 that morning, so almost 10 hours after this attack happened.

And Dr. Dean is watching Margaret, and Margaret is sobbing. She's not turned toward him, but she's sobbing and very, very upset. And now people understand that this was not an accident. This was not self-inflicted. Somebody attacked this well-known farmer.

who had a history of domestic violence. And so we have the sheriff's deputy and the sheriff come out, and they start an investigation in earnest. And the kids, including the adult kids and the investigators and neighbors, start looking for this weapon, which they're assuming is an axe. There is a man who is a neighbor named William Haynes. He lives about a half a mile from the farmhouse. He says to the kids...

that he saw a stranger on his porch that night. He's very close to the farmhouse. And, of course, the implication is that this could be a suspect. So now we have a potential stranger close by, and William Haynes chased him off and could have chased him onto John's property. We don't know, but this is a possibility that this neighbor has brought up. Well, sure. So you've got the boogeyman out there. Yeah.

I knew you were going to say that. Yeah. That's always a possibility. It's out there, you know. You have to consider it. But now this is where assessing, you know, the victimology and the circumstances of the crime.

And if you have, let's say, this stranger, why is a stranger going into Margaret and John's house? And right now, you haven't told me anything about, is there anything that's been stolen? Is there anything that's been ransacked? I'm assuming right now that none of that has happened. So a stranger goes into the house and specifically targets John and leaves, even though we have information.

an adult female right next to John that is untouched. And you have all the kids in the house untouched. So this tells me that John is the target person

There's a focus to the offender. Now, is it somebody from within the family due to John's abusive nature? Is it somebody that's a political rival? Is it somebody that's a religious rival? Is it somebody else that John has somehow caused to be angry with him for whatever reason? You know, there's all sorts of different potential motives at this point in time.

But for a stranger just to kind of randomly go in and target specifically John, you know, that not eliminating the possibility, but that seems less likely to me. From the very beginning, I would be focusing more on who wants to harm John, who has a reason to harm John. And then if that doesn't pan out investigatively, then I, of course, would

would have to entertain the possibility of the stranger. If this department has enough resources, you would be doing both prongs of the investigation simultaneously. You have somebody assigned, okay, try to figure out who the stranger is.

you know, and see if we can, you know, because maybe the neighbor truly did see a stranger who's out there prowling. But this is what happens in real world. You always have other things happening at the same time that the homicide occurs, and they may or may not be related. Well, we'll see. The sheriff is not convinced about this stranger story at all.

And in part two, I'll tell you why, and I'll give you a hint. It has to do with the family's loyal dog, Shep. What? You haven't even brought Shep up before. What is going on with this dog? It's called a tease, Paul. Good God. Okay, start thinking about Shep, and I'll talk to you in a week. All right, sounds good, Kate. Thank you. Thanks. ♪

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.